VM Install

My Microsoft Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Manager Event Key Notes

Joe Sanchez — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:57 +0000

Today I spent 4 hours listening to Microsoft technicians talk about Hyper-V, Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) and System Center. Here are some of the key notes I took about Hyper-V:

Licensing for Microsoft Server 2008 includes (1P + 1V) – This mean you can have 1 [...]

Step One – Start your VMware ESX Install by Creating a Checklist of Important Information

Joe Sanchez — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:56 +0000

Step one in our step-by-step VM installation process is to make a pre-installation checklist with important information.

Before you even think about installing any software, make a checklist. The checklist will save you hours of frustration later on when the troubleshooting begins, which believe me, you will troubleshoot a lot while performing the simplest VM install.

I’ve [...]

ESX Swap File Size Best Practice

Joe Sanchez — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:56 +0000

Do a custom installation of ESX and make your swap partition 1024 MB instead of the default 542 MB. Later you will need the room when you have to increase your service console memory from 272 MB to 512 (800 MB Max) to keep your systems from crashing when you access them from within a [...]

Squeezing Virtual Machines out CPU Cores

Joe Sanchez — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:55 +0000

Are you trying to squeeze every CPU cycle out of your dual or quad core processors? Unfortunately for those who like to over-clock CPUs for gaming, over utilizing CPU doesn’t quite work the same on virtual hosts (ESX or Hyper-V).

From my experience, I know you can get anywhere from 8 – 10 vCPUs per core, [...]

VMware VM Guest SWAP File Best Practice

Joe Sanchez — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:55 +0000

VM guest swap file diagram

Answering the question that always seems to get asked, “what is the best practice for the VM SWAP file?” I have put this method through bench testing and found it to have the best performance, step by step for VM SWAP file configuration is: Set up a data store in each ESX cluster [...]

Best Fit Virtualization Criteria Checklist

Joe Sanchez — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:54 +0000

Finding servers which are the “Best Fit” canadates for virtualization can be tricky. I have put together the following criteria checklist to help determine whether a new server provision or a P2V should use virtualization.

The Best Fit checklist uses my own criteria and weight recommendations but it can be modified with more liberal values. However, [...]

VMware Infrastructure 3 Demo Video by VMware

editor — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:54 +0000

This video shows a demo of VI 3 which is an older version of VI but the video demonstrates most of the features of VI such as: VirtualCenter, HA, DRS, vMotion which are included in VI [...]

3rd Party Tools for VMware, Hyper-V and XenServer?

editor — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:53 +0000

I can’t keep up with all the 3rd party tools that are coming out on a daily basis for VMware, Hyper-V and XenServer. Have you used a tool lately that you would like to share a review on with VMinstall and its readers. We’d love to hear from you.

Originally posted 2009-08-20 06:03:56. Republished by [...]

Virtual Machines Running or Registered on Multiple ESX Servers

editor — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:53 +0000

Does your vCenter flicker when browsing clusters? There could be a problem…

Over the last 3 years I’ve seen this happen twice and both times it was not good. Both cases were caused from an HA event that was interrupted, which left multiple VMs registered on more than one host. Fortunately, the VM stays running and the fix does not cause [...]

Free Tool – VKernel Search My VM

Joe Sanchez — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:34:51 +0000

Good free tools for VMware VI are not easy to come by so I thought I would write a post about one I think may have some usefulness. It’s from VKernel and it’s called SearchMyVM. According to VKernel here are the benefits:

FREE “Google–like” SearchMyVM tool Quickly find info in your VMware data center Gain more insight into [...]