VMworld US (San Francisco) August 27-30

VMworld Europe (Barcelona) October 9-11

I hope to see a lot of our partners and students in Barcelona.

VMware has just released a VSA Deep Dive document a must read if you are considering this solution. 

Some of the ESXi requirements for VSA is:

• Host must be installed with ESXi 5.0
• It must be a greenfield deployment. No existing virtual machines running
• ESXi and vCenter server must have the same gateway address. They need to be on the same subnet
• 4 – 6 or 8 spindles is supported

ESX 4.x

When removing a LUN from an ESX 4.x host you will need to use the “esxcli” commands. kb 1015084 

ESX 5

When removing from ESX 5 things have gotten a lot easier. Now you can do most from the vSphere Client. Check out the following kb 2004605 

The give away here is: Never just remove a LUN from the SAN that the ESX host has access to. Even though you have removed all virtual machines and nothing is running on it. Before doing anything on the storage array, you will need to detach the LUN from the ESX host.

Eric sloof and me. This guy used to have a six disk iomega!

Prior to vSphere 5 vMotion traffic would only use one physical network adaptor. It did not help to add multiple adaptors and change load balancing to IP Hash and bond the physical nisc in an etherchannel. That meant the only way to increase vMotion throughput was to upgrade from 1Gb to 10Gb Ethernet! Not a plausible solution for everyone.

Configuration

In order to use this new feature you need to configure multiple vmkernel adaptors for vMotion. Actually you will need to configure one for each physical adaptor connected to the vSwitch.

In my example I want to use two physical adapters for vMotion (vmnic1 and vmnic2). First I create a new vSwitch and create two vmkernel adaptors for vMotion. The vmkernel ip addresses are in the same subnet.

After creating the two vmkernel interfaces on the vSwitch we need to set “vMotion1” active on vmnic1 and standby on vmnic2. We will then set the “vMotion2” interface active on vmnic2 and standby on vmnic1.

Now you have 2Gb of throughput for your vMotion network. If you need more throughput just add more physical nics and create extra vmkernel interfaces.

Verifying it is working

To verify you have set it up correctly and you are using multiple nics for vMotion traffic do the following:

1. Select your ESXi host in the vCenter inventory.

2. Select the performance tab

3. Select advanced

4. Select “chart options”

5. Then create a graph with “network” realtime and choose the nics you are using for vMotion. Either choose “data transmit rate” or “data receive rate” – make the graph stacked.

6. Start a vMotion and check that every nic is loaded.

Here is a screenshot of my enviroment. Look at the end of the graph. A vMotion is saturating three 1Gb adaptors!

1. New to VMware (no courses, no certifications) – Attend the 5 day “Install Configure Manage” course. Then do the test

2. Already VCP3 – Take the 2 day “vSphere 5 Whats New” course. Then do the test

3. Already VCP4 – Go directly to the VCP5 test. No courses required. (until 29 Feb. 2012)

At Arrow ECS Denmark we are having the first course in Aarhus September 12 (still a few seats left) and in Copenhagen September 19 (few seats left)

If you want to be among the first participants on the course. Write an e-mail to training@arrowecs.dk

I will personally be the instructor on both courses.

In this context VMware has just released the VCP5 mock exam. The mock exam consists of 30 questions helping you to prepare for the VCP exam.

For VCP training tips check out my VCP page.

To be able to take the VCP exam you need to 1. Be a VCP4, 2. Have attended an ICM4 course & the vSphere5 whats new, 3. Have attended the ICM5 course.

Enterprise+ 96GB
Enterprise 64GB
Standard 32GB
Essentials+ 32GB
Essentials 32GB
Free ESXi 32GB