Manitoba VMUG Meeting (Oct 24, 2012) - Recap

I would like to begin by saying thanks to all the MB VMUG members who attended. It was great to see the interest in the learning that the MB VMUG provides through special speakers, and the technical presentations.

We kicked off the meeting with the MB VMUG Leader presentation and Anil Sedha spoke about VMUG in general, VMUG advantage membership, MB VMUG workspace, and the new stuff happening within the group.

For those of you who missed it - those in attendance were informed that we'll be getting our new website soon, the launch of a Quarterly newsletter, hands on lab coming soon, and the VCP5 study group (special announcement) is being launched. 

As our group grows it is now time to move towards getting a professional website that will provide value to our programs and increase sponsorship. All local blogs by VMWare Professionals in Manitoba will be displayed on it, and educational content will be posted in addition to the blog. Secondly, a quarterly newsletter will be issued starting Q1 2013 and anyone interested in submitting articles is welcome to do so prior to the deadline of November 30, 2012. Articles should have a core focus on VMWare or associated technologies, independent, free of marketing verbiage, and limited to 800 words. Finally, interests are now being received for the MB VMUG vSphere 5 Study Group. Attempts are being made to get sponsorships for study material and exam certification fees. Those interested to take part in the study group are invited to get in touch with me through LinkedIn or sending me an email on manitoba@vmug.com.

This presentation was followed by our key speaker - Mike Laverick (Senior VMWare Evangelist) who spoke remotely and gave an excellent presentation about his vCD setup in a personal lab environment and how this environment can be simulated in our organizations for learning/testing. There were some great insights as he went about explaining his setup. A video of his presentation will be posted later for review again considering we had some audio hiccups.

Keith Aasen from NetApp followed up after Mike and took off straight away with his VMWorld Top 10 session about storage performance and troubleshooting performance issues. His session provided a deep dive into the kind of performance issues that can arise during disk performance problems and how he and his customer methodically approached and resolved the issue. Keith got the group going with his Q/A and had a very interactive session.

After a short break for networking and coffee our very own Scott Jordan (VMWare SE) began his presentation on vCloud Suite features and licensing. He covered a wide range of topics ranging from the informational release of the product, edition comparision, feature set, and licensing models. Scott spoke about the comparative differences between the current release and the vCloud suite. He also gave an insight into the upgrade steps and the Fair Market compensation introduced by VMWare for vCloud suite. An important note was that after Aug 27, 2012, VMWare has changed Fair Market compensation to be at 90% of the existing list price for products that a customer already owns. More details can be taken directly by reaching out to Scott or myself and I can guide to VMWare's statement on it.

In conclusion I reminded everyone that feedback is very necessary for planning purposes and it helps the group if everyone participated in discussions on LinkedIn, as well as gave their input to the Polls that have been posted. We spoke about general timings of the MB VMUG meeting - morning versus evening and the general consensus was to hold the meeting during morning time since more people are able to attend and take time off from work considering that there is significant learning for the professional VMWare community.

In my closing remarks I also mentioned that in between our quarterly VMUG meetings there are plans to introduce an online technical session/demonstration that would facilitate remote learning from the comfortness of your office and would add value. Whether we do a lab/demo/technical session will be determined in due course once I start getting the senior vSpecialists involved. This online session will be attempted using Google Hangout as there is great potential in using social media for MB VMUG's benefit.

Finally, there were the prizes/giveways for things ranging from technical books/DVD's to promotional items. It is pleasing to say that every member in attendance who stayed until the end walked away with something useful.

The giveaways were - 

• Highly popular Books, DVD's, T-shirt/Cap from David Davis of TrainSignal 
• Books, vSphere Reference Charts, and promotional items from VMUG HQ
• Books from O'Reilly User Group Publications. O'Reilly also offered a free e-book to all our members in attendance. Those who attended but did not give their email address are requested to do so asap in order to receive the free e-book (limited to members in attendance only).
• Promotional items from VMWorld 2012 (courtesy VMUG for t-shirts and vendors like Red Hat and Symantec)

Last but not the least - a BIG thank you to our sponsors. No important event really gets successful without active participation and support of its sponsors. We had great support from NETAPP (Gold Sponsor), Arista (Silver Sponsor), and Onx (Bronze Sponsor) and thank them again for all the help.

Follow Manitoba VMUG on Twitter - http://twitter.com/manitobavmug

Manitoba VMUG Workspace - http://www.vmug.com/manitoba

LinkedIn Page - http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3820802

To sponsor the MB VMUG activities or meetings please contact Anil Sedha through LinkedIn, or via email - manitoba@vmug.com

Oct 24, 2012 meeting sponsors (logo):

VMware Mirage Available for Download Now - Eric Sloof

VMware Mirage offers a unique solution for endpoint management and recovery that combines image centralization and local execution. The images of the endpoints are cloned into the datacenter to enable the benefits of centralized management and recovery while leaving cached copies of the image on each endpoint for local (and offline) execution thereby preserving an uncompromised user experience.

Mirage centralizes the full desktop contents at the datacenter for management and protection purposes, distributes the execution of desktop workloads to the endpoints for superior user experience, and optimizes the synchronization in between. Mirage conceptually splits the PC into six layers, divided into two groups: IT centrally managed and user managed. The first group consists of a Base Image Layer, a Driver Library Layer, and a Departmental Application Layer (experimental). The second group consists of User-Application Layer, Machine Identity Layer and User Data Settings Layer.
These layers form an individually managed, centrally stored Centralized Virtual Desktop (CVD). CVDs are hardware-agnostic and can be easily migrated from one desktop (physical or virtual) to another, creating a wide range of use cases. The Mirage Client runs a copy of this CVD directly on the end point, so users can work offline, use processor-intensive applications, and enjoy predictable, native PC performance regardless of network connectivity.
[image]
The Mirage architecture includes VMware Mirage Server in the datacenter to centralize desktop management and protection; Mirage Client to create a local cache for optimal user experience at the endpoint, and advanced WAN optimization technology to speed bi-directional synchronization over the WAN.

http://www.vmware.com/products/desktop_virtualization/mirage.html

feedproxy.google.com [X] <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/pLKbLvDxH1s/2210-VMware-Mirage-Available-for-Download-Now.html>
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/pLKbLvDxH1s/2210-VMware-Mirage-Available-for-Download-Now.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Free vCenter Operations Manager Now Included with vSphere - Eric Sloof

vCenter Operations Manager Foundation will give you insights and visibility into performance and health of your vSphere infrastructure and is now included free with VMware vSphere.
VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite<http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vcenter/VMware-vCenter-Operations-DS-EN1.pdf> provides automated operations management using patented analytics and an integrated approach to performance, capacity and configuration management.

vCenter Operations Management Suite enables IT organizations to get better visibility and actionable intelligence to proactively ensure service levels, optimum resource usage and configuration compliance in dynamic virtual and cloud environments.
vCenter Operations Manager Foundation<http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vcenter/VMware-vCenter-Operations-DS-EN1.pdf> is the new, entry-level edition of the vCenter Operations Management Suite. It gains deep operational insights and visibility to improve the performance and health of your vSphere environment. vCenter Operations Manager Foundation is included with every vSphere edition free of charge.
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/SJCYKTS1-O4/2206-Free-vCenter-Operations-Manager-Now-Included-with-vSphere.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

vSphere Data Protection (VDP) and vSphere Replication (VR) Interoperability - VMware vSphere Blog

We have been getting a fair number of questions regarding interoperability of vSphere Data Protection (VDP) and vSphere Replication (VR) both of which are included with vSphere 5.1 (Essentials Plus and higher). I spent some time in my lab with these questions and decided to focus on the two most common questions: 1. Does VDP and VR interfere with each other? 2. Can I use VR to replicate VDP to another site?

For the first question/scenario, I set up replication for three virtual machines (VMs). With VR, you can set the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) within the range of 15 minutes to 24 hours. I chose 15 minutes for all three VMs to maximize the frequency of VR operations against the VMs. I also made sure that one of the VMs was performing an initial sync. The initial sync in VR is when the entire VM is being replicated from the source to the target location for the first time. Once the initial sync is complete, only the changes to the VM are replicated to minimize bandwidth usage and maintain RPO policy compliance. Having VMs with VR performing an initial sync and regular (lightweight delta) syncs allowed testing against both replication status types. Having both replication status types running in the environment, I then ran several manually backup jobs using VDP. These jobs consisted of both the initial full (entire VM) backup and the subsequent synthetic full (changed blocks) backups. VDP and VR performed well together. The only hint of an issue that I saw was a warning message stating that replication for a VM is not active. This occurred when I manually started a replication cycle and a backup at the same time. The warning went away within a minute or two and I found no evidence that either job had any failures. VDP reported a successful backup and VR reported "OK" for the replication status a few minutes later suggesting VR simply retried replication. I also let the environment "simmer" for a few days leaving the RPO setting for the VMs at 15 minutes and VDP running its scheduled backup jobs for the same VMs once per day. Again, no evidence of issues.

For the second question/scenario, I configured VR to replicate the VDP appliance and set the RPO to its most aggressive setting of 15 minutes. I configured replication during the middle of the day. At that time, the backup window was closed and scheduled to open at 8:00 PM. The initial sync completed fine, as expected. However, once the backup window opened and the scheduled backups started, a warning message was logged: "System has paused replication for virtual machine vSphere Data Protection on host in cluster Cluster in Datacenter: Disk added to VM". As part of the backup process, VDP (along with several other backup and recovery solutions) utilizes the SCSI HotAdd functionality of vSphere to improve backup job efficiency and to keep backup traffic off of the network. The .vmdk being backed up is dynamically attached to the VDP appliance while the backup is occurring. VR detected the addition of the .vmdk file and paused. Replication of the VDP appliance was paused indefinitely and required manual intervention to reconfigure replication for the VDP appliance. This issue occurred every time the backup window opened. The RPO could be changed to make the replication occur less frequently – perhaps a RPO policy somewhere between 18 and 24 hours – thus reducing the chance replication will occur when backup jobs are running. This still does not guarantee that VR will not attempt to replicate changes to the VDP appliance at the same time backup jobs are running.

In summary, there appears to be no issues with both VR and VDP protecting a VM. In contrast, it is not recommended to use VR to replicate a VDP appliance. In an upcoming article, I will look at recovering VDP from a (non-VR) replicated or cloned copy of the VDP appliance. Stay tuned…

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/10/vdp-and-vr-interoperability.html> |by Jeff Hunter on October 15, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/10/vdp-and-vr-interoperability.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Building VMware End-User Computing Solutions with VMware View Book - RTFM Education – Virtualization, VMware, Citrix

Phew. I know it's a long title. But I wanted to shoehorn the word "end-user computing" and Barry wanted "VMware View" in the title – so this is the mash-up we can up with.

It's our joint pleasure to finally make available the end-user computing book that myself, and fellow vExpert, Barry Coombs – have been work in on for sometime. We never thought when we embarked on the project that it would take this length of time. That was partly caused by us both having other projects on the table, and the review process colliding with the release of VMware View 5.1 and ThinApp 4.7.2. It was also delayed by my sojourns into other complementary technologies such as vShield, Teradici APEX, ThinApp Factory and Horizon Application Manager.

I do I'd like to thank my co-author, Barry Coombs. It was Barry who approached me shortly after completing my SRM 5.0 book with the idea to update my old View 4.5 guide to be View 4.6 piece. Back then it was small under-taking to retro fit the book with the new support for the "PCoIP Gateway Mode". Then quite quickly it became clear that with View 5.0 being released we might as well go the whole hog. Anyway, without Barry's interested I might have not even bothered with this book. Also I wanted to recognise that where I have the luxury of bags of free time during the day to write – Barry has to hold down a proper job, and house move at the same time. Well done, Barry!

We'd both like to take this opportunity to thank everyone one who has assisted in bringing this text to the Community.

We spent many long dark nights toiling away in our man-caves to complete this project. Barry would like to thank his wife Laura Coombs, and I would like to thank his long-term partner, Carmel Edwards – for all their support and patience during this time.

From VMware would like to thank – Spencer Pitts, Peter von Oven, Peter Björk, Christoph Harding and Matthew Northam. Additionally I would like to thank Aaron Black, Jared Cook, Alejandro Guzman, Alan LaMielle and Deam Flaming who helped greatly with the ThinApp Factory and Horizon Application Manager chapters.

We would also like to thank Paul Pindel of F5 Networks, Andrei Valentin of BitDefender and Elcio Mello of Teradici.

Finally, we would like to thank all the people in the vExperts Community and elsewhere who assisted in the review process including: Duco Jaspars, Gabrie Van Zantan, Chris Mohn, Jonathan Medd, Rick Al Eqesem, Bas Raayman, Jane Rimmer, Stu McHugh, Ivo Beerens, Chris Deardon, Bilal Hashmi, James Bowling, Brian Jordon, Shane Williford, Andrew Hancock, Brian Suhr, Alex Muetstege, Dan Berkowitz, Matt Murray, Ryan Makamson, Julian Wood, Tim Myers, Matthew Northam, Alan Renouf, Michael Letschin and Kong L. Yang.

As special thanks goes to Christian Mohn who wrote the forward to the book.

For the now the book is only available on LULU as both a hard-copy or as PDF format. Given the length of the book and shipping costs incurred from LULU we would recommend downloading the PDF. Remember most e-readers support PDF or you can find tools that convert PDF into the format from your selected e-reader. The PDF is $10 to download – and there's a $10 royality charge on the hard-copy. These royalties will be paid to UNICEF as charitable donation after 1 year. It doesn't matter what you buy – the royality charge is the same. Of course the PDF isn't secured – but if people do see this winding up on other website. Let us know and we apply the usual community pressure.

We are also working on getting the book into the iBookStore, and via my contacts with Pearson Publishing – we are hoping to get it distributed on Safari Books Online too. That's very much a "work in progress"…

This may well be my last book for sometime. Believe it or not I've been solidly writing in the long form ever since I published my first "Admin" guides to ESX 2.x and VirtualCenter 1.x back in 2003/4. We'd would love to be able to keep this book up to date – we'd love to add AppBlast and Octopus when they are released. I'm sure Barry would be more than interested in working again with another author when View 6.0 rolls around the corner. As Barry and I are the sole copyright owners we are very flexible on this – I personally would love to see the book go online and be maintained and developed by the community. I think the days of technical material in paper books that are sealed in amber are rapidly drawing to a close.

Lastly, I recognise that there maybe people who are interested in ThinApp Factory<http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-20095> and Horizon Application Manger<http://communities.vmware.com/thread/413086> – who have no interest in VMware View. I've decide to let these chapters be available separately as free download as well.

The book both in PDF is available NOW. The hard-copy will be online once me and Barry have recieved our personal copy and we are happy with the production quality.<http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rtfm>

As with the VMware Site Recovery Manager 4.0 books all royalities will be donated to our chosen charity of UNICEF.

Enjoy!

[http://go.techtarget.com/activity/activity.gif?activityTypeId=24&dgtaxid=&tagid=0&r=1868265132]
itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com [X] <http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/rtfm/building-vmware-end-user-computing-solutions-with-vmware-view-book/> |by MikeLaverick
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/rtfm/building-vmware-end-user-computing-solutions-with-vmware-view-book/

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Introducing the VIB Author Fling - VMware vSphere Blog

I'm very excited to announce the new vibauthor fling<http://labs.vmware.com/flings/vib-author>. This fling is hot off the press and provides the capability to create custom vSphere Installation Bundles (VIBs). Prior to this fling the VIB authoring tools were only available to VMware partners, this fling now extends this capability to everyone.

There are a couple of use cases for creating custom VIBs. For example, if you are using Auto Deploy and you need to add a custom firewall rule to your host, or you need to make a configuration changes that can't be made using Host Profiles.

One word of caution however, the ability to create custom VIBs does come with some responsibility. If you plan to create your own VIBs here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. VIBs provided by VMware and trusted partners are digitally signed, these digital signatures ensure the integrity of the VIB. Custom VIBs are not digitally signed. Be careful when adding unsigned VIBs to you ESXi hosts as you have no way of vouching for the integrity of the software being installed.
2. Before adding a custom VIB you will need to set your host's acceptance level to "Community Supported". When running at the community supported acceptance level it's important to understand that VMware support may ask you to remove any custom VIBs. Here's the formal disclaimer:

"IMPORTANT If you add a Community Supported VIB to an ESXi host, you must first change the host's acceptance level to Community Supported. If you encounter problems with an ESXi host that is at the CommunitySupported acceptance level, VMware Support might ask you to remove the custom VIB, as outlined in the support policies:"



If you are not familiar with VIBs I recommend you start with a quick review of this blog: http://blogs.vmware.com/esxi/2011/09/whats-in-a-vib.html

With that, I know several folks have been chomping at the bit to create their own custom VIBs so I've attached a short tutorial that shows how to use the vibauthor tool to create a VIB to add a custom firewall rule.

Enjoy!

vibauthor-how-to-v0.1<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/vibauthor-how-to-v0.1.docx>

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/introducing-the-vib-author-fling.html> |by Kyle Gleed on September 28, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/introducing-the-vib-author-fling.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

What’s New with VMware vCloud Director 5.1 - Snapshots, Storage Profiles and the Elastic vDC

VMware vCloud Director<http://www.vmware.com/products/vcloud-director/overview.html> orchestrates the provisioning of software-defned datacenter services, to deliver complete virtual datacenters for easy consumption in minutes. Software-defned datacenter services and virtual datacenters fundamentally simplify infrastructure provisioning and enable IT to move at the speed of business.

Numerous enhancements are included within vCloud Director 5.1, making it the best infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution in the marketplace today. This document highlights some of these key enhancements and is targeted toward users who are familiar with previous vCloud Director releases.

This presentation will show you what has changed in: Snapshots, Storage Profiles and the Elastic vDC.

Technical White Paper - What's New with VMware vCloud Director 5.1<http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2107-Technical-White-Paper-Whats-New-with-VMware-vCloud-Director-5.1.html>

feedproxy.google.com [X] <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/AGr61RWRYA4/2160-Whats-New-with-VMware-vCloud-Director-5.1-Snapshots,-Storage-Profiles-and-the-Elastic-vDC.html>
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/AGr61RWRYA4/2160-Whats-New-with-VMware-vCloud-Director-5.1-Snapshots,-Storage-Profiles-and-the-Elastic-vDC.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

VMware Posters - VMware vSphere Blog

This page is dedicated to the VMware posters which were created by Technical Marketing and have been released at VMworld and VMUGs around the world, this is a central place to find the latest versions of the PDF versions which can be used for reference or printed off as needed.
VMware ESXi 5.1 Reference Poster

Click here to download the PDF<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/ESXi-5.1-Poster.pdf>.

[ESXi Poster]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/ESXi-5.1-Poster.pdf>

VMware Management with PowerCLI 5.1 Poster

Click here to download the PDF.<http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/files/2012/09/PowerCLI_5_1_Poster.pdf>

[PowerCLI Poster]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/files/2012/09/PowerCLI_5_1_Poster.pdf>

VMware vCloud Networking Poster

Click here to download the PDF.<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/VMW-vCloud-Networking-Poster2.pdf>

[VMware vCloud Networking]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/VMW-vCloud-Networking-Poster2.pdf>

VMware Hands-On Labs 2012 Poster

Click here to download the PDF.<http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/2110117-95116/HOL_2012_Labs-Reference.pdf>

[Hands-On Labs Poster]<http://communities.vmware.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/2110117-95116/HOL_2012_Labs-Reference.pdf>

VMware vCloud SDKs Poster (1.0 – Out of date)

Click here to download the PDF.<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/Final-vCloudApi_34x22-020111.pdf>

[vCloud SDK Poster]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/Final-vCloudApi_34x22-020111.pdf>

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/vmware-posters.html> |by Alan Renouf on September 11, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/vmware-posters.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Free self-paced training - vSphere What’s New [V5.1]

The VMware vSphere - What's New [V5.1] course is designed for SEs (VMware/Partner) and customers who want to learn about the new features and components available in VMware vSphere 5.1. This training course explores new features in VMware vCenter Server 5.1 and VMware ESXi 5.1. By the end of the course, you should gain an understanding and should be able to implement the following new functions and features of VMware vSphere 5.1:

Compute and Storage

* Support for hardware version 9, the latest CPU performance counters and virtual shared graphics acceleration designed for enhanced performance.
* For better space efficiency vSphere supports storage space reclamation for VDI.

Network

* Support for VXLAN
* Enhanced vSphere Distributed Switch that supports:
* Network health check
* Backup and restore
* Rollback and recovery
* Link Aggregation Control Protocol support
* Single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV)

Availability

* VMware vSphere vMotion® without the need for shared storage configurations.
* VMware vSphere Data Protection for simple and cost effective backup and recovery,
* vSphere Replication enables efficient array-agnostic replication of virtual machine data over the LAN or WAN.

VMware vCenter Enhancements:

* vSphere Web Client
* vCenter Single Sign-On
* VSA enhancements
* Support for Additional Disk Drives
* Increase Storage Capacity Online
* vCenter running on the VSA Cluster

• Security: Inclusion VMware vShield Endpoint to eliminate the agent footprint from the virtual machines, offload intelligence to a security virtual appliance, and run scans with minimal impact.

• Automation: Two new methods for deploying new vSphere hosts to an environment make the Auto Deploy process more highly available than ever before.

http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/courses.cfm?ui=www_edu&a=det&id_course=149391<http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/courses.cfm?ui=www_edu&a=det&id_course=149391>

feedproxy.google.com [X] <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/_aUyc6B8LT8/2153-Free-self-paced-training-vSphere-Whats-New-V5.1.html>
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/_aUyc6B8LT8/2153-Free-self-paced-training-vSphere-Whats-New-V5.1.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

vSphere Replication 5.1 and Site Recovery Manager 5.1 Now Available! - VMware vSphere Blog

Make sure you read the release notes, as always, but head on over to the download pages and pick up a copy!
vSphere Replication

* Release Notes <http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-replication-51-release-notes.html>
* Download<https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/5_1>

Site Recovery Manager

* Release Notes<http://www.vmware.com/support/srm/srm-releasenotes-5-1-0.html>
* Download<https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/infrastructure_operations_management/vmware_vcenter_site_recovery_manager/5_1>

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/vsphere-replication-5-1-and-site-recovery-manager-5-1-now-available.html> |by Ken Werneburg on September 11, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/vsphere-replication-5-1-and-site-recovery-manager-5-1-now-available.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

What’s New in vSphere 5.1 – Networking - VMware vSphere Blog

With the release of VMware vSphere 5.1, VMware brings a number of powerful new features and enhancements to the networking capabilities in the VMware vSphere platform. The following diagram provides a list of new features in different categories[http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/vSphere5.1-newFeatures.jpg]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/vSphere5.1-newFeatures.jpg>

The main thing I would like to highlight is that the operational improvements in VDS will help customers to go away from the hybrid virtual switch design approach, where management traffic is carried on vSphere Standard Switch (VSS) and all other traffic flows through vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS). The Rollback and Recovery and Configuration Backup and Restore features address some of the operational concerns customers had about VDS and thus simplifies the virtual network operational aspects. Going forward with vSphere 5.1 all things on VDS is the way to go !

For more details about all the new features please take a look at the What's New paper here<http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/Whats-New-VMware-vSphere-51-Network-Technical-Whitepaper.pdf>. In the coming weeks, I will dive down into each feature and provide more technical details. So please stay tuned.





Get notification of these blogs postings by following me on Twitter: @VMWNetworking

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/whats-new-in-vsphere-5-1-networking.html> |by Venky on September 11, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/whats-new-in-vsphere-5-1-networking.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

VMware vCloud Networking Poster - VMware vSphere Blog

During VMworld 2012 (US) we released a brand new networking poster. This poster is a reference to all things related to vSphere Standard Switch (VSS), vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS), and Virtual Extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN) technology. It provides you information on the different components, terminologies and parameters of VSS, VDS, and VXLAN. It also explains the advanced features of VDS and discusses some best practices. You can download the pdf of this poster here<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/VMW-vCloud-Networking-Poster2.pdf>

[http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/Networking-Poster.jpg]<http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/files/2012/09/Networking-Poster.jpg>

I hope you like it. As always, I would love to hear your feedback.

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/vmware-vcloud-networking-poster.html> |by Vyenkatesh (Venky) Deshpande on September 11, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/vmware-vcloud-networking-poster.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

VMWorld 2012 Updates

As many of you following the VMWorld updates might have read already the new licensing policy of VMWare vSphere software was released. Actually, this puts into place a whole new licensing structure and product capabilities at play and essentially can't be called a 'rollback' of the previous vRam licensing model.

The reason I can't call the licensing policy as 'rollback' yet is because VMWare plans to continue offering some of the current licensing to those who need it (not for new customers). Secondly, in a lot of organizations that were using the per VM licensing will continue to be able to buy per VM licenses. So essentially, it's not like dump everything and go to the new licensing model. Atleast this is how VMWare declared it at VMWorld.

So what changes - VMWare introduced the new vCloud suite that has Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise versions. Those customers who do not want to adopt the new vCloud suite yet can continue to purchase vSphere licenses for the bundles they were running but now there are 3 options to choose from - Standard, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus.

The following link highlights what customers will be entitled to run as part of the conversion program to go to the new licensing model. This is being called as the Fair Value Conversion -   

http://www.vmware.com/support/support-resources/licensing/vcloud-suite-fair-value-conversion/overview.html

To make it a bit easier to understand for those planning to upgrade to the vCloud suite - customers running the Enterprise Plus suite automatically land on the vCloud Standard edition. Most important - do not forget to use your elloquent words and skillful mastery to receive additional discounts on VMWare licensing (atleast when you are switching to the new licensing). Give our friendly VMWare reps - Rob and Scott a round of applause :-)

Besides the change in the way that future VMWare products will be licensed, what changes is how VMWare views the add-on products. Things like Configuration Manager, Chargeback and so on are now available as part of the suite of products. Even SRM licensing changes from VM to Processor based so that's a big benefit to large organizations.

On the other days of VMWorld I sat down for one on one discussions with 3 vExperts - Alan Renouf (Power CLI), Suzy Vishvanathan (vStorage and VVOL's), and John (VMWare View). This was something new that was introduced this time and the one on one discussions were very insightful. I asked questions relevant to my interest and it would not be worth putting them all out here. I can talk with anyone directly who is interested to learn more.

One thing that saw a lot of attention was VMWare's integration with the Storage Arrays through the use of VASA, VAAI, and VADP.

For those that do not know VASA - vStorage API's for Storage Awareness, VAAI is vSphere API for array integration and VADP is vSphere API for Data Protection.

VASA enables vCenter to see the capabilities of the storage array like RAID provisioning, LUN types, replication mechanisms and state. VMWare is leveraging this API to lead it towards Profile Driven Storage. Profile driven storage focusses on template like profiles that allow automated provisioning, storage migrations etc.

VAAI - It was actually released in v4.1 but with limited capabilities. With vSphere 5.1 it has been opened up significantly to take advantage of the array integration functionality. It allows Block Zero (faster zeroing of eager zero disk), Full Copy (clone or vMotion at array level) and Hardware Assisted Locking. VAAI also offers NAS Hardware acceleration in vSphere 5.0 and such features become extremely useful for Thin Provisioning on NFS datastores. Also, in the past the disk provisioning on NAS defaulted to thin disks but now you can provision for Thick Disks as well.

The array integration API functionality can be seen through the VSI plugin that needs to be installed in vCenter. Off course, you need to read about which array models are supported and so on. However, a majority of arrays are covered by VMWare.

The session on PowerCLI was an excellent one from Alan Renouf. Many would be surprised by the power packed features of the CLI that are usually not considered. I discussed and found a tested process to run SRM failover based on a condition being met. For those of you interested to know about it here is Mike Laverick's post in the VMWare communities -

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/253736

I checked with Alan Renouf during my interaction on PowerCLI and he mentioned that the process has been successfully tested but it is not formally authorized by VMWare. So use it at your own risk :-)

The 'Meet the Experts' Q/A was housefull, Performance best practices was compelling to attend, and DRS related session opened up the eyes to something with more technical depth.

Duncan Epping had a Q/A session on a wide range of topics and that was interested. I thought that was more for him to receive feedback from end users on specific technologies of interest to him.

There was also a session on Best Practices to run MS SQL in a VMWare environment but honestly I thought it was a waste of time. The session started with a full room and halfway through the session 50% of the people had left finding it way too basic and something that did not actually follow Best Practices. So this was a very suprising session which I hope VMWare does not repeat with the same slides at Barcelona later this year.

Recordings of the VMWorld sessions are now available so take advantage by going through atleast a few of them that are of benefit to you.

Note that the next MB VMUG meeting is going to be very interesting since we will have a special speaker. Details to be made available very soon once the meeting agenda is confirmed.

vSphere 5.1 networking enhancements

There are many networking enhancement in vSphere 5.1 but I want to call out a couple specifically. The reason for this is that there have been many discussions on this blog about "hybrid VSS / VDS" environments as many were not comfortable with running everything on a VDS. Although the risks were minimal I could understand where people were coming from. So what's new in this space?

1. Management network rollback and recovery
2. VDS config backup and restore
3. Network health check

Management Network rollback / recovery says it all I guess. I for whatever reason you made changes that will result in your host not being able to connect to vCenter then this change will not be committed. Even more importantly, if you ever end up in the situation where your host is not able to connect to the network while using a VDS you can now reconfigure it through the DCUI (Network Restore Options). I played around with it, and I think it is a huge enhancement. I don't see a reason to go hybrid any longer… go full VDS!

Another often heard complaint was around export/import of the VDS config or backup/restore. With vSphere 5.1 this ability is now added. Not only can you save the VDS config and use it for new VDS's but you can of course also use this feature for backup purposes (see screenshot below). Another cool feature is that if you made a change to a portgroup that was not what you intended you can actually roll it back.

[http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8012/7650164690_04cff0af09.jpg]

Last but not least is the "Network Health Check" option. I particularly like this feature as I've been in the situation many times in the past that changes were made on a physical level and people forgot to inform me about it. This will allow you to quickly identify when things changed and that will make the discussion with your networking colleagues a lot easier. In this release three things are checked:

* VLAN
* MTU
* Network adapter teaming

These checks will be done every minute, and is done by sending probing packets on the VDS uplinks. If for whatever reason these probing packets fail it could indicate that the config of the physical components have changed. Nice right… I am not going to reveal any more secrets as I am guessing Venky will be writing some deepdive stuff soon.

In the mean while, for more details around what's new I would like to refer to the great what's new paper that Venky Deshpande wrote: What's New for Network in vSphere 5.1<http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/Whats-New-VMware-vSphere-51-Network-Technical-Whitepaper.pdf>.

yellow-bricks.com [X] <http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2012/09/06/vsphere-5-1-networking-enhancements/> |by Duncan Epping on September 6, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2012/09/06/vsphere-5-1-networking-enhancements/

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1?

VMware vSphere is the industry-leading virtualization platform and the key enabler for cloud computing architectures. vSphere enables IT to meet SLAs for the most demanding business critical applications, at the lowest TCO. vSphere accelerates the shift to cloud computing for existing datacenters, while also underpinning compatible public cloud offerings paving the way for the only hybrid cloud model. With the support of over 3,000 applications from more than 1,650 ISV partners, VMware vSphere is the most trusted platform for any application.

 

So what's new in 5.1?

• Larger virtual machines – Virtual machines can grow two times larger than in any previous release to support even the most advanced applications. Virtual machines can now have up to 64 virtual CPUs (vCPUs) and 1TB of virtual RAM (vRAM).

 

• New virtual machine format – New features in the virtual machine format (version 9) in vSphere 5.1 include support for larger virtual machines, CPU performance counters and virtual shared graphics acceleration designed for enhanced performance.

 

Storage

• Flexible, space-efficient storage for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) – A new disk format enables the correct balance between space efficiency and I/O throughput for the virtual desktop.

 

Network

• vSphere Distributed Switch – Enhancements such as Network Health Check, Configuration Backup and Restore, Roll Back and Recovery, and Link Aggregation Control Protocol support and deliver more enterprise-class networking functionality and a more robust foundation for cloud computing.

 

• Single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) support – Support for SR-IOV optimizes performance for sophisticated applications.

 

Availability

• vSphere vMotion® – Leverage the advantages of vMotion (zero-downtime migration) without the need for shared storage configurations. This new vMotion capability applies to the entire network.

 

• vSphere Data Protection – Simple and cost effective backup and recovery for virtual machines. vSphere Data Protection is a newly architected solution based EMC Avamar technology that allows admins to back up virtual machine data to disk without the need of agents and with built-in deduplication. This feature replaces the vSphere Data Recovery product available with previous releases of vSphere.

 

• vSphere Replication – vSphere Replication enables efficient array-agnostic replication of virtual machine data over the LAN or WAN. vSphere Replication simplifies management enabling replication at the virtual machine level and enables RPOs as low as 15 minutes.

 

• Zero-downtime upgrade for VMware Tools – After you upgrade to the VMware Tools available with version 5.1, no reboots will be required for subsequent VMware Tools upgrades.

 

Security

• VMware vShield Endpoint™ – Delivers a proven endpoint security solution to any workload with an approach that is simplified, efficient, and cloud-aware. vShield Endpoint enables 3rd party endpoint security solutions to eliminate the agent footprint from the virtual machines, offload intelligence to a security virtual appliance, and run scans with minimal impact.

 

Automation

• vSphere Storage DRS™ and Profile-Driven Storage – New integration with VMware vCloud® Director™ enables further storage efficiencies and automation in a private cloud environment.

 

• vSphere Auto Deploy™ – Two new methods for deploying new vSphere hosts to an environment make the Auto Deploy process more highly available then ever before. Management (with vCenter Server)

 

• vSphere Web Client –The vSphere Web Client is now the core administrative interface for vSphere. This new flexible, robust interface simplifies vSphere control through shortcut navigation, custom tagging, enhanced scalability, and the ability to manage from anywhere with Internet Explorer or Firefox-enabled devices.

 

• vCenter Single Sign-On – Dramatically simplify vSphere administration by allowing users to log in once to access all instances or layers of vCenter without the need for further authentication.

 

• vCenter Orchestrator – Orchestrator simplifies installation and configuration of the powerful workflow engine in vCenter Server. Newly designed workflows enhance ease of use, and can also be launched directly from the new vSphere Web Client.

 

For information on upgrading to vSphere 5.1, visit the vSphere Upgrade Center at:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center/overview.html.

 

vSphere is also available with the new vCloud suites from VMware.

For more information, visit http://www.vmware.com/go/vcloudsuite/.

 

VMworld TV - An in-depth demo of VMware Mirage - Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

VMworld TV - An in-depth demo of VMware Mirage - Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2132-VMworld-TV-An-in-depth-demo-of-VMware-Mirage.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ntpronl+%28Eric+Sloof+%7C+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ntpro.nl%29

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

VMworld TV - Behind the scenes at the VMware hands-on labs - Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

VMworld TV - Behind the scenes at the VMware hands-on labs - Eric Sloof

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2133-VMworld-TV-Behind-the-scenes-at-the-VMware-hands-on-labs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ntpronl+%28Eric+Sloof+%7C+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ntpro.nl%29

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Technical White Paper - What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Platform

VMware vSphere 5.1 provides many new features and enhancements that further extend the core capabilities of the VMware vSphere platform. Included among these are notable improvements in the areas of host security, logging, monitoring, and deployment; new VMware vSphere vMotion (vMotion) capabilities that enable virtual machines to be migrated between hosts and clusters with no shared storage; and support for the latest processors and guest operating systems (OS).

This paper provides an overview of the new features and capabilities being introduced with vSphere 5.1. This paper is organized into the following four sections:

vSphere Platform Enhancements

- User Access- Auditing- Monitoring- vMotion Enhancements
- Extended Guest OS and CPU Support
- Agentless Antivirus and Antimalware

Virtual Machine Enhancements

- New Virtual Machine Features- Introducing Virtual Machine Compatibility

Auto Deploy

- Stateless Caching Mode- Stateful Install Mode- Remote Logging and Dump Collection- Improved Scalability

[image]<http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/uploads/vSphere_Platform.png>

Technical White Paper - What's New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Platform.pdf<http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/uploads/WhatsNewvSphere5.1.pdf>

feedproxy.google.com [X] <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/jyo3Kfwvi3I/2110-Technical-White-Paper-Whats-New-in-VMware-vSphere-5.1-Platform.html>
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/jyo3Kfwvi3I/2110-Technical-White-Paper-Whats-New-in-VMware-vSphere-5.1-Platform.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Technical White Paper - VMware vSphere Data Protection - Eric Sloof

With VMware vSphere 5.1, VMware is releasing a new backup and recovery solution for virtual machines called vSphere Data Protection (VDP). This solution is fully integrated with VMware vCenter Server and provides agentless, disk-based backup of virtual machines to deduplicated storage.

Benefits of VDP include the following:


* It ensures fast, efficient protection for virtual machines even if they are powered off.
* It uses patented deduplication technology across all backup jobs, significantly reducing disk space consumption.
* VMware vSphere APIs – Data Protection (VADP) and Changed Block Training (CBT) are utilized to reduce load on the vSphere host and minimize backup windows requirements.
* It performs full virtual machine and File-Level Restore (FLR) without installing an agent in every virtual machine.
* Installation and configuration is simplified using an appliance form factor.
* Management is performed utilizing the VMware vSphere Web Client.
* The VDP appliance and its backups are protected using a checkpoint and rollback mechanism.
* Windows and Linux files can easily be restored by the end user without a Web browser.

This paper presents an overview of the architecture, deployment, configuration, and management of VDP.

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2108-Technical-White-Paper-VMware-vSphere-Data-Protection.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ntpronl+%28Eric+Sloof+%7C+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ntpro.nl%29

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Technical White Paper - Introduction to VMware vSphere Replication - Eric Sloof

A fundamental part of protecting IT is ensuring that the services provided by virtual machines are resilient, and robust at all levels of the compute stack, from hardware through to the application. vSphere Replication is a feature introduced with VMware vSphere 5.1. It is designed to augment the recovery capabilities of the VMware vSphere platform by providing a built-in capability to continually replicate a running virtual machine to another location.

Replication creates a copy of a virtual machine that can be stored locally within a cluster or at another site, providing a data source to rapidly restore a virtual machine within minutes. vSphere Replication augments offerings in the vSphere availability protection matrix. It provides a solution that enables recovery time better than that of restoring from backup, without introducing the complexity of a complete storage array–based replication configuration.

vSphere Replication also enables configuring replication on a per–virtual machine basis and significantly rounds out the capabilities of protection offered by vSphere. This paper will help you understand what vSphere Replication is and some of the benefits of its features. It will also discuss how it works to protect your virtual machines against failure.

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2109-Technical-White-Paper-Introduction-to-VMware-vSphere-Replication.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Enhanced vMotion with vSphere 5.1 - Eric Sloof

Enhanced vMotion allows you to combine a vMotion and Storage vMotion into a single operation. Effectivly enabling a "shared nothing" vMotion. Use cases can be found in large datacenters and SMB markets; Cross host and datastore vMotion allows VM migration between clusters in a large datacenters, which may not have a common set of datastores between them.
Cross host and datastore vMotion allows simpler setup and use of local disk, by removing the shared storage requirement, it lowers the barrier to entry for use of non-disruptive migrations and will be very useful for the SMB market.
[image]
Enhanced vMotion will count against the concurrent limitations of both vMotion and Storage vMotion. Today, one cannot perform more than 2 concurrent Storage vMotions per host. As a result, no more than 2 concurrent enhanced vMotions will be allowed.
Since these count against Storage vMotion limits, running 2 concurrent Enhanced vMotions will cause all attempted SvMotions to remain queued until one of the active Enhanced vMotions complete. Similarly, Enhanced vMotions also count against vMotion limits, at most 8 concurrent vMotions per host. If there are 2 active Enhanced vMotions, then, we will only allow at most 6 concurrent vMotions at the same time.
If there are 8 active vMotions, any new Enhanced vMotion attempts will be queued until one of the active vMotions complete. Enhanced vMotion will behave exactly the same as vMotion, with respect to support multi-NICs. Likewise, it will support either shared swap or unshared swap migrations just as vMotion does, with VM home directory movement becoming an unshared swap migration.
Enhanced vMotions are more expensive and thus that must be factored in when making migration decisions. Neither DRS and SDRS leverage Enhanced vMotion technology in 5.1. Even though neither DRS nor SDRS will recommend Enhanced vMotion migrations, users will still be able to perform manual Enhanced vMotions within or across SDRS or DRS clusters.
feedproxy.google.com [X] <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/sVDtPGgrzto/2118-Enhanced-vMotion-with-vSphere-5.1.html>
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/sVDtPGgrzto/2118-Enhanced-vMotion-with-vSphere-5.1.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

VMworld 2012: Introducing the New VMware vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1 for SMBs - VMware SMB Blog

Exciting times here at VMworld 2012 as we finally, can talk publicly about some of the product developments we have been working on in this past year. With today's announcement of VMware vSphere® 5.1 solutions to help small and midsize businesses (SMBs), we unveiled VMware vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) 5.1.

For those of you not familiar with VMware vSphere Storage Appliance, it enables you to transform the local storage within your servers into a shared storage resource that runs your virtualized applications. VSA allows you to achieve business continuity and eliminates any single point of failure within your IT environment. Let's dive into some of the new features behind today's announcement:

* Deployment on existing ESXi environments
If you have a virtualized environment already, you can still install VSA 5.1 on up to three VMware vSphere hosts. This enhancement allows our existing customers to take advantage of shared storage and enable application availability features, such as HA and vMotion, for the first time.

* Run vCenter within the VSA cluster
With VSA 1.0, an instance of vCenter Server was required to run outside the VSA cluster. Now, with this enhancement, you can install a vCenter Server instance in a VM on a local datastore within one of your VSA nodes, and then migrate the vCenter Server to shared storage. This allows you to save on deploying that extra server to run vCenter Server.

* Support for additional disk drives and increase of storage capacity online
VSA 5.1 now allows you to add more hard disk drives, including JBOD expansion. For 3TB in a RAID 6 configuration (no hot spare), you can add up to 8 disks. For 2TB drives in a RAID 6 configuration, you can add up to 12 local disks (no hot spare) and up to 16 external disks (with hot spare). As you add more hard disk drives to your VSA cluster post-deployment, you can include the additional hard disk capacity provided by increasing your storage capacity online. Remember, VSA 5.1 supports RAID 5, 6, and 10.

* Centralized management of multiple VSA clusters from one vCenter Server (AKA ROBO Support)
With VSA 5.1, multiple VSA clusters can be managed by a single instance of vCenter Server residing on a different subnet. Now, every small environment can provide shared storage to enable application availability, from SMBs to enterprises with a distributed network of branch offices.

[http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/files/2012/08/8-VMware-vSphere-Storage-Appliance-ROBO-configuration.jpg]<http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/files/2012/08/8-VMware-vSphere-Storage-Appliance-ROBO-configuration.jpg>

VSA 5.1 supports centralized management of multiple VSA clusters through one instance of vCenter Server, allowing ROBO environments to take advantage of shared storage.

If you're looking to deploy in a ROBO environment, VSA 5.1 now offers three installation and upgrade methods:

* Offline install – Configure the VSA 5.1 cluster at the main datacenter, box these servers up, and ship to the remote offices where these clusters can be added back into the main datacenter's vCenter Server.

* Unattended remote install – Upgrade an existing VSA 1.0 cluster at a remote office through the main datacenter. The bits can be sent over the wire, requiring no intervention at the remote office.

* Attended remote install – Similar to the unattended remote install/upgrade process, this method uploads the OVFs from the remote office. An IT admin at the remote office plugs in a removable storage device (e.g., USB stick) which contains the OVF.

To learn more about the other new enhancements within VSA 5.1, click here<http://www.vmware.com/go/vsa>.





By Manoj Jayadevan

I am very pleased to officially announce<http://bit.ly/Rjzn5h> the new-and-improved VMware Go Pro, another step forward in our commitment to provide simple and cost-effective solutions for growing SMBs to adopt and extend virtualization, and to improve the protection, scalability and reliability of their IT infrastructure.

[http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/files/2012/08/Easy-Virtualization-Choice-B.jpg]<http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/files/2012/08/Easy-Virtualization-Choice-B.jpg>

VMware Go Pro<http://bit.ly/Rjzg9O> is a Cloud-based virtualization deployment and management solution hosted by VMware that makes it easier and faster to virtualize, and simpler to manage and optimize a growing infrastructure across virtual and physical machines and software. Cloud-based delivery ensures an "anytime anywhere" IT management solution since all that a user needs is an Internet connection and a web browser to manage and monitor his entire IT infrastructure. Now with an even more streamlined look and feel, IT admins can start managing their virtual infrastructure right away and easily migrate to other VMware tools like the versatile vSphere Client. The terminology, concepts, even icons are consistent – VMware Go Pro just makes it all simpler and easier to understand.

With VMware Go Pro, we are uniquely positioned to deliver exceptional value to our customers and partners by simplifying virtualization and IT for SMBs. The new release further helps our customers keep up with the growth of their virtualized infrastructure by enabling the deployment of VMware vCenter for centralized management.



Here are the top 3 benefits VMware Go Pro offers:

Simplified Virtualization for SMBs
The common barriers to virtualization are lack of expertise and initial upfront costs. VMware Go Pro is an affordable subscription based solution delivered over the cloud. Its step-by-step wizards guide novices and experienced virtualization administrators alike through deploying and managing virtualization. And the web-based interface allows virtual and physical infrastructure management with anytime, anywhere access. With this new release, users will now be able to deploy VMware vCenter via a web browser for centralized management of their virtualized infrastructure. Even IT generalists can get started with virtualization in 30 minutes or less.

Enhanced Uptime and Reliability
VMware Go Pro's unified IT management console has built-in monitoring capabilities with unique, one-click IT assessments that automatically identify performance, security and downtime risks and make tailored recommendations to address them. The new release of VMware Go Pro uses the addition of VMware vCenter to improve uptime and reliability even further by enabling round-the-clock monitoring of your virtual infrastructure's health. Now customers will know of any potential issues even when they are not logged-into Go Pro.

Comprehensive Infrastructure Protection
VMware Go Pro offers automated patch management across physical and virtual machines for both Microsoft and third-party applications to ensure that organizations are up-to-date with all of the latest software upgrades, thus mitigating the organization's vulnerability to the latest IT threats. An integrated Help Desk with built-in analytics also helps improve IT productivity and service, automatically prioritizing issues by level of severity. Go Pro also offers a rich asset management capability, which provides control over all software and hardware assets.



Looking forward in 2013, users will also be able to implement and test business continuity plans in minutes with cloud-based VM backup and disaster recovery.

I invite you take the VMware Go Pro for a test drive and discover for yourself the power of virtualization and the simplification of IT.

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/2012/08/newvsa_smb.html> |by VMware SMB on August 27, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/2012/08/newvsa_smb.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

VMworld 2012: VM Granular storagewhat were working on

I hinted at this last year for VMworld 2011… This concept – tentatively called "VM Granular Storage" is a real twist, and has immense potential. It won't materialize in any significant way for some time to come – so it's more about airing out the idea, sharing what VMware and EMC (and the broader storage community too) are thinking.

I was sworn to secrecy (this was an NDA-only topic), but VMware is opening up on the topic a bit more…

Duncan blogged about it here:http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2012/08/07/vmware-vstorage-apis-for-vm-and-application-granular-data-management/

And, you can watch VSP3205 from VMworld 2011 for the key concepts here:

Since VMware has outed it a little more – I've made a YouTube video EMC made in 2011 that shows these concepts in more detail (EMC made it to help when Vinay and Satyam were producing the content for VSP3205 – and you can see bits of it in that session) also public here:

To understand what this idea means, and also some of the other use cases we're showing at VMworld 2012 read on!

What is VM Granular Storage all about?

* The "Datastore" is a clumsy concept in the world of virtualization. It means that the storage hardware layer can only apply policy at that level rather than the more natural level – which is a Virtual Machine, or grouping of Virtual Machines. All the things that do "VM-level" operations today are good (examples include the VM-level visibility in EMC Unisphere or the new VAAI NFS Fast Copy supported by EMC VNX and Isilon), but fundamentally a little bit of a hack. The storage subsystem – even when it's NAS doesn't really KNOW that a given file or set of blocks is a Virtual Machine, and there is no API to communicate that policy to the storage.
* The management model of storage is… off. Don't get me wrong, we're all working to make this more integrated, easier, more automated – but man, managing multipathing and configuration of datastores at scale is kind of sucky. Ideally – the management complexity wouldn't be linked to the number of VMs and Datastores.
* The current storage policy layer (SDRS/SIOC) and policy communication vehicle (VASA) and hardware acceleration (VAAI) are a step in the right direction, but insufficient. If you think of it, these are all modelled around the datastore, and necessitate all sorts of "place and move" logic that if the storage could respond and adapt to changing policy requests at the VM level of granularity – you would be able to do it all much more efficiently.
* It would need to be able to work on all sorts of different storage models – from Block, NAS – anything transactional (Object storage models would implement VM granularity easily, but tend to be bad for transactional workloads) – and would need to be something people and partners could "step into". This is an important idea. I've said it before, and I bet I will say it again – people underestimate the impact of "persistence" into storage innovation. Since data persists on storage (as opposed to memory state, or contents of CPU registers, or network buffers which are all transient) – it means that storage hardening is tough. It also means that migrations are hard. These are all things that all the storage vendors live and die by – and it means that "cut-over disruptions", or things that completely invalidate mature stacks in a single step typically struggle. So… VM Granular Storage would need to be an idea the storage community would need to be able to step into.

The concepts VM Granular Storage introduces – IO Demultiplexers (both block and NAS), Virtual Volumes (vVols – another shorthand for the concepts of VM Granular Storage), Capacity Pools are all new ideas. Watch the videos to get the idea. The names are ones only an engineer could like :-) I personally hate the "Capacity Pool" one the most – it's actually a IO/GB/Policy pool. It turns the idea of LUNs/Filesystems on it's head – and says "hey, storage admin, carve the infrastructure into pools that can deliver a pool of IOps, a pool of capacity, and various capabilities from snaps, dedupe, encryption, whatever.

BTW – SDRS, VASA, VAAI are all ideas that are "versioning" us to this future state. SDRS will be the policy control later. VASA today describes datastores, but ultimately will communicate the capabilities of Capacity Pools. VAAI of today will turn into the vVol-level VAAI operations of tomorrow.

This topic can also be considered part of "Software Defined Storage" in the "Software Defined Datacenter" vision – it's only missing the analagous idea of decoupling the control plane from the infrastructure and running that in software on commodity via an open API model (ala OpenFlow) – and yes, we're working on that too.

Now – everyone starts thinking about this in terms of primary VM storage attributes today…but it could enable more.

Not only could this make performance/availbility policy on a per-VM basis, but also could integrate with other things too. Wondering how we might be able to do EMC VPLEX Geo on a per-VM basis? Wondering how we could auto-configure things like HA, Host Affinity by the storage layer communicating whether this VM can be stretched between places? You can see how this might start to work. We're aiming to show this at VMworld 2012 in Barcelona (hinges on getting the latest engineering drop of code over the next couple of weeks).

Another thing it could be used for would be to integrate and offload VM-level activities across integrated use cases. This is the example we showed at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco this week. Please bear in mind – this is pure technology preview – but pretty darn cool if you ask me! Thanks to Chris Horn and others in the EMC BRS team for helping pull this together.

This example shows:

1. vSphere Data Protection (jointly developed and leveraging EMC Avamar technologies) asking to take a backup. This process requires a VM-level snap as part of the process.
2. The storage used is an EMC VNXe – which is running prototype code that supports this VM Granular Storage (note how nicely this is integrated in the Unisphere build – you can see the progress made since 2011)
3. The VM lives on a "Capacity Pool" and in a "Virtual Volume" with a set of data services, including VM-accelerated snaps.
4. the engineering build of vSphere uses a VM Granular Storage API call to ask for a Virtual-Volume level snapshot, which is used, accelerates the backup

Check it out below:

You can download the demo in high-rez MP4 format<https://vspecialist.emc.com/human.aspx?Username=Bloglink&Password=vgeekb1og&arg01=832744847&arg05=0/[DownloadAs_Filename]&arg12=downloaddirect&transaction=signon&quiet=true> and WMV format<https://vspecialist.emc.com/human.aspx?Username=Bloglink&Password=vgeekb1og&arg01=832723617&arg05=0/[DownloadAs_Filename]&arg12=downloaddirect&transaction=signon&quiet=true>.

The whole thing is, in effect, invisible – but that's good. IMO, this highlights how infrastructure will innovate around the changes that the Software Defined Datacenter will drive, and the things that will be of value in the future. Remember that we can hack at it today on VNX and Isilon, and do management integration – but all storage operating at this VM-level is a big change demanding a lot of engineering.

BTW – this concept of VM-granular storage is something we're fully invested in (as you can judge for yourself – look at the demos we have done in 2011 and now) – I can say that for VMAX, VNX, Isilon, XtremeIO, BRS – heck pretty well everything, it's something where VMware and EMC are working very, VERY closely together.

What do you think? Are we off our rockers?

feedproxy.google.com [X] <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/dsAV/~3/Q8AjzyedT7U/vmworld-2012-vm-granular-storagewhat-were-working-on.html>
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/dsAV/~3/Q8AjzyedT7U/vmworld-2012-vm-granular-storagewhat-were-working-on.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

Setting the record straight on VMware vSphere Data Protection - VMware vSphere Blog

There has been a fair amount of unsubstantiated speculation and noise around the new VMware virtual machine backup and recovery solution called vSphere Data Protection (VDP). Some of the most inaccurate statements I have read about were along the lines of – and I am paraphrasing – "EMC embeds its storage technology in vSphere" or "VDP is EMC Avamar Virtual Edition". I thought it might be good to take a few moments and set the record straight by providing more context as to why VMware introduced VDP, what it is and what use cases it serves.

Let's first talk about why VMware is replacing VMware Data Recovery (VDR) with VDP. VDR was a first generation solution for the rapidly growing backup market that was first bundled with vSphere 4, and experienced rapid adoption by VMware customers. However, in the constant effort to deliver more value to customers, VMware has been actively working on improving data protection and disaster recovery with enhanced backup and replication solutions. This led VMware to introduce a new, more robust product in the form of VDP. To maximize customer value, VMware decided to collaborate with the EMC Avamar team who has world-class industry leading expertise in backup and recovery technology to build the underlying foundation for VDP.

Just like VDR, VDP is ideally suited to protect small environments with enterprise-class backup and de-duplication technology. VDP scales to up to 2TB of de-duplicated storage or 100 VMs and leverages a variable-length de-duplication algorithm to deliver de-duplication rates of as much as 99%. VDP is easy to use and is managed directly from the vSphere Web Client, allowing administrators to quickly setup their backup policies and manage backups from a single pane of glass along with their entire virtual infrastructure.

Now on to the hot question at hand: Is VDP a "re-packaged" version of Avamar Virtual Edition (AVE)? The answer is no. VDP is an entirely new VMware product co-developed by VMware and EMC. It was designed specifically to be integrated with vSphere and packaged with vSphere 5.1 (Essentials Plus and above). VDP does leverage Avamar technology "under the hood" to provide a robust and mature solution, but it is an entirely different product from AVE. VDP is only sold as a VMware product, available in the vSphere platform, and is not sold by EMC.

It is important to highlight that VMware continues to foster innovation in the backup space for the virtual environments market, supporting a broad partner ecosystem. VMware is fully committed to continuing investment in the vSphere Storage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) to enable seamless integration of third-party backup and recovery with VMware vSphere.

So there you have it. VDP replaces functionality of VDR with new robust features and is geared toward protecting small environments. It may not have some of the elements found in other backup and recovery solutions in the enterprise market today, but keep in mind it is bundled with most editions of vSphere 5.1 – i.e. you did not have to pay extra for it. Please give VDP a try and let us know what you think.

@jhuntervmware

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/08/setting-the-record-straight-on-vmware-vsphere-data-protection.html> |by Jeff Hunter on August 27, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/08/setting-the-record-straight-on-vmware-vsphere-data-protection.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

vSphere 5.1 New Storage Features - VMware vSphere Blog

vSphere 5.1 is upon us. The following is a list of the major storage enhancements introduced with the vSphere 5.1 release.
VMFS File Sharing Limits

In previous versions of vSphere, the maximum number of hosts which could share a read-only file on a VMFS volume was 8. The primary use case for multiple hosts sharing read-only files is of course linked clones, where linked clones located on separate hosts all shared the same base disk image. In vSphere 5.1, with the introduction of a new locking mechanism, the number of hosts which can share a read-only file on a VMFS volume has been increased to 32. This makes VMFS as scalable as NFS for VDI deployments & vCloud Director deployments which use linked clones.

Space Efficient Sparse Virtual Disks

A new Space Efficient Sparse Virtual Disk aims to address certain limitations with Virtual Disks. The first of these is the ability to reclaim stale or stranded data in the Guest OS filesystem/database. SE Sparse Disks introduces an automated mechanism for reclaiming stranded space. The other feature is a dynamic block allocation unit size. SE Sparse disks have a new configurable block allocation size which can be tuned to the recommendations of the storage arrays vendor, or indeed the applications running inside of the Guest OS. VMware View is the only product that will use the new SE Sparse Disk in vSphere 5.1.

vSphere Storage APIs – Array Integration

vSphere 5.0 introduced the offloading of snapshots to the storage array for VMware View via the VAAI NAS primitive 'Fast File Clone'. vSphere 5.1 will allow VAAI NAS based snapshots to be used for vCloud Director in addition to being used for VMware View, enabling the use of hardware/native snapshots for linked clones.

5 Node MSCS Cluster

Historically, VMware only ever supported 2 Node MSCS Clusters. With vSphere 5.1, we are extending this to 5 nodes.

All Paths Down Enhancements

In vSphere 5.1, the objective is to handle the next set of APD use cases involving more complex transient APD conditions. This involves timing out I/O on devices that enter into an APD state. When the timer expires, any I/O sent to the device will be immediately 'fast failed' meaning that we do not tie up hostd waiting for I/O. Another enhancement is introducing PDL for some of those iSCSI arrays which present one LUN per target. This was problematic in the past since an APD removed the target as well as the LUN. We are now addressing this scenario.

Storage Protocol Enhancements

FCoE: The Boot from Software FCoE feature is very similar to Boot from Software iSCSI feature which VMware introduced in ESXi 4.1. It allows an ESXi 5.1 host to boot from an FCoE LUN using a NIC with special FCoE offload capabilities and VMware's software FCoE driver.

iSCSI: We are adding jumbo frame support for all iSCSI adapters in vSphere 5.1, complete with UI support.

Fibre Channel: VMware introduced support for 16Gb FC HBA with vSphere 5.0. However the 16Gb HBA had to be set to work at 8GB. vSphere 5.1 introduces support for 16GB FC HBAs running at 16Gb.

Advanced IO Device Management (IODM) & SSD Monitoring

IODM introduces new esxcli commands to help administrators troubleshoot issues with I/O devices and fabric. This covers Fibre Channel, FCoE, iSCSI, SAS Protocol Statistics and SMART attributes. For SSD monitoring, a new smartd module in ESXi 5.1 will be used to provide Wear Leveling and other SMART details for SAS and SATA SSD. Disk vendors also have the ability to install their own SSD plugins to display vendor specific SSD info.

Storage I/O Control Enhancements

The latency thresholds for the SIOC can now be automatically set. The benefit is that SIOC now figures out the best latency threshold for a datastore as opposed to using a default/user selection for latency threshold. SIOC is now also turned on in 'stats only mode' automatically. It doesn't enforce throttling but does gather more granular statistics about the datastore. Storage DRS can leverage this as it will now have statistics in advance of a datastore being added to a datastore cluster.

Storage DRS Enhancements

vCloud Director will use Storage DRS for the initial placement of linked clones during Fast Provisioning & for managing space utilization and I/O load balancing. Storage DRS also introduces a new datastore correlation detector which means that if a source and destination datastores are backed by the same physical spindles, Storage DRS won't consider it for migration. Storage DRS also has a new metric (VMobservedLatency) for I/O latency which will be used for more granular I/O load balancing.

Storage vMotion Enhancements

In vSphere 5.1 Storage vMotion performs up to 4 parallel disk migrations per Storage vMotion operation.

That completes the list of storage enhancements in vSphere 5.1. Obviously this is only a brief overview of each of the new features. I will be elaborating on all of these new features over the coming weeks and months.

Get notification of these blogs postings and more VMware Storage information by following me on Twitter: [Twitter] <http://twitter.com/#%21/VMwareStorage> @VMwareStorage<http://twitter.com/#%21/vmwarestorage>

blogs.vmware.com [X] <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/08/vsphere-5-1-new-storage-features-2.html> |by Cormac Hogan on August 28, 2012
◆
________________________________

Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/08/vsphere-5-1-new-storage-features-2.html

Sent from Feeddler RSS Reader

VMworld 2012: vCenter Operations, EMC Storage Analytics, and more

At EMC World – we previewed the deep vCenter Operations integration with a VNX Connector that would deliver unparalleled storage visilibility and analytics into health and performance. That is now GA and included with vCenter Operations!

Furthermore – VMware and EMC want to bring this capability to more people. The EMC Storage Analytics Suite is based on a customized version of the latest vCenter Operation with that same VNX Connector. This is available now in an early customer access program, with a GA target in Q4.

I don't know how to say this politically, so I'll just come out and say it: it's priced to have nearly a 100% attach rate when a customer chooses VNX. And, if customers conclude they want everything – the full version of vCenter Operations Enterprise edition is a simple step up.

To understand more (and see in action) what you get from all this vCenter Operations + EMC goodness… Read on!

The abilities you get in this are awesome – and the VNX connector is more than just a bunch of basic integration. The VNX connector has a whole set of internal logic that helps in the analytics and relationships of components. You can dive deep (seeing individual VNX component stats) – and each level has nice unique icons and other visual representation – which is nice. Check out the demo below:

You can download the high-rez version of this demo here in MP4 format<https://vspecialist.emc.com/human.aspx?Username=Bloglink&Password=vgeekb1og&arg01=%20832546311&arg05=0/[DownloadAs_Filename]&arg12=downloaddirect&transaction=signon&quiet=true> and WMV format<https://vspecialist.emc.com/human.aspx?Username=Bloglink&Password=vgeekb1og&arg01=%20832545394&arg05=0/[DownloadAs_Filename]&arg12=downloaddirect&transaction=signon&quiet=true>.

Beyond the VNX Connector (which is official, supported, tested, QA'ed, etc), the incredible innovation machine that is the duo of vSpecialists Clint Kitson and Matt Cowger have whipped up other vCOPS integration. These are (for now), in the category of "fast and dirty" – and therefore not supported, but you can see the pattern. These vCOPs integrations include:

* with EMC Watch4Net – that broadens the reporting capabilities of vCOPS, along with the number of supported devices, including Vblocks.
* Support for other EMC Platforms (Isilon, VMAX, Data Domain, Avamar, etc).
* … Even a dashboard and connectors for the relatively cool use case of a stretched vSphere Cluster (vMSC) using EMC VPLEX.

That last one I showed in the session on stretched clusters that Vaughn Stewart and I co-presented (BCO2982). I particularly dig that this leverages the VNX connector when you get down to the infrastructure behind the VPLEX! Check it out below:

You can download the high-rez version of this demo here in MP4 format<https://vspecialist.emc.com/human.aspx?Username=Bloglink&Password=vgeekb1og&arg01=%20832348708&arg05=0/[DownloadAs_Filename]&arg12=downloaddirect&transaction=signon&quiet=true> and WMV format<https://vspecialist.emc.com/human.aspx?Username=Bloglink&Password=vgeekb1og&arg01=%20832366388&arg05=0/[DownloadAs_Filename]&arg12=downloaddirect&transaction=signon&quiet=true>.

What do you think – cool, or what?

________________________________

Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/dsAV/~3/G7t_MtzLsCY/vmworld-2012-vcenter-operations-emc-storage-analytics-and-more.html