VMware ESX 3.5 Tips and Tricks

1. VMware ESX 3.5Tips and Tricks Brad Ault Nexus IS, Inc Technical Consultant\Implementation Engineer

2. VMware – Information

3. VMware – VMTN Forums • VMTN forums – When starting out you will often come across issues and challenges that are a result of lack of experience. The VMTN forums are a fantastic resource for asking questions and getting the help you need. You will find a very high level of participation in the forums from users all over the world with many experienced and talented users who generously volunteer their time to help others. Most new forum users are surprised by the speed, quality and number of answers that they receive to their posts. It is not uncommon to get a response (and sometime multiple) within minutes of posting. The forums are also a great way to network with other VMware users and share ideas and experiences with each other. • http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn

4. VMware - PodCast • VMTN community roundtable podcast • Weekly hour long podcast that is recorded each Wednesday • Hosted by John Troyer from VMware • A group of senior members from the VMTN community that talk about various issues and topics • Regular participants include Eric Siebert, Edward Haletky, Jason Boche, Steve Beaver, Matthew Johnson and Dave Mishchenko • Special guests each week, past guests include VMware personnel such as Carter Shanklin (Powershell PM), Scott Drummonds (Performance TMM), Charu Chaubal (ESXi TMM) and industry bloggers including Andrew Kutz and Scott Lowe. • Past podcasts available at: http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/podcasts/index.html

5. VMware – Webcasts and VMUG • Webcasts – View upcoming and archived webinars and webcasts on a wide variety of VMware subjects from both VMware and vendors. • http://www.vmware.com/events/webinars/ • VMware User Groups (VMUG) – Another great way to network and meet other Vmware users in your community. • http://vmware.com/resources/communities/usergroup/events.html

6. WMware – Tips and Tricks

7. VMware – Virtual Appliance • Virtual Appliances are pre-built software solutions, comprised of one or more Virtual Machines that are packaged, updated, maintained and managed as a unit. Unlike a traditional hardware appliance, these software appliances let customers easily acquire, deploy and manage, pre-integrated solution stacks. This speeds up time to value and simplifies software development, distribution, and management. • http://www.vmware.com/appliances/

8. VMware – Virtual Appliance

9. VMware – Infrastructure Tool Kit (for Windows) • The VI Toolkit (for Windows) provides a powerful yet simple command line interface for task based management of the VMware Infrastructure platform. Windows Administrators can easily manage and deploy the VMware Infrastructure with a familiar, simple to use command line interface.

10. VMware – Network Performance • When VM’s need to communicate with one another, place on the same ESX server and same vSwitch. • Use DRS settings to force the VM’s to always be on the same ESX server. • Example is a front end server that communicates to a back end SQL server.

11. VMware – Network Performance Example shows 2 VMs on the same ESX host, but connected to two different port groups and two different vSwitches. Result – Network traffic will route out of the two NICs and across the physical switch. Example shows 2 VMs on the same ESX host, but connected to two different port groups and the same vSwitche. Result – Network traffic will route out of the NIC and across the physical switch. Example shows 2 VMs on the same ESX host, but connected to the same port group and same vSwitch. Result – Network traffic will route internally across the vSwtich.

12. VMware – How to expand OS drive (Windows) • Shutdown the virtual machine you want to resize • Log into the ESX Server console via Putty • Type ”vmkfstools -X /vmfs/volumes/<volume name>/<VM directory name>/<virtual disk file name>” ie. /vmfs/volumes/Storage1/my_vm.vmdk. New disk size can be specified in kilo, mega or gigabytes and will be the total size of the new disk. So if you want to increase a virtual disk from 20GB to 24GB you would specify either 24000m or 24g • Shutdown the second helper virtual machine • Edit the settings of the second VM and add the hard disk from the first VM • Power on the second VM and load the Disk Management snap-in and verify that the disk from the first VM has un-allocated space on it

13. VMware – How to expand OS drive (Windows) • Select Start, Run and enter diskpart.exe • The command ‘list volume’ will show you all volumes. • Select your volume based on the results of the list volume command, ie. ‘select volume 1′ • Type the command ‘extend’ to extend the volume • Check the Disk Management snap-in again and the volume should be extended with a larger capacity • Shutdown the second VM and remove (not delete) the disk from it • Power on your first VM and the new space should be there and ready to use

14. WMware – Reduce a VMs disk size • Easy way to reduce a VM’s disk drive size is to use VMware Converter. • http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

15. VMware vCenter Mobile Access • VMware vCenter Mobile Access allows you to monitor and manage VMware Infrastructure from your mobile phone with an interface that is optimized for such devices. Specifically, it allows you to: • Search for virtual machines in your data center • Migrate virtual machines from one host to another using vMotion • Execute recovery plans using VMware Site Recovery Manager • Access Scheduled Tasks, Alarms and Events

16. VMware vCenter Mobile Access Smart Phone VMware vCenter Mobile Access vCenter ESX ESX ESX Smart Phone Smart Phone • http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/vcmobileaccess

17. VMware – vStorage Motion • Enable live migration of virtual machine disk files across storage arrays. VMware Storage VMotion lets you relocate virtual machine disk files between and across shared storage locations while maintaining continuous service availability and complete transaction integrity. • Reduce IT costs and improve flexibility with server consolidation • Decrease downtime and improve reliability with business continuity and disaster recovery • Increase energy efficiency by running fewer servers and dynamically powering down unused servers with our green IT solutions

18. VMware – vStorage Motion • Requirements: • Remote CLI appliance • Source and Target storage must be presented to the ESX server as datastores • Download the Remote CLI at http://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=VI-RCLI

19. VMware – vStorage Motion • There is a GUI snap in for Virtual Center • Drag and Drop • Not written or supported by VMware • http://code.google.com/p/akutz/downloads/list

20. VMware ESXi Hidden Console From the default console screen press ALT-F1 The screen will change to a terminal screen, then type “unsupported”. While typing the screen will not display the letters entered.

21. VMware ESXi Hidden Console Enter the password for the root account Now you are log in to console of ESXi

22. VMware – ESXi enable SSH • At the console of the ESXi host, press ALT-F1 to access the console window. • Enter "unsupported" in the console and then press Enter. When typing, the console will not display the keys you have typed. • If successfully entered "unsupported" you will see the Tech Support Mode warning and a password prompt. Enter the password for the root login. • You should then see the prompt of ~ #. Edit the file inetd.conf using vi by entering "vi /etc/inetd.conf". • Find the line that begins with #ssh and remove the #. Then save the file. • Once you've closed the vi editor, run the command /sbin/services.sh restart to restart the management services.

23. VMware – ESXi enable SSH • Update for ESXi 3.5 Update 2 - With Update 2 the service.sh command no longer restarts the inetd process which enables SSH access. • Either restart your host or • Run ps | grep inetd to determine the process ID for the inetd process. • The output of the command will be something like 1299 1299 busybox inetd, and the process ID is 1299. • Then run kill -HUP <process_id> (kill -HUP 1299 in this example) • This will then grant you access to the host via SSH.

24. VMware – DataStores Sizing • How many VMs per LUN • Recommended not to exceed 16 • One VM or Multiple VM's per DataStores • Isolation vs. Containment • Should the DataStores be created initially? • Predicative vs. Adaptive

25. VMFS Datastore • Many administrators select the default 1MB block size without knowing when or why to change it. • The block size determines the minimum amount of disk space that any file will take up on VMFS datastores. • If you select a 1MB block size on your data store the maximum file size is limited to 256GB. • There is also no way to change the block size after you set it without deleting the datastore and re-creating it, which will wipe out any data on the datastore.

26. 1MB block size – 256GB maximum file size 2MB block size – 512GB maximum file size 4MB block size – 1024GB maximum file size 8MB block size – 2048GB maximum file size Block Size

27. Configure HA & DRS • There is a lot to consider here – how many hosts can fail, if guests will be powered on if the proper amount of resources is not available, host isolation, restart priority, and virtual machine monitoring.

28. You can set the priorities of individual virtual machines and their response in case of Isolation Configure HA & DRS

29. Automatically migrates the virtual machines from a heavily utilized ESX host to under utilized ESX host in the same cluster without any downtime to the virtual machine. Configure HA & DRS

30. Define rules for VM in case of failures Configure HA & DRS

31. Simplifying management by setting automation on VM Configure HA & DRS

32. VMware – Free 3rd Party Apps

33. VWire - OpsCheck • VMware VMotion is a key VMware capability that allows administrators to automatically move virtual machines from one physical server to another--with zero downtime and zero impact to end users. But VMotion is difficult to get right. The slightest misconfiguration can have severe impact on Dynamic Resource Scheduling and High Availability -- capabilities that are essential to a well performing virtual infrastructure. • OpsCheck helps ensure your systems are configured to support VMware VMotion by rapidly analyzing ESX 3.0, 3.5, and ESXi hypervisors, and provides troubleshooting guidance for VMware VMotion.

34. VWire - OpsCheck

35. VWire - ConfigCheck • ConfigCheck tests your ESX 3.0 and 3.5 configurations and provides detailed remediation guidance to help you rapidly bring your system into a secure state. And better still—it's free! • Developed by Tripwire in cooperation with VMware, Tripwire ConfigCheck ensures ESX environments are properly configured. Often recommended as an essential first step when deploying new hypervisors, ConfigCheck identifies vulnerabilities that otherwise would go unnoticed.

36. VWire - ConfigCheck

37. Veeam – FastSCP 3.0 • FastSCP provides a fast, secure and easy way to manage files and bulk copy VMs across your VMware ESX environment. • Veeam FastSCP is the de facto standard for ESX file management, now with support for ESXi. FastSCP allows users to copy files from ESX to Windows, Windows to ESX, or directly ESX to ESX. FastSCP is the simplest and fastest way to move VMs and templates between datastores or to deliver ISO files to ESX Servers. • http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esxi-fastscp.html

38. Vmware – SCP Tip • With some applications like WinSCP, the default encryption cipher used is AES. If you change that to Blowfish you will likely see significantly faster transfers.

39. VMware - Certifications • VMware Virtual Certified Professional • VMware Certified Design Expert

40. VMware - VCP • The VMware Certified Professional Program is designed for individuals who want to demonstrate their expertise in virtual infrastructure and increase the potential for career advancement. • The high standards expected of a VCP means it’s one of the most sought after certifications in the industry. Become a VCP to: • Demonstrate your VMware software technical expertise to your customers • Increase customer confidence levels • Display the VMware Certified Professional logo on your business card or website

41. VMware – VCP Path

42. VMware - Become a VCDX • Assess customer needs and requirements • Design VMware Infrastructure for an enterprise data center • Implement, test, document and present that design

43. VMware - Paths to the VCDX certification • Required Certification -VCP • Recommended -VMware Infrastructure: Design -VI3: Deploy, Secure & Analyze V3.5 • VCDX Certification • VMware Enterprise Administration Exam • VMware Design Exam • Submit, Present, Defend a successful design & deployment

44. VMware - VCDX, what is it? • The VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) on VMware Infrastructure 3 is an advanced certification developed for design architects of VMware enterprise deployments. • Validate your capabilities to plan and design a VMware Infrastructure environment. • Increase your value to your customers and employers.

45. VMware - Four core validation components 1. Must be certified as a VMware Certified Professional (VCP) on VMware Infrastructure 3. 2. Pass the VMware Enterprise Administration Exam. Includes live labs and tests a higher level of skill set than the exam for VCP on VMware Infrastructure 3. 3. Pass the VMware Design Exam. This exam focuses on actual design scenarios and contains simulations and situational questions. 4. Submit, present and defend a successful VMware Infrastructure design and implementation plan.

46. VMware - Course Options for VCP • VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure (4 days) • VMware Infrastructure 3: Deploy, Secure, and Analyze (4 days) • VMware Infrastructure 3: Fast Track (5 days—Intensive) • Live Online • Register for Class Today at http://www.vmware.com/education.

47. VMware - VCDX courses • VMware Infrastructure 3: Deploy, Secure and Analyze V3.5 • VMware Infrastructure: Design

48. VMware - Exam & Design Blueprint • http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/2206/EnterpriseBlueprint3.52.pdf • http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/2256/DesignExamBlueprint.pdf • EXAMPLES • Section 1 – Storage • Objective 1.1 – Create and Administer VMFS datastores using advanced • techniques. • Knowledge • Describe how to identify iSCSI, Fibre channel, SATA and NFS configurations using CLI commands and log entries • Describe the VMFS file system -Metadata -Multi-access and locking -Extents -Tree structure and files -Applicability to clustered environment -Journaling • Explain the process used to align VMFS partitions