Plain Virtualization

It has been sometime that I last did any installation and decide to rebuild my home lab.  I will skip the installation or upgrade of ESX server as this is pretty straight forward either using VMware vCenter Update Manager or via booting up from CD. I will document the vCenter components as well as the databases requirements.  The SQL query are all tested during my installation.  I have record a simple video to show that the SQL query are error free and allows vCenter to install without any errors. I might miss out some stuff here since I am not a DB guy or a SQL expert so to speak. vCenter 64bit DSN after user and rights assigned Check out support Database from here Adobe Flash required for machine access web client  Similarly to what I have documented year before on vCenter 5.1 here , the SQL scripts did not change other than the requirements of SSO database is no longer required. Extracted from vCenter installation guide which can be found in t...

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 n...

References: VMware Compatiblity Guide VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes Business Applications on VMware Platform I have been asked many times if this hardware will support that hardware or does this solution support the other solution?  What are the databases supported?  Which storage support VMware Site Recovery Manager? It's pretty easy to find this out but if you do not know how to you might end up goggling and find yourself with lots of links but not very closed to your expected results.  Reason is these are all based on search engines so unless someone posted that on the internet else it would be hard to come by. Below is a video on how you can easily navigate on VMware website to look for the compatibility matrix that you are looking for.  Do not that as not all hardware are send in for certification, the newest and greatest might not be listed in the database.  For that, you will need to check back with the respective hardware vendor. ...

I was trying to find any article or videos or any help of steps or guide when I encounter setting up of the SQL database for vCenter 5.  I was surprise there wasn't much around.  The closest I got was from Jason Boche . I mean if I were to just assigned DBO to both MSDN and the vCenter DB for the easy way out.  However as security and user rights has become a concern at many customers' requirement.  I tried going through the installation guide to setup database with just enough rights but no DBO. The bad thing is its a lot of work to do it manually following the guide.  The good news is VMware has provided the script however some work need to be done to customize to your own needs. Here my setup is on Windows 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2008 R2. For MSDB, you can assign the DBO directly instead and remove it after installing vCenter and Update Manager.  Yes you hear me.  Do not remove the DBO rights on the vCenter user till you are done wit...