VMworld Schedule Builder Tips

This is the default view that everyone sees when they log into schedule builder.  It is very difficult to build your schedule in this view

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A much easier way to build your schedule is to click the little drop down arrow on the site menu on the bar on the left.  After clicking on the arrow and window will drop down.  Then select schedule.

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This will bring up your schedule in a calendar format view.  From here you can export, print, add personal time and edit your schedule.  To edit your schedule, just click on the edit button.

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In this view it is much easier to see and edit your schedule by day.

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If you highlight a session on the left it will show you how it fits into your schedule and if it conflicts with any other sessions you have scheduled.

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Have fun building your VMworld Schedule!

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VMware free training library series launches with VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting Workshop [v5.5]

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Vmware has added a free training library to the new webinar series.  They are connecting you directly with VMware’s own expert training team, making it easier for you to take full advantage of VMware® products, from data center virtualization and hybrid cloud to software-defined data center.

The series launches with VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting Workshop [v5.5]. Listen and learn how to increase your skill and competency using the VMware vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) to analyze problems. The webinar discusses best practices using products VMware® ESXi™ 5.5, VMware® vCenter Server™ 5.5, and vCloud Director. You’ll gain knowledge on specific troubleshooting issue techniques for:

  • SSL certificates
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • VMware vCenter™ Single Sign-On™
  • VMware vCenter Server
  • VMware ESXi host
  • VMware vSphere Cluster
  • VMware vSphere® vMotion®
  • Virtual Machine

Click here to register

vSphere 5.5 Update 1 released

With the announcement of VSAN GA announcement last week, everyone knew that vSphere 5.5 update 1 would be available soon because it is required for VSAN.

VMware released vSphere  5.5 update 1 today (11 March 2014).

You can download all the components here .

What’s new for vCenter 5.5 Update 1

  • vCloud® Hybrid Service™ vSphere® Client Plug-in, is now available in vSphere Web Client.
  • vCenter Server is now supported on Windows Server 2012 R2.

What’s new for vSphere 5.5 Update 1

  • VMware Virtual SAN

You can check out all the details in the vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1 Release Notes & VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 1 Release Notes

According to the vSphere 5.5 Update 1 release notes there is NOT a supported upgrade of the VSAN Beta –

Test Releases of Virtual SAN 
Upgrade of Virtual SAN cluster from Virtual SAN Beta to Virtual SAN 5.5 is not supported.
Disable Virtual SAN Beta, and perform fresh installation of Virtual SAN 5.5 for ESXi 5.5 Update 1 hosts. If you were testing Beta versions of Virtual SAN, VMware recommends that you recreate data that you want to preserve from those setups on vSphere 5.5 Update 1. For more information see Retaining virtual machines of Virtual SAN Beta cluster when upgrading to vSphere 5.5 Update 1 (KB 2074147).

VSAN GA Announcement

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On March 6th  VMware annouce the the  general availability of Virtual SAN 1.0 through a webinar. In case your missed the webinar, you can go to www.vmware.com/now and watch it.

The VSAN Beta was running for 6 months and had 10,000 people sign up.  VMware is offering customers using the beta an exclusive 20% discount

At VMworld 2013 VMware announced that VSAN would support an 8 node cluster.  At PEX 2014 VMware announce that VSAN would support a 16 Node cluster.

The big announcement about VSAN 1.0 is that it will support a 32 node cluster.

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Some more technical specs about VSAN 1.0

  • Benchmarks have reached 2 Million IOPS (32 node Cluster)
  • VSAN can scale up to 4.4 PB (35 disks x 32 hosts)

One of the things that I love about VSAN is how easy it is to setup.  One click and it is installed.

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VMware will announce pricing of VSAN 1.0 the week of March 10th.

VMware released a new VSAN Design and Sizing Guide which can be downloaded here.

There is a  free VSAN Hands-on Lab (HOL) available for you to run through setting it up and getting familiar with the interface.  This is great if you don’t have the physical hardware to setup VSAN in your lab.

Duncan Epping has written a lot of great articles on VSAN

He is writting a book with Cormac Hogan – VMware Virtual SAN launch and book pre-announcement!

Join me at the up coming St Louis VMUG User Conference

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Top 7 Reasons Why You Should Attend the St. Louis VMUG User Conference

7.    David Hill of VMware will deliver the afternoon keynote session on Hybrid Cloud
6.    VMware will be presenting on Networking, Virtual SAN, Operations Management,
vCenter 5.5, vSphere 5.5, vCAC, Data Protection, Software Defined Data Center and more!
5.    Learn about the latest products from 30 VMware partners
4.    Enjoy longer, more in-depth VMware sessions with an updated agenda for 2014
3.    VMUG Giveaways will be provided for ALL attendees
2.    Have a beer at the reception following the event – sponsored by Veeam Software
1.    It’s FREE! (And so is breakfast and lunch)

Tuesday, March 11, 2014
7:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Sheraton Westport Hotel
191 Westport Plaza
St. Louis, MO 63146

Register now and see more details.

Follow @STLVMUG and  #STLVMUG on Twitter for the latest event information and updates.

RV Tools 3.6 Released

RVTools is a windows .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display information about your virtual machines and ESX hosts.

Interacting with all versions of VirtualCenter and ESX Server RVTools is able to list information about VMs, CPU, Memory, Disks, Partitions, Network, Floppy drives, CD drives, Snapshots, VMware tools, Resource pools, Clusters, ESX hosts, HBAs, Nics, Switches, Ports, Distributed Switches, Distributed Ports, Service consoles, VM Kernels, Datastores, Multipath info and health checks.

What’s new in Version 3.6 (Feburary 2014)

  • New tabpage with cluster information
  • New tabpage with multipath information
  • On vInfo tabpage new fields HA Isolation response and HA restart priority
  • On vInfo tabpage new fields Cluster affinity rule information
  • On vInfo tabpage new fields connection state and suspend time
  • On vInfo tabpage new field The vSphere HA protection state for a virtual machine (DAS Protection)
  • On vInfo tabpage new field quest state
  • On vCPU tabpage new fields Hot Add and Hot Remove information
  • On vCPU tabpage cpu/socket/cores information adapted
  • On vHost tabpage new fields VMotion support and storage VMotion support
  • On vMemory tabpage new field Hot Add
  • On vNetwork tabpage new field VM folder.
  • On vSC_VMK tabpage new field MTU
  • RVToolsSendMail: you can now also set the mail subject
  • Fixed a datastore bug for ESX version 3.5
  • Fixed a vmFolder bug when started from the commandline
  • Improved documentation for the commandline options

Below is an example of the new cluster tab.

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Below is an example of the new Multpath tab.

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It has been almost a year since the last version was released, but that is ok because this tool is FREE and is works great.  Sure I could write a powercli script to get a lot of this information, but it’s nice to get all of this information in a single click.  It also gets all of this information very fast because it uses the VI SDK.

I have been using this tool for a few years and it is one of my favorite documentation collection / troubleshooting tools.

Download your free version of RVTools 3.6

VMware Update Manager upgrade failed

Today I was busy with a vCenter server upgrade to vCenter 5 update 3. Everything went fine except the vCenter Update manager installation. I received the following error:

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A quick search on the interweb for “Error 25113.Setup failed to generate the JRE SSL keys” and I found a VMware KB with the exact issue.   According to VMware KB 2059567 all version of vSphere 5.x are affected by this bug.  Not sure if this is common knowledge to everyone else, but this is the first time I have seen this error.  I have done many upgrades and have never seen this before.  The solution is simple. Just stop the vCenter Update Manager service before starting the upgrade. Right after stopping the service, the installation was successful.

Apply and Become a VMware vExpert 2014!

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Today John Troyer (@jtroyer) – Social Media Chief and Community Evangelist @VMware opened the gates for a new round of vExpert Nominations. To apply you need to nominate yourself and describe all the hard work you have put into the VMware community last year. This itself is not that easy to do… try to remember what you  did last year…

The past couple of years we have seen the number of vExperts increase from 252 back in 2009, 326 in 2011, 434 in 2012 to 531 in 2013

vExperts who participate in the program have access to private betas, free licenses, early access briefings, exclusive events, free access to VMworld conference materials online, and other opportunities to interact with VMware product teams. They also get access to a private community and networking opportunities.

As with last year, there are three paths to being designated a vExpert. Each path takes into account the accomplishments and activities over the last year.

Evangelist Path

The Evangelist Path includes book authors, bloggers, tool builders, public speakers, VMTN contributors, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others with the leverage of a personal public platform to reach many people. Employees of VMware can also apply via the Evangelist path. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public or were in a language other than English.

Customer Path

The Customer Path is for leaders from VMware customer organizations. They have been internal champions in their organizations, or worked with VMware to build success stories, act as customer references, given public interviews, spoken at conferences, or were VMUG leaders. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public.

VPN (VMware Partner Network) Path

The VPN Path is for employees of our partner companies who lead with passion and by example, who are committed to continuous learning through accreditations and certifications and to making their technical knowledge and expertise available to many. This can take shape of event participation, video, IP generation, as well as public speaking engagements. A VMware employee reference is required for VPN Path candidates.

Information on vExpert 2014: http://bit.ly/MtDKff

Current 2013 vExperts use the 2014 vExpert Fast Track application at http://bit.ly/1ikZ8hi

2014 vExpert application: http://bit.ly/LMJqB5

Recommend someone apply to become a 2014 vExpert: http://bit.ly/1bobFfF