Tech-Gen

When you browse a VM folder on a datastore you find different types of files listed there . Each file has specific role in a VM functioning. We  will learn here for which purpose which files are created. Typically you will find following types of files in a VM directory: VMDK files –  VMDK files names as (VMware Virtual Disk file) are the actual virtual hard drive for the virtual guest operation system. You can create dynamic or fixed virtual disks. With dynamic disks, the disks start small and grow as the disk inside the guest OS grows. With fixed disks, the virtual disk started out at the same (large) disk size decided initially while creating VM. Log files  – Log files are just that- a log of VM server activity for a single virtual server. Log files can be used only while doing any troubleshooting with a virtual machine. It can be more than 1 or 2 and modified each time while we Start, Suspend or reboot the Virtual Machine.   V...

Updated versions of HP Customized version of ESXi 5.0 U3 /5.1 U2 / 5.5 U2 (November 2014) are available. The new versions fix  a critical AMS issue causing inability to initiate vMotion or enable services, and reporting of HEAP Global errors. See What’s new section below for details Driver Versions in HP supplied VMware ESX/ESXi images October 2014 VMware FW and Software Recipe HP VMware vSphere 5.5 U2 Customized Image Release Notes for November 2014 HP VMware vSphere 5.1 U3 Customized Image Release Notes for November 2014 Download : VMware ESXi 5.0 U3 Installable HP Customized ISO Image (November 2014) VMware ESXi 5.1 U2 Installable HP Customized ISO Image (November 2014) VMware ESXi 5.5 U2 Installable HP Customized ISO Image (November 2014) What’s New: AMS Fixes Fixed critical AMS issue causing inability to initiate vMotion or enable services, and reporting of HEAP Global errors when attempting...

Active Directory Domain Services Overview http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831484.aspx What is Active Directory? http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/server-cloud/windows-server/active-directory-overview.aspx Active Directory Services Overview (wiki) http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1026.active-directory-services-overview.aspx Microsoft Active Directory: An Introduction (Microsoft Virtual Academy video series) http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/IntroToAD Wiki: Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Portal (Fantastic!) http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/13752.wiki-active-directory-domain-services-ad-ds-portal.aspx Wiki: Active Directory Features in Different Versions of Windows Server http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/19037.active-directory-features-in-different-versions-of-windows-server.aspx AskDS / AskPFEPlat The AskDS blog remains the most amazing place on the internet ...

vSwitch Load Balancing Policies in VMware  It is important to understand the Network Load balancing policies that we have in ESXi and How the vSwitch is going to handle the Load across the Physical Network card that we configured in a NIC team. To start with the same, there were about 5 Network Load balancing policies we have in ESXi, as listed below. Route based on originating virtual port ID Route based on IP hash Route based on source MAC hash Use Explicit fail-over order Route based on physical NIC load (Only available for Distributed Switch)   Its very important to understand how each of these policies work when multiple physical configured in a NIC team for a given vSwitch or a dvSwitch. So lets get started. Route based on originating virtual port ID This  Route based on originating virtual port ID is the default policy . The virtual machine outbound traffic is mapped to a specific physical Network Card based on the virtual port ID to whi...

Intro Thresholds Howto – Run Howto – Capture Howto – Analyze Howto – Limit esxtop to specific VMs References Changelog This page is solely dedicated to one of the best tools in the world for ESX; esxtop. Intro I am a huge fan of esxtop! I read a couple of pages of the esxtop bible every day before I go to bed. Something I however am always struggling with is the “thresholds” of specific metrics. I fully understand that it is not black/white, performance is the perception of a user in the end. There must be a certain threshold however. For instance it must be safe to say that when %RDY constantly exceeds the value of 20 it is very likely that the VM responds sluggish. I want to use this article to “define” these thresholds, but I need your help. There are many people reading these articles, together we must know at least a dozen metrics lets collect and document them with possible causes if known. Please keep in mind that these should only be used as a guideline ...