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Showing posts from 2013

VMware Support and Severity

Seeing several occasions where many are not sure what to do when logging a support call.  Depending on your support that you have purchase which comes in the follow: Basic Support , Production Support , Business Critical Support (BCS) & Mission Critical Support (MCS).  You can compare the support types at here . You can log a call via two ways 1) online via myVMware, 2) phone providing your Customer Number. Now first you need to know the support landing page here .  Here you see three options and all of them will bring you to login your myVMware account.  That would be simple assuming you have the rights to the licenses and you will see your customer number in the portal.  You will then be able to log a support case easily.  You can follow this guide here to learn how to log a online support ticket. What if you do not have the rights to view the licenses but you manage to get the customer number from a co-worker who has it but he is off duty.  Simple you can log a case vi

What's New in Horizon Mirage 4.3

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Having to release a newer version of Horizon Mirage from 4.2 to 4.3, there are some new features and with some limitations as well. Here is the release note for Horizon Mirage 4.3. You can see that in the What's New section, Horizon Mirage can now manage Persistent desktop from Horizon View.  This was not support for any virtual desktop previously as the dedup functions uses up all the CPU cycle and resulted a over demand on the ESX server.  In this release it is now only supporting full clone desktops.  You will see new upload policy setting as show below: You can see that you can also disable client end throttling and choose that end point for this policy is optimize for LAN environment. The next big feature is apply app layer during Windows 7 migration from Windows XP.  Previously only a base layer can be applied for migration and subsequently any new app layer/s need to be applied separately and this result some disruption to the user.  With this after migration, th

VCDX Attempts and Fallen

For some of you, you might know I have attempted VCDX defences couple of times and none was a success and after my last attempt recently I have decided to stop doing it.  The reason was not I given up hope, perhaps I have lost more touch toward post sales consulting where I used to do it and feel different from to what I am doing as a Presales.  As all my attempts were submitted with vSphere 4 design which has retired since the last defense, I have no confident in doing a brand new frictional design based on vSphere 5.  Also I can feel the way I perform during defense versus how I face customer were completely difference.  I just cannot bring myself to be the same in a defense environment and felt the different when I did it with real customers perhaps the environment was just different. The purpose of this article would to share all my 3 attempts and the experience I have gained and each time I always feel I could do better and, Yes I can really do better but it's already over

VMware Horizon View Persona Management Gotcha!

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Remember back in the release of VMware View 5.0 (yes the name Horizon wasn't there then), I wrote an article on Deploy Persona Management Overview .  I also helped to answer one question in details here on Persona Management in the communities which now when I read it, I seems to know a lot I have forgotten already (am I aging). While doing a POC I gotten some difficulty in getting Persona Management to work even though policy was applied via Active Directory as well as even tried on the "master" VM used for creating the desktop pool.  Here is a KB on it. This is a screenshot on my customer environment apparently they have a global police in place to use only Local User Profiles so your persona will not work even settings it at domain policy or at local image policy.  I log into one of the View Desktop and run rsop.msc (you would need administrator rights), to see what policy is applied in the domain.  Some domain might take a bit of time up to 10mins to see the po

vSphere Network Health Check Saves The Day!

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Was doing a Proof of Concept for Horizon View at one customer with a partner.  The infrastructure was setup and network trunked on the uplinks. We started out deploying all the components leveraging on customer's Active Directory, DHCP server and as well as Database. All was well and setup but two things was encountered: Every Desktop pools will always have some desktops not getting IP address. Horizon View client receive connection error after choosing a desktop or while using a desktop. Spend a bit of time troubleshooting by the partner.  Things like using a Windows DHCP instead of Linux (customer's was linux DHCP) and putting Horizon View Connection Server in the same subnet as the Desktops. I took over to see what have gone wrong since my partner has already done so many work.  Did some tests with my colleague, Wei Chiang who is strong in networking.  We managed to isolate the issue and even set static IP on those Desktops that does not have IP however they stil

VMware Certifications Promotion 2013

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After the big event, VMworld 2013 at San Francisco and the coming Bacelona, there will be various events to carry on the information that was announced at the APAC regional vForum or VMware Solutions Symposium at individual APAC countries. Other than the announcements and launches of new version and products, there is also promotion for certifications announced here . I am going to take Singapore for example here where vForum 2013 will be held on 24th Oct where information of all the events are shown here . For Singapore, you will be able to take the certification exams like the new associates exams with 50% off the price and as well as VCP and VCAP exams at 75% off the price as shown here .  One thing as a reminder, if you are taking exams that need authorization, you will still need to go through this process which I posted here . The information on this page is rather confusing so here I am going to make a summary for easy understanding. Exams can be taken from 11th Nov 2

What's New vSphere 5.5 in a Summary

With the announcement from VMWorld 2013, vSphere 5.5 was launched.  In case you have forgotten or need to review a summary what vSphere 4.1 and 5.0 and 5.1 has, you can refer to my previous post here and here . VMware has also release a whitepaper on the platform here .  There is also a blog post from VMware as well with a quick reference guide and a summary post here . I will not mention again what is already mentioned above in post referred to.  But I will just briefly goes through some of the things I find it worth mentioning. SSO installation and setup is now a breeze of the past.  It has been greatly improved.  I will do my best to do a video on upgrading and as well as installing for new field once I gather some time and you can see my current video on installing SSO in vSphere 5.1 to do that comparison. Web Client now support MAC OS X for virtual machine console viewing.  I needed this as I am always on a Mac. For environment that want hassle free setup of vCenter a

VMware Solutions Walkthrough

So its after the VMworld 2013 in US.  Many of us might be curious of some of the new features and solutions that was announced. Hearing them why not seeing it and know how each feature or function can or configured for technical guys like myself. So here is a gimpse of it and this have not been possible from the technical guys in VMware.  Lots of effort been put through to get this simple to understand. vSOM (vSphere with Operations Management) From setting up ESXi servers all the way to doing some advanced setting as well as the vC Ops Standard vApp.  Not forgeting vSphere replication as well. vCloud Suite 5.5 Here you will see VMware Data Protection 5.5, the new AppHA, the flash cache feature and of course not forgetting vCloud Director itself.  VSAN The Virtual SAN product.  This is what many are looking into especially for the storage guys.  This is release a Public Beta Release which means its not available for purchase or download.  However interested parties can re

New VMware Associate Level Certification

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During VMworld 2013, other than the announcement of solutions, there was also a new certification announcement.  That is a new entry certification also known as Associate which was mentioned here . For Data Center virtualization, we will have VCA_DV, for Cloud, VCA-Cloud and lastly for EUC, VCA-WM (a new term Workforce Mobility, which I think might replace the current name DT). For a start, VMware has a promotion code for a 50% discount stated here .  The advantage of having an Associate certification, allows professional to have a easy head start without any prerequisites to take their first step towards VMware certification.  The cost of the exam is roughly about USD130 (SGD160 for me).  From now to end of the year 2013, when you book the associate exam, you will automatically receive 50% discount. Some may not require to attend a course due to their scope of work but a recognition of their understanding of the technology.  With this, not only one does not have to spend on a

VMware Certification can be verified, Now you cannot lie!

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With the recent revamped of VMware Certification site which I mentioned in my prior post , you may also see there are other enhancements in individual certification transcript. Thanks to Choon Kok who brought this up in the VMware User Group - ASEAN . By logging into the certification site , and choosing myTranscript to view all your certificates. You will then see all your certifications that you hold to date. For each certification, you will also see View and Share . View - Let's you download a PDF of your certification.  The link is the same link as the provided in the Share popup window (Weird.  Either one of this link become redundant.  I do not see the need to provide a certificate to other if they can verify you from Share). Share - Provide a link to others who need to make sure you are claimed who you are whether you hold a valid certification.  In here there are two options, one which is as above like View but the link has been copied down for yo

VMware Certification Exam System Revamped

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If you have been doing your booking for VMware exams, you would know you can do it over at Pearson Vue website .  However if you have now try to do the same you might find yourself seeing the below page after login and unable to make any registration. VMware Education has recently revamped the way you make your exam booking.  Instead of viewing the information at VMware website and decide to schedule an exam and head to Pearsonvue, what VMware Education has done is let you do everything via VMware Certification site . Head on to VMware Certification site to choose a certification you are preparing for.  Here I am going to use VCP5-DV for example. You will find all the information for VCP5-DV including the course listing that is eligible to be certified.  At time of writing, only vSphere 5.1: Install Configure and Manager and vSphere5.1: Optimize and Scale are the only two courses (I am not here to explain how to be certified but to address the change). To register just clic

VMware Horizon Mirage Performance Catcha

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It has been some time since my last post.  Have been really busy however I always make a point to at least do a meaningful post a month.  Since VMworld is also round the corner, there will be many updates from all other bloggers around the world. Recently was doing a Proof of Concept (POC) for Horizon Mirage and was questioned on the time to centralize an end device was too long. Here's what happen: A simple centralize of endpoint took as long as 140mins in one setup and 52mins in another which could not have been shorter since the endpoint is plain OS image about 40GB in size. Setup 1 First setup that took 140mins where the Horizon Mirage Server is a VM on a standalone ESXi server with local disk with two 500GB 7.2RPM SATA disks extended into one datastore. Setup 2 The Horizon Mirage server was installed on a physical server with 500GB 7.2RPM SATA Disks on Raid 1.  This took 52mins. Separately, my colleague did a test as well in our office network which is connec

VMware Network Diagram for vSphere 5.x (2054806)

Have you ever wonder or encounter when asked about network ports requirements for each and individual solutions from VMware?  Whether as a presales, an architect or even a VMware support engineer. No fear!  VMware has just release a very informative network diagram show casing all the network ports and communications in between vSphere and vCloud Director components in a diagram format which makes it easier to understand than just text based. The only catch?  This is based on the current release at the time of writing and likely it would not be updated as frequent so you might have to do your own updating whenever a new release is out. At least it's better than none and going through all the installation guides or KBs would be a killer. Now you can spend more time doing other things. Here is the KB to the network diagram.  This is based on four other KBs as listed: TCP and UDP Ports required to access vCenter Server, ESXi/ESX hosts, and other network componen

What's New VMware Horizon Mirage 4.2

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Finally got hold of sometimes after work to do this.  Downloaded the VMware Horizon Mirage 4.2 binary. On referring to the guide, there are additional component this time round which is the Web Management dashboard which will eventually replace the need for the Windows Management Console MMC which Horizon Mirage uses. I did an upgrade from version 4.0 to 4.2 and the upgrade process is still the same which is located in Page 266, Mirage Administrator's Guide . Uninstall the Horizon Mirage in the following order: Web Access (If you install this components) Mirage Server Mirage Management Console Mirage Management Server Install Horizon Mirage 4.2: Mirage Management Server Mirage Management Console Mirage Server Web Access (if you wants to allow user to access their files via file portal) Web Management Do note that Web Management requires Dot Net 4.0 which you can download the standalone here .  Also note that browsers supported are Chrome, Firefox, IE 9 and 10.

VMware Horizon Mirage 4.2 release

With much great work to further improve VMware Horizon Mirage, VMware has release version 4.2 which is mentioned here . Some of the great improvement here include Vista support for Disaster Recovery, hardware migration and Windows 7 migration from Windows Vista. Added other than bitdefender encryption, now Sophos 5.5 endpoint encryption is also supported. To add further, a web console for help desk to do troubleshooting is now found instead of relying on MMC. Though this release did not have any support for Windows 8 which means support for USMT version 5 is yet to be included.   I hope to see more improvements such as these above soon. I will do an article on Mirage 4.2 soon. See the release note here . Documentation can be located here . Download the binary here .

VMware vExpert 2013 announced!

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The results of the vExpert 2013 accreditation is released!  A list of the people are listed here .  I am glad to be part of this accreditation again for the 2nd time. For those who have achieved vExpert 2013, Tintri is offering a free T-shirt to congrats all of you here . (This has ended.) I have shared my first experience in my previous post , those who are motivated to be one do start doing some contribution to the community.  You can be a technology evangelist or even a blogger or just a forum participants who contribute back to the communities. Sharing is caring and we live by these communities to have our life in any roles in the virtualization space and be awarded with this accreditation. I also like to thank all those who have supported my blog and YouTube channel and hope to continue to produce useful articles to the community. Once again congratulation to all the vExperts! More freebies for vExpert.  For all vExpert please refer to the community discussions .