Savage Nomads » vmware

how to add drivers to ESXi

jayb — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:57:23 +0000

I seem to keep needing to do this so I thought I’d write up a very quick post so Its easier to find next time.

I’ve had to do this for our QLogic CNA and installing Dell mib files.

You need to install the vmware CLI on your workstation.
start the vmware cli and I have to cd to ‘bin’ for the commands to work.
put the server you want to work on into maintenance mode from the vi client
Then use vihostupdate.pl to do the install/upload

Here is the vmware docs site link for vihostupdate.pl

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/vcli41/doc/reference/vihostupdate.html

Image via Wikipedia

The quick and dirty command is

vihostupdate.pl –server [IP address] –username root –install –bundle c:file_location

You’ll want to use a zip file for driver, they are normally found in the offline-bundle folder of the ISO

For the Dell mibs you just need to use the mib file.

Hope this helps someone, I know I use it a lot more than I expected.

Setting up Software FCoE on vSphere 5 (scottlowe.org)
OpenManage Support for VMware ESX 5.0 (delltechcenter.com)

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VStorage API’s for Array Integration (VAAI) explained

jayb — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:00:00 +0000

We are going though a storage refresh and talking to many different storage vendors. Seems like some of the smaller vendors aren’t even sure what VAAI is (they don’t get a second conf call)

Here’s a nice video from VMware explaining the basics of VAAI.

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How to upgrade to VMware vCenter Server 4.1 using the Data Migration tool

jayb — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:21:18 +0000

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022137 This video describes the process for using the Data Migration tool to upgrade VMware vCenter Server 4.1. VMware vCenter 4.1 is part of the VMware vSphere 4.1 product suite. The Data Migration tool allows you to migrate vCenter Server 4.0 configuration. The Data Migration tool is provided with your vCenter Server 4.1 installation media.

From VMwareKB‘s Youtube videos

07f2c6c4e1e94fec822f069b46c6f87d

http://bloggers.com/

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Basic steps to upgrade to vSphere

jayb — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:34:40 +0000

Jason Boche posted this picture to twitter of very basic steps to upgrade to vSphere

(Why does twitpic crop the picture when you embedd the picture?)

I still haven’t even started to plan my upgrade to V4. I still need to make sure my hardware will support it.

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Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0

jayb — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:01:45 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

In the next 2 or 3 months I’ll move my ESX 3.5 servers and VCenter to the vSphere, this document looks like a good place to start to make sure I get everything setup correctly. Right now I have 5 ESX servers in the data center and 4 small ESX deployments at the edge all controlled by a local VCenter server. A big question is will I need the extra features of the enterprise plus licensing or not.

Introduction

This book linked to this resource document provides tips that help administrators maximize the performance of VMware vSphere 4.0. Sections cover hardware selection, ESX and virtual machines, guest operating systems, and virtual infrastructure management

Intended Audience

This document is intended for system administrators who are planning a VMware vSphere 4.0 deployment and are looking to maximize its performance. The book assumes the reader is already familiar with VMware vSphere concepts and terminology.

Outline

This book, Performance Best Practices for VMware® vSphere 4.0, provides a list of performance tips that cover the most performance-critical areas of VMware® vSphere 4.0. It is not intended as a comprehensive guide for planning and configuring your deployments.

Chapter 1, “Hardware for Use with VMware vSphere,” on page 11, provides guidance on selecting hardware for use with vSphere.

Chapter 2, “ESX and Virtual Machines,” on page 17, provides guidance regarding VMware ESX™ software and the virtual machines that run in it.

Chapter 3, “Guest Operating Systems,” on page 29, provides guidance regarding the guest operating systems running in virtual machines.

Chapter 4, “Virtual Infrastructure Management,” on page 35, provides guidance regarding resource management best practices.

NOTE For planning purposes we recommend reading this entire book before beginning a deployment. Material in the Virtual Infrastructure Management chapter, for example, may influence your hardware choices.

NOTE Most of the recommendations in this book apply to both ESX and ESXi. The few exceptions are noted in the text.

Author

Bob Stephens

stephens@vmware.com

Disclaimer

You use this proven practice at your discretion. VMware and the author do not guarantee any results from the use of this proven practice. This proven practice is provided on an as-is basis and is for demonstration purposes only.

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0

The document of the same name is available at this link – http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10041.

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0

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VMWare users check this out

jayb — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:54:27 +0000

Image by sunsurfr via Flickr

I was reading through my rss feeds this weekend and came across a post entitled ‘The best thing I’ve found all year….’ by one of the top vm bloggers. So I had to check it out. He was posting about a Dell tool that allows you to extend the file system of a running vm similar to diskpart, but…….YOU CAN DO IT TO THE SYSTEM DRIVE!!

Download it from http://ftp.us.dell.com/app/ExtPart.exe

Eric Sloof even created a little demo to show you how easy it is!! http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1022-Pump-Up-the-Volume.html

Enjoy and let me know how well this works for you. I know I’ll be testing it this week. From the comments on Mike Laverick’s site it works on windows 2003. I’ll have to test it on windows 2000 (yes, I still have a few of those around)

later,jb

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VDI – vmare vs citrix

jayb — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:34:29 +0000

We ended up going with a small vmware view deployment because we already had ESX and got a better deal on view. But the project was rushed and its not installed or configured optimally (not the project leads fault)

We are not using shared clones and not redirecting profiles or user data.

I’ve been reading comparisons of xendesktop vs view and really wish we would have gone with xendesktop. We have Citrix PS 4. Oh well.

I found this video comparing streaming video and PowerPoint in both products. I’m just wondering how well this would look on a non-HDX xendesktop

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XenApp-Desktop or VMware View

jayb — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:01:08 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

We are digging into the whole VDI options because of some specialty apps one of our business are deploying. We are also consolidating our data centers so offering VDI in the datacenter will make access to the data more secure and quicker.

We’ve had people in to talk about both products. We already using ESX for our server virtualization and have a Citrix presentation server 4.0 farm (with current support)

Citrix seems to have more options and a better overall package, but there’s also a higher price for those options. One thing we were told today is even if we plan on using XP for the virtual desktops we have to purchase a special “virtual license”. I don’t remember the name of the license (it included the the word vista in it) but we where told we’d still need it for XP desktops. That’s an extra cost we were not expecting.

Anyone have experience with Epicor Clientele in a VDI or XenApp environment?

later,jb

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How to use the Exchange 2007 Storage Cost Caluator

jayb — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:11:47 +0000

wow, the MS Exchange team blog has a great post on how-to use the Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox Server Storage Cost Calculator

The post lays out each stop and explains the results. Unfortunately I don’t think we’ll be moving to exchange 2007 in 09 the CAL cost is just too much for next years budget. But we do plan on consolidating our 4 exchange 2003 servers within North American to a single exchange 2003 cluster. I’ve start looking into running a 1300 user exchange 2003 server on ESX. Most of the numbers and proof of concepts running exchange on ESX is for Exchange 2007. We’ll see how it goes.

[tags]exchange, email, vmware[/tags]

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VMware now on the SVVP

jayb — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:48:24 +0000

VMware has qualified its industry-leading VMware ESX hypervisor under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP)…http://tinyurl.com/6l6cwh

Now you can run any Microsoft enterprise application on vmware ESX and get support from both vmware and Microsoft!!

I’m not quite sure what level of support you need from either company. Its it only for companies with EA or does it cover the single instance support calls for MS.

Please this talks about Plymouth University running 50,000 mailboxes on Exchange in a vmware environment. I want to do this for our new consolidated exchange server for North America.

later,jb

[tags]exchange, vmware, esx, microsoft[/tags]

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Savage Nomads » vmware

how to add drivers to ESXi

Related articles

VStorage API’s for Array Integration (VAAI) explained

I found another good post explaining the features of VAAI, check it out http://gestaltit.com/all/tech/storage/bas/vaai-vmware-admin/

Related articles

How to upgrade to VMware vCenter Server 4.1 using the Data Migration tool

Basic steps to upgrade to vSphere

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0

Introduction

This book linked to this resource document provides tips that help administrators maximize the performance of VMware vSphere 4.0. Sections cover hardware selection, ESX and virtual machines, guest operating systems, and virtual infrastructure management

Intended Audience

Outline

This book, Performance Best Practices for VMware® vSphere 4.0, provides a list of performance tips that cover the most performance-critical areas of VMware® vSphere 4.0. It is not intended as a comprehensive guide for planning and configuring your deployments.

Chapter 1, “Hardware for Use with VMware vSphere,” on page 11, provides guidance on selecting hardware for use with vSphere.

Chapter 2, “ESX and Virtual Machines,” on page 17, provides guidance regarding VMware ESX™ software and the virtual machines that run in it.

Chapter 3, “Guest Operating Systems,” on page 29, provides guidance regarding the guest operating systems running in virtual machines.

Chapter 4, “Virtual Infrastructure Management,” on page 35, provides guidance regarding resource management best practices.

NOTE For planning purposes we recommend reading this entire book before beginning a deployment. Material in the Virtual Infrastructure Management chapter, for example, may influence your hardware choices.

NOTE Most of the recommendations in this book apply to both ESX and ESXi. The few exceptions are noted in the text.

Author

Disclaimer

Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0

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VMware now on the SVVP