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Florian Grehl

Choose and Install VMware Tools on Linux Guests (Original vs. OSPs vs. open-vm-tools)

When you virtualize Linux Operating Systems with VMware you have 3 opportunities when it comes to the decision which VMware Tools to install. The well-known VMware Tools that come with the ESXi Hypervisor and can be installed from the vSphere Client, the VMware Operating System Specific Package (OSPs) and the open source project open-vm-tools. This post explains the differences between the variants and helps you to understand the advantages to choose the right package for your environment.

If you use Linux Guests inside VMware I encourage you to comment on what kind of VMware Tools you are using.

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Building a VSA with Open-E DSS V7 inside ESXi

When you run a VMware platform there is usually no way around a shared storage system. A SAN is very expensive and you throw away the opportunity of using local storage. Common usage of ESXi hosts and storage Systems on x86 hardware also leads to a dilemma: Standard Servers usually have plenty of CPU, Memory and local Disks. With ESXi Hosts you waste the local storage and with storage systems you waste CPU and Memory. Combining both on the same hardware leads to an efficient usage that has the option to scale automatically. Today there are already some vendors in the market that provide SAN-free solutions with high available replicated local storage. This howto shows you how to share local storage by installing Open-E DSS V7 as a VSA inside an ESXi host using local storage with RDM.

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Howto Update vCenter Server from 5.1 to 5.1 Update 1

About 6 months after the release of VMware vSphere 5.1 the first Update is available since this weekend. As you know, the vCenter Server has been split into 4 services: Single-Sign On, Inventory Service, vCenter Server and the vSphere Web Client. That makes the update process a little bit more more complex. Here is a small Walk-though how to Update to vSphere 5.1.0 U1

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Intel CPU EVC Matrix (VMware Enhanced vMotion Compatibility)

Intel uses a model named "Tick-Tock" to follow every microarchitectural change with a die shrink. This results in having two EVC baselines for every microarchitecture. I've created a small table with a quick overview about EVC Modes with their appropriate CPU Series and Codenames used by Intel to denote their CPUs. I've also included additional Codenames that may be used by Intel for special processors. The upcoming Haswell architecture is named, but not yet available or supported by VMware.

This post is updated regularly. [Last Update: April 2018]

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vSphere Web Client vs. vSphere Client (C# Client)

Since VMware introduced the vSphere Web Client there is a common question: Which vSphere client should I use? The answer simple: You need both! 

There are many new features within vSphere 5.1 which are only available through the Web Client. But there are also many reasons to use the old C# Client: Some features and plugins are not implemented in the Web Client Client. There is no doubt that you need both clients to configure your vSphere 5.1 environment. But which client should you use for day-to-day work or for configuration tasks that are available in both clients?

This post has been updated to include vSphere 5.5 Features

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Howto: vCenter 5.1 SSO with trusted Active Directory

There are a lot of pitfalls when you want to deploy or update to VMware vSphere 5.1. Beside the vSphere Web Client, the most discussed new component is the new authentication engine called Single Sign On (SSO) which is mandatory for the vCenter Server. I've already written about a simple deployment scenario where a vCenter Server (Appliance or Installable) can be authenticated against a single Active Directory domain. In this post i am going to explain the changes and straits when using multiple trusted Active Directory Domains.

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Special Characters in dvSwitch Port Groups and PowerCLI

Do you use special characters in Port Groups or dvSwitch names? Then you might have problems with Scripts, Host Profiles or PowerCLI. Of course, usage of special characters like (&/"%) was always a bad idea, but sometimes you want to have nice-looking objects, as you might assume that names are nonfunctional labels. Unfortunately there are some issues with PowerCLI. And even worse, it is inconsistent. This post shows up a workaround when using special characters in Port Groups.

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Howto: SSO - Simple AD Authentication with VMware 5.1

With vSphere 5.1 a new component called Single-Sign-On (SSO) has been introduced. The new SSO service is mandatory since 5.1. There is no way around, you have to use it. The good thing about it is that it has various authentication options and can be deployed in an redundant fashion. Unfortunately it adds a lot of complexity to your configuration but if you understand all of it's components and functions, you won't  miss it.

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