2012-02-27

Top Blogs Results - Thank You All for Your Vote

Eric Siebert has posted the results from the Top Blog 2012 survey.

I would like to thank you one and all for casting your vote. I am very please with the results that were published and wish to congratulate each and every one of the 187 bloggers on the list for doing an amazing job and especially those who made it into the top 25 spots.

I was ranked #45 in the overall listing. I was surprised to see that my blog was voted #7 in the Scripting category – there are several who are far more worthy than I to have received such a ranking.

In the independent blogger category I was ranked #11 – which again is an honor.

Thank you all once more and here is looking to a great 2012!!

My Top 25 Blogger twitter list has been updated. A few new lists have been added as well:

Favorite Storage Blogs

Favorite Scripting Blogs

Favorite VDI Blogs

Favorite Cloud Blogs

Favorite Storage Blogs

Favorite Independent Bloggers

50 Free licenses of VMware Horizon App Manager

VMware is offering 50 Free Licenses of VMware Horizon Application Manager 1.5 on certain purchases of VMware SKU’s.

FAQ

Q. What is the current offer?
A. During this promotion, eligible orders will receive 50 user licenses of VMware Horizon Application Manager 1.5 and one (1) year of Basic Support and Subscription (SnS) no additional charge. Eligible orders must include a qualifying VMware vSphere 5 product SKU.

Q. What is the timeframe for this promotion?
A. This promotion is valid for eligible purchases made between February 23, 2012 and June 15, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (PT). Redemptions must be made by August 31, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (PT).

Q. What is the benefit of VMware Horizon Application Manager 1.5?
A. VMware Horizon Application Manager provides a cross-platform solution that manages, secures, and delivers SaaS, Web and Windows applications to end users. A policy-driven enterprise catalog centralizes application management, while a secure workspace provides a simple way to connect end-users to applications.

Horizon Application Manager simplifies, manages and connects your organization to the Cloud through:

  • Lower operating expenses by unifying your applications into an enterprise app catalog for fast, secure  access to users
  • Higher quality of control with enterprise-scale and user-centric policy-driven management
  • Increased productivity of users with simple, secure access to all your applications

Q. Is there a detailed SKU list posted for eligible products that must be purchased on the order to take advantage of this promotion?
A. Yes. Please refer to the list of eligible SKUs.

Q. What if I buy through a channel partner, will my order be eligible?
A. This promotion is available to all end-user customers who place an order containing an eligible vSphere 5 SKU  from a VMware authorized reselling partner, from the VMware website or directly from VMware, including true-up orders. This promotion is not available on any orders received by VMware from EMC.  It is also not available to OEM partners ordering directly from VMware, except orders via Enterprise License Agreements or purchase orders where customer’s name, address, email address and ship-to information is provided to VMware.

Redemption:

Q. When will I be able to redeem the promotion offer?
A. You will receive a notification email within 30 days of VMware Horizon Application Manager 1.5 general availability or within 30 days after you place the eligible order, whichever is later. The promotion offer must be redeemed by August 31, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (PT).

Q. Who will receive the Promotional Code email?
A. Promotional code emails are sent to the Sold To Contact on the qualifying order. The Sold To Contact for an order is typically the person who had placed the order.

Q. What happens if I lose or don’t redeem the promotion offer before it expires on August 31, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (PT)?
A. To take advantage of the promotion, you must redeem the offer on or before August 31, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (PT). If you lose the redemption code, please contact VMware Support

Q. Can I get temporary keys for this offer today?
A. No. Horizon Application Manager 1.5 license will only be fulfilled when Horizon Application Manager 1.5 becomes generally available or within 30 days after you place an eligible order, whichever is later.

Support:

Q. What Support and Subscription (SnS) offering is included for the Horizon Application Manager 1.5 promotion?
A. Included in this promotion is one (1) year of Basic Support and Subscription (SnS) for the promotional licenses, at no additional charge.

Read the Terms and Conditions

Read more on Promotion Eligibility

Eligible Product List

2012-02-23

How to Set CDP on a vSwitch–the #PowerCLI Way

We all know that you get CDP information in a number of ways (also PowerCLI), KB 1007069 provides a number of ways to do it.

But how would you go about setting CDP on the vSwitch?

That can be done on the host itself in a number of ways:

esxcfg-vswitch –B both vSwitch0

but also with esxcli

esxcli network switch standard set –c both –v vSwitch0

That got me thinking…. esxcli… where had I used that before – of course Netstat for ESXi.

So why not try and do the same here?

The quick and dirty way (I will update later with a proper function)

$esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $myhost
$esxcli.network.vswitch.standard.set("both","1500","vSwitch0")

Why all 3 Parameters and where did they come from?

$esxcli.network.vswitch.standard | gm

The set method is described as follows:

Name          MemberType    Definition
set              CodeMethod   boolean set(string cdpstatus, long mtu, string vswitchname)

And where do get the values that are valid for “cdpstatus” ? esxcli of course

# esxcli network vswitch standard set

Error: Missing required parameter -v|--vswitch-name

Usage: esxcli network vswitch standard set [cmd options]

Description:
  set                   This command sets the MTU size and CDP status of a given virtual switch.

Cmd options:
  -c|--cdp-status=<str> The CDP status of the given virtual switch. It can be 'down', 'listen', 'advertise' or 'both'
  -m|--mtu=<long>       The MTU size of the given virtual switch.
  -v|--vswitch-name=<str>
                        The name of virtual switch to apply the configurations. (required)

Update: March 06, 2012

I promised to update with a proper function on how to do this, and here it is:

Function Set-VirtualSwitchCDP {

      <#

            .SYNOPSIS
                  Set the CDP setting on a Standard Virtual Switch.
            .DESCRIPTION
                  Using the Get-Esxcli cmdlet you can changed the CDP Settings 
                  on virtual switch on an ESX host.
            .NOTES Author: Maish Saidel-Keesing
            .PARAMETER  VMHost
                  ESX server to perform the function.
            .PARAMETER  MTU
                  The MTU settings of the vSwitch, default is 1500.Valid values are 
                  between 1500-9000
            .PARAMETER  CDP
                  The CDP setting for the vSwitch. 
                  Valid values are 'down', 'listen', 'advertise' or 'both'.
            .PARAMETER  vSwitch
                  The Name of the Standard vSwitch on which to perform the action.
            .EXAMPLE
                  PS C:\> Set-VirtualSwitchCDP -VMhost esx1 -MTU 1500 -CDP both -vSwitch vSwitch0
            .EXAMPLE
                  PS C:\> Get-VMhost Myhost | Set-VirtualSwitchCDP -vSwitch vSwitch0
            .LINK
                  http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-set-cdp-on-vswitchthe-powercli.html
      #>

    [CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$true,ConfirmImpact='High')]
    Param(
    [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$True,ValueFromPipeline=$True)]
    [String]
    $VMHost,

    [Parameter(Position=1)]
    [ValidateRange(1500,9000)]
    [Int]
    $MTU = 1500,

    [Parameter(Position=2)]
    [ValidateSet("down","listen","advertise","both")]
    [String]
    $CDP = "both",

    [Parameter(Position=3,Mandatory=$True)]
    [String]
    $vSwitch
    )

     

      Process
      {
       if ($pscmdlet.ShouldProcess($VMHOST,"Updating $vSwitch with MTU $MTU and CDP setting of $CDP"))      {
                  foreach ($hostobject in (Get-VMHost $VMHost)) {
                        $esxcli = Get-EsxCli -VMHost $hostobject
                        $esxcli.network.vswitch.standard.set($CDP,$MTU,$vswitch)
                        $esxcli.network.vswitch.standard.list()
                  }
            }
      }
}

2012-02-09

Windows 8 Developer Preview on ESXi5

Thank you William Lam @lamw!!!!!!!

Due to William's How to Run Windows 8 on vSphere 5 (for reals) post I can now try out
Windows 8 Developer Preview on my ESX boxes.

This was resolved in patch ESXi500-201112001 - it just seems that no-one told us until now.. It would be very interesting to hear what actually changed in this patch.

Running on Workstation was not a good option for me. My lab is on ESX boxes.

But now I am happy - and I can start to finally get to know the new OS.

Windows 8

2012-02-08

My Wish for dvFabric – a dvSwitch for Storage

This one has been sitting with me for a while. It would be nice to hear your comments on this.

The dvSwitch (Distributed Virtual Switch) – oh how it has changed our lives…

Do you all remember the days when you had to manually add the all the portgroups and network settings to a new host? We use scripts, we use mega-kickstart deployment scripts, gui applications.  Let us not forget that it is still the case for all those who do not have and Enterprise Plus vSphere license. You do have to pay some extra for the “premium features”, and if you ask me – it not really a premium feature but more of a necessity.

But since I have gotten used to a dvSwitch – those things are all in the past. Network configuration of a host – is really as simple as adding click click click (yes…. I know…. you could also automate it as well….), and I do not have to worry about configuration issues any more. This vmnic is used for vMotion, this one for FT, this for NFS/iSCSI – it is all so simple.

I think it is time that we asked for the next stage. It is time for a revolution!!

Maybe we should call it dvFabric?

Let me explain what I would like to see.

Today when you set up a host you have to setup your NFS/iSCSI/SAN connection more or less manually. Before you say – hey what about Host Profiles – yes you could do that with host profiles – but the way that I see this is – Host Pofiles comes as a band-aid to this issue – not solution to the problem. By applying a profile to a host – you are are running a process that runs a set of actions to set a configuration. You could so the same with a set of scripts (PowerCLI or Perl) but this is packaged very well in vCenter and easy to use.

So how do I envision this dvFabric? Essentially the same as a dvSwitch. A logical entity to which I attach my network cards (for iSCSI/NFS) or my HBA’s (for FcoE or FC). I define which uplink goes to which storage, what the multi-pathing policy is for this uplink, how many ports should be used, what is the failover policy for which NIC, which NFS volumes to mount, which LUNS to add – I gather you see what I am getting at. Here is a diagram trying to visualize this.

dvfabric

Once the dvFabric has been configured correctly – all you would need to do is add in a Host and all the storage will be configured automagically.

Today there are a number of additional benefits available with using a dvSwitch – just to name a few – port mirroring, Netflow, PVLANs, NIOC.

I am sure that there are additional benefits that VMware could come up with – have a distributed virtual Fabric switch. One that just came to me is to perform the zoning in the dvFabric itself – and not to each and every host. This way the storage administrator would only have to zone one entity and the rest will be up to the VI Admin. The same regarding NFS exports.

Will this ever come about? Who knows? It does seem to be to be the another natural stage in the abstraction of the layers which has been the trend of the last few years.

I guess one of the questions we should ask ourselves – and the storage vendors, Are we (and they) ready for it? Is this something that could / should / would happen in the future.

What are the risks? What are the benefits?

Perhaps some brilliant minds in some strange place in Palo Alto are, already thinking about this….?

I would appreciate your comments and thoughts.