Eric Sloof

VMware has released the VCAP-DCA and VCAP-DCD Live Lab Tutorials which can help you prepare for the actual exam.

The VCAP4-DCA is directed toward System Administrators, Consultants and Technical Support Engineers who can demonstrate their skills in VMware vSphere and VMware vCenter technologies in relation to the datacenter, as well as their knowledge of application and physical-infrastructure services and their integration with the virtual infrastructure.

http://mylearn.vmware.com/courseware/82526/VCAPDCA_Tutorial.swf

The VCAP-DCD is directed toward IT Architects and Consulting Architects who are capable of designing VMware solutions in a multi-site, large enterprise environment.  They have a deep understanding both of VMware core components and their relation to storage and networking, and also of datacenter design methodologies. They also possess knowledge of applications and physical infrastructure, as well as their relationship to the virtual infrastructure.

http://mylearn.vmware.com/courseware/82525/VCAPDCD_Tutorial.swf

Zenoss has announced that it is now offering a free ZenPack for monitoring the performance of VMware ESX/ESXi servers. Similar to the Unix "Top" command, this ZenPack uses the VMware resxtop command to aggregate and alert on performance metrics in a single graphical view in order to provide administrators an expanded and deeper VMware ESX/ESXi monitoring experience. With this ZenPack, Zenoss is the first to enable proactive VMware management using esxtop.

VMware’s esxtop is a very powerful VMware administrator’s tool used to obtain a snapshot of the current server state.  It not only provides metrics but give you visibility to issues such as disk latency, CPU contentions, memory over commits, etc. VMware administrators have until now used esxtop at the command line to access host server performance metrics.

Virtualization administrators, while enjoying the power of the esxtop command, have been looking for enhancements to help simplify and improve performance troubleshooting. Currently the command must be executed through the command line interface and provides no capability for reporting or alerting. Historical data analysis and graphing requires users to manually redirect data to a file for further offline analysis and charting.

The new ZenPack for esxtop enables the following:

• Performance metrics from ESX and ESXi servers are automatically captured, graphed, displayed, and continually updated in one graphical interface.
• Users can set thresholds and exception alerting based on performance metrics and events as they occur.
• Historical data is saved for in-depth root cause analysis.  

“As we have been working with organizations to provide deep VMware monitoring capabilities, we saw some of our customers and community members using the esxtop command. Unfortunately, this tool was somewhat hidden and only available for power users.  We are combining the strength and ease of use of Zenoss with the esxtop command to provide a simpler monitoring capability for VMware ESX environments,” said Simon Jakesch, Engineer at Zenoss. “With this free ZenPack, users can easily identify performance problems in their ESX and ESXi environment, and immediately take steps to resolve the issues before they affect the business. This capability will save administrator time and increase accessibility to a very powerful performance tool.”

ZenPacks are software extensions to Zenoss. The ZenPack for esxtop is free. For more information on how to download the ZenPack, visit the Zenoss blog. For a complete list of all the ZenPacks that are available, please visit: http://community.zenoss.org/community/zenpacks.

Continue reading "Zenoss Announces Free Tool for VMware Power..." »

Overview: This course covers the features and functionality of the VMware vCloud Director product and what benefits the product offers in cloud.  

Objectives: After completing this course, students should:

•  Know the prerequisites for a VCD 1.0 installation (hardware and co-requisite software)
•  Be able to perform initial setup of VCD in a Red Hat Linux virtual machine
•  Know how to install and configure vShield Manager
•  Understand critical VCD concepts: cell, organization, virtual datacenter, provider networks, organization networks, vApps, vApp networks, catalog
•  Understand the services that vShield Edge provides to VCD
•  Create an external network
•  Create a network pool of virtual-machine networks
•  Create an organization and allocate resources and networks to it
•  Build a vApp within the organization
•  Integrate the vApp into the catalog
•  Understand the relationship of VCD to Chargeback Manager 1.5

Continue reading "New Training Course: VMware vCloud Director..." »

After installing the Symantec ApplicationHA Console it’s time to roll out the Symantec ApplicationHA Guest components.  You can use a wizard to configure monitoring for applications, services, and processes running on virtual machines. After completing this wizard, you can start, stop, and monitor the configured components from the VMware vSphere Client or using Microsoft Internet Explorer.

You can also perform the application monitoring operations directly from a browser window using the following URL: Https://<virtualmachineNameorIPaddress>:5634/vcs/admin/application_health.html?priv=ADMIN To view the Symantec ApplicationHA view, launch the VMware vSphere Client, select a virtual machine from the Inventory pane, and in the Management pane on the right, click the ApplicationHA tab. If you have not configured single sign-on for the virtual machine, specify the user credentials of a user that has administrative privileges on the virtual machine.

If a component fails, a configurable number of attempts are made to restart it on the machine. If the component does not start, the virtual machine itself can be restarted by VMware HA, depending on the configuration settings.

It’s also possible to configure application monitoring for custom services, processes, and storage mount points on a virtual machine. You can either choose one or multiple components simultaneously.

- Configure multiple services and processes in a single wizard workflow
- Configure storage monitoring to control storage availability on the virtual machine
- Configure dependency to control orderly start and stop of components

     

In this example I’ve chosen to configure application monitoring for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 instances running on a virtual machine. Now I’m able to:

- Monitor SQL Database Engine service, Analysis service, and FILESTREAM
- Monitor and control the availability of SQL databases on the virtual machine
- Perform a graceful start and stop of SQL services and databases

Symantec ApplicationHA provides an interface, the Symantec ApplicationHA tab, to configure and control application monitoring. The Symantec ApplicationHA tab is integrated with the VMware vSphere Client. Use the Symantec ApplicationHA view to perform the following tasks:

- Configure and unconfigure application monitoring
- Start and stop configured applications
- Enable and disable application heartbeat
- Enter and exit maintenance mode

I’ve just recorded a real cool video which shows you how to install and configure ApplicationHA. This new product from Symantec and VMware is able to monitor applications within the virtual machine. I’ve uploaded a High Definition version of the video to ScreenCast but you can also watch the video at Vimeo or YouTube.

Symantec ApplicationHA is an easy-to-use availability solution for virtual environments that provides application visibility and control. It is based on the industry-leading Veritas Cluster Server technology and provides application availability in coordination with VMware HA. Together Symantec and VMware work to help customers move business-critical applications into VMware virtual machines.

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/10/20/ha-the-missing-link/
http://blogs.vmware.com/uptime/2010/10/applicationha-bridging-the-gap.html
http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1622-Technical-White-Paper-ApplicationHA.html

This white paper provides an overview of the challenges that organizations face in virtualizing business critical applications given their current tools and processes. Specifically, it focuses on the high availability requirements of these applications and the difficulty and compromises organizations have to make due to lack of an effective solution. The paper introduces a new joint solution from Symantec and VMware called ApplicationHA that addresses the challenges without forcing organizations to make difficult trade-offs between fully protecting business-critical applications, exploiting virtualization capabilities, and minimizing operational cost and complexity.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vsp4-virtualize-biz-critical-apps.pdf Continue reading "Technical White Paper: ApplicationHA" »

Remote Desktop Manager is a small application used to manage all your remote connections and virtual machines. Add, edit, delete, shared, organize and find your remote connection quickly. Compatible with Microsoft Remote Desktop, Terminal Services, VNC, LogMeIn, Team Viewer, Ftp, SSH, Telnet, Dameware, X Window, VMware, Virtual PC, PC Anywhere, Hyper-V, Citrix, Radmin, Microsoft Remote Assistance, Sun Virtual Box and more...

http://www.remotedesktopmanager.com/

Remon Lam over at virtualclouds.info has created an awesome and very complete list of all the news, interviews, videos and blog articles related to the VMworld 2010 in Copenhagen.  He’s maintaining the links in four separate days at the following links and Remon is still working on updates.

• VMworld 2010 Copenhagen Day 0
• VMworld 2010 Copenhagen Day 1 (Partner Day)
• VMworld 2010 Copenhagen Day 2 - Linkage
• VMworld 2010 Copenhagen Day 3 - Linkage
• VMworld 2010 Copenhagen Day 4 - Linkage
• VMworld 2010 Copenhagen - Round-up

Over 150 Links - Kudos to Remon – Keep up the good work!!!

So I just got back from the VMworld in Copenhagen and it’s time to start unpacking the gadgets. The first gadget comes from the nice people over at nComputing who gave me an L300 for free. In return I had to write a blog article. Gadget number two is also demoed, as I’m wearing a cool official orange VMware 2010 LAB STAFF shirt :-)

With the L300, watching DVD-quality video on up to a 1920x1080 display comes standard for most common media formats. The game-changing access device comes packaged in a sleek low-power package that can be easily mounted on a monitor or secured to a desk. Powered by a new NComputing Numo System on a Chip (SoC), the L300 uses patent-pending hardware technology to decode and scale multimedia locally, eliminating network strain. The L300 access device costs less any other thin- or zero-client options and a quarter of the cost of desktop PCs. In combination with the NComputing vSpace software, it enables VDI solutions at one-third the price of traditional offerings.

Planning and Designing an HA Cluster that Maximizes VM Uptime - The kick-off

A High Availability setup is only as good as its weakest link. In this session, learn more details about the inner workings of VMware HA and best practices for setting up and managing a robust production environment.

VMware High Availability – Futures (part of BC7803)