Task Manager for Hyper-V 1.0 is a new free tool from Veeam. Task Manager can connect to a individual Hyper-V hosts and display information about the host and the guest VMs. Real time CPU and memory utilization is displayed. This can be useful when monitoring or troubleshoot Hyper-V server utilization. Task Manager for Hyper-V requires no installation and is free of charge.
More information about Veeam Task Manager can be found here
I often get the question: “What Virtual Machine hardware version do I need?”.
It depends on the features you need. If you want for example use the “Changed Blocked Tracking (CBT)” feature, you need at least hardware version 7.
In ESX 3.x hardware version 4 is introduced, in vSphere 4.x hardware version 7 is introduced and in vSphere 5 hardware version 8 is introduced. Here is an overview of the hardware version and the features they have:
| Hardware version | Features | Products |
| 8 | – Up to 32 vCPUs per VM – Maximum 1 TB RAM per VM – 3-D graphics and high-definition audio – Smart-card reader support – USB 3.0 devices are supported – Improved network driver for the E1000e network adapter, provided by VMware tools – Greater resources are available with vCloud Director 1.5 |
Hardware version 8 is the default for new VM in: – ESX 5.x – Fusion 4.x – Workstation 8.x – Player 4.x |
| 7 | – Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) virtual device for Microsoft Cluster Service — Provides support for running Windows Server 2008 in a Microsoft Cluster Service configuration. – IDE virtual device — Ideal for supporting older operating systems that lack SCSI drivers. – VMXNET Generation 3. VMXNET is optimized for performance in a virtual machine – Virtual Machine Hot Plug Support— Provides support for adding and removing virtual devices, adding virtual CPUs, and adding memory to a virtual machine without having to power off the virtual machine. – Change Block Tracking (CBT) support. Incease VADP backups |
Hardware version 7 is the default for new VM in: – ESX 4.x – Fusion 3.x – Fusion 2.x – Workstation 7.x & 6.5 – Player 3.x – Server 2.x |
| 4 | Hardware version 4 is the default for new VM in: – ESX 3.x – ACE 2.x – Fusion 1.x – Player 2.x |
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| 3 | Hardware version 3 is the default for new VM in: – ESX 2.x – GSX Server 3.x |
Considerations before upgrading the hardware version of the VM:
– Important to know is that upgrading the hardware version of the VM requires downtime!
– Virtual machines with hardware version 7 can only run on ESX(i) 4.x and ESXi 5.x. Virtual machines with hardware version 8 can only run on ESXi 5.x
– When you upgrade from virtual hardware version 4 to version 8, the upgrade is reversible if you take a virtual machine backup or snapshot before performing the upgrade.
– To automate this process, consider using Update Manager for virtual machine upgrades
– Update Manager takes automatic snapshots before performing virtual machine upgrades
– Be sure to upgrade first the VMware tools of the VM. I you upgrade the virtual hardware before you upgrade VMware Tools, the virtual machine might lose its network settings
– Verify that all VMs and .VMDK files are stored on VMFS3, VMFS5 or NFS volumes
Steps in the hardware version upgrade process:
– Do an inventory on the current hardware and VMware tools versions. This can be done for example by using the vCenter client, RVtools utility or PowerCLI
– Install or upgrade the VMware tools (reboot required)
– Power on the VM
– Before upgrading create a backup or snapshot of the VM
– Backup the NIC IP settings with the VMUpgradeHelper.exe command. More information can be found here
– Power off the VM
– Upgrade Virtual Hardware
– Start VM (reboot after the new hardware is discovered)
– Check if all the IP addresses are correct
Downgrade methods:
There is no button in vCenter to revert back to an earlier Hardware version. Here are two methods to go back to an earlier version of the hardware version:
– Create before upgrading the hardware version a snapshot when the VM is powered down.
– Using VMware Converter
Upgrading issues to know about:
– Upgrading virtual hardware in ESX 4.x may cause Windows 2008 disks to go offline (more information can be found here)
– After a hardware version upgrade the configuration can be messed up on for example Microsoft ISA, Microsoft NLB clusters and RSA servers
– After upgrading a Windows virtual machine from hardware version 4 to hardware version 7, virtual NIC settings (such as static IP configuration) are lost. Make sure you backup the VM IP settings with the VMUpgradeHelper.exe command. More information can be found here
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VMware Flings did it again. They released another cool tool called “ESX System Analyzer”. This tool helps when you want to migrate from VMware ESX to VMware ESXi. It scans the VMware environment and collects the following information:
– Hardware compatibility with ESXi. It checks if the hardware is compatible with ESXi 4 and ESXi 5.
– VMs registered on the ESX host, as well as VMs located on the host’s local disk
– Modifications to the Service Console
– RPMs which have been added or removed
– Files which have been added
– Users and cronjobs which have been added
This tool also provides summary information for the whole existing environment
– Version of VMware Tools and Virtual Hardware for all VMs
– Version of Filesystem for all datastores
By having this information, administrators can determine what tasks need to be done prior to the migration. Examples include:
– Relocate VMs from local datastores to shared datastores
– Make note of what agent software has been added to the host and obtain the equivalent agentless version
– Replace cronjobs with equivalent remote scripts written with PowerCLI or vCLI
The installation and configuration of the “ESX System Analyzer” appliance is very easy. Here are some screenshots of the appliance:
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Screenshots of the Output in XLS (Excel):
Overview output:
ESX server output:
This is a very handy tool when you want to migrate from VMware ESX to ESXi. More information can be found on the VMware Flings website found here.