The VMguy

Better late than never.  There were some really good (and not so good) technical reads this past month:

VMware vShield Zones – Reviewers Guide – If you haven’t figured this out yet, pay close attention to the Reviewers Guides.  If you have even slightly thought of trying out a product or technology, the reviewers guide is the next best thing to having an engineer over your shoulder walking you thru the product.  This is a really good one on Zones.  I learned quite a few things about the product that I was unaware of.  It’s a great read if you need to lock down and firewall off your VMs (or if you just want to learn how the VMs talk to each other).

Performance Brief for IBM WebSphere Application Server 7.0 with VMware ESX 4 on HP ProLiant DL380 G6 Servers – This is a very specific paper on running Websphere on HP servers.  I did find some interesting bits in it however.  Specifically, configuration tips to maximize performance running Websphere in a VM.  The performance metrics should also be evaluated if you want to run Websphere on any hardware platform (perhaps even IBM).

Best Practices for Running vSphere on NFS Storage – I’m currently in a documentation war with my EMC Channel SE who swears by running VMware on NFS (You still have to convince me Steve, I’m a block-IO bigot).  This is a must-have for all Admins running VMware on NFS.  It’s also a really good guideline if you want to compare performance between file-level or block-level IO in your VMware environment and make sure your making an accurate decision.  My favorite section of this paper: “Previously thought to be Best Practices.”  Every best practice white paper should have that to debunk outdated information.  Outstanding work VMware!

PVSCSI Storage Performance -This is a paper I was waiting to see.  It compares the performance of the PVSCSI adapter to the LSI Logic adapter.  I guessed pretty close on the outcomes.  The PVSCSI adapter does perform better under higher IO workloads (some have stated only use it >2000 IOPs.)  The only thing I didn’t like about the test was that RDMs were used.  VMware has argued for the last few years that high-performance should not be a requirement for using RDMs.  So why not use what the majority of customers use in their environments?

RIM BlackBerry Enterprise Server on VMware Virtual Infrastructure Deployment Guide – I really liked and hated this paper.  I liked it because it has some really good best practices and deployment tips depending on the size of the environment.  I hated it because it definitely contains errors: Table 2 shows a BES server with 23% utilization on ESX 3.5, Table 3 shows a BES server with 27% utilization under ESX 4, Figure 12 says the CPU load went down from 27 to 23 going to vSphere – not according to your tables kids.

That will do it for this month’s White Paper Review.  We’ll see you next month and look for more great technical information.

Updated tonight, View 4.0.1 was released and can be downloaded here.  The What’s New from the release notes describes bug fixes but there are a few minor additions:

Localization of VMware View

The View Client and online help for View Client are now available in Japanese, French, German, and simplified Chinese. The View Manager Administration Guide, View Manager Release Notes, Getting Started with VMware View document, View Upgrade Guide, and View Architecture Planning Guide are also available in these languages.

VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 and ESX 3.5 Update 5 Support

View Manager 4.0.1 includes support for VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 and ESX 3.5 Update 5.

Enhancements to the PCoIP Display Protocol

PCoIP now supports the following features:

Virtual Printing, which allows end users to use local or network printers from a View desktop without requiring that additional print drivers be installed in the View desktop.
Single sign-on support for third party providers such as Sentillion and Imprivata.
View Client supports international keyboards when using PCoIP.
For PCoIP-related bug fixes, see the View Client Resolved Issues section.

By now, most of you know how Site Recovery Manager works.  SRM requires a SRA (Storage Replication Adapter) which is basically a translator to allow SRM talk directly to the storage arrays.  6 of the SRAs were updated on VMware’s download site for SRM in January.  They were:

Dell EqualLogics, Version 1.0.2, Released 01/20/2010

EMC Celerra, Version 4.0.17, Released 01/29/2010

Fujitsu ETERNUS SF AdvancedCopy Manager, Version 1.3| Released 01/29/2010

IBM DS4000/5000, Version 01.01.35.05, Released 01/15/2010

IBM N-series SAN Adapter, Version 1.4.2, Released 01/07/2010

LSI, Version 1.01.30.05, Released 01/21/2010

You can find the updated SRAs on the SRM download site here.  As always, please check to make sure these updates are necessary for your environment.  I would have included the release notes but unfortunately the vendors are not keep track of them.  Upgrade at your own risk, and if you do, please test your recovery plans out fully with the new adapters.

ok, I’m either blind or this snuck under the radar.  I swear when I checked the download site this morning, this was not there.  However the release date says 2010/01/18.  This is apparently a patch fix for Update manager for those running the Cisco Nexus 1000v.  You can download the updated release here.

Here’s the notes from the patch:

The VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.0 Update 1 Patch 1 adds fixes to issues with the Cisco VSM module. If you do not use this module, you will not need this patch. For details regarding the issues fixed, please see the patch release notes.

The release notes link was not working for me on the download page.

For future reference, VMware releases always seem to come in bunches.  Update 6 for vCenter 2.5 has been released and can be downloaded here.

The update mostly includes guest operating system custimization enhancements.

Here’s the what’s new section from the release notes:

Guest Operating Systems Customization Improvements

Customization support for the following guest operating systems has been added in this release:
For more complete information about supported guests included in this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Windows 7 Enterprise (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 Professional (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition (64-bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition (64-bit)
Windows Server 2008 R2 Web Server (64-bit)
Support for Firefox 3.x Browsers with VirtualCenter Web  Access

This release adds support for Firefox 3.x browsers with VirtualCenter Web Access. Firefox 3.x is not a supported browser for ESX Server 3.5 Update 5 Web Access with this release.