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

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

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

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

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

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

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