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Browsing Posts tagged ESXi

After the vCenter Server (described in the previous post) and the VUM part (this could a simple upgrade, by keeping the existing DB, or a re-install), you can go through the ESXi part. A re-install from scratch could be simple, but you may loose some information (unless you use Host Profiles). For more information see [...]

I’ve got a case of a host upgraded to VMware vSphere 5.1 with a determinist PSOD during each host reboot or shutdown (I’ve found the issue during the first patch update). No difference if hosts where rebuild from scratch with a similar configuration. And no difference with all recent ESXi patches. After a full upgrade [...]

There are different reason where you can you loose or corrupt your partition table of your VMFS volumes: resignature from another system (for example the backup server, if connected in SAN mode), a human mistake (datastore / delete), or maybe some storage issues. In this case usually the VMFS partition is still there and also [...]

As written in the previous post, one common issue with recent servers of new generations is that maybe the NIC drivers are not included in the standard ESXi ISO. An if you use the vendor (or a personal) customized ISO, could be possible that during a patch update or a version upgrade you loose the [...]

If you have a new NIC card or a server of a new generation could be possible that the right driver is missing in the standard ESXi installation ISO. And without a working networking is not possible install the ESXi (the installation will stop because one requirement is at least a supported NIC). Maybe the [...]

After few months after the Veeam Backup & Replication v6.1 announce (one year after the v6.0 announce), today Veeam has announced the new release of their products. Backup & Replication v6.5 New support matrix for recent virtualization products: Support for VMware vSphere 5.1 (one of the first and not the the v6.1 is not compatible) [...]

Finally VMware vSphere 5.1 is available (after the product announce during the VMworld). Note that now there is also a virtual appliance also for Orchestrator (when one for VUM?). Also vShield is now called VMware vCloud Networking and Security. VMware ESXi 5.1 build: 799733 VMware vCenter Center 5.1 build: 799735 What’s New in VMware vSphere [...]

Another interesting feature in vSphere 5.1 is the vSphere Replication (VR) technology. This feature was first introduced on 2011 with Site Recovery Manager 5.0 (on vSphere 5.0) to protect virtual machines natively by copying their disk files to another location where they are ready to be recovered, using a VM replication technology (storage vendor independent) [...]

With the new vSphere 5.1 a new vMotion option has been added (only in the new Web Client) that combine vMotion and Storage vMotion in a singe hot migration step to migrate between hosts/clusters without shared storage! This could increase the mobility of the VMs and usage also of local storage (for some cases). Both [...]

For people that need to make practice for the VCAP-DCA exam (and the beta of VCAP5-DCA will start soon) a good lab environment is mandatory. But it could also be useful for other reasons, like demo environment. There are several options to build one, but most used solutions are using nested hosts on one physical [...]

As you probably already know a VM is incapsulated with a set of files that define VM properties and objects. Some of those files are the virtual disks files and each vendor use its own format: VMware use the VMDK and Microsoft & Citrix use the VHD format. Note that there could be more sub-types [...]

As written in the previous posts, in the ESXi installation there are two copy of the system image located in two different partitions (see Partitions layout of system disk and More on partitions posts). The actual system image is located on the first 250 MB partition, formatted with plain old FAT16 filesystem, but using a [...]