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ESXi – Partitions layout of system disk

20 December 2011
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Reading Time: 3 minutes In ESXi the partitions schema is automatically defined by the installation process and there is no way to modify it (you can only choose where install the hypervisor). There is a great post from Rickard Nobel (ESXi 5 partitions) that explain the structure of the partitions, their size and their purpose. But it does not explain how to get this information. To see the partition layout in ESXi 5, the fdisk command will not work on new GTP disk (this type is used for all new disks and for disks that are extended to more […]

Highlights, VMware, vSphere

Storage Best Practices: Vendor vs. VMware

16 December 2011
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Reading Time: < 1 minute A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark. In addition, a “best” practice can evolve to become better as improvements are discovered. But, as well described by Frank Denneman in his post, best practices are never absolute, they depends on your specific case.

Highlights, vStorage none

ESXi – Use the embedded VNC Server

12 December 2011
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Reading Time: 3 minutes Some weeks ago I learn a new curios thing in a thread in the VMware Community: also the latest version of ESXi still have a VNC Server for the VM console that can be used with a common VNC connection as described in the old KB1246 (Using a VNC Client to Connect to Virtual Machines) related to the VMware GSX Server product! Note: as written in the KB VMware does not support running virtual machines with a VNC client. The right client to access the VM console is still the vSphere Client (or the Web […]

Highlights, vSphere none

VMFS5 – Upgrading vs. Fresh Install

6 December 2011
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Reading Time: 3 minutes With a vSphere 5 upgrade there is an important vDesign decision: if you already have some VMFS3 datastores could be better upgrade them to the new version of build new datastores directly with VMFS5? The upgrade procedure is quite fast and friendly and could be applied to a live datastore, so seems that there isn’t a big different between an upgrade or a clean format. But usually the recommendation is to re-format each LUN to VMFS-5 rather than upgrade it. This will fix a number of issues, including:

Highlights, vSphere, vStorage

Reclaim free space in Thin Provisioned vmdk disk

5 December 2011
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Reading Time: 3 minutes One of the “issue” with vmdk in thin format is that they start “small” and then grow when you add new data… But when you delete some data, the vmdk file size is not reduced. To be honest this issue is more related to the guest file systems that does never delete the block data, but only the metada (or some of them). Of course at guest OS level you will see the right disk usage, but this will probably not match the one that you see at VMware level (that usually will be bigger).

Highlights, vSphere, vStorage

Fix vCenter Plugins list: Remove Enterprise Converter

1 December 2011
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Reading Time: 2 minutes One possible issue after a vSphere 5 upgrade using an in-place upgrade of vCenter Server could appear when you forget to remove the Converter Enterprise plugin (and/or the Guided Consolidation plugin). As you know some products has been removed from vSphere 5, and their plugins may remain in a “orphan” state. The result of this issue is that you will have a “broken” plugins list (with some plugins that are no more available) and also a wrong vCenter health status, due to some services that are no more existing:

Highlights, VMware, vSphere ,

ESXi – RDM disks with SAS Storage (local or shared)

29 November 2011
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Reading Time: 2 minutes The RDM disks are a feature of VMware vSphere (but was present also in Virtual Infrastructure) to make a “mapping” between a LUN (or logical disk) to a VM (is similar to a disk pass-through). This feature can be used in different cases, for example: to support disk larger than 2 TB (only in vSphere 5 with physical RDM) and to implement guest clustering with shared storage (still only with physical RDM). But there is an issue (or a feature :) ) that does not allow to add a RDM disk from the GUI for […]

Highlights, vDesign, vSphere none
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