A quick function which allows you to check the VMware services on your vCenter server by hooking into windows and looking at the service status, this is useful and something I have been using as part of my vCheck script for a long time but recently became useful for a colleague.
The script can be run with no credential parameter if the current user account has windows privileges on the vCenter server to read the service information.
Following my previous post VMware have just announced a change to the License entitlements to vSphere 5, I know I work for VMware and therefore my view is obviously slightly tainted but I personally think this is a good move and it proves that they do listen and value their customers opinions.
So what changes have been made ?
The changes mean that the following vRAM entitlements per edition will now be granted:
| vSphere edition | vRAM entitlement |
| vSphere Enterprise Plus | 96 GB |
| vSphere Enterprise | 64 GB |
| vSphere Standard | 32 GB |
| vSphere Essentials Plus | 32 GB |
| vSphere Essentials | 32 GB |
| Free vSphere Hypervisor | 32 GB (Per Host) |
I was recently asked if it was possible to automate the update of a View Pool every week after the updates had been applied to the virtual machines using Windows Update services, the process is quite straight forward.
This person needed to snapshot a VM after the updates were completed and then use this snapshot to re-compose the pool, after this was complete they would then use this pool to make sure there were no issues.
The following script does just that, it takes the VM from a given pool and snapshots the VM, it then adds this snapshot back as the active replica for the pool, the idea is to run this as a scheduled task (maybe on Tuesday night) on the View server allowing the snapshot to be created every time it runs.
A somewhat surprising popular topic at the moment considering the amazing features announced by VMware this week is vSphere 5 Licensing, I have seen a lot of people talking about this and a lot of confusion and misunderstanding of the new licensing model announced by VMware in vSphere 5. Hopefully this post and my script below will help people work out what their v5 License entitlements will be.
vSphere 5.0 will be licensed on a per-processor basis with a vRAM entitlement. Each vSphere 5.0 CPU license (whether deployed to a host or not) will entitle the purchaser to a specific amount of vRAM, or memory configured to virtual machines. The vRAM entitlement can be pooled across a vSphere environment and through linked mode vCenters to enable a true cloud or utility based IT consumption model.
vSphere Advanced is now being removed from the license editions, anyone who currently has licenses for vSphere Advanced – and is active on Subscription and Support – in v4 will automatically be entitled to Enterprise in v5 free of charge, the following vRAM entitlements will be given per license type:
| License Type | Essentials | Essentials Plus | Standard | Enterprise | Enterprise Plus |
| vRAM Entitlement per license | 24GB | 24GB | 24GB | 32GB | 48GB |
There are a few key things to remember about this:
More information on these changes can be found in the Licensing, Pricing and Packaging white paper here.
Its time for another London VMware user group, unfortunately I will be unable to make it but I highly recommend attending this on Thursday, July 14, 2011 between 10:00 a.m. – 17:00 p.m. and afterwards for vBeers, Don’t worry PowerCLI will still be there and I would suggest attending Jonathan Medds session for a chance to win a copy of the “VMware VSphere PowerCLI Reference” and for some great PowerCLI tips which will save time for any VMware admin.
A previous post on my blog shows us how to get the slot size information for each cluster which has HA enabled, it also discusses what a slot size is and points to some further reading on Yellow-Bricks.
Readers of the great HA and DRS book will know exactly what a slot size is, if you are unsure then I suggest you read my previous article or the HA and DRS book, it is important information to know.
But which VMs are setting your slot size ? This is a question which was emailed to me over a year ago, someone had issues finding the VMs which were setting their slot size and they had run out – not a good place to be.
I wrote a script for them and asked them to test it, then I completely forgot about it – until recently when the question came up again.
Now you probably think you know which VM’s are setting your slot size but the thing that struck me is that nearly all the people I asked to check this came back with the same comments:
Yep, it works and wow, I had forgotten about that machine and the resources I allocated to it !
So please, download it and give it a go, who knows you too may have a surprise.
Are you a PowerShell or PowerCLI Fanboy ?
Whilst messing with a 3D image program the other day I quickly put myself some images together to use as a background for my iPad, I showed these to a couple of people and thought I would share them on my blog.
Here is an example in use on my iPad
Recently I received a comment on an older post of mine which gave output of the number of virtual CPU’s on a host and also in a cluster, the comment asked if there was a way to export this to a text or html file which is easy enough in PowerShell.
After reading my code I was astounded at how bad it was, one thing i wish I had time for was to go back to some of my earlier code to tidy it up with the tips and tricks I have learnt over the last year and also amend it to use the new features provided to us by the PowerCLI team to make things easier.
One such feature is a cmdlet in the current release of PowerCLI (4.1 U1) (If your not sure what version you are running then just type Get-PowerCLIVersion at the prompt).
The cmdlet I am referring to is New-VIProperty, this cmdlet allows us to add additional properties to the returned values from certain objects, for a detailed post on this cmdlet look at Luc’s great post here I can also highly recommend his list of New-VIProperty examples which is amazing and can be found here.
Basically this allows us to expand our returned objects from cmdlets to give us further information for an easy example if we run Get-VM we will receive a number of different default properties but what if we wanted something that wasn’t on the list of returned properties ? Normally we would need to use a PowerShell expression to add this data when we select the data: Continue reading
With View 4.6 becoming largely adopted by many businesses recently I came across an interesting use case for VMware Site Recover Manager (SRM) and View 4.6, specifically the View 4.6 PowerCLI cmdlets.
Imagine this scenario (and this is just one example of why you would do this)….
You have virtualised your desktops because you want to gain the benefit of having an agile desktop, a desktop which you can use on any PC, Thin Client, iPad, iPhone, Tablet etc, everyone from the cleaner to the MD now uses a virtual desktop – including you – the system administrator.
One day there is a Disaster, a plane falls out of the sky into your datacenter and wipes out everything – PANIC !
But wait, you have SRM, your key servers have been moved to your recovery site, a replicated datacenter in a neighboring town and your data is replicated on a regular interval, VMware to the rescue again !
Just one thing remains, you now need to re-create your workstations in your recovery site, start deploying the first few to the rest of your team and install all the admin applications you need to bring your systems back up to a working state so that the users can gain access to their recovered system.
This was just the same scenario a company recently had, they had specific view desktops for the management of their systems, these were assigned as persistent desktops and contained the key apps and management tools needed to manage the infrastructure and help desk system.
So how can SRM and View be used together to help ? Continue reading
