Over the past few days I've been looking into deployment tools to help me deploy a large amount of ESXi Host's in a short space of time. One of the tools I've been looking at is VMware Auto Deploy
VMware Auto Deploy
The auto deploy application which comes as an OVT template is basically just a jumped-up vMA, with the added extra's of DHCP, TFTP, HTTP servers and a deploy-cmd CLi and Database.
Here is a brief overview of how VMware Auto Deploy works once configured:
PXE boot the target server
ESXi is installed onto the target server from the auto deploy app
The ESXi host will then be added into your vCenter
The ESXi host will then have a Host Profile applied to it.
This makes life pretty easy.
What I didn't know and it didn't mention on the labs site was that the ESXi install was Stateless. The ESXi install is only held in memory. So if you reboot the server you'd see a "No Operating System Found" message.
Before VMware Auto Deploy, I hadn't ever given Stateless ESXi a second thought. The configuration of a host once ESXi was installed was a lot more detailed than the initial install itself and took time to complete. Now with the use of Host Profiles we are able to Install and Configure an ESXi host within a matter of minutes and 100% automatically. At this rate I'll be doing myself out of a job! However, I also believe it's the way most large deployments will head in the not so distant future. We are beginning to see an increase in the amount of diskless servers/blades coming onto the market, which is ushering us down the route of using Stateless installs.
I'm not going to go into the in's and out's of the application configuration as it's all available in the VMware Auto Deploy Administrator's Guide. It's very simple
I saw this little discussion on an internal mailing list a week or so ago and I've decided to post it too The SLOG – 1. So I don't forget it, 2. I'm sure many of you will at some point use Jumbo frames in the future on your vSphere environments.
Question: "Assuming that I enable jumbo frames, is there a way on in the VM to determine is jumbo frames are truly supported end-to-end?"
Answer:
In your VM, ping your destination with a large message and specify don’t fragment.
Linux VMs: ping –M do –s 8000 <ip address or destination>
Windows VMs: ping –f –l 8000 <ip address or destination>
ESX(i): vmkping –d –s 8000 <ip address or destination>
Another year has passed….Where the hell did that go? Well you may or may not have heard that the vSphere-Land.com Top Bloggers in VMware and Virtualization Award nominations have been released and voting has commenced.
Once again I'm both pleased and honoured to have my Blog on the shortlist amongst some of the worlds top Virtualization Bloggers.
So if your a regular reader of the various Virtualization Blogs, it would be great if you could vote for your favourites.
Scott Vessey has just announced on his VMTraining Blog that the new VCAP4-DSA Exam will be available as of the 13th September.
I've been waiting for this for a while as I missed the opportunity to site the Beta exam. So, I'm off to grab the latest copy of the Exam Blueprint to start preparing.
Watching this brought back the excitement I felt after the VMware MVP presentation that VMware made back at VMWorld 2008. Since then it's all been quiet…..Until now.
VMworld San Francisco is looming and there have already been some great events announced such as VMUnderground’s WuPaaS on Sunday evening(for more details see here) and the Official VMworld Tweetup (details here) on Monday.
With VMworld kicking off on a Monday this year many folk will be rolling into town over the weekend so what better time to arrange a nice social get together on the Saturday night before the main event’s festivities begin.
Based on this Simon Seagrave and myself put our heads together and thought that a vBeers sounded like a jolly good idea, so if you’re in San Francisco on the Saturday night and would like to come and meet fellow virtualizationgeeks enthusiasts then make a note in your diary and come along. All welcome and the more the merrier!
VMware have just released their latest version of vSphere, version 4.1. There are a lot of new features and changes, all of which can be found here: What’s New in vSphere 4.1
So, what does that mean for you if you're about to start studying for the VCP exam? Well I've heard from an "unofficial" source that the VCP will always be related to the current software version. I'm waiting on official confirmation of this from VMware, but Scott Vessey is very seldom wrong and his Blog is where I found this information.
So from now on, I'd recommend using the latest vSphere 4.1 Documentation as part of your VCP Studies and the latest version of the VCP Exam Blueprint which you can download from here
Update: If VMware decide that there are features in vSphere 4.1 that would be benifical for a VCP to know, then they will release a new Exam Blueprint with the relevant changes in. I of course will let you know if this happens and I will also do my best to change my online blueprint links page to suit.
About two weeks ago I received an email from John Troyer from VMware notifying me that I have been awarded the vExpert award. This was one of my targets for the year, so I have to say that I am very happy to recieve this award. For those of you who don't know what the vExpert award is, here is a little quote from the vExpert landing page.
The VMware vExpert Award is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year. vExperts are book authors, bloggers, VMUG leaders, tool builders, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others.
It's quite an honor when you see the list of others who have also been the vExpert title. For a comprehesive list have a look at Armin Van Lieshout's vExpert Directory.
Hitachi Data Systems, Blogger Day
I had the pleasure of spending most of last week over in California attending the Hitachi Data Systems Bloggers Day. This was another great experience. I caught up with some old friends and have made some great new friends. I'm not going to go into too much depth about my visit as I plan to write a post which will give you a little more detail into what I got up to at HDS.
As you can see, things have been pretty good for me. But it doesn't stop there, I'm pleased to tell you all, I have landed my dream job!!!
NEW JOB!!!
In August 2010 I will be joining VMware as a Senior Consultant. I CANNOT wait! I will be working in a team consisting of some of best Virtualisation Consultants in the world, Including Frank Denneman, Hany Michael, Kenneth Van Ditmarsch. This for me is the icing on the cake. This is a job I have wanted since I first started working with ESX 3 back in 2007.
Like most VI Admins, I've been using VMware ESXi quite a lot more lately and I'm slowly coming across things that are different to how they are in ESX. Log files being one of these differences.
With the absence of the Service Console, ESXi presents a slightly different architecture. If you haven't yet read The Architecture of VMware ESXi, I would recommend having a good read through.
Differences between ESX and ESXi logs
Here is the common log file structure in ESX (Source)
Hey guys, Welcome! I'm Simon Long and I've setup this Blog to pass on my experiences and other useful information, mostly focused around Virtualization.
Minhaj116: 
2 VCP's and a Truck
