RVTools is updated to 2.8.1

Posted by admin on Feb 21, 2010 in Tools | 0 comments

The wonderful free tool from Rob was updated to a new version. You can download RVTools from his website. Be sure to thank the developer for all of his hard work.

• On vHost tab new field: number of running vCPUs
• On vSphere VMs in vApp where not displayed.
• Filter not working correct when annotations or custum fields contains null value.
• When NTP server(s) = null the time info fields are not displayed on the vHost tabpage.
• When datastore name or virtual machine name contains spaces the inconsistent foldername check was not working correct.
• Tools health check now only executed for running VMs.

Windows 7 Virtual machines or tools stop responding

Posted by admin on Feb 21, 2010 in Knowledge Base, VMware | 0 comments

This is something that I had encountered when testing VM’s in our PoC for XenDesktop recently.  We could come back after a few hours and find the VM in a hung state or in sleep mode. The sleep mode symptom was a obvious sign of were to start looking. After playing with the power settings a few times and turning off all of the options the issues went away.

According to a new KB article from VMware this is more of a common problem. Stop by here for the original document.

Microsoft VECD license is a total joke

Posted by admin on Feb 13, 2010 in Microsoft, VDI, XenDesktop | 0 comments

For those of you that have taken a deep look into VDI or have deployed solutions you should be familar with the latest Microsoft trick to milk more cash from corporations. As far as I’m concerned this is a cheap way to charge more money for now added features and pad their pockets because they did not jump into the VDI game.

Ok to explain things a bit more. Basically Microsoft requires you to purchase your desktop license (XP/Win7) of course. But if you want to do a VDI solution using XenDesktop you mush also purchase a RS or terminal services license and a VECD license. This VECD is listed as needed if you wish to run a workstation OS in a data center. This license can cost from $23 to $100 plus depending on what your end point device is and if its covered under Software Assurance. This is all additional cost on top of the Citrix XenDesktop license that you need to purchase.

I was blown away when the Microsoft rep’s were explaining this to us in a recent call. And the fact they can tell people this with a straight face amazes me.

VMware vSphere 4 Ctrl-Alt-Del how to disable

Posted by admin on Nov 11, 2009 in VMware, vSphere | 0 comments

Something to watch out for with the ESX 4 console. If you hit CTRL-ALT-DEL on ESX 4 console, the server will reboot even if there are running VMs and it doesn’t matter if the server is not in Maintenance Mode.

Follow these steps to disable this yourself:

1. Edit /etc/inittab. Any text editors will do- I like nano but vi works just as well.
2. Search for “CTRL-ALT-DELETE” or “ctrlaltdel”
3. Comment out the line “ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now” with a # symbol.

It should look like:

# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE

# ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

4. Save and exit the file.
5. To make this take effect without a reboot, run the command:

init q

Was invited for a sneak peak of the new vSphere client

Posted by admin on Nov 5, 2009 in VMware, vSphere | 0 comments

Last night I was invited for a preview meeting on a conceptual design for the new vSphere client. I am bound by the NDA that I signed so there will be no specific details here. But I can say that there are a lot of super cool things in the works for the client and vCenter server. VMware is really bring the console up to date and providing the types of reporting and searching features that admin’s have been waiting for.

They are also trying to keep a blend of features that will be useful to IT shops and Cloud providers without leaving one behind. I’m sure there is a ton of work left to be done on what they are working on but as it is now, the product is already something that I would love to have in our environment.

VMware Orchestrator is going to make Admins happy

Posted by admin on Oct 29, 2009 in Orchestrator, VMware | 0 comments

I’ve been wondering what would be possible with VMware Orchestrator. After some reading and attending product demos things are much clearer now.  This tool is going to make automation of common tasks much easier for the admins that are not good script writers. Orchestrator provides a GUI to create work flows that will automate a large number of tasks. The Orchestrator will also allow plugins from 3rd parties to extend the functionality.

While all of these tasks were possible in the past either by manual methods or through scripting. If you were not good a creating your own scripts there is a very dedicated community around VMware and there most likely was already something out there that you could use. With Orchestrator you will have over 400 built in work flow options to perform tasks like find orphaned vm’s, vm’s with snapshots, convert to thin provisioning, add hosts and many other tasts.

Some even better news is that Orchestartor will work with both ESX 3.5 and vSphere 4 hosts.  Each will be made available with a plugin and can talk to multiple vCenter servers for each generation.

VMware Workstation 7 released to the public today

Posted by admin on Oct 28, 2009 in VMware, Workstation | 0 comments

A product beloved by many has advanced with a long list of improvements. I’ve been using it since I was invited to the technology preview and I think it’s taken a huge step forward.  One of my favorite features of the new version being a Virtual Admin is it’s native support to run ESX installs withing VM Workstation. In prior releases it was possible with some manual tweaks of the vmx file. This also is the 10 year anniversary of the workstation product.

• Best in Class Windows 7 Support. VMware Workstation 7 is optimized for maximum performance when running on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 PCs and works seamlessly with Flip 3D and Aero Peek to show live virtual machine activity.
• The Best 3D Graphics. Run even more 3D applications with support for Windows Aero, DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1 in Windows virtual machines.
• Features Designed for Professionals. VMware Workstation 7 streamlines software development and testing with new IDE integrations for the SpringSource Tools Suite and Eclipse IDE for Java & C/C++ along with Record Replay Debugging improvements that make it faster to find non-deterministic bugs.
• Most Advanced Virtualization Capabilities. Run 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems with up to four virtual CPUs and 32GB of RAM dedicated to each virtual machine.