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Test your ESXi network resiliency with ESXCLI

Published 01/05/2013 | By Ivo Beerens

After configuring the network portion for your ESXi servers you need to test if the redundancy is working as accepted. From the ESXi layer you can bringing down/up one or more uplinks to test the network resilience. No longer you need to pull out the UTP cables. Since ESXi5 this can be done by using the esxcli network nic down/up command.

First log in to ESXi using for example using Tech Support Mode

Get a overview of the installed vmnics

esxcli network nic list

Bring a vmnic down

esxcli network nic down –n vmnicNumber

Bring a vmnic up

esxcli network nic up –n vmnicNumber

Only auto-negotiation 10Mb/100Mb/1000Mb/10000Mb speeds vmnics are supported. FlexNics with different speed are not supported.

Posted in ESXi, networking, vSphere | Tagged esxi, networking, vSphere | 2 Comments

Optimize Windows 8 for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments

Published 12/04/2013 | By Ivo Beerens

Optimize and tuning a Windows 8 desktop in a VDI environment is important to reduce for example the CPU, IOPS and the memory footprint. During the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2013 a breakout session about optimizing a Windows 8 desktop for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is held. The session has three main subjects:

Microsoft Guidance for Windows 8 Configuration VDI desktop. What version of Windows 8 do I need, how many CPUs, memory, disk partitioning etc.
Detailed Review of Component Configuration. What services do I need to enable or disable, do I need to disable SuperFetch? All the optimization settings are available in VBS script
Recommendations for performance testing. This section is about the (third party) tools that can be used to do performance testing.

. The Windows 8 VDI sizing and optimizations can be used for example on the following VDI solutions:

VMware Horizon View
Citrix XenDesktop
Microsoft VDI

A Windows 8 VDI optimization VBS script is available. This script does all the optimization work for you. Review all the settings before executing if the fits for your environment! There will be a PowerShell version available in the future. The Windows 8 optimization VBS script can be found here.

When you want to use Windows 8 for in your VDI environment this session helps you to size, tune and optimize your Windows 8 VDI desktop. The Optimizing Windows 8 for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure session can found here.

Posted in VDI, view, windows 8 | Tagged VDI, view, windows 8 | Leave a comment

VMware Horizon View and Microsoft Lync 2013 support

Published 03/04/2013 | By Ivo Beerens

VMware Horizon View 5.2 adds support for Microsoft Lync 2013 with audio en video. With Microsoft Lync 2010, only VoIP was supported, but required a dedicated IP-based phone. Microsoft and VMware collaborated to bring Lync 2013 support to the View 5.2 desktop.

Here is a list of supported features with Lync 2013 in VMware View:

Features	Support/Unsupported
Presence	Supported
Instant Message	Supported
Desktop Sharing	Supported
Application Sharing	Supported
PowerPoint Sharing	Supported
Whiteboards	Supported
File transfer	Supported
Online meetings	Supported
Office Integration	Supported
Audio	Supported (with Lync 2010, this used to only be supported via IP-Phone)
Video	Supported (with Lync 2010, this was never supported)
Recording audio	Unsupported

All the media processing is offloaded from the datacenter to the client endpoint. The following diagram highlights the different components and the communication flow of the VMware View and Microsoft Lync 2013:

The VDI Plug-in is a standalone application that needs the be installed on the local Windows computer and allows the use of local audio and video devices with the Lync 2013 client running in the View Desktop. Audio and Video traffic is sent point-to-point between the endpoints.

On the moment only Windows 7 SP1 is supported as client OS and View desktop.

VMware has released a guide about the installation and configuration of Lync 2013 with VMware View 5.2. The document can be found here

Posted in lync, view, VMware | Tagged lync, view, VMware | Leave a comment

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Best Practices

Published 21/03/2013 | By Ivo Beerens

Roger Osborne has create a huge checklist form of best practices on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. The Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V or Hyper-V 3 best practices focuses on the following topics:

Host settings
Anti-virus exclusions
Physical NICs settings, NIC teaming, VLANS, Virtual Network Adapters (NICs)
Disk settings, VHDX
Memory, dynamic memory
Cluster settings
Hyper-V replica
Cluster aware updating
SMB 3.0 File shares
Virtual Domain Controllers
Integration Services

The best practice checklist form can be found here

Posted in Hyper-V | Tagged hyper-v | Leave a comment

VMware Horizon View and HTML access (Blast protocol)

Published 20/03/2013 | By Ivo Beerens

With the release of the VMware Horizon View Feature Pack 1 for VMware Horizon View 5.2 it possible to connect with HTML5 to your View desktop. This without installing additional software. The new HTML5 protocol is called Blast. Connecting by using the Blast HTML protocol can be handy when you are on a device that does not have the VMware View client installed.

The VMware Horizon View Feature Pack 1 contains the following two main components:

Remote Experience Agent installer
HTML Access installer

Remote Experience Agent installer contains:

HTML Access Agent: The HTML Access Agent allows users to connect to Horizon View desktops by using HTML Access
Unity Touch: With Unity Touch, tablet and smart phone users can easily browse, search, and open Windows applications and files, choose favorite applications and files,and switch between running applications, all without using the Start menu or Taskbar. Unity touch requires a VMware View Client

This component is installed on the View Desktop (XP SP3, Windows Vista (32-bit), Windows 7 or 8 )

HTML Access installer: This installer configures View Connection Server instances to allow users to select HTML Access to connect to desktops. After you run the HTML Access installer, the View Portal displays an HTML Access icon in addition to the View Client icon.

This component is installed on the Blast Secure Gateway know as View Connection Server (Not the Security Server).

Here is an overview of the components and firewall ports that’s needs to be opened:

A single security server can support up to 100 simultaneous connections to Web clients using the Blast protocol. For a complete list and drawing of the firewall ports that needs to be opened in a VMware View Security Server environment see my earlier post here.

In the View Administrator the connections using a the Blast protocol can be monitored: