Ok guys, just a short post. vSphere 5 is ready for download! Get it here. Who will be the first to update their production enviroment to this new version? 🙂
VCP5
VMworld is next week and I am sure vSphere 5 will be available for download before the conference. A new version of vSphere also means a new version of the VCP exam. The new exam is available to schedule from Monday 29Th of August.
In this context VMware has just released the VCP5 mock exam. The mock exam consists of 30 questions helping you to prepare for the VCP exam.
For VCP training tips check out my VCP page.
To be able to take the VCP exam you need to 1. Be a VCP4, 2. Have attended an ICM4 course & the vSphere5 whats new, 3. Have attended the ICM5 course.
vRAM Entitlements
VMware has introduced the “vRAM” licensing concept with vSphere 5. The vRAM is the amount of memory you can allocate to your virtual machines running on an ESXi host. If you have a 2 x socket host running Enterprise+ licenses you will be able to allocate 96GB + 96GB = 192GB to your virtual machines. If you on the same host were running Standard licenses you would only be allowed to allocate 32GB + 32GB = 64GB of memory. The table sums of the different vRAM entitlements:
Enterprise+ 96GB
Enterprise 64GB
Standard 32GB
Essentials+ 32GB
Essentials 32GB
Free ESXi 32GB
vSphere5
After more than two years vSphere5 is ready! This will be a great release with many new features.
I look forward to working with Storage DRS, the new Virtual Storage Appliance, VMFS5 etc.
There will also be some changes regarding the licensing. vRAM is the new word. Some customers will need to buy more licenses but I think most will manage with what they have. Pretty much so sum it up Enterprise Plus gives you 48GB RAM pr. license. Take this into account when sizing your servers. a Dual Socket system with 96GB RAM would make sense.
Truncate vpx_event table in vCenter database
2. Run the following SQL against the database (I recommend you take a backup first):
Password complexity ESXi
I have a lot of ESXi servers running in my lab and prefer to have a very simple password. This password could be “vmware”. A six letter word all in lower case. Not the most secure password, but in my lab environment it is not a worry.
The password complexity is defined in the file: “/etc/pam.d/system-auth” you need to look at line 12: “password requisite /lib/security/$ISA/pam_passwdqc.so retry=3 min=8,8,8,7,6″ This is actually what defines the password complexity. The way to interpret “8,8,8,7,6” is the following: The first 8 is how long the password has to be if we only use a single character set (lower case, upper case, digtigts, other characters.). The second 8 is if we use two character classes The third is for password phrases and the last two is for 3 and 4 character classes password.
I want to use the password “vmware” a single character word with a length of 6. To accomplish this we change line 10 to one of the following:
- password requisite /lib/security/$ISA/pam_passwdqc.so retry=3 min=6,6,6,6,6
- password requisite /lib/security/$ISA/pam_passwdqc.so retry=3 min=8,8,8,7,6 enforce=none
The change will take affect immediately. No need to restart any services. Now go ahead and change your password with the “passwd” command.
The only thing you have to worry about is that the system-auth is not persistent through reboots. Your password is persistent but the file is not. To make sure the system-auth file is backed up you need to:
chmod +t /etc/pam.d/system-auth
Performance: RDM vs. VMFS
Last night on twitter there was a discussion about RDM vs. VMFS performance. I have always told everybody that RDM did not have an performance advantage over a VMDK file on a VMFS volume. I have refered people to the following document by VMware: Performance Characteristics of VMFS and RDM but I have never done my own testing until now 🙂
My setup is ESXi 4.1 build 260247 with 4gb fibre channel HBA connected to a SUN Storagetek 2540 SAN. I did the test on a 10GB LUN located on fibre channel disks. The test was done with Iometer on a virtual machine running Windows 2003 SP2. I performed all tests on the 10GB LUN as either: Physical RDM, Virtual RDM, Lazy Zeroed VMDK on a VMFS and Eager Zeroed VMDK on a VMFS.
I configured Iometer with settings from the unoffical storage performance thread on VMware communites and ran two tests: Maxthroughput and Real life. Here are my results:
Conclusion: VMFS and RDM have similar performance. Don’t choose RDM for performance.
FastTracks are back
I have some great news for those of you who are looking for VMware training. The Fast Track courses are back. So far three FastTrack courses have been announced:
- VMware vSphere : Automation FastTrack (Install Configure Manage & Automation with PowerCLI)
- VMware vSphere : Advanced FastTrack (Troubleshooting & Manage for Performance)
- View DeskTop Fast Track (VIEW ICM & VIEW Design & ThinApp)
The Fast Track courses are 5 days each with extended hours. It is basically several courses made into one. If you want as much as possible in the least amount of days Fast Track is for you.
I am really psyched about this and looking forward to delivering Arrow ECS’s first Advanced FastTrack when it is available. It looks like it could be late April or early May.
vSphere 4.1 performance troubleshooting guide
VMware just published a new version of their performance troubleshooting guide. This is a great walk through to discover cpu, memory, storage og what ever problem you may be experiencing.
Check it out here: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-14905
If you need some hand on with a lot of these performance graphs and ESXTOP consider attending the VMware Manage for Performance Class.
vSphere 4.1 update 1 released
Great news. Another version of vSphere has just been released. It is time to update your vCenter server and ESX/ESXi hosts.
This one brings new OS support and some new features. Nothing major. Check it out here:
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_4/4_0