Virtualization, Hardware, Operating Systems, Tools, IT Service Management and more... Jens Wagener´s Blog

Scott Drummond of VMware has just created a very helpful document of the forums that details the Esxtop command.

Read more here...

On the Visio Guy Website you can find a lot of useful Visio Virtualization Stencils and Template Links.

Check it out here....

Nigel Metheringham has created a very nice and helpful diagram of VMware Virtual Infrastructure network communications and port usage which applies to both ESX and ESXi.

Read more here...

VMware has released  ESX 3.5 Update 3, you can download it here.....
What´s new:

*** Increase in vCPU per Core Limit — The limit on vCPUs per core has been raised from 8 (or 11 for VDI workloads) to 20. This change only raises the supported limit but does not include any additional performance optimizations. Raising the limit allows users more flexibility to configure systems based on specific workloads and to get the most advantage from increasingly faster processors. The achievable number of vCPUs per core will depend on the workload and specifics of the hardware. It is expected that most deployments will remain within the previous range of 8-11 vCPUs per core. For more information, see VI3 Performance Best Practices and Benchmarking Guidelines.

*** HP BL495c support — This release adds support for the HP Blade Server BL495c with all Virtual Connect and IO Options allowing 1 or 10Gb connection to the network (upstream) and 1Gb connections only to the servers (downstream).

*** Newly Supported NICs —  This release adds support for the following NICs:
          o Broadcom 5716 1Gb
          o Broadcom  57710 10Gb Adapters
          o Broadcom 57711 10Gb Adapters at 1Gb speed only

     Note: iSCSI/TOE hardware offloads available with these adapters are not supported by VMware with ESX 3.5.

*** Newly Supported SATA Controllers— This release adds support for the following SATA controllers:
          o Broadcom HT1000 (supported in native SATA mode only with SATA hard drives and Solid State Disk devices)
          o Intel ICH-7 (supported in IDE/ATA mode only with SATA CD/DVD drives)

      Note: Storing VMFS data stores on drives connected to these controllers is not supported

*** Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems — Support for the following Guest Operating Systems have been added by VMware during the ESX 3.5 Update 3 release cycle:
          o Solaris 10 U5
          o Ubuntu 8.04.1
          o RHEL 4.7

*** Internal SAS networked storage controllers — This release adds experimental support for Intel Modular Server MFSYS25 SAS Storage Control Modules (SCMs). For known issues with this platforms and workaround see SAS Link and Port Failovers with the Intel Modular Server Running Update 3 and Later Versions of ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 (KB 1007394).

*** Interrupt Coalescing (IC) for Qlogic 4Gb FC HBAs — Introduced in this release, the feature reduces CPU utilization (and CPU cost per IO) and improves throughput of IO intensive workloads by generating a single interrupt for a burst of Fibre Channel frames, when received in a short period of time, rather than interrupting the CPU each time a frame is received. The feature is enabled by default.

*** Experimental Support for the VMDK Recovery Tool — This release adds support for the VMDK Recovery tool, a script intended to help customers to recover VMFS/vmdk data stores from accidental deletion of VMFS/vmdk data store or physical disk corruption. For more information, see VMDK Recovery Tool (ESX 3.5 Update 3) ( KB 1007243).

*** Small Footprint CIM Broker —  Updated SFCB to version 1.3.0

*** IBM SAN Volume Controller — SVC is now supported with Fixed Multipathing Policy as well as MRU Multipathing Policy.

My personal favorite is the VMDK Recovery Tool, today, i had the opportunity, to do some Tests with the Tool and it works fine....

Microsofts im September 2008 angekündigte kostenlose Servervirtualisierung ist ab sofort erhältlich.
Der Hyper-V Server 2008 ist allerdings nur für die eigentliche Virtualisierung zuständig.
Für die Verwaltung muss zusätzliche Software genutzt werden.......

Hier gibt´s mehr Informationen und den Download...

Eric Siebert has posted an interesting article with a lot of information about the features in the next ESX Server Release 4.0

Read more here.....

VMware´s free server virtualization product, VMware Server is now as final version 2.0 available for download. Some of the new Key Features:

• VI Web Access: VI Web Access enables you to perform host and virtual machine configuration on VMware Server 2.0. This intuitive web-based interface provides a simple and flexible tool for virtual machine management.


• VMware Remote Console: VMware Remote Console enables you to interact with the guest operating system on the host or a remote system. After you install it as a Web browser add-on, it can run independently from VI Web Access. VMware Remote Console also allows you to connect and disconnect client CD/DVD and floppy devices.


• USB 2.0 Device Support: VMware Server now supports faster data transfer with USB devices plugged into the host system. If the guest operating system has appropriate USB 2.0 device drivers, you can use peripherals that require high-speed performance, such as speakers, webcams, next-generation printers and scanners, and fast storage devices.


• Increased RAM support: The maximum amount of memory that can be allocated per virtual machine has been raised from 3.6GB to 8GB. The amount of memory used by all virtual machines combined is limited only by the amount of the host computer's RAM.


• Improved 64-bit guest support: 64-bit guest operating systems that run on Intel EM64T VT-capable or AMD64 revision D or later processors are fully supported.


• Native 64-bit host support on Linux: VMware Server now runs natively on 64-bit Linux host operating systems.


• Quiesced backups of virtual machines: On Windows hosts, you can enable the VMware VSS Writer, which uses snapshots to maintain the data integrity of applications running inside the virtual machine when you take backups.


• VMCI Sockets interface: This feature provides a sockets interface for the Virtual Machine Communication Interface, which provides a faster means of communication among applications running on the host and in virtual machines. For more information, see the VMCI Sockets Programming Guide.


• Hot add and remove for SCSI hard disks: You can now add and remove SCSI virtual hard disks while the virtual machine is running in hardware version 7 virtual machines.

Matthijs ten Seldam has created a VMC to Hyper-V Import Tool.
VMC to Hyper-V Import Tool, VMC2HV for short, imports the configuration from a Virtual Machine Configuration (VMC) file. Both Virtual PC and Virtual Server use VMC files to store the hardware and other properties of a VM. It reads the VMC file and maps all relevant properties to those for a Hyper-V VM.

Read more here.....

VMware have released a new Best Practices Guide for VCB.

You can download it here......

The VIOPS website is new and still growing but already has a lot of great documentation on proven practices in a variety of categories including: Strategy, Applications, Security, Management and Availablility.

Here are some examples:
- Reference Implementation: Clustering VirtualCenter 2.5 Using Microsoft Cluster Services
- Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec with VCB
- Proven Practice: VI3 Security Risk Assessment
- Proven Practice: Evaluating VMware Site Recovery Manager

VMware have recently released an update to the VI3 Security Hardening guide.

The main changes are:

    • new content for ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5, including VirtualCenter plug-ins
    • a section specific to hardening for ESXi
    • new sections for VM configuration as well as client software
    • a greater level of depth for the existing recommendations

Read more here....

VMware´s free server virtualization product, VMware Server is now as version 2.0 RC1 available for download.

What´s new:

-- Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS):  Properly backup the state of the Windows virtual machines when using the snapshot feature to maintain data integrity of the applications running inside the virtual machine.
-- Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI): Support for fast and efficient communication between a virtual machine and the host operating system and between two or more virtual machines on the same host.
-- Support for SCSI pass-through (generic) devices: Allows for SCSI devices such as tape backup devices to be connected to virtual machines.
-- Expand disk capacity on the fly: Allows for adding new SCSI hard disks and controllers to a running virtual machine.
-- Firefox 3 as a supported browser for the management interface.
-- Remote Client Devices: Access devices such as CD-ROMs that are not physically connected to the host via VMware Remote Console
-- and more....

Read more here...

Parallels präsentiert mit seinem Produkt "Virtuozzo Containers" eine interessante Virtualisierungsvariante für die Betriebssysteme Windows und Linux, bei dem die Gäste das Host-Betriebssystem mit nutzen, ähnlich wie bei den Solaris Containern.

Mehr dazu gibt es in dem, von der Computerwoche veröffentlichen Beitrag "Server-Virtualisierung der anderen Art".

Einen weiteren Artikel zu diesem Thema hat ZDNet.de veröffentlicht "Virtualisierung ohne Einbußen: Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 im Test".

Die Computerwoche hat auf ihrer Website einen Vergleichstest zwischen VMware ESX Server und Oracle VM, der Virtualisierungslösung von Oracle veröffentlicht.

Read more here...

Another interesting List from Eric Siebert published on the Virtual Strategy Magazine Site.

There are many ways of implementing security and after you read through the documents in this list you should have a better understanding on how to implement security correctly to protect your virtual machines, host servers and more importantly your data.

Read more here....