vSphere 6: Guest User Mappings

Guest User Mappings is a new feature in vSphere 6.

Enabling SSO accounts to login to guest OS provides users with additional capabilities to perform administrative tasks on guest virtual machines, such as, installing or upgrading the VMware Tools or configuring apps.

In order to configure the mapping, you will need to know the Guest administrative account. This new feature allows your vSphere Administrators to access the Virtual Machines and do certain tasks.

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Join Me And Datrium At VMworld In August

VMworld

 

Arrays and Hyperconverged Servers are rigid and expensive. Datrium storage systems enable data centers to manage storage like VMs.

 

This year at VMworld in San Francisco, you can find @Devin_HH, @WensterYu, @JimGrua, @AniqueCoffee, @MindTheVirt and others at the Datrium booth.

If you are curious about the Datrium DVX or just want to meet the team and socialize, come on and stop by at booth 1747.

Additionally, I will try to attend the following events at VMworld:

Sunday, August 30th:

Monday, August 31st:

Tuesday, September 1st:

Wednesday, September 2nd:

 

Datrium Storage – Attacking Traditional Arrays And Hyperconverged Servers

Today, Datrium Storage officially emerged out of stealth mode and is presenting its Server Flash Storage System (DVX).

Datrium Storage

Datrium Storage was founded 2012 by leading engineers from Data Domain and VMware:
Brian Biles, ex Data Domain founder / VP Product Mgmt
Hugo Patterson, ex Data Domain original Chief Architect, EMC Fellow
Sazzala Reddy, 2nd Data Domain CTO (employee #15)
Ganesh Venkitachalam, ex VMware Principal Engineer
Boris Weissman, ex VMware Principal Engineer

With such a caliber of talent, it does not come as a surprise that Datrium Storage has created a Server Flash Storage Solution (DVX), focusing on VMware ESXi.

Datrium Storage is focusing on Dev and Test as well as VDI environments.

What is a DVX?
A DVX is build out of two components:
1. ESXi servers + Datrium DVX software + BYO flash
2. Datrium NetShelf

The Datrium NetShelf is only used for HA, NVRAM and shared capacity.

The DVX software on the ESXi servers is responsible for local storage operations like RAID and dedupe.
Unlike traditional storage arrays and hyperconverged systems, performance is not limited by the CPU, memory and disks in the backend storage.

Datrium DVX software on the ESXi servers required a minimum of 2 x86 CPU cores and 5GB memory + 2.5GB per 1TB of local SSD.

This design allows you to save those $$$, which you would spend on traditional storage controller upgrades and buy some additional servers + SSDs from Amazon.

The Datrium DVX supports any server platform incl. blades on the VMware HCL.
Any flash device (PCIe, SAS, SATA) on VMware’s HCL for VSAN or vFlash, or offered for x86 by Cisco, Dell, HP or IBM as well as a selected list of MLC/TLC drives are supported.

VMware vSphere 5.5 Update 2 and above will be supported.

Note: The Datrium DVX is currently in limited test release and not generally available.

Follow @MindTheVirt and @DatriumStorage on Twitter.

vSphere 6: ESXi Password Policy

With vSphere 6, VMware introduced ESXi Account Lockout / ESXi Password Policy.
Two new settings are now available under the ESXi Host Advanced System Settings page:

  • Security.AccountLockFailures
    • Maximum allowed failed login attempts before locking out a user’s account.

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