andrew-virtusolve

Correct - 'best practice', for a large environments and where you need to maintain the cluster sizes is to upgrade vCenter in situe, however these have been the most troublesome upgrade routes - if you are non-clustered and have a small number of hosts (as I imagine is the case in many implementations of folk on edugeek) our recommendation is as described, it will avoid the known issues around PSOD when upgrading the vCenter agent when upgrading ESXi4.0 U2 specifically. See the following KB article: VMware KB: ESXi 4.0 hosts may experience a purple screen after vCenter Server is upgraded to 5.0 Message is, if you cannot go the simple route - patch first, upgrade second

With ESXi as your underlying hypervisor you need to be able to present a GPU capable of running it to the underlying hardware, in vSphere 5 VMware has added 3D support to the Virtual Hardware to enable the use of Aero - a by product of which should be (may be?!) the ability to run WMM as it is a different virtual graphics card - I will test this on our lab and confirm for you

If you have a method of replicating your storage (which I guess you probably don't) then you could use Pool Replication described in this document For a third party option, PHD is really the only one out there of any note Citrix XenServer Backup Software - Backup XenServer - XenServer Backup Solutions This is the problem with Xen Server, its a fantastic product, will install on almost any tin and has loads of free enterprise features, but there just isn't the footprint or support out there with the third party vendors :-( Alternatively, shift to VMware (look for the essentials packages), then you can use Quest vRanger or Veeam or alternatively shift to Hyper-V and wait for Veeam v6

No probs, I did wonder which tripwire I hit there for a while! Not the first time I've been on the end of a rant, usually its more deserved though ;-)

Both cheap and expensive digs are welcome, was simply making the comment that from experience most folk who come requesting VDI end up with Terminal Services. Dave - if you read the comment I made about Miss-Selling, not miss-spelling or have I got the wrong end of the stick too??

Has been mostly painless, there are some getting PSOD's when they have a certain patch level on the hosts and upgrade the vCenter first, but we generally have done the hosts individually and then upgraded vCenters afterwards for our clients. We have done approximately 300 hosts out of the 800 or so we actively look after for clients and no major issues yet!

SO much miss-selling in the VDI space, mainly to people who don't quite understand the differences between VDI, thin client or who haven't seen how rich thin client delivery has become in 2008R2. 99% of companies asking for a VDI solution actually want either RDS or a hybrid of VDI, RDS and thick delivery - buyer beware!

Not too sure on the side effects, but we are running Veeam 5.0.2.230 on at least 5 clients who are running vSphere 5 with very few issues?? Extending the virtual disks on the fly works well on 2008 and above, not so well on 2003 because of contiguous space on disks, you may need to change the disk type to Dynamic other than basic and that will affect File Level Restores in virtual backup (certainly does on quest vranger, not tried with U-AIR on latest version of veeam yet)

Everything is setup correctly in ESXi, I would suggest there is something in your Workstation 8 config that isn't quite right - does the Network Card on your ESXi VM in workstation 8 definately have the 'Bridged' setting applied (and not NAT), also have you tried checking the 'Replicate Physical Network Connection State' setting? Finally does your workstation 8 application have full inbound and outbound access through your Physical host machines firewall?

Go for whatever you need in terms of single file size 2MB block files will allow you to create 512GB files, however be careful when creating your virtual disks - DO NOT use the maximum size available as you will not be able to snapshot (which Veeam will require to perform backups through the vStorage API) Upgrading your VMFS datastores to version 5 (from version 3) when you update is VERY simple though (regardless of the current block size): Upgrade_to_VMFS_5.swf Note that the block size remains following the upgrade, to revert to a 1MB block size requires deleting and recreating the datastores

The fact that SRV01 is not in the ESXi config clears things up a bit, you do have an unnecessary port group and VM Network (2) on your ESXi host, but that is not causing the issue if SRV01 cannot ping the router. If you run a TRACERT from SRV01 to the gateway address what is the output?

Yep, it sounds like something somewhere is blocking the ICMP requests - obvious thing would be the 2008R2 client firewall within the VM but as you have said that is disabled, but is there any other communication happening - so can the server browse the internet through the router? Do both clients have a gateway set and both have the correct subnet masks? Do you have VMware Tools installed in both of the guests within ESXi? Additionally within the vSwitch config in ESXi, check the properties of vSwitch0, select the Security tab and change Promiscuous Mode from Reject to Accept - this will allow better compatibility at a network level running on multiple hypervisor layers:

Just to be clear, you are running a linux distro, VMware Workstation 8, then in a virtual machine running ESXi and then in that hypervisor running two VM's - correct? Is the network card that you have granted to your ESXi server (in the VMware Workstation console) set to Bridged (and NOT Host Only, NAT or Custom)? I am assuming you are using the default vSwitch configuration in ESXi (vSwitch0) and that you only have a single physical uplink, is that correct? Did you upgrade from version 7 to version 8 on workstation? We have heard from one customer who did and had problems with bridge mode not working, they fixed that by deleting the virtual NIC and recreating in version 8 (after upgrading the virtual machine version from 7 to 8

Don't just convert the image formats, you will be better off if you do a full conversion as this will then allow you to reset your disk sizes and install hardware and VMtools on the migrated image, VMware Converter 5 is free and now works very well (although they have removed the plug-in based version of the software in vSphere 5 curiously) download here (you will need to be registered) Any problems give me a hollar!

The desktop reciever will run reasonably well on almost anything that runs an OS, with decent video RAM to support a reasonable resolution. Runs fine on an iPad using the Citrix Reciever for iPad and is supported for a number of XP embedded devices too. Would be interested to know how many folk have sweated their oldest kit as cheap end points?!

It's nearly here, there are some webinars for existing and interested Veeam users at the following link: NEW Veeam Backup & Replication v6 - What's new in v6 Big headlines are Hyper-V and VMware from a single console and speed enhancements We use a lot of Veeam for Virtual backup, If anyone has any questions, drop me a line. Will post links to release documentation when they are officially announced

VDI has a very specific use case when it comes down to comparing with the other options and it in essence is this - if you need a performant and user configurable desktop that is ran from a central location or infrastructure and has requirements for either fast updating video or intensive applications (design, media video etc) then VDI is for you. However, if you want to deploy a number of end user devices, maintain a standardised delivery of mainly office based applications and have no desire for intensive use or heavy use of flash or very good quality video then Remote Desktop Services or Thin-Client delivery from another vendor may be for you. The majority of educational establishments we go into end up with either RDS or a Hybrid delivery of RDS and VDI, most people pushing full VDI have rarely fully understood the user requirements as (although not impossible), it is very rare that an organisation needs the full flexibility of VDI. In the early days, many projects found this out to cost, you would provide the hardware and software after a long qualification period asking all the right questions only to be told - "we want one standard desktop image based on Windows XP" and then you see 300 kids doing nothing more than Facebook and Microsoft word on them! Am not saying VDI is never the answer, it's just a case of establishing exactly what you are trying to achieve before you start, there is nothing stopping you trying a RDS rollout and a smaller VDI implementation and then ramping up to full VDI afterwards if RDS does not cut the mustard

You may be surprised at how powerful Remote Desktop Services is these days under Windows 2008R2, a LOT of people that come to us looking for VDI end up going down that route as you can do much more these days with it. PLUS, if you are on a budget, you can then look at the Axel ZeroClients instead of Wyse to get the costs down!

Yes, we have a few sites using them

Am sure the VMware guys will backup the statement that Veeam is pretty much #1 in the 'value' stakes when it comes to VMware based backup, well - its coming for Hyper-V too and from what we've seen so far, will almost certainly enter the market in a leading position - details here: #1 VMware Backup is coming to Hyper-V

Which should be a while then - although having said that I've just been looking at Replication in Hyper-V on Windows Server "8" and it's pretty awesome - OK you can do the same with Quest vReplicator which is now part of vRanger - but a great free feature - they are coming on...

As long as you have current support, if you don't buy it now and get the upgrade at very low cost This PDF has all the details you would want - http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

Very probably in line with VMworld 2011 Vegas - which would be the end of August-1st week in September. Some of our launch materials state 6th August though which might mean orders can be taken then. We have binaires now, but only because we were in beta, we are expecting release versions of all of the new software within the next two weeks.

Am amazed and massively happy that VMware has responded to the comments across the blogosphere and the pressure placed on them by partners by revising the vRAM entitlements and making a few changes to the model. "We’ve increased vRAM entitlements for all vSphere editions, including the doubling of the entitlements for vSphere Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. This change addresses concerns about future-looking business cases that were based on future hardware capabilities and the previous vSphere licensing model. Below is a comparison of the previously announced and the new vSphere 5 vRAM entitlements per vSphere edition: vSphere edition Previous vRAM entitlement New vRAM entitlement vSphere Enterprise+ 48 GB 96 GB vSphere Enterprise 32 GB 64 GB vSphere Standard 24 GB 32 GB vSphere Essentials+ 24 GB 32 GB vSphere Essentials 24 GB 32 GB We’ve capped the amount of vRAM we count in any given VM, so that no VM, not even the “monster” 1TB vRAM VM, would cost more than one vSphere Enterprise Plus license. This change also aligns with our goal to make vSphere 5 the best platform for running Tier 1 applications. We’ve adjusted our model to be much more flexible around transient workloads, and short-term spikes that are typical in test & development environments for example. We will now calculate a 12-month average of consumed vRAM to rather than tracking the high water mark of vRAM. Finally, we introduced the vSphere Desktop edition to address vSphere licensing in a desktop environment. The vSphere Desktop edition does not have any vRAM entitlements, and allows customers to purchase vSphere for VDI use case on per user basis. Our price books are being updated and will be distributed shortly." Am both amazed and delighted at how fast they have responded to this - I mean there will still be some people annoyed at the concept as a whole, but it is a step in the right direction and really good to see a big company responding to the needs and admitting they got it a bit wrong!

VMwareTV has just released a load of new demonstration videos on vSphere 5 features: vSphere Web Client Demo vSphere Storage DRS Demo vSphere Profile-Driven Storage Demo vSphere Storage Appliance Resilience Demo vSphere Auto Deploy Demo vSphere Storage Appliance Installation and Configuration Really good way of learning how things work ahead of full release They are available at my blog here Or direct from VMware TV here