Tag: VMware

Part 1 – vCloud Air OnDemand – Special Promo

Jan2 Replies

As VMware vCloud Air gets more traction, I think it is time to look into it and provide some details around it. For the folks, who do not know what VMware vCloud Air is, vCloud Air is a public cloud platform fully integrated in your VMware vSphere environment.

vCloud Air currently supports over 5,000 application and more than 90 different Operating Systems. vCloud Air makes it easy to migrate your VMs from a vSphere environment to a public cloud or from a public cloud back to your local vSphere environment.

Looking at some blog post by VMware from August 2014, vCloud Air has 2x the compute power as Microsoft Azure and 3x the storage performance of AWS for less money.

 

The registration for vCloud Air is easy and takes only a few minutes. Click here to get to the sign-up page.
Note: Do not forget to use promo code “Influencer2015” for a free $500 instead of $300. This promo code works only for new vCloud Air users.

For further information, checkout the vCloud Air website.

2015 Silicon Valley VMUG UserCon

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VMUG_USERCONI wanted to recap what has been presented at the 2015 Silicon Valley VMUG UserCon.

The Silicon Valley VMUG Team organized a fantastic UserCon with a packed agenda which started 8:45am and ended at 6:30pm.

Sessions were provided by several vendors, including PernixData, Nimble Storage, EMC and so on.

All session were categorized in the following areas:

  • Data Center Management
  • Demo Sessions & VMware HOL
  • Desktop Virtualization
  • General Sessions
  • Hybrid Cloud & Emerging Technologies
  • Storage & Availability
  • vSphere & Virtualization

As you can see on the list of areas, most aspects of today’s virtualization was covered with at least one session.

 

Personally, the following were my highlights of the UserCon:

 

Oh and before I forgot, there was obviously lots of swag from all vendors.

IMG_1201 IMG_1200

All available slides of the 2015 Silicon Valley VMUG UserCon are attached to this article.

VMware Horizon 5.2: Space Reserved For Expansion Of VMs

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When a new VMware Horizon Pool gets created and an error occurs while deploying the Virtual Machines, the only thing you can see under Inventory -> Pools is a small X next to the pool name.

Screen Shot 2015-04-08 at 2.40.15 PM

 

Once you select the pool and edit it, you can see the pool’s settings and also any errors:

Horizon View - Error During Provisioning

 

Error during provisioning: Datastores unable to accommodate the new virtual machine because of one or more errors. Space reserved for expansion of VMs. VMware has a great article about this error, which can be found here.

This error does only happen when creating linked clones.
Starting with Horizon View 5.2, View Administrator checks the total total used space on a datastore does not exceed the storage overcommit level you selected for the datastore.

From VMware’s knowledge base article #2047492:

How Horizon View 5.2 or later selects datastores for linked clones

Datastore selection in Horizon View is based on the virtual machine population density. An easy way to think about population density is as a ratio of the amount of used space to the total effective capacity.

The used space contains not only the amount of space that is currently occupied on disk, but also the space needed to power on the provisioned virtual machines. Horizon View makes additional adjustments to the used space calculation to make better decisions in a real Horizon View environment. The total effective capacity is the total size of the datastore multiplied by the overcommit level.
Population density is defined in this formula:

population density = virtual used space / (total datastore capacity * overcommit level)
During provisioning or rebalance operations, Horizon View selects the datastore with the least population density.

Overcommit levels are defined in this table:

Option Storage Overcommit Level
None Storage is not overcommitted.
Conservative 4 times the size of the datastore. This is the default level.
Moderate 7 times the size of the datastore.
Aggressive 15 times the size of the datastore.
Unbounded View Manager does not limit the number of linked-clone desktops that it creates based on the physical capacity of the datastore. It is up to you to calculate the space and determine that the number of virtual machines you want to place can be supported by the datastore.*

* Select Unbounded only if you manage your own linked-clone desktops.

The Storage Overcommit level can be set when you create a new pool and select the datastore. When setting Storage Overcommit to Unbounded, Horizon View will not limit the number of linked clones based on the physical capacity of the datastore.

Horizon View Storage Overcommit

Optimize your VMware VDI template

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People who use Horizon View or plan to use it, are always looking for the perfect template configuration. We all ask ourselves, did I turn everything off, did I install all the software which my user need, did I miss some registry entry?

While going through the same thoughts, I came across the VMware OS Optimizing Tool. If you ask me, this is exactly what you need if you want to build a stella template for your Horizon View setup.

The VMware OS Optimizing Tool is for free and helps to optimize Windows 7/8/2008 and 2012. In order to run the software, you will need Windows 7/8/2008 or 2012 and .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 installed.

VMwareOptimizingTool

To get started with VMware OS Optimization Tool, download it from here and either start it on your Horizon View template or on a different machine, which can access the Horizon View template.

Once started, you can either run an Analysis of the local machine or of a remote machine:

Screen Shot 2015-03-17 at 3.04.55 PM

If you select Analyze, you have to choose the Optimization Template Name. Select the proper template, based on the OS of your template.
Next, hit the Analyze button and wait a few seconds until you receive the result of your work.

Screen Shot 2015-03-17 at 3.10.31 PM

As shown on the image above, I ran the VMware OS Optimization Tool on my Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise template and it detected 20 un-optimized settings, as the graph in the top right corner shows.
Luckily this tool can automatically fix all u-optimized settings with a simple click on Optimize.

After you ran the optimization wizard, you can take a look under History, which shows you when an optimization task ran and you can rollback to the previous state.

Screen Shot 2015-03-17 at 3.20.39 PM

Overall, the VMware OS Optimization Tool seems like a great tool to keep in your tools repository and come in handy when building a Horizon View template. All optimization made by this tool, are based on the VMware OS Optimization Guide.

 

I Am A VMware vExpert 2015

Jan1 Reply

VMware vExpert Badge

Roughly four years ago, beginning of 2011, I had heard the first time of VMware recognizing fellow virtualization enthusiasts as vExperts. From the day I had heard about it, I knew, I want to be part of it.

Back in 2011, my job did not allow me to focus, as much as I wanted, on computer, server and datacenter virtualization. So, I used my spare time studying the VMware documentations and help my colleagues with VMware related questions.

In August 2012, I then started my new job with Nimble Storage (I’m no longer with Nimble Storage) and became quickly the go-to guy for any virtualization questions, not just VMware. I covered Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi and OpenStack. My passion, however, was with VMware’s vSphere Suite. Yes, there is Microsoft Hyper-V, yes there is Citrix XenServer and yes, even OpenStack is becoming popular nowadays. But, if we are honest, we know that VMware is the market leader in desktop, server and datacenter virtualization and we all know why. We just love their products, because they get the job done!

So while providing some virtualization classes to my ex-colleagues at Nimble Storage, someone mentioned the VMware vExperts program again. As soon as I heard vExperts, I decided, I have to become one and I have to start focusing on it.

Basically, this is how www.MindTheVirt.com was created.  I created this blog to help fellow virtualization enthusiasts and people who are new to virtualization. Part of my goals was to become VMware vExpert 2015. And here we go! Check out the official VMware vExpert 2015 batch. I am proud to be one of many vExperts and I hope to keep this title for some years and share my knowledge with as many people as possible.

 

For the people who do not know what VMware vExperts are, please find the description below:

The VMware vExpert program is VMware’s global evangelism and advocacy program. The program is designed to put VMware’s marketing resources towards your advocacy efforts. Promotion of your articles, exposure at our global events, co-op advertising, traffic analysis, and early access to beta programs and VMware’s roadmap. VMware will provide you with a unique vExpert id that will allow insights into analytics to help understand customer trends to assist you and keep your advocacy activities on track.

The awards are for individuals, not companies, and last for one year. Employees of both customers and partners can receive the awards. In the application, we consider activities from the previous year as well as the current year’s activities in determining who gets awards. We look to see that not only were you active but are still active in the path you chose to apply for.