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Tag Archives: vCenter Server 5.1

Top 10 KB Articles for Infrastructure

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The following three lists of Knowledgebase articles comprise our top 10 articles that our Infrastructure Support Engineers are using to solve customer Support Requests during the month of January. When we say Infrastructure, it’s more of an internal term we use to group support teams. The Infrastructure guys cover issues including storage, networking, and system faults (crashes).

The first list is the overall top ten. The second and third lists are known infrastructure issues and how-to / informational KB articles that apply to ESXi 5.1 and vCenter Server.

Top 10 Infrastructure Articles (ESX/i 3.x/4.x/5.x, vCenter Server)

  1. Broadcom 5719/5720 NICs using tg3 driver become unresponsive and stop traffic in vSphere (2035701)
  2. Unmounting a LUN or Detaching a Datastore/Storage Device from multiple ESXi 5.x hosts (2004605)
  3. Installing async drivers on ESXi 5.x (2005205)
  4. Investigating virtual machine file locks on ESXi/ESX (10051)
  5. Using esxtop to identify storage performance issues (1008205)
  6. Recreating a missing virtual machine disk (VMDK) descriptor file (1002511)
  7. Commands to monitor snapshot deletion in ESX 2.5/3.x/4.x and ESXi 3.x.x/4.x.x/5.x (1007566)
  8. Committing snapshots when there are no snapshot entries in the Snapshot Manager (1002310)
  9. Permanent Device Loss (PDL) and All-Paths-Down (APD) in vSphere 5.0 (2004684)
  10. Creating a snapshot for a virtual machine fails with the error: File is larger than maximum file size supported (1012384)

Top 10 vSphere 5.1 Infrastructure known issues

  1. Broadcom 5719/5720 NICs using tg3 driver become unresponsive and stop traffic in vSphere (2035701)
  2. Unmounting a LUN or Detaching a Datastore/Storage Device from multiple ESXi 5.x hosts (2004605)
  3. Creating a snapshot for a virtual machine fails with the error: File is larger than maximum file size supported (1012384)
  4. ESXi/ESX hosts with visibility to RDM LUNs being used by MSCS nodes with RDMs may take a long time to boot or during LUN rescan (1016106)
  5. An ESXi/ESX host reports VMFS heap warnings when hosting virtual machines that collectively use 4 TB or 20 TB of virtual disk storage (1004424)
  6. ESXi 5.x host fails with a purple diagnostics screen when using Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2### and E5-46## (2033780)
  7. ESX/ESXi hosts might experience read/write performance issues with certain storage arrays (1002598)
  8. vHBAs and other PCI devices may stop responding in ESXi 5.x and ESXi/ESX 4.1 when using Interrupt Remapping (1030265)
  9. ESXi 5.x hosts fail to mount VMFS5 volumes that are formatted with ATS-only capabilities (2006858)
  10. Cannot take a quiesced snapshot of Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine (1031298)

Top 10 vSphere 5.1 Informational/How To Articles

  1. Installing async drivers on ESXi 5.x (2005205)
  2. Investigating virtual machine file locks on ESXi/ESX (10051)
  3. Using esxtop to identify storage performance issues (1008205)
  4. Recreating a missing virtual machine disk (VMDK) descriptor file (1002511)
  5. Commands to monitor snapshot deletion in ESX 2.5/3.x/4.x and ESXi 3.x.x/4.x.x/5 .x (1007566)
  6. Permanent Device Loss (PDL) and All-Paths-Down (APD) in vSphere 5.0 (2004684)
  7. vSphere handling of LUNs detected as snapshot LUNs (1011387)
  8. Best practices for virtual machine snapshots in the VMware environment (1025279)
  9. Manually regenerating core dump files in VMware ESXi/ESX (1002769)
  10. Determining Network/Storage firmware and driver version in ESXi/ESX 4.x and 5.x (1027206)

vCenter Heartbeat Installation and Validation

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We have a new video for you today which should be special interest for anyone looking to try out, evaluate or install vCenter Server Heartbeat.

In this video we discuss and demonstrate installing vCenter Server Heartbeat, and also validating the installation.

This video is a first installment of a series answering the most common questions asked by the VMware user community when deploying vCenter Server Heartbeat. Whether deploying in High Availability or Disaster Recovery deployment modes, this video will offer key points, tips and considerations for a successful deployment.

It would be worth reading up on the installation procedures in general for both the vSphere  and Heartbeat products if you have not done so previously. Below are the links to the relevant documentation sites.

  • To familiarize yourself with the Heartbeat installation requirements, see the Heartbeat documentation page here.
  • For vSphere 5.1 documentation, see the vSphere 5.1 documentation page here.

Note: For best viewing results ensure that the 720p quality setting is selected and view in full screen mode.

Enjoy the video!

Configuring a vCenter Single Sign On Identity Source using LDAP with SSL

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So, the Fusion related videos that were mentioned in our earlier post have been delayed. Thus we must apologize to all of our fans who were waiting for these videos to appear. We will try to upload these videos as early as possible in the new year.

In the meantime, we do have a new video today for all of our fans interested in vSphere 5.1 related content.

In this video tutorial we provide a quick demonstration showing the steps to configure an Identity Source in vCenter Single Sign On to use a secured LDAP over SSL (LDAPS) connection as per the written instructions contained within VMware Knowledge Base article Configuring a vCenter Single Sign On Identity Source using LDAP with SSL (2041378).

This is appropriate in secure environments to encrypt all LDAP traffic on between vCenter Server and the authorizing Identity Source.

Note: This video tutorial is a general how-to guide. Consult with the Directory Administrators in your organization for specific procedures. The steps in this video assume that the Domain Controller in question has a valid certificate available for Exporting for Server Authentication. If it is not available in the Personal > Certificates tab, you need to start by making that certificate available.

Note: For best viewing results, ensure that the 720p setting is selected and view in full screen mode.

Registering a virtual machine with the vSphere Web Client

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Greetings KBTV fans!

Today we have a new vSphere 5 related video tutorial for you.

This video discusses and demonstrates the steps to register a virtual machine using the vSphere Web Client.

If you removed a virtual machine from vCenter Server, but did not remove it from the datastore of the managed host, you can return it to the vCenter Server inventory at any time by registering it with vCenter Server.

The process for registering a virtual machine in vSphere 5.1 using the Web Client is pretty straight forward and simple.

For more information on adding and removing virtual machines from the vCenter Server inventory, see VMware Knowledge Base article: Registering a virtual machine with the vSphere Web Client (2032904).

Managing licenses on ESXi hosts using the vSphere Web Client

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A new day, a new video!

In this video we discuss and demonstrate managing licenses on ESXi hosts in vSphere 5.1 using the vSphere Web Client.

You can use the license management function in the vSphere Web Client to manage the licensing of assets in your vSphere environment from a central location. You can add license keys in the vCenter Server inventory, assign license keys to multiple assets at a time, view information about the available products and licenses, and export licensing information in a CSV file.

To be able to use certain features and functionality of an ESXi host, you must assign it a license key when the evaluation period of the host expires.

For more information, see VMware Knowledge Base article: Managing licenses on ESXi hosts using the vSphere Web Client (2032903).

Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS clusters

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Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS clustersHere is another video for your consumption where once again we demonstrate how to perform various tasks within vSphere 5.1 using the vSphere Web Client.

In this video we discuss and demonstrate how to retain resource pools when disabling VMware DRS Clusters in vSphere 5.1 using the vSphere Web Client.

After disabling DRS, the cluster’s resource pool hierarchy and affinity rules are not retained when DRS is turned back on. If you disable DRS, the resource pools are removed from the cluster.

To avoid losing the resource pools when disabling DRS, you can save a snapshot of the resource pool tree on your local machine. You can then use the resource pool tree snapshot to restore the resource pool when you enable DRS.

For additional information, see VMware Knowledge Base article: Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS clusters (2032893).

Creating a resource pool in the vSphere Web Client

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Creating a resource pool in our vSphere product family has always been a pretty straight-forward task. With the introduction of vSphere 5.1 and the new Web Client, the task is still straight-forward but it is accomplished in a slightly different way.

As the Web Client presents new ways of interacting with, managing, and administering your vSphere environments, the majority of our videos relating to the vSphere 5.1 Web Client are geared towards providing you with a nice and short means of familiarizing and orienting yourself with the new Web Client.

We will have more technical and complicated videos relating to vSphere 5.1 coming in later months; for now, we will be focusing on demonstrating how to accomplish the various tasks within the vSphere Web Client.

This tutorial video discusses and demonstrates creating a resource pool in the vSphere 5.1 Web Client.

Resource pools are used to hierarchically partition available CPU and memory resources of a standalone host or a cluster. You can use resource pools to aggregate resources and set allocation policies for multiple virtual machines, without setting resources on each virtual machine.

You can create a child resource pool of a standalone host, resource pool, vApp, or DRS cluster. You cannot create resource pools in a cluster that is not enabled for DRS. The system uses admission control to make sure you cannot allocate resources that are not available.

After the resource pool is created, virtual machines can be added to it. A virtual machine’s shares are relative to other virtual machines (or resource pools) with the same parent resource pool.

For more information see VMware Knowledge Base article Creating a resource pool in the vSphere Web Client (2032906).

Creating a vSphere DRS and HA cluster using the vSphere Web Client

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Continuing with our current trend of vSphere 5.1 related video content, we have another new video tutorial for you. It is basic in nature and is straight to the point, which is great for those of you who may be playing around with vSphere 5.1 and its new Web Client for the first time.

This video discusses and demonstrates creating a vSphere DRS and HA cluster using the vSphere Web Client.

A vSphere DRS cluster is a collection of ESXi hosts and associated virtual machines with shared resources and a shared management interface. Before you can obtain the benefits of cluster-level resource management, you must create a cluster and enable DRS. For more information, see the Creating a DRS cluster and Using DRS Clusters to Manage Resources sections of the vSphere Resource Management Guide.

vSphere HA clusters enable a collection of ESXi hosts to work together so that, as a group, they provide higher levels of availability for virtual machines than each ESXi host can provide individually. When you plan the creation and usage of a new vSphere HA cluster, the options you select affect the way that cluster responds to failures of hosts or virtual machines. For more information, see the Creating and Using vSphere HA Clusters section of the vSphere Resource Management Guide.

Notes:

More videos coming…

Installing the VMware vSphere 5.1 Web Client

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With the recent release of vSphere 5.1, you probably noticed that there is a new Web Client which you can now use to manage your vSphere installations and environments.

As someone who started in VMware back in 2006 and has spent many hours playing around with our ESX and vCenter Server products, I can honestly say that I love this new Web Client. I personally find that it is faster and easier to use than the older traditional fat client. Of course you are probably going to put that last comment down to an obvious bias that I naturally will have due to being an employee of VMware but I really do mean the comment…no room for bias here right? :-) .

This video discusses and demonstrates installing the vSphere 5.1 Web Client.

The vSphere Web Client runs in your browser and allows you connect to a vCenter Server system to manage your vSphere environment.

Before installing or upgrading the vSphere Web Client, ensure that:

  • The vCenter Single Sign On is installed and the Inventory Service and vCenter Server are upgraded or installed with version 5.1.
  • Your system meets the software requirements for the vSphere Web Client. For more information, see Minimum requirements for installing the vSphere and vSphere Web 5.x Client (2005083).
  • The vSphere Web Client and vCenter Server are registered to the same vCenter Single Sign On server. This ensures that the vSphere Web Client can access the vCenter Server inventory.
  • All browsers are closed.
  • You log in as a member of the Administrators group on the host machine, with a user name that does not contain any non-ASCII characters.

For additional information, see the VMware Knowledge Base article that this video is based on, Installing the vSphere Web Client (2032890).

Creating a Datacenter and adding an ESXi host to the vCenter Server Inventory using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client

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Here is a vSphere 5.1 video tutorial relating to the new vSphere Web Client.

Note: This video is basic in nature as it is simply intended to familiarize users with the new process of performing a certain tasks using the new Web Client.

This video discusses and demonstrates creating a Datacenter and adding an ESXi host into the vCenter Server Inventory using the vSphere 5.1 Web Client.

After installing vCenter Server and the vSphere Web Client, you can manage your vSphere environment using the vSphere Web Client.

For more information on installing the vCenter Server and the vSphere Web Client, see the following VMware Knowledge Base articles:

Note: We have more similar style tutorial videos to come over the next few days showing how various tasks are performed within the new vSphere 5.1 Web Client.