June 2015
Update sequence for vSphere 5.5 and 6.0 and its compatible VMware products
When you have a lot of VMware products running like vCenter, SRM, vRops, VMware view, NSX,etc.. then at some point you need to upgrade one of them. so what is the order of upgrade ? After some searching i use these articles from VMware to know what upgrade sequence to use. it's very handy and you know where to start here are the links for the complete articles. Update sequence for VMware vSphere 5.5 and its compatible VMware products (2057795) [...]
vCloud director 8 beta
if you are a service provider then check this out vmware is working on a vCloud director version 8. currently in beta but you can join and test it Join the vCloud Director 8.0 Beta Includes vSphere 6.0 and NSX 6.1 support, plus key improvements in Virtual Data Center (VDC) and vApp management. - See more at: http://www.vmware.com/partners/service-provider/#sthash.7KcLP4VZ.dpuf The upcoming release for vCloud Director has several new enhancements that will enable service providers drive operational efficiency and offer new capabilities [...]
Creating low disk space alerts for the virtual machine guest file systems in VMware vRealize Operations Manager 6.x
if your looking for a low disk alert then here is how you set it up To configure vRealize Operations Manager 6.x to generate low disk space alerts for virtual machines, new Symptom and Alert Definitions must be created. Creating new Symptom Definitions To create new Symptom Definitions perform these steps: Log in to vRealize Operations Manager as a user with administrative privileges. Click on Content and then on Symptom Definitions. In the Filter box, type Guest partition and press [...]
May 2015
Virtual Flash feature in vSphere 5.5 and Allocating vSphere Flash Read Cache to a virtual machine
So you decide to buy a SSD disk to start using virtual flash "Virtual Flash Read Cache allows you to locally cache virtual machine read I/O on an ESXi host and even migrate that virtual machines cache to another Virtual Flash enabled ESXi host." This is how you configure it. Add the SSD capacity to your ESXi Host. Do this by logging in to the vSphere Web Client and navigate to Host and cluster. Select your ESXi Host and select Manage - [...]
April 2015
Upgrade vCenter operations manager to vRealize operations manager (vCops 2 vRops)
How to upgrade your vCops to vRops When you are still running vCOPS 5.8 then at some point you will need to upgrade to vRealize operations manager 6. Here is how you do it. first download your ova file from vmware and then deploy the OVA file. First you will have to accept the "end user License Agreement" and in the next step you can select a name and datacenter you want to deploy in. I left the name as [...]
vCenter server to vCenter Virtual Appliance convertor – VCS to VCVA convertor
Since Vmware vSphere 6 is released the vCenter Virtual appliance (VCVA) has the same specifications as the Vmware vCenter installed on windows (VCS). So you can install the VC virtual appliance without to worry about limitations and also one windows server license less to buy. Downside is that there is nog migration path from VCS to VCVA, so before you upgrade to vSphere 6 you can first migrate to a VCVA 5.5 and the upgrade your virtual appliance to vSphere 6. [...]
March 2015
Nested ESXi and EVC cluster – error adding ESXi to EVC Cluster
When you setup a home lab and you created nested ESXi host, then at certain point you want to create a EVC cluster to begin testing all features. but when you add an ESX host you get following error. 'The host's CPU hardware should support the cluster's current Enhanced vMotion Compatibility mode, but some of the necessary CPU features are missing from the host. Check the host's BIOS configuration to ensure that no necessary features are disabled (such as XD, VT, AES, [...]
February 2015
Visio stencils – vmware and veeam and other
when your designing a VMware or other environments you need some more stencils to use in visio to make it more visible or professional so here are the stencils i use and the links to the sites visio cafe Veeam stencils VMware stencils
compare CPU for VMware or other
As a senior systems engineer i took the responsibility to also design VMware environments. So far it been a lot of fun but also sometimes a lot of headaches. Since some customers insist to keep prices low they choose for low CPU like E5-2609 but I prefer the E5-2620 v2 or higher for basic virtualization. so I found I site to compare all the CPU. I think its pretty good one so you can get some stats to tell to your [...]
VMware ESXi unresponsive
Did you ever run into an unresponsive ESXi hosts? well I did this month and it gave me a lot of headache this past weeks I want to share my finding so others can learn from it and also solve it faster and not to have to restart your hosts and all your VM's. So let me tell a little bit of the environment. The customer had a IBM blade H chassis and 3 HS23 blade each 48 GB. All blades are [...]