DPM or Distributed Power Management is the power saving function of VMware’s DRS. I’ll not go into too much on configuring it here, as that’s quite thoroughly covered elsewhere (Those are 3 different links). I will show you, however, quickly how to test it. Why? Well, there are a few times when you’d want to do this, say: before adding a new host to a cluster, creating a DPM cluster from scratch, or say, taking a VMware exam.

Testing DPM

Connect-VIServer util.provmware.local
Get-VMHost -Name “esxi02*” | Suspend-VMHost -Confirm:$false
Get-VMHost -Name “esxi02*” | Start-VMHost -Confirm:$false

What this does is suspend and power a host on to verify DPM will be able to take the same actions.

Tonight Damian did an excellent improv of Host Profiles, VUM, and other Operational Maintenance objective best practices. If you are studying for your VCAP (or maintaining a vSphere environment), you’ll want to watch this.

Video

Last week we had Chris Wahl on to cover the VCAP-DCA Networking Objectives (Objective 2).

Video

Nick Marshall took a step out from behind the scenes to drop some major know-how on last weeks APAC vBrownBag around the VCAP-DCD Performance Design objective.

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Edited: So, not sure why but this post was stuck in my drafts folder until the evening right before… bleh.

So I’m going to be at the North Carolina User Summit (here) presenting on vCO and handing out a few copies of the vCO Book. If you are going to be in the area Tuesday, May 15th, it’ll be worth your while to stop by and spend the day.

Last week was entertaining, what with a laptop rebuild and knocking out some Orchestrator work in preparation for VMworld. (More on that later). Here’s the tabs I currently have open:

• VDDK API Reference – http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vddk.pg.doc_50%2FvddkPreface.html
• Enabling CBT with PowerCLI: http://www.vmguru.com/articles/powershell/23-cbt-tracker-powershell-script-now-with-more-zombie
• Doing the above for a number of VMs at once: http://jpaul.me/?tag=change-block-tracking
• More of the same: http://ict-freak.nl/2009/12/14/powercli-enable-changed-block-tracking/
• Learning about Learning – http://zenhabits.net/learn/
• VDI with View 5.1 and VAAI – http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2039-Video-Provisioning-Virtual-Desktops-with-VMware-View-5.1-and-VAAI.html
• VMware Joins Open Compute – http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/cto/platform_architecture/blog/2012/05/03/vmware-vsphere-support-of-hyperscale-and-embedded-servers-part-ii
• The other part of the HyperScale post – http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/cto/platform_architecture/blog/2012/05/01/vmware-vsphere-support-of-hyperscale-and-embedded-servers-part-i
• The official OCP / VMware Press release – http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-facebook-open-compute-05-03-12.html
• Affinity rule magic – http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/05/combining-affinity-rule-types.html
• Some details on VMFS – http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/05/vmfs-locking-uncovered.html
• Avoid too many VCPUs like the plague – http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/how-too-many-vcpus-can-negatively-affect-your-performance/
• Be scared of social media… very very scared – http://etherealmind.com/deleting-social-media-accounts-running-scared/

Video

Slides

Links

• Windows 7 Optimization guide.  Think about applying these to your servers
  http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-View-OptimizationGuideWindows7-EN.pdf
• vSphere HA Application monitoring
  http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/08/11/vsphere-5-0-ha-application-monitoring-intro/
• Remove non-present devices after P2V using script
  http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2011/06/11/scripted-removal-of-non-present-hardware-after-a-p2v/
• Kendrick Colemans’s VM Advanced ISO. Free Tools For Advanced Tasks
  http://kendrickcoleman.com/index.php?/Tech-Blog/vm-advanced-iso-free-tools-for-advanced-tasks.html

Video:

Slides:

As expected when the AutoLab was released people wanted to use it, then found issues.  This is why I put version 0.5 on it!

Erik Bussink has found that the Windows 2008R2 build automation for the Domain Controller and Virtual Center VMs is currently only compatible with the RTM release, it fails with the SP1 release showing an error “Windows could not apply unattend settings during pass [offlineServicing]”

For the moment you will need to build the AutoLab Windows servers using 2008R2 without any Service Pack

When I can get hold of the ISO with SP1, and probably a new WAIK kit, I will update the kit and test with various Windows ISOs. 

It’s Alastair here, today I am very pleased to release the vSphere 5 AutoLab, a free tool for the VMware community.

What is the AutoLab?

The AutoLab is a quick easy way to build a vSphere environment for testing and learning using a single desktop or laptop PC and VMware Workstation, Fusion or ESXi. The whole lab runs in VMs on that one PC, even ESXi runs in a VM and can then run it’s own VMs.

What’s in the AutoLab?

The Autolab download contains a set of shell VMs and a lot of automation.  Once built the lab contains two ESXi servers, a Windows Domain controller, a Windows Virtual Centre, a FreeNAS storage appliance and a FreeSCO Router to link it to the outside world.

The download has been kept very small for easy download and distribution, it contains only free, open source, software. You will also need the installers for vSphere and Windows, you should use evaluation licenses for both vSphere (built in) and Windows.

What can I do with the AutoLab?

• Run VMs on the lab ESXi servers, using iSCSI shared storage
• Build an HA and DRS cluster
• Work with vSphere Networking
• Practice the upgrade from vSphere 4.1 to vSphere 5.0
• Use PowerShell and the VCLI to manage the lab
• Rebuild the whole lab quickly and with minimal effort
• Choose how much automation you want in the lab build
• Take the lab with you on your laptop

Will my laptop/PC be able to run the AutoLab?

If your laptop has 8GB of RAM and a recent CPU you should be able to run the lab. Here is my three year old laptop that is upgraded to 8GB of RAM running the whole lab including VMs running on the ESXi servers inside the lab.

Where can I get the AutoLab?

http://www.labguides.com/autolab/

The AutoLab lives on LabGuides.com since it is an offshoot from the effort that Nick Marshall and I working on. Can you guess what that project is?

The Installation Instructions are in a pdf and you should take a look at those to get a better idea of what is involved.  Then there are two different downloads, both contain the same VMs but with slightly different configuration and different packaging. The download for VMware Workstation should also work with Player and Fusion.  The other contains a vApp for deployment onto ESXi 5.0. Download one  and get started by following the guide.

I hope that the AutoLab will save you a lot of time and frustration in building vSphere labs.  I will be posting on ProfessionalVMware the details of the automation that is in the AutoLab so you can reuse or modify the work.

You can contact me through my other blog http://www.demitasse.co.nz/wordpress2/about/