Plain Virtualization

In vSphere 5.1, vMotion without shared storage was introduced.  Frank Denneman has mentioned here there is no named to this features though many has given names like Enhanced vMotion, etc. Some have tried to perform this but realize even though they have upgraded to vSphere client 5.1, it still show greyed out and given a message to power off the VM.  This is because, in vSphere 5.1, all new features enhancement will only be found in the Web Client.  In such, the C# client will not have this option. So using the Web Client, I was able to perform this vMotion in my home lab where I do not have any shared storage other than the local disk of each ESX servers or across two different clusters which have shared storage within there respective cluster. Do note that you can only perform 2 concurrent vMotion without shared storage at one time, any additional will be queued.  Also the total of such vMotion adds to the total of concurrent vMotion (max of 8) and Storage ...

There are a few good resources on using the vCenter Web Client.  One of them contains the use of the whole web client interface which you can find here . This KB states the requirements for the Web Client. This blog shows you the installation of Web Client. To access the web client the URL address would be as follows with the default port: https:// :(hostname or ip):9443/vsphere-client Below is a video on a simple setup of the Web Client and installation.  Do note that the Web Client would require Adobe Flash to access via any of the web browsers namely Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome. Features now available in Web Client but not on C# Client vSphere Replication vMotion with no shared storage SR-IOV, BDPU, Port allocation to Elastic Network Healthcheck Backup and Rollback for vDS Port mirroring (IPFX) and Netflow new enhancements for vDS (ESPAN, RSPAN) I came across this blog post on the vDS enhancements on vSphere 5.1.  Do take a look. 1...

After the installation of vCenter 5.1, you can then proceed with the Update Manager if yu do use it and its strongly you use it to scan and check for update and apply these updates or patches to your VMware environment. Refer to the vCenter Update Manager documentation page .  Here you will find the installation guide and the requirements for the database rights requirement.  I am using MS SQL in my demo here.  For other database please refer to the installation document.  In short for MS SQL, you need either a sysadmin role or db_owner of the database for the upgrade or installation.  In a corporate environment, typically sysadmin role is not allowed that leads to only the db_owner. Also the requirement for MSDB is need as sysadmin or dbo_owner during installation or upgrade only. Create vCenter Update Manager database with the rights.  The revoke of dbo role for the vumuser is at the bottom of the script commented out. ==========================...

To upgrade, you can refer to the Best Practice KB here . If you have any problem hit installing SSO, you can refer to this KB .  If you hit an error for vCenter installation after installing SSO, vCenter Inventory Service successfully, you may want to refer to this KB .   If you encounter an error during vCenter Installation and its show in vm_ssoreg.log "java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: The local OS identity source is not registered with the SSO installation" Resolution: You might need to quit and rejoin your domain for the vCenter server if time on both the vCenter and Domain Controller is within not more than 5 minutes difference. For a more detailed installation including certificates installation you may refer to this other blog . To start with, I have make this guide simply easy for someone who have not done any vCenter installation before and using MS SQL for the database. Here is a video on the installation and below are the detailed instructions and ...

With the release of new vSphere 5.1.  There are lots of new improvement that includes license change as well as features included in the lower editions of vSphere 5.1 which were only present in the higher editions in vSphere 5.0. Below is a overview of features in vSphere 5.0 and 5.1 To keep things simple I will not be going through every features here but would like to bring attention just to those that are made available to the lower editions in vSphere 5.1. Essential: No change.  Only the Hypervisor. Essential Plus: Added vShield Endpoint, vSphere Replication, Hot Add. Standard: Added those in Essential Plus and vShield Zones, Fault Tolerance, Storage vMotion. Enterprise & Enterprise Plus: Almost similar. Consideration 1 For Essential and Essential Plus, it still much more applicable to SMB or Remote offices whereby there is no need of the performance guarantee since typically such environment do not have much workloads.  The limitation still applie...

As announced on the VMworld 2012 in San Francisco, the vCloud Suite is finally here and it has bundled lots of solutions into one package with different editions to serve different type of customers.  The new licensing will also be included by per processor for this suite bundling.  You may refer to the different editions for the vCloud bundle here . Below are some of the breakdown and descriptions to all the components. vSphere 5.1 The same robust and reliable hypervisor that comes with new features like vSphere Replication for replication on recovery purposes which will be available from Essential Plus edition onwards.  Of cos with more features added which I would not go into much details but a few great ones will be GPU sharing and increased of vCPU to 64 .  No more dependency of root account.  Enhanced vMotion able to do a vMotion and a Storage vMotion in just one step even VM on a local datastore.  Single Sign on feature integration with Web cli...