27 Jan 2013
By Yendis

vCenter and Memory metrics

VMware, , ,
I have received an email today asking if I could explain the memory details that are in vCenter under the summary tab on each VM.  Rather than reinvent the wheel I have taken a blog post from Duncan Epping over at www.yellow-bricks.com which I find explains it very well. It appears that there is a lot of confusion around this topic and that probably comes from the fact that some of the Performance Metrics are named similarly but don’t always refer to the same. Let’s start with “General”: (more…)
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24 Dec 2012
By Yendis

Update VMware tools without reboot

VMware, ,
Whilst having some spare time over the Christmas period I decided to upgrade by VMware home lab to vSphere 5.1, and I found out that one of the new features is you can update the VMware tools without the requirement  to reboot each Virtual Machine (VM).  Now to some people this may be a small change but to me and everyone else that has hundreds of servers in their data centres this is a BIG plus because now we haven't got to worry about doing the update out-of-hours. Thanks VMware  and Merry Christmas  
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08 Dec 2012
By Yendis

Creating snapshots in a different location than default virtual machine directory

VMware, ,
In ESX/ESXi 3.x and 4.x, all files comprising snapshots are created in the virtual machine's working directory. By default, the working directory is the same directory as the virtual machine's (.vmx) configuration file. Thus, if the virtual disk (.vmdk) file is located on different datastore than the virtual machine itself, virtual disk redolog (-delta.vmdk) files are created alongside the virtual machine's (.vmx) configuration file instead of beside the virtual disk (.vmdk) file. You may want to change the location (new directory on the same or alternative datastore) where virtual disk redolog (-delta.vmdk) files are created, in order to: Create snapshots but…
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28 Nov 2012
By Yendis

VMware VMFS: Technical Overview and Best Practices

VMware, , ,
The VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) is a high performance cluster file system that allows virtualization to scale beyond the boundaries of a single system. This paper gives a technology overview of VMFS, including a discussion of features and their benefits. The paper highlights how VMFS capabilities enable greater scalability and decreased management overhead. It also provides best practices and architectural considerations for deployment of VMFS. Download http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmfs-best-practices-wp.pdf Source: VMware
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24 Oct 2012
By Yendis

Broadcom 5719/5720 NICs using tg3 driver becomes unresponsive and stops traffic in vSphere

VMware, , ,
I have been experiencing on a number of occastions a loss of network connectivity on my VM server network.  After much analysis I have found in the errors logs excessive NetQueue messages similar to:- 2012-06-14T19:45:09.053Z cpu6:2092)<6>tg3 : vmnic3: RX NetQ allocated on 1 2012-06-14T19:45:09.053Z cpu6:2092)<6>tg3 : vmnic3: NetQ set RX Filter: 1 [00:50:56:6F:95:16 0] 2012-06-14T19:45:44.054Z cpu7:2092)<6>tg3 : vmnic3: NetQ remove RX filter: 1 2012-06-14T19:45:44.054Z cpu7:2092)<6>tg3 : vmnic3: Free NetQ RX Queue: 1 The performance enhancement from NetQueue does not benefit 1 Gb NICs.  This feature spreads the network load across multiple CPUs, and a single CPU can handle around 3 Gb of network load. (more…)
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28 Aug 2012
By Yendis

What’s new in 5.1?

VMware,
At VMworld came the release of vSphere / vCloud 5.1  Here are the links to all the excellent papers my for the new release. What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 What’s new in VMware vCenter 5.1 What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Networking What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Platform What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Storage What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Performance Introduction to VMware vSphere Replication Introduction to VMware vSphere Data Protection What’s new in VMware vSphere Storage Appliance What’s new in vCloud Director 5.1
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27 Aug 2012
By Yendis

The end of the vRAM entitlement in VMware vSphere 5 and 5.1

VMware,
About a year ago VMware introduced the vRAM entitlement (see post VMware vSphere 5 Licensing explained). Today at VMworld 2012, VMware announced the end of the vRAM entitlement in VMware vSphere 5 and 5.1! In vSphere 5 and 5.1 the licensing will be per physical processor. Each physical processor needs to have at least one vSphere 5 license key assigned. The vSphere licensing removes restrictions on: physical cores RAM number of VMs Removing the vRAM entitlement makes it possible to scale up VMware vSphere hosts without buying extra vSphere licenses! With the end of the vRAM entitlement, VMware can easily competes against Hyper-V 3.0!
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