Eric Sloof

Clusters in VMware vCenter Server are an important way to group ESXi hosts. When a host is added to a cluster, the host's resources become part of the cluster's resources.

Within a cluster, resource management elements can be defined; for example, a resource pool, reservation, or limit. vCenter Server also provides features like DRS and HA at a cluster level.

The performance of clustering in vCenter Server 6.0 has improved over 5.5 in two key areas:

• Increase in supported single cluster limit: 64 ESXi hosts and 8,000 virtual machines (in 5.5, this was 32 ESXi hosts and 3,000 virtual machine).
• Linear throughput scaling with an increase in cluster size and workload

Other performance highlights include impressive improvements:

• Up to 66% improvement in operational throughput over vCenter Server 5.5
• Improved performance under very heavy workloads
• Performance parity between vCenter Server on Windows and VCSA
• Significantly faster virtual machine operations

Central to this paper is a case study that shows the performance of vCenter Server 6.0 clusters and illustrates the performance improvements over vCenter Server 5.5. This paper also compares the performance of vCenter Server on Windows and the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA).

VMware vCenter Server 6.0 substantially improves performance over previous vCenter Server versions. This paper demonstrates the improved performance in vCenter Server 6.0 compared to vCenter Server 5.5, and shows that vCenter Server with the embedded vPostgres database now performs as well as vCenter Server with an external database, even at vCenter Server’s scale limits.

This paper also discusses factors that affect vCenter Server performance and provides best practices for vCenter Server performance.


vCenter Server 6.0 brings extensive improvements in performance and scalability over vCenter Server 5.5:

• Operational throughput is over 100% higher, and certain operations are over 80% faster.
• VMware vCenter Server™ Appliance™ now has the same scale limits as vCenter Server on Windows with anexternal database: 1,000 ESXi hosts, 10,000 powered-on virtual machines, and 15,000 registered virtual machines.
• VMware vSphere® Web Client performance has improved, with certain pages over 90% faster.

In addition, vCenter Server 6.0 provides new deployment options:

• Both vCenter Server on Windows and VMware vCenter Server Appliance provide an embedded vPostgres database as an alternative to an external database. (vPostgres replaces the SQL Server Express option that was available in previous vCenter versions.)
• The embedded vPostgres database supports vCenter’s full scale limits when used with the vCenter Server Appliance.

In this video VMware will explain what a VMware Validated Design is, some common components across all VMware Validated Designs, and how the VMware Validated Design process makes deploying a Software-Defined Datacenter a streamlined experience.

Adoption of cloud-native application architectures is helping many organizations transform their IT into a force for true agility in the marketplace. This O’Reilly report brought to you by VMware defines the unique characteristics of cloud-native application architectures such as microservices and twelve-factor applications.

In his book Migrating to Cloud-Native Application Architectures, author Matt Stine explores the cultural, organizational, and technical changes needed to successfully migrate traditional monolithic applications and service-oriented architectures to cloud-native architectures.

The automation of virtual environments has become the focus of many endeavors. VMware vRealize Orchestrator is a tool that enables you to automate not only your VMware environments, but also the surrounding hardware and software infrastructure. Orchestrator is also a central tool in the VMware cloud initiative and is extensively used by products such as vRealize Automation.

In this book, you will learn how Orchestrator is able to help you automate your complete VMware infrastructure as well as its surrounding hardware and software. After deploying and configuring the vRealize Orchestrator appliance, you will learn how to run the existing workflows that are a part of the Orchestrator library. You will also see how the vCenter Web Client integration of Orchestrator reduces the time you spend on your daily admin tasks.

The main aspect here is to learn how to create new workflows from existing ones. You will also look at how you can create completely new workflows. This includes learning about JavaScript and using presentation features to improve the layout and user friendliness of your workflows. Toward the end, you will learn to check for errors in your workflows and debug them. By the time you're done with the book, you'll be proficient in managing your workflows.

VMware NSX for Horizon brings speed and simplicity to VDI networking. Within seconds, IT administrators can create policies that dynamically follow virtual desktops, without the need for time-consuming network provisioning.

Extending security policy from the data center to the device, this joint solution provides a highly extensible platform that integrates with industry-leading security solutions.

Get ready for an exciting and informative adventure to the cloud. The hero is under your command as you dodge obstacles such as cloud security thieves, become invincible with the security shield, use the monitoring tool to stop your enemies, grab the themed collectibles for special powers, and more! Seek out your cloud with the VMware vCloud Air Network.

Download the Cloud Seeker game from the Apple App Store and Google Play now: http://cloudseekergame.com

The VMware App Volumes Technical FAQ addresses technical questions from administrators and users of App Volumes.

Questions and answers are divided into the following topics:

• App Volumes Requirements and Maximums
• App Volumes Installation and Configuration
• App Volumes Storage
• App Volumes Management
• App Volumes with Remote Desktop Session Hosts
• Troubleshooting App Volumes

You can get your copy here. You can also sign-up VMware App Volumes Hands-On Lab.

This lab will provide you with an introduction to App Volumes.  You will find out the benefits of utilizing containers for application management and, and the simplicity of deploying applications based upon individual users, groups, departments, and company wide as well.

This lab is built for using App Volumes with Horizon 6 with View desktops and RDS hosts, and is also applicable to showing the benefits of App Volumes with Citrix environments.

This Fling is a stand-alone, cross-platform VNC implementation based on the remoting technology found in vSphere and VMware Workstation. It allows remote access to a desktop session running on another native system, or inside of a virtual machine.


The tools are offered as command-line utilities without any UI, but should be usable by anyone familiar with other command-line VNC programs. They are compatible with other standard VNC clients and servers, but using a VMware product on both sides of the connection will enable some VMware extensions for a better remoting experience.

Features:

• Optimized for low-bandwidth connections
• VMware console-style exclusive input on the client
• Enhancements when connecting to a VMware virtual machine or VMware VNC Server

This version of the ESXi Embedded Host Client is written purely in HTML and JavaScript, and is served directly from your ESXi host and should perform much better than any of the existing solutions.

Please note that the Host Client cannot be used to manage vCenter. Currently, the client is in its development phase, but VMware is releasing this Fling to elicit early feedback from their users to help guide the development and user experience that they are creating. As such, the client is not fully featured and only implements a hand full of the most important features. Some of these include:

• VM operations (Power on, off, reset, suspend, etc).
• Creating a new VM, from scratch or from OVF/OVA (limited OVA support)
• Configuring NTP on a host
• Displaying summaries, events, tasks and notifications/alerts
• Providing a console to VMs
• Configuring host networking
• Configuring host advanced settings
• Configuring host services