Plain Virtualization

Few months back there were reports of Windows 2008 R2 and Solaris 10 running 64-bit experiencing BSOD or kernel panic running vSphere 5.x.  Some of my customers were also impacted by this issues.  With VMware Support, they identified that there are experiencing servers that are on Intel E5 v2 series processors. VMware was fast and release a temporary fix to use Software MMU however this is not beneficial as this increase the CPU and memory requirements on certain applications. So the server vendors with VMware and Intel must have gone through lots of testing and have release the updated KB2073791 .  The temporary fix will still applies if your server vendors does not have an updated BIOS upgrade to make some changes to resolve this issues. If you refer to page 50 in the document stated in the KB 2703791 , CA135 is the known issue as a release document from Intel.  Since a processor cannot be altered, a fixed is provided via the server vendors BIOS. Interesti...

Before I started Presales role, I do not know the difference between OEM and Open (some call it volume license) License means.  It was something I never bother as I was doing professional service I just implement and license was not something I need to understand as long my customer bought them and hand me the serial keys to setup.  Doesn't matter is it Microsoft, VMware, Symantec or whatsoever software. After being a Presales consultant for a while now.  I have to understand licensing and able to explain when asked and one of the most talked and confused topics is always on OEM and Open licenses.  Been able to understand them more easily helps me to advise my customer not just in solution but also in terms of compliance not to violate any licensing agreements they have. Here I must state the disclaimer, purpose of this post is to clarify all the doubts on what have you got confused with and as well as the references from the various vendors so none of this is N...

Someone who is attending the vSphere Install, Configure and Manage course asked me this question.  Will upgrading a virtual distributed switch cause a downtime or require a downtime? After performing an upgrade to vSphere to a later version, there is a upgrade button on the Distributed Switch both on the web client as well as the C# client.  You can view some of the screenshots below: Pictures reference from http://www.vmwarearena.com/2014/01/vsphere-distributed-switch-part-12.html . There is no downtime required when upgrading the virtual distributed switch (vDS), the upgrade process only enables additional functionality of the switch which was release in the later version of vSphere.  E.g. Network I/O control on vSphere 5.0 on port level, Network I/O control on VM Level in vSphere 5.1, etc.  You can read this from the documentation center here which mention this bit that it is a "non-disruptive operation".  The vSphere 5.5 Networking guide also me...