Category Archives: VMware

vSphere 5 License Entitlement changes

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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 ?

  1. VMware have increased vRAM entitlements for all vSphere editions.
  2. The amount of vRAM has been capped at 96GB of vRAM, so if your VMs have over this amount it will only count the first 96GB.
  3. The amount of vRAM is now calculated as a 12 month average of allocated vRAM

New Entitlements

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)

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Update and re-composure of View Pools

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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.

Watch it in action…

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vSphere 5 License Entitlements

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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 License Overview

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:

  • vRAM is pooled per license type to create a pool
  • Make sure all license keys you have purchased are entered into vCenter
  • All Licenses (whether deployed or not) add Pooled vRAM capacity
  • Make sure existing vCenter servers are linked – vRAM licenses are pooled across linked mode vCenters giving a total vRAM per license type.

More information on these changes can be found in the Licensing, Pricing and Packaging white paper here.

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July London VMUG

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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.

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Which VMs set your Slot Size ?

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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.

 

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Failover of persistent desktops using SRM and View 4.6

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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)….

Scenario

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 →

Using the View PowerCLI cmdlets from another machine

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As of version 4.6 VMware View came with some PowerCLI Cmdlets, I wrote a post about these recently after they were released explaining why this was both a good and a bad thing.

I have seen a couple of posts since then using View PowerCLI :

Myself, I never really had a reason to use them that much, I have been busy since they came out and have always been meaning to have a more thorough look at what could be done.

My next post will go into some more detail on the use case but for now I wanted to talk about using these cmdlets from another machine.  Normally with PowerCLI we can connect to the vCenter server using any machine with PowerCLI installed on it whether that be our workstation, an admin server or the vCenter server itself, unfortunately we are unable to do that with the View cmdlets as they stand but PowerShell can help us with this.

One of the features built into Windows PowerShell V2 is called remoting, to find out more information about this feature use the get-help cmdlet in PowerShell as follows: Get-Help About_Remoting.

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HA and DRS Audit

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Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman are two of the biggest rockstars in the VMware Community, recently they wrote a fantastic book on HA and DRS, this can be downloaded for a fantastic price from here, if you dont have it then you are not a VMware admin !

But wouldn’t it be great if we could have our own little Duncan or Frank to carry around in our pocket and check our clusters out for HA and DRS issues and best practices – Well now you can – no I haven’t created bobble headed characters, instead I have created…..

The HA and DRS Audit Script

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VMworld 2011 session

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Following last years successful session which Luc Dekens and I presented 5 times at the San Francisco and Copenhagen VMworld’s we thought we would again submit another PowerCLI session this year.

But wait, we have not submitted just one for your viewing pleasure but two sessions !

Some of the feedback last year showed that there were some enhancements we could make to our session, taking this on board we have submitted two sessions which hopefully you will find interesting enough to vote for.

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