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

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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

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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>

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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

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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

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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.
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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
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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?

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

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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?

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

SRM 5.1 and vSphere Replication as a Standalone Feature - VMware vSphere Blog

Today at VMworld we announced a bunch of very exciting technologies, for this article I'll be talking first about Site Recovery Manager 5.1, and then about vSphere Replication as a standalone feature of the vSphere platform.

Protection of your systems is a critical aspect of running a virtual infrastructure, and with these announcements (and that of vSphere Data Protection) we've really rounded out the business continuity functions of vSphere.

Site Recovery Manager 5.1

This is a fairly small release with some great features that continue to deliver on the changes we introduced with 5.0. At a high level, the changes are:

* Improved VSS integration for quiescent applications with vSphere Replication
* Improved storage handling for quicker and more consistent responsiveness and behaviour
* Forced recovery with vSphere Replication
* Reprotect and fallback with vSphere Replication
* A move to a 64 bit process
* Support for Essentials Plus environments.

Now a little more detail about a few of these items.

VSS

VMware Tools has the ability to issue commands to the operating system such as to set up VSS snapshots. With 5.1 we have the ability to do a little more than we have in the past, and ask the OS to flush application writers as well as make the OS itself quiescent. This means for things like databases, messaging platforms, and other applications that have VSS writers, we can ensure a higher level of application recoverability. When using vSphere Replication we can flush all the writers for the apps and the OS ensuring data consistency for the image used for recovery.

It's completely transparent to the OS, and a simple drop down that is chosen when setting up replication for a Windows VM.

Forced Recovery

In SRM 5.0.1 we introduced the forced failover ability: If your primary site is down or responding inconsistently sometimes we might have timeouts and errors waiting for results. This option for failover ensures that only recovery-side operations take place, and we don't timeout waiting for commands to return from the protected site. This was, at the time, only possible to use with array replication. With 5.1 it is now supported for vSphere Replication as well.

Reprotect and Failback

We can now, after failing over, simply click the "reprotect" button and the environment that has moved to the secondary site will be fully protected back to the original site, irrespective of type of replication you're using. Reprotect for vSphere Replication is fantastic – it'll use the existing policies of replication, protection groups, do a full sync back to the primary, and you are then ready to recover or migrate back to the primary location!

Essentials Plus support

One of the most numerous requests we've received over the years is to make SRM more accessible to the small and midsize business market. This step to make SRM compatible with Essentials Plus makes disaster recovery more accessible than ever for the SMB customers who have as much need for business continuity as every other customer!

Now on to vSphere Replication

vSphere Replication was introduced with SRM 5.0 as a means of protecting VM data using our in-hypervisor software based replication. It was part of SRM 5.0, and continues to be, carrying forward, but now we are offering the ability to use this technology in a new fashion.

Today's announcement about vSphere Replication is a big one: We have decoupled it from SRM and released it as an available feature of every vSphere license from Essentials Plus through Enterprise Plus.

Every customer can now protect their environment, using vSphere Replication as a fundamental feature of the protection of your environment, just like HA.

VR does not include all the orchestration, testing, reporting and enterprise-class DR functions of SRM, but allows for individual VM protection and recovery within or across clusters. For many customers this type of protection is critical and has been difficult to attain short of buying into a full multisite DR solution with SRM. Now most of our customers can take advantage of virtual machine protection and recovery with vSphere Replication.

Check out an introduction to vSphere Replication at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/Introduction-to-vSphere-Replication.pdf

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Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/08/srm-5-1-and-vsphere-replication-as-a-standalone-feature.html

VMworld 2012 Hands on Labs Online - Eric Sloof

The VMware Hands on Labs Online Beta will go live after VMworld US, you can register for the public beta and Join the hands-on labs community. The VMware Hands-on Labs Online - Public Beta gives you access to Hands-on Labs developed by VMware, their partners and community members.
VMware will be opening their Public Beta for:


* Hands-on Labs in your browser – Explore the latest VMware products at your fingertip
* Access to the Public Beta platform using the latest VMware Cloud Infrastructure products
* If you would like to test out VMware's new portal please register to be on the list.

The Hands-on Labs Online portal will enter the Public Beta stage shortly and will steadily add users following VMworld. VMware is looking for brave volunteers to take labs, exercise the user interface and share your experiences.

VMworld 2012 Hands on Labs Overview<http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-20212>
VMware Hands on Labs Online – Beta<https://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/hands-on-labs-beta.html>

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Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/klJuIp8iRFY/2117-VMworld-2012-Hands-on-Labs-Online.html

Can’t make it to VMworld this year? Sign-up for VMware NOW - Eric Sloof

Do you want to hear breaking VMware news as it happens? , a digital experience where you can watch a live stream of the Keynotes and then dive into the new demos and details. Live on August 27. Sign up >

[image]
Please join VMware on August 27 for important announcements about VMware's cloud strategy and solutions. VMware NOW is THE digital experience that helps you explore how to transform your cloud infrastructure, with on-demand access to keynotes, new product overviews, demos and more.

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Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/TurpAuUQgQw/2115-Cant-make-it-to-VMworld-this-year-Sign-up-for-VMware-NOW.html

Cool Tool - USB Network Gate

USB Network Gate<http://www.net-usb.com/> is a solution which allows sharing any number of USB ports and devices on your computer over LAN/WAN/VLAN/VPN/Internet. Remote virtual machines can connect to your computer (server) and communicate with USB devices, plugged into shared remote ports, as if those devices were connected directly to virtual machines. All applications that work with remote USB devices won't see the difference and will treat them as local ones.As USB Network Gate for Windows/Linux shares USB ports, not devices themselves, you can plug any USB device into shared USB port, then unplug this device and plug in another one, and it will automatically appear at the remote virtual machine without any additional configuration.

Currently, 3 versions of the product are available: for Windows, Linux and Mac. Different combinations of server-client model can be applied, for example, client may have USB Network Gate installed on Linux, and server - on Windows, or vice versa.
[image]With USB Network Gate for Windows/Linux you can:


* Share USB devices on the local PC (server) so that they become available for usage on the remote PC (client)
* Share any number of USB devices
* Freely unplug USB device and plug in another one into shared USB port on the server - the device will automatically appear on the client
* Give custom names to your USB devices (label them) to let clients easily identify them
* Create callback connection (connection with a client initiated from the server side) - OEM License
* Set authorization password and enable traffic encryption
* Change traffic encryption, authorization settings and custom names on the go for already shared devices (Linux version)
* Disable current connection from the server side
* Access remote shared USB devices from virtual machine, remote desktop or blade server
* Access remote shared USB devices via Wi-Fi
* Two types of connection with remote devices are available: "Connect" and "Connect once", the latter allowing client to establish one-time connection without attempts to restore it if broken
* See who currently occupies shared USB device from other clients' side

Features list:


* USB devices can be shared on the server and subsequently accessed remotely by clients over LAN/WAN/VLAN/VPN/Internet
* Any number of clients can connect to remote shared USB devices
* Server and Client are handy combined into a single application
* No need to change existing network configuration to share and access USB devices
* No system reboot is required after USB ports sharing/unsharing
* Possibility to specify TCP port which will be used in connection
* All actions performed by the program are monitored and logged into Activity log
* Special icons assigned to USB devices let you know their statuses (shared, authorization is used)
* USB v1.1 and v2.0 compatible. USB v3.0 support
* OHCI, UHCI and EHCI standards for USB are supported
* Fully compatible with Hyper-Threading Technology and multiprocessor platforms
* Works on virtual machines (VMware, VMware ESX Server, Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V support)
* Works in RDP session

http://www.net-usb.com/
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Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/I4i8jz7T2CM/2106-Cool-Tool-USB-Network-Gate.html

VMware vSphere Design 101 with VCDX Scott Lowe - Eric Sloof

VMware vSphere Design 101 with VCDX Scott Lowe<http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2104-VMware-vSphere-Design-101-with-VCDX-Scott-Lowe.html>



In this on-demand webinar Scott provides you with an overview of the VMware vSphere design process and the complex decisions it involves. Scott also helps you get started with mastering design concepts by presenting a list of design resources for virtualization professionals. This free webinar covers:


* What is design and why you need it
* VMware vSphere design basics
* Common design misconceptions
* Is the VCAP-DCD certification right for you


http://www.trainsignal.com/Designing-VMware-Infrastructure.aspx

Cool Tool - Free vOPS Server Explorer 5.1

vOPS Server Explorer 5.1<http://www.vkernel.com/products/server-explorer/overview> (VKernel's free tool suite) introduces improvements to existing utilities, and a new utility, Environment Explorer, which uses the same analytics and advisory engine from the paid vOPS Server Standard product to provide virtual administrators with a rapid assessment of the state of their environment. Specifically, Environment Explorer allows system administrators to:

* Identify critical VM configuration errors such as memory limits and old snapshots that will severely affect performance and can be especially hard to track down and solve
* Recognize performance bottlenecks from high CPU ready, memory swapping, device latency and other causes
* Detect inefficiency/waste created by VMs with CPU, memory and storage over allocation
* Find available capacity expressed as the number of VMs that can be deployed without causing performance bottlenecks
* Pinpoint oversubscription of CPU, memory and storage resources and whether the over-allocation is impacting performance

Created with flickr badge<http://www.flickrbadge.com>.

vOPS Server Explorer 5.1 is available for download now: http://www.vkernel.com/download/server-explorer

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Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Ntpronl/~3/ni0aVKFVU8w/2100-Cool-Tool-Free-vOPS-Server-Explorer-5.1.html

VMware: VMware vSphere Blog: VMware Employee DR Sessions at VMworld

As we're approaching VMworld I thought I'd write a quick post about the disaster recovery sessions being delivered by the VMware team this year.

Keep in mind, these are just the sessions being delivered by VMware staff, and just the DR sessions. There is a lot more out there under the business continuity umbrella, including great sessions by our customers and partners, and exploring various topics such as data protection and high availability.

First, I'll get my sessions on the board. I love doing the technical talks, so these should be a lot of fun:

INF-BCO1505 - VMware vSphere Replication: Technical Walk-Through with Engineering<https://vmworld2012.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=1505>

VMware vSphere Replication is a feature of data replication used by both the vSphere platform to protect virtual machines and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager to orchestrate the recovery of entire sites. In this session, VMware Engineering will take you through the full details of how vSphere Replication works: the identification and scheduling of data for replication, built-in fail-safes, networking aspects of vSphere Replication and ultimately how it is used by both vSphere and SRM. Follow along as we walk through the life cycle of protecting a virtual machine with vSphere Replication.

INF-BCO2147 - What's New: VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Technical Overview<https://vmworld2012.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=2147>

Learn about features in VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, including Enterprise enhancements to vSphere Replication. Get details on how SRM can be used to address Disaster Recovery needs in your virtualized data center.

The other DR sessions by VMware folks are listed below, and I'm hopeful I'll get a chance to attend a few of them, myself!

INF-BCO1159 - Architecting and Operating a VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster<https://vmworld2012.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=1159>

In this session, Lee Dilworth and Duncan Epping will discuss the design and operational considerations for VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster environments, also commonly referred to as stretched cluster environments. Best practices for implementation and design will be shared. Various failure scenarios that can occur in a stretched storage environment will also be discussed in depth, including how vSphere 5.x responds to these failures. We will cover the implications for your vSphere High Availability, VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler™ and VMware vSphere Storage DRS configuration and provide recommendations on increasing availability and simplifying operations.

INF-BCO1436 - NEW vSphere Replication Enhancements & Best Practices<https://vmworld2012.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=1436>

In this session you will learn about our upcoming vSphere Replication enhancements. These enhancements make it attractive for customers of any size to utilize vSphere Replication for a variety of virtual machine replication use-cases. We will explain how this solution will work, the value proposition to you - the customer. We will also go into details around what your options are in terms of deployment and how the solution can be adapted and upgraded as your needs grow along with best practices learned from real customer deployments.

INF-BCO2155 - vCloud DR for Oxford University Computing Services - Real World Example<https://vmworld2012.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=2155>

Resiliency is a key aspect of any infrastructure—it is even more important in infrastructure-as-a-service solutions. This session will include a tour of a real world vCloud DR solution deployed at Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS). Throughout the session there will be detailed guidance on how both the management and resource clusters were designed, deployed and automated. Furthermore the details of how SRM in conjunction with VMware vSphereTM PowerCLI (PowerCLI) was used to automate the end-to-end recovery of a vCloud Director–based infrastructure. This session will offer a perfect complimentary follow on from the whitepaper regarding the high-level process produced by Duncan Epping and Chris Colotti and the Automation session by Alan Renouf and Aidan Dalgleish. The paper combined with the Automation session will describe the process and the automation principles whereas this session will describe a complete real world implementation.

INF-BCO2159 - What's New: Site Recovery Manager – Simple and Reliable Disaster Recovery for All Virtualized Applications<https://vmworld2012.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=2159>

vCenter Site Recovery Manager and vSphere Replication ensure the simplest and most reliable disaster protection for all virtualized applications. In this session, we will present an overview of Site Recovery Manager and its key capabilities including Non-Disruptive Testing, Automated Failback and Planned Migration. SRM has become a great tool to manage not just unplanned failovers, but also planned site migrations. Together with vSphere Replication, Site Recovery Manager provides a manageable, affordable and reliable disaster recovery solution enabling organizations to expand disaster protection to all their applications and smaller sites. Finally, we will discuss using SRM to recover in public cloud environments, further reducing the cost of disaster recovery protection for smaller organizations.

INF-BCO2167 - DR to the Cloud with SRM and vSphere Replication - Discussion with VMware and Sungard<https://vmworld2012.activeevents.com/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=2167>

Many organizations today do not have adequate disaster recovery protection for their applications. In most cases, disaster recovery is perceived as too expensive and complex. DR is a natural fit for the cloud, and VMware's Disaster Recovery to the Cloud Services make disaster recovery broadly accessible for all applications and sites by providing simple, cost-efficient and automated disaster protection using SRM 5 and vSphere Replication. In this session, VMware and Sungard will present new services that are delivered using vCenter Site Recovery Manager and vSphere Replication. We will also discuss the future evolution of these services.

I haven't filtered these by type of session, so make sure if you're looking for a business level discussion or technical that you get the right one for your needs.

Hope to see you there.

Posted byKen WerneburgTech Marketing

Twitter @vmKen

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Original Page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/08/dr-at-vmworld.html