Migrate VMware vCenter 4.0 32bit to VMware vCenter 4.1 (64bit) + Update Manager

In this document, we'll look at how we can upgrade our VMware vCenter environment 4.0 to VMware vCenter 4.1, eye! we will take into account that in the source installation we have the vCenter in a 32 bits and (As we know) vCenter 4.1 can only be installed in systems of 64 Bit, therefore we are going to have to migrate all the configuration of a server (x86) to another (x64). If the source server is already 64 bit there would be so much complication. Once we have updated vCenter and its components to the 4.1 we will now be able to update the ESX hosts(i) a 4.1.

Free VMware Backups with ghettoVCB

ghettoVCB.sh is one of the few good scripts I know that can help us make copies of our VMware environment for free, This is, we will be able to make backups on both ESX and ESXi servers without a license! We can say that it behaves the same as the traditional VCB, Takes a snapshot of the virtual machine to be copied, It copies the virtual machine's files to a directory and then deletes the snapshot. ghettoVCB is a script that must be run on the VMware ESX server itself(i), we can schedule it to run using 'Cron’ or as in my case I will run it from a remote computer using the utility plink.exe. In addition, ghettoVCB stores backups in an ESX datastore(i), In this document we will see at the end how to make the backup in a Windows folder that we have thanks to NFS.

Integrating Citrix XenDesktop 4 with VMware vSphere

Si queremos usar Citrix XenDesktop con un entorno virtual de VMware vSphere tendremos que realizar unas configuraciones extra, todo ello es para poder conectarnos desde el XenDesktop Delivery Controller a los escritorios virtuales de nuestro entorno vSphere y por lo tanto gestionado por la plataforma de virtualización de VMware, pudiendo usar VMware View Composer si nos interesase.

Consolidating snapshots on VMware

There are times when for one reason or another a VMware datastore fills up, it's usually because of 'fault’ from a snaphost that doesn't account for the maximum size of the disk definition. On certain occasions when the datastore is completely full, we will not even be able to delete the snapshot, Not even being able to start the machine; So we're lost. A 'solution'’ is to extend the LUN, then expand the datastore and that's it, We retried what we wanted. Sometimes this is not possible, or is it directly a ñapa; what we have to do is consolidate our disks with their snapshots on a temporary LUN and finally return everything to its original datastore without snapshots or so on, Here's the solution.

Uso de VMware Linked Mode

Otra de las novedades de VMware vSphere es la posibilidad de unir nuestras instalaciones que tengamos con diferentes VMware vCenter, sean del mismo dominio o de diferente (siempre que tengamos los permisos correspondientes). Con VMware Linked Mode podremos gestionar varias instalaciones simultáneamente de vCenter, estén en la misma red o no, con esto conseguimos una gestión mucho más sencilla y cómoda.

Uso de VMware Guided Consolidation

In this document we will see one of the VMware products that will help us virtualize our physical environment. VMware currently has two tools to measure what resources it will need when virtualizing a physical environment. The partner tool VMware Capacity Planner and this free and much more basic tool called VMware Guided Consolidation. It is a tool that has three processes: 1.- Search: Search for physical computers on the network to be analyzed. 2.- Analyzes: The selected physical equipment is analyzed and performance data is obtained for each computer. 3.- Consolidate servers: The data obtained is compared with the resources available in the virtual environment and virtualized in the virtual environment with recommendations on ESX hosts.

Configuring VMware Distributed Power Management or VMware DPM

VMware Distributed Power Management is one of the real benefits of having a virtual environment for me, since with this, we will be able to reduce electricity consumption in our data center by a lot. VMware DPM Allows Unnecessary ESX Hosts to Be Powered Off, and when virtual machines are loaded and require more physical servers, these start automatically. All of this would be achieved in a DPM-enabled DRS cluster. The power consumption of a server is 15W when it is in Standby mode and depending on the server and its components it can vary approximately between 300W and 500W when it is booted. Starting from this, we can calculate how much we can save if we opt for VMware and set up a VMware DRS cluster + VMware DPM. Example: