There is a nice article over at VMware Infrastrcute Operations talking about guidelines for Dedupe data stores fur use with VMware Data Recovery.
If you’re working with this new feature in vSphere, take a look at the article.
http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1551
Wow, I thought this was crazy.. Virtual Iron was gobbled up by Oracle a couple months ago and I know a lot of us were wondering what was in store for Virtual Iron.. well, the future isn’t a good one for them. It looks like Oracle has killed the Virtual Iron brand, assimulating their technology and moving on (yes, that was a geeky Star Trek reference hehe). Read more about it at these links:
http://storageinformer.com/oracle-to-terminate-virtual-iron-business/
http://gregarius.dropcode.net/demo/virtualization.info/2009/06/19/Oracle_kills_Virtual_Iron_brand,_fires_all_employees_but_10
Oh, and if you need a VMware design/demo/quote to replace Virtual Iron in your environment, just let us know! 
UPDATE: VMware has also provided special promo pricing for ex-Virtual Iron customers to move over to VMware! See the details here:
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/virtualiron-safepassage.html
I guess when Oracle bought Sun, they had some more money laying around.. they also bought a Xen Hypervisor offshoot based virtualization company called Virtual Iron.
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/018535
http://www.oracle.com/virtualiron/index.html
It’ll be interesting to see what they do with it, now that Oracle has Sun’s virtual offerings as well as Virtual Iron’s offerings..
I’ve been getting this question a lot lately – “Can I use USB devices or dongles inside a Virtual Machine on ESX?”
The out-of-the-box answer is No. USB devices are not supported within the VM on ESX 3.5. That being said, there are a few companies that have gotten excellent reviews and are very popular on the VMware Community Forums that provide USB functionality.
The most popular way of presenting USB devices in Virtual Machines on ESX that I’ve heard/seen is from Digi International, which has a product called AnywhereUSB. Follow the link for additional info on the product.
They have also published a VMware Branded Technical Note (whitepaper) entitled VMware ESX Server: Using AnywhereUSB to Connect USB Devices
FabulaTech is another popular way. A good post regarding it can be found here:
http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/897-Passing-USB-devices-to-the-Virtual-Machines.html
Update to the post:
I came across a recent post over at VMetc mentioning a couple more temporary plus permanent options for using USB over IP:
http://vmetc.com/2009/03/11/connecting-a-usb-device-to-an-esx-hosted-vm/
A few other links of companies that have gotten good reviews to allow USB access in VM’s:
http://www.kernelpro.com/usb-over-ethernet.html (Inexpensive, starts at $89!)
http://usbip.sourceforge.net (Open Source Project for USB over IP)
Enjoy!
On my to-do list was to write up a How-To on using OpenFiler iSCSI storage appliance with VMware ESX. The OpenFiler appliance is a free appliance that you can use to turn local storage into an iSCSI target. Well, Simon over at TechHead in the UK did a bang up job (that’s London speak!) with a How-To detailing installing the OpenFiler software and using it with ESX.
http://www.techhead.co.uk/how-to-configure-openfiler-v23-iscsi-storage-for-use-with-vmware-esx
I’ve heard great things about OpenFiler from our customers who are using it. Keep in mind, you’ll want to keep OpenFiler in DR environments or Test/Dev environments as there is some limits on performance. But those who are looking for a free iSCSI target or appliance, it’s a good one.
You might also check out our other post on some of the other common iSCSI appliances, very similar to OpenFiler:
http://lewanps.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/xtravirt-xvs-iscsi-san-vm-appliance/
http://lewanps.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/dr-in-a-box/
Enjoy!
I ran across this on another blog surfing for something which I’ve since forgotten.. I thought this was pretty neat. It’s the Technology Preview of a new feature for VMware vCenter called vCenter Mobile Access. Here’s the link:
http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/vcmobileaccess
They even have a video showing it “in action” (just turn down your speakers though, the music is horrible IMO). There’s a link near the bottom of the page titled “How Will I Connect to This Thing” which is interesting too, especially since most people can’t get to their vCenter server from outside their corporate LAN, well without VPN or something.
This is VMware’s own product that is very similar to: http://www.roveit.com/mobileadmin/overview/
and http://lostcreations.com/vmm
ESX 3.5 Update 4 was released yesterday. It can be downloaded from here: http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/
Here’s a brief overview on what’s new from the release notes:
Expanded Support for Enhanced vmxnet Adapter — The new VMXNET version improves virtual machine networking performance and requires VMware tools upgrade.
Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series
QLogic Fibre Channel Adapter Driver Update
Emulex Fibre Channel Adapter Driver Update
LSI megaraid_sas and mptscsi Storage Controller Driver Update
Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems – For more complete information about supported guests included in this release, see the Guest Operating System Installation Guide: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/GuestOS_guide.pdf.
Furthermore, pre-built kernel modules (PBMs) were added in this release for the following guests:
Newly Supported Management Agents
Newly Supported I/O Devices
The release notes can be found here: http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/vi3_esx35u4_rel_notes.html
Mike Laverick over at RTFM Education posted a few videos from VMworld Europe on his blog. Some of which are pretty cool to check out as they show VMware FT (Fault Tolerence) and vCenter Heartbeat.
http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?cat=13
Here’s also the links to VMware’s Website (which include videos) for some new products due this year:
VMware Fault Tolerance (FT): http://www.vmware.com/products/fault-tolerance/
VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch: http://www.vmware.com/products/vnetwork-distributed-switch/
VMware vCenter CapacityIQ: http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-capacityiq/
And a few others, located in the bottom right hand side of the screen: http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization.html
To monitor your ESX 3.5 server by using SNMP, we need to enable SNMP on ESX before adding it to your monitoring software. This How-To will show you the steps involved.
Log into your ESX Server either through SSH or through the console of the server.
Use Nano (which is a notepad like text editor) to edit the file /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf file by using the command:
nano /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
Use the arrow keys to go down to the section “rocommunity public”. Replace “public” with your community string for your environment (1). Then use “Ctrl+X” to exit out of Nano. You’ll be asked if you would like to save. Type in “y” for yes and hit enter. Press enter again when confirming the filename to save as.
Since SNMP is not started by default, you’ll need to type in this command to ensure it will be started after a reboot of the ESX server. The command is:
chkconfig snmpd on
We’ll need to allow SNMP traffic through the built-in ESX firewall. To do this, type in the following command:
esxcfg-firewall -e snmpd
Now we’re ready to start the SNMP service. Type in:
service snmpd start
At this point, SNMP is enabled on your ESX 3.5 server and you can monitor it using your SNMP monitoring software! Happy monitoring!
If you’ve ever battled with time-drift with Linux virtual machines, this KB article is for you.
The KB provides a table of Linux distro’s and versions, along with the appropriate kernel parameters to help make them keep time properly when virtualized. Also includes NTP config options to help NTP cope with time jumps.