One of the interesting things coming up in VMware Infrastructure 4 or vSphere as it is now known is the new licensing options aimed at securing a bigger slice of the lucrative SME marketplace.
Many SME’s were put off on the pricing of VMware Infrastructure 3 with Enterprise and Virtual Centre licences for a couple of [...]
Filed under: Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESX/ESXi | No Comments »
Software company Veeam have today released v3 of their free FastSCP program which now supports coping files to and from ESXi hosts without any hacking or modification required on ESXi.
The solution is able to copy powered off virtual machines to or from a Windows machine, jobs can be scheduled if required.
On testing managed a very [...]
Filed under: VMware ESX/ESXi | No Comments »
If you are running ESX or ESXi U2 or above and have an application that creates VMware backups using snapshots (e.g Vizioncore , Veeam ) you may notice sometimes you are left with a snapshot called Consolidated Helper Snapshot followed by a number.
If you try to remove the snapshot on a powered on VM it [...]
Filed under: VMware ESX/ESXi | No Comments »
During install of vmware tools on newly p2v’d server error 1606 was displayed and vmware tools would not install.
Error ocured as location of administrators My Documents had been redirected to a network location which could not be accessed as no network driver installed.
If you are unable to change the path of the My Documents folder [...]
Filed under: VMware ESX/ESXi, VMware Server | No Comments »
Received this error today trying to create a new snapshot of a Windows VM guest running on VMware ESXi. VI client showed no existing snapshots, tried reboot of VM and ESXi host but still unable to create a new snapshot.
Was eventually able to create the snapshot by renaming the snapshot definition file for the [...]
Filed under: VMware ESX/ESXi | 1 Comment »
You can use the free VMware converter tool to import Microsoft virtual machines into VMware. Most of the Microsoft product line can be downloaded for evaluation in a pre configured virtual machine format. Microsoft virtual machines come with a virtual disk with a file extension of VHD and configuration file with the extension [...]
Filed under: Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESX/ESXi, VMware Server | No Comments »
Had a situation today where a customer asked me if I could monitor the APC UPS running his ESXi server. My plan was to install Powerchute on one of the Windows guest virtual machines running on the ESXi host and then use pass through to the comm port on the host, I’ve used this method [...]
Filed under: VMware ESX/ESXi | No Comments »
Sat my VMware VCP exam today, happy to say I passed with a score of 87. For those of you who went on the VMware Virtual Infrastructure course (a pre-requisite of taking the VCP-310 exam) some time ago, as I did, make sure you take time to learn the new features available in 3.5 , couple of question [...]
Filed under: VMware ESX/ESXi | No Comments »
Despite the service console being removed in VMware ESXi an unsupported workaround can be used to enabled a limited CLI and SSH access to an ESXi host.
The procedure is as follows:
From a screen and keyboard connected to the ESXi host press ALT+F1 keys
Type: unsupported
Type in your root password
From [...]
Filed under: VMware ESX/ESXi | No Comments »
Spent sometime today clarifying Microsoft’s stance on licensing Windows Servers as virtual machines, this applies regardless of which virtulisatuion platform the VM’s are running on e.g. VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, Hyper-V.
With standard Windows server licences you have to buy a licence for each VM running Windows Server as the guest OS.
With an enterprise licence you [...]
Filed under: Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESX/ESXi, VMware Server | No Comments »