Last week NetApp released version 2.0 of it's Virtual Storage Console plug-in for vCenter. You can download VSC 2.0 from now.netapp.com. To install VSC 2.0, you have to uninstall version 1.0. What I don't like about this method is that vCenter can't find the plug-in named Virtual Storage Console from version 1.0 and you end up with this nasty red ! telling you there is an error. Can we clean-up the old one first? During the install of VSC 2.0 make sure you click on the "Provisioning and Cloning" check box to install the provisioning tools. If you have the license for "Backup and Recovery" you can install those components as well to do VM level Backups. No longer are you subject to taking snapshots of a full LUN or datastore, this allows you to do it on a VM-by-VM basis, but you have to purchase the license. I just like how it is all nicely integrated with vCenter now. After installing VSC 2.0, you have to register the plug-in and enable the plug-in in your vSphere client. Now that the install is finished, it's time to look at the gravy.

NetApp did a much better job grabbing stats to display within vCenter. You can click on any datastore to see how much storage has been used, your de-duplication ratio and more. With a click of a button you can deploy all the recommended HBA, MPIO, and NFS Advanced Settings to optimize your storage environment.

I was asked by a fellow twitter user to give my thoughts on best practices for virtual machine (VM) backups. I didn't know anything about this persons company or product, so these are just reflections of my own opinion.

I would expect my ideal backup solution to take a snapshot using the vSphere API to protect the VM disk files (vmdk, vmx, etc) and create a process from that snapshot inherit to vSphere. Why?

1. Agents are dead to me. When I deploy a new server, I don't want to worry about having to install another piece of software.
2. Agent updates with every new version. When there is an update to the backup software, there is usually an update to the agent on every server. I don't care if it's all centrally managed, it's a task that I don't enjoy, especially when a reboot is needed.
3. Agents have issues with locked files. Traditionally, an agent within a system won't be able to backup any files that are locked and the file is skipped during the backup process.
4. Agents spike CPU usage. Agents within a VM have to crawl the machine and touch every single file. Whether it's to back up a file, check an md5sum hash to see if a file has changed, etc. vSphere snapshots takes a lot of the grunt work out and saves your host CPU power.
5. Full VM Recovery. Using the vSphere API, taking a snapshot and copying that place in time to a different storage location allows me to completely restore a whole virtual machine or even its configuration files if necessary. This allows you to do file level recovery and dig into the VMDK offline as well.
   

THIS PAGE HAS BEEN DEPRECIATED. PLEASE VISIT THE MAIN PAGE VM Advanced ISO. Free Tools For Advanced Tasks

I have a small update to VM Advanced ISO. Free Tools For Advanced Tasks.

Copy/Pasta from original post: FREE TOOLS for virtual machines within your VMware environment. All of the tools in this package were pooled together for performing advanced tasks to optimize performance, reclaim lost space, and clean up your virtual machine. The goal of this project was to mount the ISO to your VM and run the scripts or tools that are packaged. Of course not all of these tools will run from a VM, but most can. I do not want to take any credit for any of the programs or scripts packaged. I simply took the time to place all of them in one spot. Take a moment to thank the creators of scripts and programs that I have linked within every ReadMe in every folder.

DISCLAIMER: I do not take any responsibility for your actions. If the tools are not used properly according to the ReadMe and How-To’s provided, you run the risk of destroying data. Before running any of these tools, please have backups of your VMs.

Time to take a break from today's vSphere 4.1 release and highlight another release for everyone wanting to take another step for higher education. Over the past 2 months, I was able to preview TrainSignal's new VMware vSphere Pro Series Training Vol. 2 DVD

The release includes these topics:

• VMware Advanced Features Up Close by Eric Seibert
• VMware Site Recovery Manager 4 by Sean Clark
• Intro to Third-Party Virtualization Tools by David Davis
• Veeam Monitor by David Davis
• Veeam Reporter 4.0 by David Davis
• Veeam Backup and Replication by David Davis
• VMware Data Recovery (VDR) by David Davis
• PowerCLI by Hal Rottenberg

It's officially official. vSphere 4.1 is going to be the LAST release of ESX. As shown here in the vSphere 4.1 Release Notes:

VMware vSphere 4.1 is the last release for the following product, features, and platforms. VMware will continue to provide technical support for these features and platforms through the end of their support lifecycles.

• VMware ESX. VMware vSphere 4.1 and its subsequent update and patch releases are the last releases to include both ESX and ESXi hypervisor architectures. Future major releases of VMware vSphere will include only the VMware ESXi architecture.
  • VMware recommends that customers start transitioning to the ESXi architecture when deploying VMware vSphere 4.1.
  • VMware will continue to provide technical support for VMware ESX according to the VMware vSphere support policy on the VMware Enterprise Infrastructure Support page.
  • To learn more about the ESXi architecture and how to migrate from ESX to ESXi, go to the VMware ESX to ESXi Upgrade Center.

It's been a long time coming. Most of us read during the vSphere 4.0 Update 1 release that future vCenter versions were going to be 64-bit only. Well here we are today and VMware vCenter 4.1 is a 64-bit only installation. Likewise, that transition from moving to Windows Server 2008 R2 is now a reality because R2 is a 64-bit only Operating System (OS).

The screenshot below was taken from the vSphere Compatibilitiy Matrix Guide.

Everyone knew about virtualization.info releasing a bunch of leaks of new features for vSphere 4.1. Well today, VMware KB has added a new section and has already posted new KB articles for vSphere 4.1.

New dropdowns for:

• VMware ESX 4.1.x
• VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
• VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
• VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
• VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4.1.x
• VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.1.x

Some favorites so far:

KB Article: 1022842 - Changes to DRS in vSphere 4.1

KB Article: 1022290 - USB support for ESX/ESXi 4.1

KB Article: 1022263 - Deploying ESXi 4.1 using the Scripted Install feature

KB Article: 1021953 - I/O Statistics in vSphere 4.1

KB Article: 1022851 - Changes to vMotion in vSphere 4.1

KB Article: 1022104 - Upgrading to ESX 4.1 and vCenter Server 4.1 best practices

Here is one networking configuration step that seems to get overlooked. The Spanning-Tree Protocol (STP) is an link-layer protocol that should be built into all switches. Let's take a look at how Spanning-Tree works and what it does.

By definition, STP is used to prevent loops in switching architecture and it is enabled by default on most products. How does a switching loop happen? take a look at the diagram below.