Eric Sloof

The past year has been great. I’ve posted 269 articles at ntpro.nl which have been read by many visitors, got certified for both VCAP-DCA and DCD and VCP5. I’ve also received the vExpert and the VMware Certified Instructor Certificate of Achievement Award. Together with Mattias Sundling, I’ve presented well received sessions at the VMworld in Las Vegas and Copenhagen and also at the Dutch VMUG event. Besides that, I’ve recorded a lot of videos. These videos are available via ITunes and YouTube. This is a list of the 10  most popular videos. 

1.   Configure SNMP for ESX
2.   Using Private VLANs prevent VLAN exhaustion
3.   How to run Android in a VMware Virtual Machine
4.   Migrating from ESX 4.1 to ESXi 5.0
5.   How to deploy the Arista vEOS
6.   vSphere 5 Video - iSCSI User Interface
7.   VKernel Performance Analyzer
8.   The vSphere 5 Web Client
9.   vSphere 5 Video - ESXi Firewall Configuration
10. vSphere 5 Video - Storage DRS

I want to thank all of you, the readers and viewers of my articles and videos for their support and wish everyone a great 2012.

- Tuning ESX/ESXi for better storage performance by modifying the maximum I/O block size
- ESX has performance issues due to IRQ sharing
- Enabling IOAT and Jumbo frames
- Troubleshooting network performance issues
- Analyzing SCSI Reservation conflicts on VMware Infrastructure 3.x and vSphere 4.x
- Determining if multiple virtual CPUs are causing performance issues
- Slow performance caused by misconfigured local storage or SAN array
- Slow performance caused by out of date firmware on a RAID controller or HBA
- Testing virtual machine storage I/O performance
- iSCSI and Jumbo Frames configuration on ESX 3.x, ESX 4.x and ESXi 5.x
- Using esxtop to identify storage performance issues
- Configuring Jumbo Frames on a vNetwork Distributed Switch
- Verifying correct storage settings on ESX 4.x and ESXi 4.x
- Network I/O Resource Management in vSphere 4.1 with vDS
- Impact of virtual machine memory and CPU resource limits
- Checking your firmware and BIOS levels to ensure compatibility with ESX/ESXi
- Enabling Jumbo Frames for VMkernel ports in a virtual distributed switch
- Changing the Queue Depth for QLogic and Emulex HBAs
- High co-stop (%CSTP) values seen during virtual machine snapshot activities
- Balloon driver retains hold on memory causing virtual machine guest operating system performance issues

Source KB 2001003

HD_Speed measures both sustained and burst data transfer rates of your virtual disks, cd/dvd-roms, flash cards/sticks, floppys, etc, and offers a realtime graphical display.

Download

I just wanted to send everyone a bit of Christmas Cheer!

Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! or Zalig Kerstfeest
English: Merry Christmas
German: Fröhliche Weihnachten
French: Joyeux Noel
Flemish: Zalig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig nieuw jaar
Greek: Kala Christouyenna!
Russian: Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom
Spanish: Feliz Navidad
Thai: Sawadee Pee Mai or souksan wan Christmas
Turkish: Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Farsi: Cristmas-e-shoma mobarak bashad

A vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) functions as a single virtual switch across all associated hosts. This enables you to set network configurations that span across all member hosts, and allows virtual machines to maintain consistent network configuration as they migrate across multiple hosts.
In this video I'll show you how to troubleshoot and configure vNetwork Distributed Switch Network Adapters. The vNetwork Distributed Switch networking view of the host configuration page displays the configuration of the host’s associated vNetwork Distributed Switches and allows you to configure the vNetwork Distributed Switch network adapters and uplink ports.

For each host associated with a vNetwork Distributed Switch, you must assign physical network adapters, or uplinks, to the vNetwork Distributed Switch. You can assign one uplink on each host per uplink port on the vNetwork Distributed Switch.

Although Expandable Reservations are enabled by default on a resource pool, it doesn’t mean that they should stay enabled in every situation. In this white boarding session I’ll show what the hidden danger of using expandable reservations can lead to. The system considers the resources available in the selected resource pool and its direct parent resource pool. If the parent resource pool also has the Expandable Reservation option selected, it can borrow resources from its parent resource pool. Borrowing resources occurs recursively from the ancestors of the current resource pool as long as the Expandable Reservation option is selected. Leaving this option selected offers more flexibility, but, at the same time provides less protection. A child resource pool owner might reserve more resources than you anticipate.

In the release of VMware vSphere 5.0, VMware also released a new software storage appliance called the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA). VMware VSA provides an alternative shared storage solution to our Small to Medium Business (SMB) customers who might not be in a position to purchase a Storage Area Network (SAN) or Network-Attached Storage (NAS) array for their virtual infrastructure. Without shared storage configured in a vSphere environment, customers have not been able to exploit the unique features available in vSphere 5.0, such as vSphere High Availability (HA), vSphere, vMotion and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). The VSA is designed to provide “Shared Storage for Everyone”.

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Technical Deep Dive.pdf

You can use folders to group objects of the same type for easier management. For example, you can use folders to set permissions on a group of objects, to set alarms on a group of objects, or to organize objects in a meaningful way. A folder can contain other folders, or a group of objects of the same type. For example, a single folder can contain virtual machines and another folder containing virtual machines, but it cannot contain hosts and a folder containing virtual machines.

Resource pools allow you to delegate control over resources of a host (or a cluster), but the benefits are evident when you use resource pools to compartmentalize all resources in a cluster. Create multiple resource pools as direct children of the host or cluster and configure them. You can then delegate control over the resource pools
to other individuals or organizations.

In vSphere, the inventory is a collection of virtual and physical objects on which you can place permissions, monitor tasks and events, and set alarms. You can group most inventory objects by using folders to more easily manage them.

What’s an e1000?

The e1000 is the Intel 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller. VMware offers an emulated version of this controller. Most operating systems are shipped with a 82545EM driver. The 82545EM driver sucks! That’s why Intel replaced it with e1000e aka 82574L

What’s an e1000e?

The e1000e is the Intel 82574L Gigabit Ethernet Controller. In vSphere 5 (HW8), VMware offers an emulated version of the e1000e. Windows 7 and Windows 2008 are shipped with drivers for the 82574L. The 82574L is cool, but is it faster than an VMXNET3?

What’s VMXNET3?

The VMXNET3 adapter is the next generation of Para virtualized NIC designed for performance. The VMXNET3 network adapter is a 10Gb virtual NIC. Drivers are shipped with the VMware tools and most OS are supported. VMXNET3 is much faster than e1000 or e1000e. VMXNET3 has less CPU overhead compared to e1000 or e1000e. VMXNET3 is more stable than e1000 or e1000e