I went to install the VMware SDK for vSphere 4.0 on to my desktop running Windows 7 64-bit, Visual Studio 2008, and .Net 3.5 SP1 and discovered the SDK setup is not friendly with these versions. According to VMware you need Visual Studio 2005 and .Net 2.0 if you want to run the SDK.
So like most of you reading this I turned to my trusted adviser…google to find the answer I was looking for. Much to my disappointment after 5 minutes of searching around I didn’t find any instant gratification for my problem so I decided to just go ahead and figure it out on my own.
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Categories: Other, Scriptng, VMware Tags: ESX 3.5, ESX4, ESXi, Installation, Script, scripting, SDK, vCenter, VI4, Virtual Center, VMware, VMware Workstation, vsphere
I’m sure many of you have run into an issue with setting up Citrix Xen Desktop (DDC). As i was setting up a new “Desktop Group” I ran into a problem when trying to configure the vCenter SDK address. The configuration wizard show you an example that looks say ‘For example, https://VirtualCetner.example.com/sdk” which is what you would expect to use and you would also expect it to work. Think again. When you try to setup your vCenter SDK address you will be presented with and error “The hosting infrastructure could not be reached at the specified address.” Citrix takes security serious so unless you plan on replacing the default SSL certificate on your vCenter server you will need to hack out a work around. Now I would agree that in production you should replace the default SSL but if your just trying to spin up a demo or test environment it can be a hassle.
So I searched the web over and over and found a number of threads with many of ways to resolve the issue only none of them seemed to work for me. However a combination of a number of things that I found did. So I’m here to save you the trouble of finding all of various pages with partial solutions. Below you will find exactly what you need to do to make this work.
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Categories: Desktop Virtualization, ESX 4, VMware, vSphere Tags: Citrix, DDC, Desktop Virtualization, ESX 3.5, ESX4, Installation, Provisioning Server, PVS, vCenter, VI4, Xen Desktop
Back in the summer, I saw Stu’s Post about automating the installation of ESXi. I was reminded again by Duncan’s Post. Then, I found myself in a situation when a customer bought 160 blades for VMware ESXi. With this many systems, it would be almost impossible to do this without mistakes. I took the ideas from Stu and Duncan and created an ESXi automated installer that works from a PXE deployment server, like the Ultimate Deployment Appliance. I took it a step further and added the ability to use a USB stick or a CD for those times when PXE is not allowed. The document below is a result of it.
This is a little different than the idea of a stateless ESXi server, where the hypervisor actually boots from PXE. This is the installer booting from PXE so that the hypervisor can be installed on local disk, an internal USB stick or SD card. You could also use it for a “boot from SAN” situation, but extreme care should be taken so you don’t accidentally format a VMFS disk.
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Categories: Cloud Computing, ESX 4, ESXi, Scriptng, VMware, automation Tags: Automated Deployment, ESXi, Installation, VI4, VMware, vsphere
The vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide: Shortcuts down the path of Virtualization
has finally arrived!
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I received a pre-release edition of the book at VMworld 2009. This guide has a great selection of shortcuts, tips and best practices for setting up and maintaining vSphere 4. I would be an excellent addition to any VMware administrator’s bookshelf. The book’s size also makes it a great reference for consultants as well. It will easily fit into your backpack.
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So, I use NewsGator to aggregate a BAZILLION feeds from several sources, blogs, like this one, actual news feeds and a bunch of VMware feeds. The VMware feeds are from the VI:OPS and VMTN forums. The VMTN forums allow you to create a custom feed by selecting the RSS link at the bottom right of each page or you can get a feed from a specific section of the forum by clicking the link on the bottom left of a list. On of the custom feed options is to get a feed of the new KB articles.
VMware has released quite a lot of new KB articles surrounding vSphere. They just released nice best practice guidelines for installing or upgrading to ESX 4 and vCenter 4. They are short and to the point. There is also a nice article covering best practices for upgrading an ESX 3.x virtual machine to ESX 4.0. One thing I noticed, but never thought about is this : Read more…
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Categories: ESX 4, Other, VI4, VMware, vSphere Tags: ESX4, Installation, vCenter, vCenter_Upgrade, VI4, VMware, vsphere
There are many reasons to install VMware ESX in text mode. The main reasons I use text mode are that it seems quicker for me and text mode responds better when using remote console connections, such as iLo, DRAC or console over IP. Previous versions of VMware used a text mode that incorporated Anaconda and was very similar to the text mode for RPM based Linux distributions. The new text mode in ESX 4 is VERY rudimentary when compared to the earlier versions. Hoever, it performs very well and is fairly straight forward to use.
The text mode installer uses simple lists of choices. Usually, 1 is for continue or to answer yes. Some items will have more than one choice. Here is a screenshot: Read more…
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