VMware Press, the official publisher of VMware books and training materials, has launched a 60 day Facebook sweepstakes beginning May 1 and running through June 30th. Prize offerings include a $100 Amazon gift card and three VMware Press books of the winner’s choice; nine second prize winners will win an eBook of their choice. Good luck – enter now at the link below!

http://ow.ly/aBkvE

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

VMware Press Launches Sweepstakes!

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What: The Top 3 Backup Technologies for 2012

When: Wednesday, April 25, 12:00 PM CST

Where: http://go.appassure.com/webinar-top-3-backup-technologies-042512-gmt

Details: FEATURED SPEAKER: Joseph Hand, Sr. Director of Product Strategy, AppAssure Software.  Learn about the 3 Backup & Recovery technologies you need for 2012!  Instant Restore with near-zero RTO, Backup and Recovery auto-verification, and Cross-platform Data Recovery – P2V, V2V, V2P.

For more on this and other AppAssure webinars, please visit http://www.appassure.com/live-webinars/

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

AppAssure Webinar – The Top 3 Backup Technologies for 2012

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• GetWebResponse timeout value changed from 5 minutes to 10 minutes (for very big environments)
• New tabpage with HBA information
• On vDatastore tab the definition of the Provisioned MB and In Use MB columns was confusing! This is changed now.
• RVToolsSendMail accepts now multiple recipients (semicolon is used as separator)
• Folder information of VMs and Templates are now visible on vInfo tabpage
• Bugfix: data in comboboxes on filter form are now sorted
• Bugfix: Problem with api version 2.5.0 solved
• Bugfix: Improved exception handling on vCPU tab.
• Bugfix: Improved exception handling on vDatastore tab.

Download

Documentation

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

RVTools 3.3 Now Available

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• November 17, 2011 -- Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)
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• August 15, 2011 -- Pulse Check and New Sponsor – Tintri

In my environment, I did come across a particular process which needed to be repeated 20 or more times – Answering a virtual machine question.  Based on what I’m working on, conceivably I was going to run into this a lot more.  This is a great candidate for scripting.

The Virtual Machine Message I’m faced with deals with the relocation of the VM.  Via the vSphere Client, my possible choices to answer the question are “Cancel”, “I moved it”, or “I copied it”.  I don’t have the patience or desire to mouse through this hundreds of times.

I want to provide the same answer, “I moved it”, for every VM in inventory which has this question.  The script to accomplish this is fairly simple, even by my standards.  Once the PowerCLI connection is established to the vCenter Server or ESX(i) host, it’s a one-liner.  Following is the PowerShell script which gets the job done for my situation:

Connect-VIServer vc501.boche.lab
Get-VM | Get-VMQuestion | Set-VMQuestion -Option “I moved it” -Confirm:$false

Note that there are different types of Virtual Machine Message questions which will yield a different set of possible answers.  Be sure to query a VM having a question via PowerCLI for the possible answers to that question.  Get-VM | Get-VMQuestion -full should do it.  Once the possible answers are revealed, use Set-VMQuestion -Option to provide an answer.

Also note the script above will cycle through all VMs in inventory, and for those having a question, it will provide the same response for each VM.  Thus the assumption is made that all VMs with pending questions have the same question being asked.  To respond to explicit question types or to filter the VMs being looped through, the script would need to be refined.

For more information on the Get-VMQuestion or Set-VMQuestion PowerCLI cmdlets, use Get-Help Get-VMQuestion -full or Set-Help Get-VMQuestion -full respectively.

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

Using PowerCLI To Answer Virtual Machine Message Questions

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vCenter 5.0 Update 1 – Added support for new guest operating systems such as Windows 8, Ubuntu, and SLES 11 SP2, the usual resolved issues and bug fixes, plus some updates around vRAM limits licensing.  One other notable – no compatibility at this time with vSphere Data Recovery (vDR) 2.0 according to the compatibility matrix.

ESXi 5.0 Update 1 – Added support for new AMD and Intel processors, Mac OS X Server Lion, updated chipset drivers, resolved issues and bug fixes.  One interesting point to be made here is that according to the compatibility matrix, vCenter 5.0 supports ESXi 5.0 Update 1.  I’m going to stick with the traditional route of always upgrading vCenter before upgrading hosts as a best practices habit until something comes along to challenge that logic.

vCloud Director 1.5.1 – Added support for vSphere 5.0 Update 1 and vShield 5.0.1, plus RHEL 5 Update 7 as a supported server cell platform.  Enhancements were made around firewall rules, AMQP system notifications, log collection, chargeback retention, resolved issues, and added support for AES-256 encryption on Site-to-Site VPN tunnels (unfortunately no vSphere 5.0 Update 1 <-> vCloud Connector 1.5 support).  Oh yes, sometime over the past few months, VMware Marketing has quietly changed the acronym for vCloud Director from vCD to VCD.  We’ll just call that a new feature for 1.5.1 going forward.  I <3 the Marketing team.

Site Recovery Manager 5.0.1 – Added support for vSphere 5.0 Update 1 plus a “Forced Failover” feature which allows VM recovery in cases where storage arrays fail at the protected site which, in the past, lead to unmanageable VMs which cannot be shut down, powered off, or unregistered.  Added IP customization for some Ubuntu platforms.  Many bug fixes, oh yes.  VMware brought back an advanced feature which hasn’t been seen since SRM 4.1 which provided a configurable option, storageProvider.hostRescanCnt, allowing repeated host scans during testing and recovery. This option was removed from SRM 5.0 but has been restored in the Advanced Settings menu in SRM 5.0.1 and can be particularly useful in troubleshooting a failed Recovery Plan. Right-click a site in the Sites view, select Advanced Settings, then select storageProvider. See KB 1008283.  Storage arrays certified on SRM 5.0 (ie. Dell Compellent Storage Center) are automatically certified on SRM 5.0.1.

View 5.0.1 – Added support for vSphere 5.0 Update 1, new Connection Server, Agent, Clients, fixed known issues.  Ahh.. let’s go back to that new clients bit.  New bundled Mac OS X client with support for PCoIP!  I don’t have a Mac so those who would admit to calling me a friend will have to let me know how sharp that v1.4 Mac client is.  As mentioned in earlier release notes, Ubuntu got a plenty of love this week.  Including a new View PCoIP version 1.4 client for Ubuntu Linux.  I might just have to deploy an Ubuntu desktop somewhere to test this client.  But wait, there’s more.  New releases of the View client for Android and iPad tablets.  The Android client adds fixes for Ice Cream Sandwich devices, security stuff, and updates for the Kindle Fire (I need to get this installed on my wife’s Fire).  The updated iPad client improves both connection times as well as external display support but for the most part Apple fans are flipping out simply over something shiny and new.  Lastly, VMware created a one stop shop web portal for all client downloads which can be fetched at http://www.vmware.com/go/viewclients/

vShield 5.0.1 – Again, added support for vSphere 5.0 Update 1, enhanced reporting and export options, new REST API calls, improved audit logs, simplified troubleshooting, improved vShield App policy management as well as HA enhancements, and enablement of Autodeploy through vShield VIB host modules downloadable from vShield Manager.

So… looking at the compatibility matrix with all of these new code drops, my lab upgrade order will look something like this:

1a. View 5.0 –> View 5.0.1

1b. vCD 1.5 –> VCD 1.5.1

1c. SRM 5.0 –> SRM 5.0.1

1d. vShield App/Edge/Endpoint 5.0 –> 5.0.1

1e. vDR 2.0 –> Go Fish

2. vSphere Client 5.0.1 (it’s really not an upgrade, installs parallel with other versions)

3. vCenter Server 5.0 –> vCenter Server 5.0 Update 1

4. Update Manager 5.0 –> Update Manager 5.0 Update 1

5. ESXi 5.0 –> ESXi 5.0 Update 1

There are a lot of versions in play here which weaves somewhat of a tangled web of compatibility touch points to identify before diving head first into upgrades.  I think VMware has done a great job this time around with releasing products that are, for the most part, compatible with other currently shipping products which provides more flexibility in tactical approach and timelines.  Add to that, some time ago they’ve migrated a two dimensional .PDF based compatibility matrix into an online portal offering interactive input making the set of results customized for the end user.  The only significant things missing in the vSphere 5.0U1 compatibility picture IMO are vCloud Connector, vDR, and based on the results from the compatibility matrix portal – vCenter Operations (output showed no compatibility with vSphere 5.x, didn’t look right to me).  I’ve taken a liberty in creating a component compatibility visual roadmap including most of the popular and currently shipping products vSphere 5.0 and above.  If you’ve got a significant amount of infrastructure to upgrade, this may help you get the upgrade order sorted out quickly.  One last thing – Lab Manager and ESX customers should pay attention to the Island of Misfit Toys.  In early 2013 the Lab Manager ride comes coasting to a stop.  Lab Manager and ESX customers should be formulating solid migration plans with an execution milestone coming soon.

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

vSphere 5.0 Update 1 and Related Product Launches

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A few months ago I was made aware that MS picked up the flight sim program again and their next generation product “Flight” was in it’s final testing stages.  I was not a part of the beta and waited for the GA release like most others.

Last Wednesday, Microsoft released “Flight” to the masses.  What’s new in this release? For openers, the price.  It’s a FREE download  How does that work? The free content is fully functional (including multiplayer) and consists of a few planes, one very beautiful Hawaiian island, several airports, tutorials, missions, challenges, aerocache hunts, and pilot leveling.  Current and future bolt-on content such as terrain, planes, and perhaps other types of content can be purchased through the Microsoft Marketplace.  At this time, Microsoft offers the Hawaiian Adventure Pack (the additional Hawaiian islands), the Maule M-7-260C (required for cargo missions), and the North American P-51 Mustang (by far the fastest plane with the highest service ceiling, unfortunately, no cockpit; as such, this plane is sold at a discount compared to the Maule).

Let’s see, what else – We’ve now got the ability to open the cockpit doors and exit the planes to have walk or run around. This gives us the ability to explore the terrain and other objects in sim more closely. In addition, it provides the ability to reach some of the difficult aerocaches which would otherwise be unreachable by plane.

The scenery is gorgeous and landmarks well done with incredible detail.  By default, my installation was set for “Medium” detail across the board and my nearly 3 year old Intel Quad Core i7 920/8GB RAM/Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 handled it flawlessly. I bumped up all detail to “High” and my machine handles it well enough that I’ve left it on High. Occasionally I’ll lose a few frames during rapid and massive scenery transitions but it doesn’t happen too often. My machine is not quite fast enough to further bump the individual settings to the Maximum setting.  The frame rate isn’t smooth enough but wow is the scenery beautiful and thick.

Microsoft has gone a little educational with this release which I think is a great element.  Everything from aerocache hunts to the passengers in the back seat will give you some history lessons about the many beautiful features of the Hawaiian islands and of course one of the most well known landmarks in US history – Pearl Harbor.  For a guided tour, complete the photographer mission.  It’s long but well worth it.

What’s missing? Obviously the multitude of planes, liveries, and the rest of the world.  Some of the more complex and interactive navigational elements don’t appear (yet).  The RV and the Maule support VOR navigation (including DME), ILS guidance, separate COM radio channels for keeping conversations private with buddies, but no Garmin GPS, ATC (Air Traffic Control), auto pilot, hold course, or hold altitude.  There’s no push back or a key to bind to that feature.  All of this may be on the horizon with the larger jets.  There is no slew but we can essentially pick up our plane and drop it in any spot on the map and fly from there.  There is no time advance feature for long flights, but MS alternatively offers waypoint advancement which essentially accomplishes the same task – long flights for those with challenging real life schedules.  Be aware that using the Next Waypoint feature is fine, but it may reduce your total achievable score if used during a mission or challenge.  By the way, following are links to helpful instructional videos on VOR navigation:

VOR Navigation Tutorial (Part I) – MSFS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f67low6D-T0

VOR Navigation Tutorial (Part II) – MSFS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLOqAaObGsw

VOR Navigation Tutorial (Part III) – MSFS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exqz65WeF2w

VOR Navigation Tutorial (Part IV) – MSFS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRHuKsCYiyo

VOR Navigation Made Easy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enq5RU6k3AQ

Short VOR Navigation Lesson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoiUrTjuo6U

Navigation Using a VOR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCCk2ch-xL4

A blogger by the name of peterb wrote an opinion piece on Flight yesterday.  The review was positive overall and much of it was consistent with my thoughts.  Thus far, Flight leans a little more toward the game genre than its predecessors. However, I feel there’s plenty of sim left in it for my tastes and I think it’s really going to appeal to those who might have been intimidated by the complexities of previous versions.  It is still a sim, not a game.  Case in point: I ran into a younger generation during a multiplayer event who downloaded what they thought was a video game. They conveyed through online chat they didn’t understand the point of the virtual flight world they were bored to tears with. I can’t think of a better compliment than that.  In addition, this is an unfinished project.  There’s a lot more coming which could fill some gaps. For me, the rest of the world and commercial jets can’t come soon enough but I had a lot of fun this past week, logging about 10 flight hours, completing missions and challenges, rescuing a kayaker, finding 53 of 54 aerocaches, and reaching level 16.  On the leveling, if you’re looking to advance quickly:

• Grab all the aerocaches available (except Curvature of the Earth).  They range in value between 1,000 and 5,000 points a piece depending on difficulty level.
• Run repeated Gold Rush challenges.  Up to 6,200 points is available in each run which only takes a few minutes.
• Try some of the other Challenges or Missions.  There are a few in there worth an easy 12,000 points one time only (one example is the aerobatics competition).

Regarding multiplayer, the installation of Flight will apply the necessary Windows firewall policies to host a game, but I found that my NAT router was blocking incoming game requests which prevented me from hosting. By looking at my router logs, I determined that UDP port 3074 was required to be open in both directions on the NAT router (where incoming UDP 3074 traffic would be forwarded to the PC hosting the MS Flight session).

Following are some screen shots from my flights.

Updated 3/8/12:  I picked up a lot of points tonight while trying several challenges to unlock paint schemes.  In doing so, I reached level 20 and at this point I’m able to level no further.  Level 20 appears to be the cap in this first release of Microsoft Flight.  I’ll continue to fly as it’s still a lot of fun and not really about leveling.

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

Microsoft Flight, Week 1

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The Idea

A while ago, I had stood up a private cloud for the Technical Solutions/Technical Marketing group at Dell Compellent.  I saved some time by leveraging that cloud environment to quickly provision platforms I could install vCenter Server instances on.  vCenter Servers as vApps – fantastic use case.  However, the vCenter installation process is lengthy enough that I wanted something more in terms of automated cookie cutter deployment which I didn’t have to spend a lot of time on.  What if I took one of the Windows Server 2008 R2 vApps from the vCD Organization Catalog, deployed it as a vApp, bumped up the vCPU and memory count, installed the vSphere Client, vCenter Server, licenses, a local MS SQL Express database, and the Dell Compellent vSphere client plug-in (download|demo video), and then added that vApp back to the vCD Organization Catalog?  Perhaps not such a supported configuration by VMware or Microsoft, but could I then deploy that vApp as future vCenter instances?  Better yet, build a vApp consisting of a pair of vCenter Servers for the SRM use case?  It sounded feasible.  My biggest concerns were things like vCenter and SQL Express surviving the name and IP address change as part of the vCD customization.

The POC

Although I ran into some unrelated customization issues which seemed to have something to do with vCD, Windows Server 2008 R2, and VMXNET3 vNICs (error message: “could not find network adapters as specified by guest customization. Log file is at c:\windows\temp\customize-guest.log.” I’ll save that for a future blog post if I’m able to root cause the problem), the Proof of Concept test results thus far have been successful.  After vCD customization, I was able to add vSphere 5 hosts and continue with normal operations from there.

Initially, I did run into one minor issue and that was hosts would fall into a disconnected status approximately two minutes after being connected to the vCenter Server.  This turned out to be a Windows Firewall issue which was introduced during the customization process.  Also, there were some red areas under the vCenter Service Status which pointed to the old instance name (most fixes for that documented well by Rick Vanover here, plus the vCenter Inventory Service cleanup at VMware KB 2009934).

The Conclusion

To The Cloud!  You don’t normally hear that from me on a regular basis but in this case it fits.  A lengthy and increasingly cumbersome task was made more efficient with vCloud Director and vSphere 5.  Using the Linked Clone feature yields both of its native benefits: Fast Provisioning and Space Efficiency.  I’ll continue to leverage vCD for similar and new use cases where I can.  Lastly, this solution can also be implemented with VMware Lab Manager or simply as a vSphere template.  Caveats being Lab Manager retires in a little over a year and a vSphere Template won’t be as space efficient as a Linked Clone.

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

VMware vCenter as a vCloud Director vApp

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• September 12, 2010 -- The Future of VMware Lab Manager

My thanks and appreciation goes out to Eric Siebert who spent well over 30 of his own hours making this year’s contest successful.  Of course I’d also like to thank the readers who voted for my blog, effectively letting me know that the content I produce is valuable to the community.  That is one of the reasons I started blogging and it is the reason I will continue to do so.  Last but not least, thank you TrainSignal for sponsoring this year’s contest.

A full compilation of results and categories can be found at Eric’s site using the link above.  Following is an excerpt displaying the top-25:

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

Top Blog 2012 Results

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• June 3, 2011 -- VMunderground BPaaS (Beantown Party as a Service)
• May 17, 2011 -- Howdy Partner

In case you missed the link, the Jobs page.

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

Jobs

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I had been hosting Microsoft Exchange Server since version 5.5 and although I had accumulated quite a bit of experience over the years in building, migrating, and maintaining a small Exchange environment, the truth is Exchange has gotten way too complex and bloated for me to keep up with.  Being a VMware guy, I’ve had the itch to give Zimbra a try since the acquisition.  It seemed like a win-win solution: Ditch the complexities of Exchange and replace with a VMware messaging solution.  So after building the new domain this afternoon Exchange 2010 was retired and Zimbra 6.0.13.406 was born.

Zimbra is incredibly easy to set up, especially when deploying the appliance version in .OVF format hosted on vSphere 5.  I was up and running with incoming and outgoing email in very little time.  One area I was concerned with when replacing Exchange with Zimbra was the integration and end user experience.  Zimbra ships with an HTML Outlook Web Access like interface which can be used for processing mail on a regular basis.  Would I lose the ability to use Outlook as a mail client or mobile device compatibility?  The answer was no on both accounts.  In addition to the web interface, I can continue to use Outlook 2010 connected to the Zimbra server via IMAP.  This is just about as easy to set up as attaching Outlook to a native Exchange environment.  Outlook detects the mail services provided by Zimbra and negotiates an IMAP configuration.  Done.

Configuring Zimbra Mobile wasn’t as straight forward but I was able to piece together the steps.  Zimbra’s documentation is decent but in some areas it feels explicitly vague, lacking step by step configuration detail.  With Outlook and the web client functioning well, the last step was to integrate Zimbra with my mobile devices: the iPhone and iPad.  These are the steps I followed:

Log into the Zimbra Collaboration Suite Appliance web console (https://<f.q.d.n.>:5480/).  On the Zimbra Administration tab, change the pull down box from All addresses or Accounts to Profiles.

In a default out-of-box deployment, there should be just one profile named ‘default’.  Modify that profile by enabling Mobile Sync on the Zimbra Mobile tab.  Save the changes to the profile.

Now that we have Mobile Sync enabled in a profile, we can apply that profile to each Zimbra user who needs messaging access from their mobile handheld.  Going back to the Dashboard tab, change the pull down box from Profiles to Accounts.  Modify the account in which you’d like to grant Zimbra Mobile access.  On the General Information tab for the user account, uncheck the box labeled ‘auto‘ and then begin typing the first few letters of the profile name of ‘default‘ in the Profile box.  After the first few letters of the profile are typed, the default profile name will appear and that can be selected with the mouse.  Now save the changes.

Now it’s time to configure the iPad and iPhone to connect to Zimbra Mobile.  The first step is to create a new mail account.  The type will be Exchange.

I found configuring the account with Zimbra Mobile easier than with Exchange 2010.  Provide the following values:

2. Email – this should match the email address tied to the account in Zimbra.

3. Server – this will be the f.q.d.n of the Zimbra server.  By default an SSL connection over port 443 will be attempted which Zimbra supports.  You can optionally specify an alternative port.  For example, I could come in externally over port 8080 and then have that translated by NAT to port 443 and sent to the Zimbra server.  Without a port defined, 443 is implied.

     Domain – not required with internal Zimbra authentication.  If authenticating with LDAP integration, this field would likely need to be populated.

4. Username – the name tied to the account in Zimbra.

5. Password – 12345

     Description – not used in Zimbra Mobile configuration.  It’s merely a differentiator for the account on a mobile device which may have multiple accounts set up.

If things are working correctly, you’ll be able to tap the blue Next button and you’ll be prompted to verify the synchronization of all three types of items: Mail, Contacts, and Calendars.  Once the account configuration is saved you’ll also see an additional slider showing that SSL is ON (the default).

Next up is to configure my wife’s Kindle Fire.  I don’t expect any issues there.

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

Configuring Zimbra Mobile

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Just like the VCAP4-DCD BETA I sat over a year ago, the exam length was 130 questions to be answered within a 225 minute time constraint.  From what I gathered, all questions asked were fair in that they came straight from the beta blueprint.  When you read through the blueprint, pay attention to any areas of coverage new to you – it’s all fair game for the exam.  If you’re not familiar with some of the content, be sure you obtain at least a baseline understanding to have a chance at fielding the questions with success. As was the case with the VCAP4-DCD, question types include multiple choice, choose 2 or 3 that apply, drag -n- drop to match this to that, and build a diagram.  Questions can be marked for review but the navigational button to go back to a previous question did not work for me once I had advanced to the next question.  Many of the non-multiple choice questions inherently have a lot of reading associated with them.  Digest the information as quickly and accurately as possible and move on.  Be sure to understand what version of vSphere the question is referring to – there are design and operational differences between vSphere 4 and vSphere 5.  Some of the questions involved performing math on the dry erase board.  A calculator provided with the exam would have saved a little time.

Time management was a challenge for me on this VMware BETA exam.  I ran out of time leaving many questions either unanswered or in the case of lengthy questions requiring a lot of reading, answered with a guess.  If you plan on sitting this VMware BETA exam, you might consider saving all of your feedback for a consolidated email to certification@vmware.com after the exam, rather than providing feedback on each individual question during the exam itself.  One needs to study everything on the blueprint but in my opinion, this is still an experience based exam for the most part.  Sure there is some material you can get through from book and white paper knowledge but the scope of the exam itself is broad enough that several titles would be required to cover all of the content.  I felt confident enough in the material covered that I can pass the exam based on content alone.  If I need to sit the exam again, in all likelihood it will be due to my lack of adequate time management. I should have my results within a few months.

As far as the Partner Exchange testing center – a few tips for those at Partner Exchange who will spend some time in the exam room this week:

1. It’s cold. Wear a long sleeved shirt or sweater.
2. It’s loud (large events going on nearby).  Bring some ear plugs if you have any.
3. Time management once the exam begins. I can’t stress that enough on the advanced level exams.
4. I asked if coffee was allowed in the exam room.  They told me clearly it was not so I got rid of mine only to find out several candidates had coffee with them in the testing center.  Don’t ask, just walk in with your drink unless they stop you.
5. The on site staff is very friendly and did a great job.  Be sure to ask questions if you have any.  If you paid the $200 beta exam fee because the discount voucher didn’t work when you registered, the staff will refund that for you.
6. Enjoy your testing experience.
7. Good luck!

I’ve heard only rumors so far on Twitter, no formal announcements from VMware, that the VCAP5-DCD exam will qualify towards VCP5 certification and possibly VCDX5.  We’ll have to wait and see what develops there.  One thing is absolute:  VMware made it clear there was a February 29 deadline to obtain VCP5 upgrade certification without requiring formal classroom training (and the associated costs).  Because of this, many individuals, including myself, rushed to shell out the exam fee for VCP5 before the deadline in order to avoid training costs if sitting the VCP5 exam after February 29.  I speak for myself when I say that if I had known a VCAP5-DCD exam would qualify for VCP5 certification without additional training, I would have waited to save money on the VCP5 exam fee.

Update 4/25/12: Pass/Fail results were sent out today by VMware which confirmed my time management needed improvement.  A more detailed score report will be sent sometime in May.  I’ll be sitting this exam again when the final version is launched.  I saw a lot of tweets today announcing a pass.  My congratulations go out to those folks.

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

VMware VCAP5-DCD BETA Exam Experience

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The issue isn’t an uncommon one and I quickly turned up familiar hits at VMware’s community forums spanning a few different versions of VMware View.  The root cause is explained in VMware KB Article 1008658 which applies to View versions 3.x through 5.0.x:

This issue occurs if a table in the database has an incorrect data. It can also occur if the virtual machine name has been changed in the vCenter Server manually after the pool has been created, causing View Composer and vCenter Server to refer to the same virtual machine with different names.

The problem can largely be avoided by managing the View environment with the intended tool – the VMware View Administrator interface as opposed to making changes outside of View, such as using VMware vCenter.

Resolving the issue is outlined in detail in the KB article above.  Follow the steps carefully and slowly in a production View environment.  Identify and remove the offending pae-VM(s) from the ADAM database on the View Connection Server.  Optionally remove linked clone references using SviConfig on the View Composer Server as needed.  This step removes the rogue parent replica image.

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

View Pool And Desktop Hung in Deleting State

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Following are two good VMware articles outlining the correct procedure for removing datastores in a vSphere environment:

• Best Practice: How to correctly remove a LUN from an ESX host
• Detaching a datastore or storage device from multiple ESXi 5.0 hosts

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

How to properly remove vSphere datastores

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New StarWind iSCSI SAN v5.8 and Hyper Backup Plug-in are a New Level of Data Protection

Burlington, MA – January 13, 2012 – StarWind Software Inc., an innovative provider of SAN software for iSCSI storage and VM Backup technology, today announced the release of new StarWind iSCSI SAN v5.8 and Hyper-V Backup Plug-in. The iSCSI SAN software is enhanced by the powerful VM Backup technology that is included as a plug-in.

Backup plug-in is built specifically for Hyper-V-based environments to provide fast backup and restore for Hyper-V virtual machines. The backup solution delivered by StarWind performs all operations on the Hyper-V host level thus it requires no backup agents to be installed on virtual machines (Agentless Architecture).

Hyper-V Backup Plug-in makes fast backups and allows quick, reliable restore of both virtual machines and individual files. It utilizes advanced technologies for maximum disk space saving (Global Deduplication). This backup tool is integrated with StarWind Centralized Management Console that enables managing backup and storage from a single window.

Additionally, a new version of HA plug-in is presented in StarWind iSCSI SAN v5.8 that allows use of raw basic images to create HA targets. A new replication engine based on own technology instead of MS iSCSI transport creates higher performance and reliability. This new engine permits use of multiple network interfaces for synchronization and heartbeat.

To simplify the replacement of equipment and recovery of fatal failures, StarWind Software has implemented the ability to change the partner node to any other StarWind server without any downtime and on the fly. Synchronization engine is improved, and this version allows both nodes to sync automatically even in the case of a full blackout of both servers.

“With the release of StarWind iSCSI SAN v5.8 our company is happy to provide our customers with highly available storage and fast backup software developed by the same vendor,” said Artem Berman, Chief Executive Officer of StarWind Software. “Now small and medium-sized companies have an opportunity to achieve higher performance and absolute data protection.”

About StarWind Software Inc.
StarWind Software is a global leader in storage management and SAN software for small and midsize companies. StarWind’s flagship product is SAN software that turns any industry-standard Windows Server into a fault-tolerant, fail-safe iSCSI SAN. StarWind iSCSI SAN is qualified for use with VMware, Hyper-V, XenServer and Linux and Unix environments. StarWind Software focuses on providing small and midsize companies with affordable, highly availability storage technology which previously was only available in high-end storage hardware. Advanced enterprise-class features in StarWind include Automated HA Storage Node Failover and Failback (High Availability), Replication across a WAN, CDP and Snapshots, Thin Provisioning and Virtual Tape management.

Since 2003, StarWind has pioneered the iSCSI SAN software industry and is the solution of choice for over 30,000 customers worldwide in more than 100 countries and from small and midsize companies to governments and Fortune 1000 companies.

For more information on StarWind Software Inc., visit: www.starwindsoftware.com

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

StarWind Releases iSCSI SAN Software Enhanced by VM Backup Technology

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In just a few days, Dell Storage Forum 2012 kicks off at the Grange St Paul’s Hotel in London. I will be in attendance and I hope that you will have the chance to join myself and the rest of the Dell staff and of course an array of storage customers, channel partners, enthusiasts, and analysts. At DSF your appetite will be satisfied with Executive lead Keynote sessions, Breakout sessions delivered by Technical Experts, Instructor lead training, and Hands-on/Self-Paced labs covering Compellent Storage Center, Dell EqualLogic, and PowerVault storage.

This venue won’t be an exact carbon copy of past DSF events. Dell Storage will be showcasing an updated product roadmap and we’ll also see new product announcements. One of the announcements you’ll hear about is the availability of Compellent Storage Center 6.0. As a Technical Marketing Product Specialist who spends all time working on the VMware integration points, this is a release I’ve been looking forward to since starting my career at Dell Compellent in May of last year. This is a significant launch for Dell Compellent from an architectural perspective. SC 6.0 now leverages the FreeBSD 64-bit platform. The 64-bit architecture is the springboard for new features launched this week (such as multithreading opportunities and 12GB memory per Series 40 controller) and will serve as a key enabler for future scalability, integration, and feature enhancements.

If you’re a current Dell Compellent customer with vSphere 4.1 or newer in your datacenter, you know that through SC 5.5.x we supported one VAAI primitive: Zero Blocks or Write Same. Storage Center 6.0 supports additional VMware vSphere VAAI primitives:

• Copy Offload
• Hardware Assisted Locking
• Of course we still support Block Zeroing

On a side note, VMware also released a 4th VAAI primitive in vSphere 5 focusing on Thin Provisioning for block storage arrays.  However, shortly after the release, VMware pulled support on this primitive (applies to all storage vendors) to work out some kinks.  I wrote about that here.

VAAI excites me because of the performance and scalability gains it brings to the vSphere virtual datacenter in addition to vSphere bolt ons such as VMware View and vCloud Director.

Compellent SC 6.0 VAAI support:

• 41% faster block cloning operations on Eager Zeroed Thick and Lazy Zeroed Thick virtual disks
• 98% faster Eager Zeroed Thick disk creation
• Up to 100% reduction in Block Zeroing data traffic from host to storage
• Offloaded operations result in significantly reduced copy traffic between host and storage
• Offloaded operations result in reduction of ESX(i) host resource and storage fabric utilization

Find more details about VAAI at VMware KB 1021976 vStorage APIs for Array Integration FAQ.

This should be a really great week.  Personally, it will be my first Dell Compellent focused conference.  I do hope to see you there and look forward to some good discussions.  If you’re not able to attend in person, you can use these links to follow the action remotely:

Event Links:

• Dell Storage Forum London 2012
• Agenda
• Mobile Device App

Twitter/Social Media Links:

• #DellSF12 hashtag
• Dell Storage: @Dell_Storage
• Dell Storage Forum: @DellSF
• Gina Minks: @gminks
• Lance Boley: @iSCSIKing
• Jason Boche: @jasonboche
• Dell Storage Forum on Facebook

Other Links:

• Dell Tech Center
• Dell Compellent

Post from: boche.net - VMware Virtualization Evangelist

Copyright (c) 2010 Jason Boche. The contents of this post may not be reproduced or republished on another web page or web site without prior written permission.

Path Set for Dell Storage Forum 2012 London

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