This came up in the comments to one of my other posts, so I though I’d share.

Note: The Host Update Utility was depreciated with 4.1, so if you came here looking for that… my apologies.

The vSphere Host Update Utility, as far as I can tell is not actually offered as a separate download, but is rather bundled with the vSphere client and is a selectable option during installation. As admins most of us are trained to ignore these extra screens (after-all, who wants yet another Friendster toolbar installed?). This one is safe however, promise!

Sean’s vFail.net came to my attention because of some trackbacks on my VCAP-DCA posts. However, in addition to VCAP Study guides (which are quite good), he’s covered PowerCLI (another of my favorite areas) and some other great topics. If you aren’t already, add this series of virtual failures to your RSS reader or bookmarks and check back regularly.

Well, if that wasn’t an SEO title, I’m not sure what is. Basically, I find myself often having to find this in either the VMware KB or via Google each time I need it.

Where are the logs?

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter

The problem you may run into however, is that the “ProgramData” folder is hidden by default. To get it visible, press “Alt + T” to get the tools menu, then select options:

Select “View” and then make it look like this:

Hope this helps someone other than me anyways.

More often than not, storage design considerations are NOT taking into account when users start rolling out VMware View environments. This can lead to unexpected performance issues, particularly when using linked clones. Using linked clones on an array with SATA drives and very little cache is just asking for trouble however there is a way out: Converting those linked clone desktops to fully deployed or thick disk desktops. This will spread the I/O over more spindles instead of concentrating all requests to one particularly spindle.

There are two ways to do this:

1. Hot/cold clone the desktop VM:

This clone operation can be done with the desktop power on or off, doesn’t matter. This operation will read the linked clone, which is essentially a snapshot file, and follow the chain all the way down to the base image in order to create a stand-alone disk(s) that are independent of the linked clone infrastructure.

From vCenter, right click on the desktop VM and select “Clone”. Simply follow the wizard to clone the virtual machine. When it comes time to selecting what to do with the disk, select “Same format as source”. While this sounds like the opposite of what you would want to do because it is a linked clone, it still sees the linked clone merely as a snapshot. Cloning from the last snapshot of a vmdk file will include all of the changes down to the base disk. This operation will create a brand new, thick vmdk file for each disk for that VM.

The benefit of this method is that cloning or copying the VM allows for verification that the process has completed successfully before removing the linked clone VM in View Manager and manually adding this new one.

2. Storage VMotion the desktop VM:

Using Storage VMotion will convert the VM in the same way as hot/cold cloning with the exception that this can be done with no downtime for the desktop.

From vCenter, right click on the desktop VM and select “Migrate”. Next you will need to select “Change datastore”. Follow the steps that follow and ensure that you select “Same format as source” under the disk section. This will initiate the same consolidation process as mentioned in hot/cold cloning.

The benefit of this operation is the lack of downtime. The downside to this operation is the lack of verification process as well as the need for free disk space to be available on another datastore.

Today I found myself needing to find all hosts that were in a state other than connected within a datacenter. It’s only a one-liner and I’m sure you can (or have) found it elsewhere, but here it is again for reference:

Get-Datacenter -Name "ProfessionalVMware" | Get-VMHost | Where { $_.State -ne "Connected" } | Select Name

Breaking down the pipeline is simple enough. First we get a specific datacenter (Get-Datacenter -Name “”). Next we get a list of all ESX(i) hosts and select the ones that are not “Connected” (Get-VMHost | Where {…). Finally we select the names. Mind, sample output is missing as at this stage everything in the home lab is connected. Sorry!

Today we had Jim Curry and Jonathan Bryce of the OpenStack project come by to tell us a bit about the project. What it is, does, etc. The best place to see this is the video, just below. I’ve also collected some notes along that way that should be useful.

First, the video:

ProfessionalVMware VCP BrownBag #13 – OpenStack from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

Notes:

• What is the correct spelling? – OpenStack (Capital O, Capital S, all one word).
• OpenStack vs. VMware vCloud – Complimentary, not competition. You’ll need to watch the video for the full answer.
• Who is the intended audience for OpenStack? – Anyone looking for easy entry into the cloud market. Providers, private companies, etc.
• More info? – OpenStack.org and wiki.OpenStack.org also #openstack on FreeNode
• Participation? – See More Info.
• Will OpenStack be at VMworld? – Rackspace will have a booth supporting their Private Cloud offering. However, you may find some folks in the booth to talk to regarding OpenStack.

This week we take a break from the certification track and instead take a tangent into other areas surrounding virtualization. This week we will be talking with Jim Curry of the OpenStack project. As always, bring along your questions.

Logistics:

When: Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 @ 2PM CST
Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/909625585

What is OpenStack?

The goal of OpenStack is to allow any organization to create and offer cloud computing capabilities using open source software running on standard hardware. OpenStack Compute is software for automatically creating and managing large groups of virtual private servers. OpenStack Storage is software for creating redundant, scalable object storage using clusters of commodity servers to store terabytes or even petabytes of data.\

About Jim:

Jim Curry is General Manager and Chief Stacker of OpenStack, the recently launched open source cloud computing project.  OpenStack was launched based on code contributions from Rackspace and NASA, and currently has nearly 30 companies supporting the project.  Jim is responsible for driving all aspects of the OpenStack initiative, including major partnerships, community-driven development and adoption.

In addition to his current role with OpenStack, Jim is the VP of corporate development at Rackspace and maintains responsibility for the company’s M&A and venture investing activities, including the acquisitions of Webmail.us, Slicehost and Jungle Disk. Jim also manages strategic product partner alliances for Rackspace, particularly in the areas of cloud computing and applications, and incubating new businesses at the company including the Managed Colocation offering and Hong Kong businesses.

Prior to Rackspace, Jim spent 15 years in the IT and financial services sector in various new product incubation, corporate development and investing roles. Most recently, Jim was a senior leader on Dell’s corporate development team.  Jim has also held leadership positions with several other technology startups including Bowstreet and Tivoli, both acquired by IBM. He also was an investment banker with Goldman Sachs and spent several years as a private equity investor.

Jim holds an MBA from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin.

As always, we thank TrainSignal for making these BrownBags possible.

Sorry about this folks, I’ve had some random “Life Happens” issues that caused this not to get posted on time. Here are the show notes and the video:

Video

ProfessionalVMware BrownBag 12 – VCAP Security from ProfessionalVMware on Vimeo.

Notes

We covered quite a few items this go around. Most importantly however were the lessons learned regarding lab setup:

• You lab should use 4.0 (for now)
• You want at least one ESX and ESXi host
• Password policy is a pain!
• Un-mute first, then end the call :-\

Despite the lab fail, we did manage to cover a few areas, first being ESXi Lockdown mode. The following is borrowed from Duncan Epping @ Yellow-Bricks

Enabling lockdown mode disables all direct root access to ESXi machines. Any subsequent local changes to the host must be made in a vSphere Client session or vSphere CLI command to vCenter Server using a fully editable Active Directory account. You can also use a local user account defined by the host. By default, no local user accounts exist on the ESXi system. Such accounts can only be created prior to enabling lockdown mode in a vSphere Client session directly on the ESXi system. The changes to the host are limited to the privileges granted to that user locally on that host.

Some additional info on lockdown mode can be found on “It’s All Virtual”. Next we covered SSL and adjusting timeouts and ESX/ESXi Certificates.

A you may already know, Tom Howarth and I have actually managed to get a session accepted for VMworld. The gist of it is: Get a bunch of storage heavyweight folks onto a stage to answer your questions about storage & virtualization. That said… We need your help.

Ask Your Questions:

We understand that not everyone will be able to make it to VMworld to ask their questions in person but still have burning questions. If that sounds like you, go ahead and post your question in the comments section of this post. Tom and I will then use the best questions to get the session started or to fill slow spots in the discussion.

Session Details

For those of you attending VMworld, here are the details for the session:

Session: TA8623
Title: Storage Super-Heavyweight Challenge

Abstract:
Panel session to discuss all things storage, paneled by some of the best known storage experts from the major vendors.

Moderators:

• Tom Howarth Owner PlanetVM.Net
• Cody Bunch Owner ProfessionalVMware.com

US Speakers:

• Adam Carter Worldwide Product Manager HP Storage Hewlett Packard
• Vaughn Stewart Virtualization Evangelist NetApp
• Chad Sakac Vice President, VMware Technology Alliance EMC Corporation
• Eric Schott Director of product management, Dell EqualLogic

Technical Level: Technical

Track: Technology and Architecture

Subtopic: Storage

Thanks in advance and look forward to seeing you at VMworld!

So I’m traveling a bit outside of my normal realm and am hanging out in South Florida for a bit. What does that mean? Well outside excellent bicycling weather and humidity, it also means local area vMUGs! Two of them in fact. Come on out and let’s talk Virt!

Details:

South Florida Area vMUG

• Date: July 28, 2010
• URL: http://info.vmware.com/forms/VMUG_REG?eventcity=9387-sofl&theme=South%20Florida

Tampa Area vMUG

• Date: Aug 2, 2010 – 11p – 3p EST
• URL: http://info.vmware.com/content/VMwareExpress_Reg?eventcity=9399-clearwater&src=VMUG
• Note: The VMware Cloud In A Truck (VMware Express) will be there Woot!

Note: If you want to meet up some time before then, drop a line in the comments or hit me up @cody_bunch on Twitter.