Category: VMWare

Free e-learning course – Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange 2013 on VMware vSphere 5 Fundamentals

This self paced free eLearning course illustrates why organizations need to consider virtualizing Exchange 2013 on VMware vSphere. This course focuses on Exchange design prerequisites and considerations, when virtualizing Exchange 2013.
It also describes design, sizing, and implementation guidelines and best practices, that should be followed as part of a structured design and implementation methodology.

The course consists of three modules:

  • Introduction to Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange 2013 provides an overview of the challenges that organizations typically face when deploying Microsoft Exchange 2013 on physical hardware, and how these challenges can be addressed by virtualizing Exchange on VMware vSphere. This module also describes the benefits that organizations can realize by virtualizing Exchange 2013 on the vSphere platform.
  • Designing the Virtualized Exchange Environment evaluates the prerequisites for designing an Exchange 2013 solution when deployed in a virtualized environment. This module also covers the design considerations and guidelines for designing and sizing Exchange 2013 on vSphere.
  • Implementing the Virtualized Exchange Solution covers various implementation options that should be considered when virtualizing Exchange 2013 on the vSphere platform. This module also discusses several implementation considerations that should be factored into an Exchange 2013 design. Finally, this module discusses how to monitor and test the performance of Exchange 2013 on VMware vSphere.

Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange 2013 on VMware vSphere [V5.X] Fundamentals

Thnx to Eric Sloof

VMware Workstation 10

VMware Workstation takes virtualization to the next level:

  • Support for the latest Guest OS’es like Microsoft Windows 8.1 and various Linux distributions.
  • The new hardware version 10 introduces even bigger and better Virtual Machines
    Up to 16 vCPUs
    64GB of vRAM
    8TB disks.
    vSATA support has been added
    Up to 20 networks can be defined.
    Various USB improvements (usb3 stream support, among other things)
    SSD pass through makes for better support of the underlying hardware platform.
  • New Virtual Appliances created with the Workstation team to quickly run various cloud stacks like Pivotal, Puppet Labs and Vagrant.

The team has included various smaller improvements in the product as well:

  • Better multi-monitor support for up to 4 screens
  • Unity mode has been enhanced to seamlessly work with Windows 8.1 UI changes
  • An updated version of VMware Converter has been built in and adds support for P2V’ing a Windows 8.1 machine
  • New option to display the VM console using VMware-KVM, a ‘screen-only’ window without any bells or whistles.

Configuring disks to use VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters

PVSCSI adapters are high-performance storage adapters that can result in greater throughput and lower CPU utilization. PVSCSI adapters are best suited for environments, especially SAN environments, where hardware or applications drive a very high amount of I/O throughput. PVSCSI adapters are not suited for DAS environments.

This table shows the support matrix for use of Paravirtual SCSI adapters for data disks and boot disks for the various guest operating systems and ESX versions. Support shown in the table is from the listed ESX/ESXi version and later versions.

Guest operating system

Data Disk

Boot Disk

Windows Server 2012 (64 bit only)

ESXi 5.0 Update 1, ESXi 5.1

ESXi 5.0 Update 1, ESXi 5.1

Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit only)

ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 1, ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 1, ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

Windows Server 2008 (32 and 64 bit)

ESX/ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x

ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 1, ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

Windows Server 2003 (32 and 64 bit)

ESX/ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x

ESX/ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x

Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit)

ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

Windows Vista (32 and 64 bit)

ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

Windows XP (32 and 64 bit)

ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

ESX/ESXi 4.1, ESXi 5.x

Because the default type of newly hot-added SCSI adapter depends on the type of primary (boot) SCSI controller, hot-adding a PVSCSI adapter is only supported for those versions that support booting from a PVSCSI adapter.

Paravirtual SCSI adapters also have these limitations:

  • Hot add or hot remove requires a bus rescan from within the guest.
  • Disks with snapshots might not experience performance gains when used on Paravirtual SCSI adapters if memory on the ESX host is overcommitted.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 Optimization Guide for Horizon View Virtual Desktops & Antivirus Best Practices for Horizon View 5.x

VMware released two great documents!!

Windows 7 and Windows 8 Optimization Guide for Horizon View Virtual Desktops

Antivirus Best Practices for Horizon View 5.x

VMware View preview Client for Windows Store

VMWare released a preview of the VMware View Client for Windows Store. This Windows Store client will run in the tiled view of Windows RT and Windows 8.

 

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As this is a preview, it does have a number of limitations:

  • The client supports RDP connections but not PCoIP yet
  • No support for smart card authentication
  • To use the onscreen keyboard on a tablet, go to Settings and select Keyboard

The Windows Store client has additional requirements for server certificate checking:

  • You cannot turn off certificate verification on the client.
  • The View Connection Server or security server must have a security certificate that the client can fully verify and it must match the host name in the View Client.
  • If you plan to use a secure tunnel connection, for instance if you will be connecting remotely, the tunnel server (View Connection Server instance or security server) must also have a security certificate that the client can verify. The host name in the View Client must match the host name in the “External URL” setting shown in the Edit View Connection Server Settings dialog box, in View Administrator. For example, the field cannot have an IP address and the certificate cannot be self-signed.
  • Alternately, the user can install a self-signed certificate into the client computer, but it must be put in the local machine store rather than the current user store. The app that end users should use is called “Manage computer certificates” (certlm.msc).

We are excited to release this Windows Store client and look forward to improving it in subsequent releases. To install the client, go to the store from your Windows 8 system and search on VMware.

The existing VMware View Client for Windows (version 5.2 or later) runs in Windows 8 desktop mode. If you are running Windows 8 (not Windows RT) VMware recommends that you use our existing VMware View Client for Windows in the Windows 8 desktop mode for maximum functionality

VMware Workstation 9.0.1

In this “maintenance” release we can see that few OS support has been added and some bug fixes has been issued as well. This release comes only after two and half months, where VMware Workstation 9 has been released.

What’s new in the Version 9.0.1 – Build Number:894247

  • Support for Ubuntu 12.10 as a host and guest.
  • Solaris 11 has been added to guest OS list

Fixes:

  • When powering on a virtual machine with Binary Translation on a SMEP-capable CPU, Workstation no longer causes the host to reset. If you run Windows 8 hosts on Ivy Bridge processors, VMware strongly recommends that you update your installation of Workstation.
  • Several security vulnerabilities have been addressed, including updating third party libraries.
  • The Workstation plug-in for Visual Studio has been updated to work with Visual Studio 2012.
  • For host systems with more than 4GB of memory, Workstation will use more of the available memory to run virtual machines.
  • The ability to mount a .vmdk file as a drive by right-clicking the file in File Explorer has been restored.
  • Streaming a virtual machines has been fixed.
  • Occasionally, certain elements in the Windows 8 user interface were incorrectly displayed. This has been fixed.
  • After disconnecting certain USB devices from a virtual machine, Workstation would prevent devices from being reconnected without restarting the virtual machine. A more comprehensive error handling code has been added to prevent this problem from occurring.
  • To improve application startup performance, the data being collected as part of the optional User Experience Improvement Program will no longer be aggregated on every launch of Workstation.
  • Remotely retrieving the IP address of an Ubuntu virtual machine with an IPv6 address assigned failed unless an IPv4 address was also assigned to the virtual machine. This no longer occures.
  • With IPv6 disabled on the host, the Linux version of Workstation is now able to share virtual machines.
  • When you import an OVA file of a virtual machine running the Datacenter version of Windows Server, the network adapter failed to be configured correctly. This is now fixed.
  • Closing Workstation in the middle of a cut and paste operation no longer causes the Workstation user interface to crash.
  • After unsharing a virtual machine configured to use client-side devices, you can now reconfigure the device settings to use local devices.
  • Easy Install on the Linux version of Workstation now recognize all compatible operating systems.
  • The VMware monitor has been updated to work with Linux kernel 3.5.
  • On the Linux version of Workstation, entering a permanent license key after using an evaluation key now removes the days remaining evaluation indicator.
  • The network adapter configuration screen now correctly preserves the Custom network settings.
  • You can now remove a Network if network settings changes are pending.
  • The Use physical drive radio button for a floppy device was disabled when connecting to a shared virtual machine or remote virtual machine a on host without a physical floppy device. This is now fixed.
  • Animated cursors are now displayed correctly in a virtual machine.

Source: VMware Workstation 9.0.1 Relese Notes Release notes

VM Advanced ISO. Free Tools For Advanced Tasks

Kendrick Coleman has compiled a CD with FREE TOOLS for virtual machines within your VMware environment. All of the tools in this package were pooled together for performing advanced tasks to optimize performance, reclaim lost space, and clean up your virtual machine.

CURRENT VERSION = 0.8

Without further ado here is what is packaged in VM Advanced v0.8 (510MB):

  • FoxitPortablePDF
  • 01 – P2V Clean-up
    • 01 – Resolution Resize
    • 02 – HP ProLiant Cleaner
    • 03 – Remove Non Present Devices
      04 – Rename Local Area Connection
    • 05 – Network Settings
    • 06 – Dell Cleanup
  • 02 – Hal Upgrade-Downgrade
    • 01 – HAL_Toggle <- UPDATED
  • 03 – Partition Alignment
    • 02 – mbrtools (only how-to is provided) <-REMOVED, Use UBERAlign
    • 04 – Paragon Alignment Tool 2.0 (free tool for limited time but cannot distribute within ISO) <-REMOVED, Use UBERAlign
  • 03 – VDI Performance
    • 01 – VM Check Partition Alignment
    • 02 – Aligning VMDK Partition For Template
    • 03 – Quest Desktop Optimizer
  • 04 – Reclaim Space
    • 01 – SDelete
  • 05 – Analysis
    • 01 – IOPS w/ IOmeter
    • 02 – LoadStorm
    • 03 – NetworkPerformance
      • 01-  iperf
      • 02 – PSTools <- New
  • 06 – SysprepFiles
    • 01 – vCenterSysprep
    • 02 – vCloudSysprep
  • 07 – Virtual Router
    • FreeSCO
  • 08 – Floppies
    • 01 – LSI_Logic_Parallel_WinXP_x86
    • 02 – Bus_LogicParallel_WinXP_x86

  • 09 – vSphere Client
  • 10 – Security
    • 01 – Angry IP Scanner
    • 02 – Blues Port Scanner
    • 03 – NetworkActiv PortScanner
    • 04 – PuTTY
    • 05 – HijackThis
  • 11 – SQL Native Client
    • 01 – SQL Native Client
  • 12 – ISO Creation <- New
    • 01 -Folder2Iso

Download Here:
VM Advanced v0.8 ISO

Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) and vSphere 4 does not work together

When you using vSphere 4 and and using MDT 2012 update1 with Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit you run in de following error. Same thing wil also with Workstation 8.clip_image001

Solution 1: Do not install Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit on your MDT Server. You can still using MDT 2012 Update 1 with waik 3.5 if not deploying Windows 8 or Windows 2012 right now.

Solution 2: Upgrading you vSphere server to the latest version (5.1) or Upgrade Workstation to latest version (Version 9).

VMware Workstation 9

Windows 8

Workstation 9 has been designed to run on Windows 8 and run Windows 8 virtual machines. Easy Install has been enhanced to recognize Windows 8. Workstation 9 has been enhanced to support the Windows 8 user interface (formerly known as Metro). Toggling between Metro and the Windows Desktop can be done by simply pressing the Windows key on the keyboard and Unity intelligently handles the Metro interface. Workstation 9 also includes multi-touch support for driving the Windows 8 Metro interface running in Workstation on a Windows 8 tablet.

Graphics Improvements

VMware has made substantial changes to Workstation 9 graphics virtualization infrastructure. The enhancements include a display-only graphics driver that can render 3D in Windows 8 without hardware acceleration, improvements to make graphics applications like AutoCAD and SolidWorks render more quickly and accurately, an improved Windows XP graphics driver and fundamental changes to improve performance and enable more advanced graphics capabilities in the future.

OpenGL for Linux Guests

VMware has developed an OpenGL graphics driver and up-streamed it to X.Org. This allows VMware’s customers to use the new graphics capabilities in current Linux distributions without needing to install VMware Tools. The version of X.Org that includes the driver is being shipped in Ubuntu 12.04 among other Linux new distributions. Workstation 9 includes enhancements to the virtual graphics device to improve the overall speed and accuracy of rendering OpenGL graphics in Linux virtual machines.

Restricted Virtual Machines

This new capability allows the author of an encrypted virtual machine to require users to enter an additional password to change their virtual machine settings. This feature enables IT professionals and educational institutions to create virtual machines to be used by their employees and students that prevent these users from enabling shared folders, dragging and dropping files, attaching USB devices, and overcommitting system resources. Restricted virtual machines can be run in VMware Workstation 9, VMware Player 5, and VMware Fusion 5 on Windows, Linux or Mac PCs.

WSX

WSX is a prototype of a new VMware Workstation web interface that enables users to access their Shared virtual machines via a web browser on a tablet, smart phone or PC without installing any additional applications or browser plug-ins. This service renders an HTML5 web page that can connect to your Workstation hosts, enumerate the available Shared virtual machines and allow you to power them on and interact with the desktop. Both the Windows .msi and Linux .bundle installations are available for download along with VMware Workstation 9.0

WSX is currently not supported for production environments. The number of devices and browsers available on the market make it extremely difficult to test this feature thoroughly to ensure it works well everywhere.

This feature requires a very modern browser that supports HTML5 with WebSockets. VMware recommends using the Google Chrome 17 browser on PCs and the Apple Safari 5 browser on Mac OS hosts and iPads. Currently there are issues using this feature with Microsoft Internet Explorer 10. WSX may work with other browsers and on Android tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich with the latest version of Google Chrome installed, but more testing is required.

Downloading Virtual Machines from vSphere

Workstation 8 enabled customers to upload virtual machines to vSphere. Workstation 9 now enables downloading virtual machines from vSphere by dragging them from the remote host to the My Computer section of the Virtual Machine Library.

USB 3.0

Workstation 9 supports attaching USB 3.0 devices to Windows 8 virtual machines. The latest portable devices use USB 3 (SuperSpeed) to achieve faster transfer rates for data. USB 3.0 devices such as portable storage devices and video equipment can be connected directly to Windows 8 and Linux virtual machines that contain in-box drivers USB 3.0 controllers.

Nested Virtualization

Workstation 9 improves the implementation of virtual Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI extensions. This allows users to run ESX as a guest OS and run a 64-bit operating system nested in ESX using less system resources.

Note: If you enabled the virtualization extensions in a virtual machine running on Workstation 8, you might need to disable the extensions, upgrade the virtual machine to the latest virtual hardware version (compatible with Workstation 9), and then re-enable the extensions.

Hyper-V

Hyper-V has been added to the Workstation 9 guest operating system list. This enables customers to run Windows 8 with Hyper-V enabled, or install Hyper-V Server. This can be used for educational purposes or for building prototype Hybrid Clouds. This feature is NOT SUPPORTED and probably never will be. Microsoft does not support nesting of their hypervisor which makes it extremely difficult – if not impossible for VMware to fix issues that may occur in this configuration. For this reason, this capability has been implemented purely to see if we could do it!

CAUTION: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RUN HYPER-V ON A VIRTUAL MACHINE IN PRODUCTION.

Virtual Performance Counters

VMware virtual processors now include the capability to enable virtual performance counters which will allow developers to run profiling applications, such as Intel’s vTune, in a virtual machine.

Remoting Improvements

The experience when remotely connecting to a virtual machine running in Workstation 9 with a VNC client or interacting with the desktop of a virtual machine running on vSphere from within Workstation has been significantly improved.

Disk Cleanup

Virtual machines consume a large amount of space on your hard drive. Workstation 9 includes a new management option to easily recover disk space.

Quick Switch II

Previous versions of VMware Workstation included a view mode called "Quick Switch" that displayed tabs along the top of the screen to easily switch between running virtual machines. We removed this functionality in Workstation 8. The feedback we received has encouraged us to introduce a similar feature. On Windows, hosts tabs have been included in the full screen toolbar.

Thumbnail Actions

Views of your virtual machine on the task bar now include controls to change the power state.

Saved Filters

Workstation 9 automatically saves recent virtual machine library searches as filters to easily apply them the next time you run Workstation.

Download Licensed Copy

VMware Workstation 2012 TechPreview

What’s new for Workstation?

  • Installation and operation of VMware Workstation on Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  • Installation and operation of Windows 8 consumer preview and Windows Server 8 in a virtual machine
  • Rendering and graphics correctness issues on all platforms and applications
  • Linux 3D desktop experience, particularly when using the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Beta
  • Linux 3D application graphics correctness and performance
  • Stability in real-world scenarios including suspend/resume and display and device support
  • Nested Virtualization – running ESX and even trying Hyper-V* as a guest OS
  • VNC connection performance and stability

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