VMware View 4.5

VMware 4.5 is released. Here are some improvements in version 4.5:

- Support for VMware vSphere 4.1

- Full Windows 7 support

- Offline support

- View client for Mac

- ThinApp entitlement

- Storage tiering, The website My virtual cloud has a good post on this subject.

- Role Based delegation

- ThinApp package assignment, Link video.

The profile management (RTO software) solution is not included in this release and the security server does still not support the PCoIP protocol!

More information on VMware View 4.5 can be found on the VMware View product page or on the VMware View blog.

VMware View client for the iPAD

VMware is creating a VMware View client for the iPAD with PCoIP support. Here is a interview with Warren Ponder, the product manager for the VMware View iPad client.

Wyse has the PocketCloud application for the iPhone or iPAD. The Wyse Pocketcloud uses the RDP protocol for connecting to VMware View desktops. The PCoIP protocol is not supported yet.

vSphere Management app for the iPAD

VMware is developing a vSphere management application for the iPAD.  Click on this link for a demo.

VMware Converter standalone 4.3

The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3 includes the following new functionality:

- Support for VMware vSphere 4.1 as source and destination targets

- Support for importing powered-off Microsoft Hyper-V R1 and Hyper-V R2

- Public API and sample code for submitting and monitoring Converter jobs

- Support for importing Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 sources

- Ability to throttle the data transfer from source to destination based on network bandwidth or CPU

- IPv6 support

Discontinued Support options: 

- Support of the following operating systems is discontinued:

Windows 2000

Windows NT

- Support for OVF format is discontinued

- Support for VCB image sources is discontinued

- Linux installation support is discontinued

The VMware Converter standalone can be downloaded from this Link 

End of VMware ESX

The future releases of VMware will only contains ESXi and not ESX anymore. VMware ESX 4.1 is the last version with the full version of VMware ESX including the COS (Service Console).

This was old news that VMware highlighted. Here’s a link with an interview with the ESXi team.

VMware vClould Director (vCD)

Pool virtual infrastructure resources in your existing datacenter and deliver them to users as a catalogue-based service with VMware vCloud Director. Coupled with VMware vSphere™, the best platform for cloud infrastructures, VMware vCloud Director enables customers to build secure private clouds, transforming the way IT delivers and manages infrastructure services and the way users access and consume these services

For more information visit this link,for a 60 days evaluation this link or an interview with product manager Eddie Dinel.

VMware vShield

VMware announced the three new security products:

- VMware vShield Endpoint – Offloaded Anti-virus and Anti-Malware

- VMware vShield App – Application protection from Network–Based Threats

- VMware vShield Edge – Security for Edge of the Virtual Datacenter

VMware vShield Endpoint is very interesting for VMware View environments. This solution can reduce the IOPS needed for every View desktop.

For more information visit this link.

I hope there are still new announcements over for the VMword 2010 in Copenhagen.

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- VMware vCenter Update Manager Performance and Best Practices for vSphere 4.1.

- VMware vCenter Server Performance and Best Practices for vSphere 4.1.

- VMware Host Profiles – Technical Overview.

- Deploying 10 Gigabit Ethernet on VMware vSphere 4.0 with Cisco Nexus 1000V, VMware vNetwork Standard and Distributed Switches.

- vSphere 4.0 to 4.1 differences.

- VMware vSphere on NetApp Storage Best Practices Technical Report v2.1.

- Sample chapter(5) from the HA and DRS deepdrive book from Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman.

During a health check of a vSphere environment i notices dropped packets on several VMs. In ESXTOP the %DRPRX value showed dropped receive packets on several VMs. In the screenshot an example:

The customer uses vSphere 4.0 build 244038. All the VMs that experiencing the dropped packets problem were Windows 2008 with an  E1000 NIC.

E1000 — An emulated version of the Intel 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet NIC. A driver for this NIC is not included with all guest operating systems. Typically Linux versions 2.4.19 and later, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and later, and Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) and later include the E1000 driver.

On of the Windows 2008 VMs had no packets drops. The only difference with the other VMs was that the IPv6 protocol binding on the NIC was disabled. After disabling the IPv6 protocol binding on all the other VMs the packet drops is disappear.

Some services require the IPv6 binding, so disabling the IPv6 binding was no option for the customer.  All the other Windows 2008 machines with the VMXNET3 NIC and IPv6 enabled had no packet drops. After changing all the VMs with Windows 2008 and the E1000 NIC to the VMXNET3 NIC solves the problem.

The VMXNET 3 adapter is the next generation of a paravirtualized NIC designed for performance, and is not related to VMXNET or VMXNET 2. It offers all the features available in VMXNET 2, and adds several new features like multiqueue support (also known as Receive Side Scaling in Windows), IPv6 offloads, and MSI/MSI-X interrupt delivery.

Whenever possible i suggest to use the VMXNET3 driver for Windows 2008 Operating Systems.

The new vSphere 4.1 release offers a lot of new cool features and enhancements. Here’s a list What’s New in vSphere 4.1.  When upgrading to vSphere 4.1 there are a couple of things to think about before starting:

• Make sure your systems and components are supported, check the Hardware Compatibility Guide.
• Verify that other products are compatible with vSphere 4.1. For example VMware View 4 is not supported on vSphere 4.1. VMware View composer does not support 64-bit operating systems.  
• vCenter 4.1 server requires a 64-bit OS. 32-bit Operating Systems are not supported anymore for vCenter 4.1 server.
• vSphere 4.1 and its subsequent update and patch releases are the last releases to include both ESX and ESXi hypervisor architectures. Future major releases of VMware vSphere will include only the VMware ESXi architecture. For this reason, VMware recommends that deployments of vSphere 4.x utilize the ESXi hypervisor architecture. When migrate to ESXi all the script and programs (such as hardware monitoring agents and backup agents), that uses the Service Console needs to replaced. More information can be the following links ESX4.1 is the last ESX what do i do now and in the  ESXi41 Migration Guide.
• vSphere 4.1 support scripted installation for ESXi. You cannot use scripted installation to install ESXi to a USB device!  Here are some good links for scripted ESXi 4.1 installations:  Kenneth van Ditmarsch, Setting up vSphere ESXi 4.1 scripted installation, Kendrick Coleman, ESX 4.1 Kickstart install, Billhill,  Setting up vSphere ESX 4.1 scripted installation from Ubuntu and Deploy ESXi 4.1 using Scripted install feature.
• ESXi comes in two editions, the vSphere Hypervisor (free version) with limited features and the enterprise ESXI.
• The VMware Knowledgebase has best practices for installing and upgrading vSphere 4.1. Installing ESX 4..1 and vCenter 4.1 best practices and Upgrading to ESX 4.1 and vCenter 4.1 best practices.
• Get yourself familiar with tools as PowerCLI, vCLI and the VMware Management Assistant (vMA).These tools helps you to automate, configure  and troubleshoot vSphere 4.1 environments. More information can be found on the following links vCLI, PowerCLI and vMA.
• Before upgrading check the Knowlegde Base from VMware for issues with  vSphere 4.1. For example Upgrading vCenter Server 4.0 to 4.1 fails with the error: Exception Thrown while executing SQL script.

What’s new in VMware HealthAnalyzer version 3.0:

-         A new catalog of best practices developed for VMware vSphere

-         Observations tab presents observations (summary of findings),recommendations and a justification for each analyzed best practice area

-         Enhanced best practices navigation pane that provides powerful filtering and grouping capabilities

-         Collection of VMware VirtualCenter/vCenter diagnostics data

-         New Virtual Appliance Web Console Management User Interface

-         Support for running the HealthAnalyzer virtual application on Windows 7

-         Base Health Check mode enables use of HealthAnalyzer as a presales tool

-         Select observations/BP to include in the Health Check report

-         New Health Check Report

-         A new catalog of best practices developed for VMware vSphere

VMware HealthAnalyzer 3.0 is available from the VMware partner central.

When designing a VMware View environment one important step is to look at the Anti-Virus solution going to be used. Not well designed Anti-Virus solutions can cause a lot of extra I/O and system spikes in virtual environments. This can result in a negatively user experience.

VMware has made an Anti-Virus deployment best practices whitepaper for Virtual Machines.  Topics as  ThinApp, linked clones, VMsafe and file exclusions etc. are all listed in the whitepaper.

The Anti-Virus deployment for VMware View whitepaper can be found here.

TrainSignal has released  a new video training called “VMware vSphere Pro Series Vol .1”. Three vExperts covers topics about VMware View and ThinApp, VMware PowerCLI and the Cisco Nexus 1000V.

VMware View & ThinApp Presented by David Davis covers the following topics:

• View Overview and introduction
• Installing VMware View 4
• Deploying Virtual Desktops with View
• Automated Virtual Desktop Deployment with View Pools
• Adding a Terminal Services Pool in View
• Understanding View Composer Linked Clones
• Introduction to ThinApp 4
• Installing ThinApp
• Virtualizing Applications with ThinApp

Managing VMware vSphere with PowerCLI presented by Hal Rottenberg covers the following topics:

• Introduction to PowerCLI,
• Powershell Basic
• PowerCLI Concepts
• PowerCLI in the Real World
• PowerCLI Cmdlet Deep dives

Cisco Nexus 1000V – VMware vSphere Third-Party Virtual Distributed Switch presented by Rick Scherer covers the following topics:

• Getting Started with Nexus 1000V
• Integrating the Cisco Nexus 1000V with vCenter server
• High Availability Options for the Cisco Nexus 1000V
• Configuring Port Profiles on the Cisco Nexus 1000V

The VMware vSphere Pro Series Vol .1 video package contains:

• 20 Videos (10 hrs: 39mins: 50secs) will be provided in High-Quality AVI and WMV format. In other words, you get perfect quality and replication of your instructors’ screens. An easy-to-use table of contents allows you to navigate to key areas you wish to focus on
• Instant Access to all 20 Videos (10 hrs: 39mins: 50secs) in Train Signal’s My Online Training section. These high resolution videos allow you to access any and all of this award winning training in just moments. No need to wait for the DVDs to arrive to get started learning. You can be watching video in just moments and it’s all included for free.
• 20 iPod video files to watch Train Signal on the go! A popular request amongst our students who wish to study while they commute (i.e. train, plane, bus). These 320×240 M4V files are compressed versions of the original course, and play on any iPod that supports video. Also great for reviewing and refreshing your mind "on the job."
• 20 MP3 audio files to listen to Train Signal anytime, anywhere. Some of our students have requested this option. Now, you can listen in the car or while working out. Our MP3 files can be burnt to a CD or copied to a portable device
• Instructor Notes – These PDF documents, which can be printed out, contain the slides used by the instructors throughout the videos. These documents allow the user a quick easy reference to the instructors’ notes on the slides, and provides a place to make additional notes.

The content presented by the VMware vExperts in  the video’s is very good. If you want to know more about VMware View and ThinApp, PowerCLI or the Cisco Nexus 1000V this is a must see video package!   For more information about this training video and watch a demo go to the TrainSignal website by clicking here.

When you install VMware ESX 4 by using the default installation method from for example the DVD, the NIC speed  and duplex setting are set to fixed for each NIC. This means that the network switch port must be set to fixed too. In VMware ESX 3 the default NIC mode was Auto Negotiate In the vCenter clients this looks like:

You can easily change the NIC speed and duplex settings to auto Negotiate for all NICs in the ESX host by using PowerCLI. This can be done by using the  following one-liner: 

Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter | Set-VMHostNetworkAdapter –AutoNegotiate

Be sure when you execute this command in production environment, that the VMware ESX hosts is in maintenance mode!

There are different ways to patch your VMware ESX(i) 4 hosts. The most common utilities are VMware Update Manager (VUM), vSphere Host Update Utility and the esxupdate command line utility (run from the Service Console) to patch your VMware environment. Here’s explained the differences between them.

VUM can be used to automated patch your complete environment without user intervention. ESX(i) host are automatically placed in maintenance mode and VM’s are migrated to other VMware ESX(i) host using VMotion and DRS techniques, the host is patched, rebooted and exiting maintenance mode.  VUM is used on enterprise environments.

vSphere Host Update Utility can be used to patch only VMware ESXi (not ESX) hosts. Normally this utility is used in small ESXi environments without VUM, VMotion and DRS.

VUM utility	vSphere Host Update Utility

ESXupdate command, this command line utility (in the service console) can be used to patch your standalone VMware ESX host, for example the vSphere Essentials edition. This small business version comes with for example VMware ESX, vCenter and VMware Update Manager. But when your vCenter server is installed virtually as VM you are not able to transfer the VM to another host because there is no VMotion in the license. All the VMs must be shutdown including the vCenter VM to put the host in maintenance mode. So you can’t use VMware Update Manager. Now you need the esxupdate command.  Here are the steps for using the ESXupdate command:

• The first thing is to download the patch bundles. A bundle contains a metadata zip which defines the bulletins available for installation. This is a great improvement to earlier versions of VMware ESX. It’s possible to select all patch bundles and download them at once. The patch bundles can be found here.

• Upload the patch bundles on the VMware ESX VMFS  or NFS partition (other options such as HTTP repository are also possible). This can be done by using the datastore browser in the vCenter client.

• Shutdown all VMs on the VMware ESX host to patch using the .vSphere client or the vmware-cmd command.
• Put the host in maintenance mode using the vSphere client or the following command:

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

• Check the integrity of the patch bundle with the esxupdate –check –bundle command. Do this for all patch bundles.
• Install the patch using the esxupdate update –bundle command. Install all patch bundles beginning with the oldest patch bundle.
• Exit maintenance mode by using the vSphere client of the following command:

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

• Reboot the hosts vSphere client of the following command:

shutdown –r now

Here’s a sample script:

vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter
esxupdate check --bundle ESX400-200906001.zip
esxupdate update --bundle ESX400-200906001.zip
esxupdate check --bundle ESX400-200907001.zip
esxupdate update --bundle ESX400-200907001.zip
esxupdate check --bundle ESX400-200909001.zip
esxupdate update --bundle ESX400-200909001.zip
esxupdate check --bundle ESX-4.0.0-update01a.zip
esxupdate update --bundle ESX-4.0.0-update01a.zip
esxupdate check --bundle ESX400-200912001.zip
esxupdate update --bundle ESX400-200912001.zip
esxupdate check --bundle ESX400-201002001.zip
esxupdate update --bundle ESX400-201002001.zip
vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit
shutdown -r now