Interview Question for VMware Administrator.

1. Difference between ESX server and ESXI ServerESX Server - Contains Service Console OS, comes all the enterprise level futures like HA,VMotion,DRS which gives highest support for the Virtualization. Now the current version of ESX server is 4.0 ESXi Server – Doesn’t contain service console OS, comes in a 32MB foot print. Now a days the same will be coming shipped with Servers. You can store it on a microchip or a usb drive and you can install it easily. It doesn’t support any enterprise futures like VMotion, HA, DRS etc.

2. What are the three port groups present in ESX server networking 1. Virtual Machine Port Group - Used for Virtual Machine Network 2. Service Console Port Group - Used for Service Console Communications 3. VMKernel Port Group - Used for VMotion, iSCSI, NFS Communications

3. What are the types of communications which requires an IP address for sure? Service Console and VMKernel (VMotion and iSCSI), these communications does not happen without an IP address (Whether it is a single or dedicated)

4. In the ESX Server licensing features VMotion License is showing as Not used, why? Even though the license box is selected, it shows as "License Not Used" until, you enable the VMotion option for specific vSwitch.

5 .What are the core services of VC? VM provisioning, Task Scheduling and Event Logging

6. Can we do vMotion between two datacenters? If possible how it will be?Yes we can do vMotion between two datacenters, but the mandatory requirement is the VM should be powered off.

7. What is VC agent? And what service it is corresponded to? What are the minimum req's for VC agent installation? VC agent is an agent installed on ESX server which enables communication between VC and ESX server. The daemon associated with it is called vmware-hostd , and the service which corresponds to it is called as mgmt-VMware, in the event of VC agent failure just restart the service by typing the following command at the service console " service mgmt-VMware restart " VC agent installed on the ESX server when we add it to the VC, so at the time of installation if you are getting an error like " VC Agent service failed to install ", check the /Opt size whether it is sufficient or not.

8. What are the files that make a Virtual Machine? .vmx - Virtual Machine Configuration File .nvram - Virtual Machine BIOS .vmdk - Virtual Machine Disk file .vswp - Virtual Machine Swap File .vmsd - Virtual Machine Snapshot Database .vmsn - Virtual Machine Snapshot file .vmss - Virtual Machine Suspended State file .vmware.log - Current Log File .vmware-#.log - Old Log file

9. What are the devices that can be added while the virtual Machine running In VI 3.5 we can add Hard Disk and NIC's while the machine running.In vSphere 4.0 we can add Memory and Processor along with HDD and NIC's while the machine running

10. What is a template? We can convert a VM into Template, and it cannot be powered on once it’s changed to template. This is used to quick provisioning of VM's.

11. What are the common issues with snapshots? What stops from taking a snapshot and how to fix it? If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN's, then the snapshot failed. If it is mapped as virtual then we can take a snapshot of it. If you configure the VM with Mapped LUN's as physical, you need to remove it to take a snapshot.

12. What’s is Virtual Center VCenter Used to Manage ESXI servers in a clustered environment, Centralized Administration of multiple ESXI server clusters.

13. What is a VNIC and vSwitch? A VNIC is a virtual nic which is added when we create a virtual machine. It’s a software based nic (virtualized nic) which enables the communication between vm’s or between a vm or vSwitch. A vSwitch is nothing but the physical nic which is installed on the ESX server. The same physical nic shared to all the virtual machines hosted on that particular ESX server. So it is acting as a Switch in this scenario. We can connect/configure 1016 virtual machines to use a physical nic, in other words we can create a virtual switch that contain 1016 ports. No physical switch provides these many ports in real time. And in other case, we can create the vSwitch without any physical nic also. It’s purely software based vSwitch (the same is used between VM1 and VM2

14. What is vMotion? How it Happen? Moving a virtual machine from an ESX host to another while it is running. You will get a very minimum downtime for the virtual machine with this if everything configured properly. If you want to do some maintenance tasks on one ESX server in the cluster, you can vMotion all the virtual machines running on it to other ESX server which has the enough resources available.

15. What is VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler)?VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) is a utility that balances computing workloads with available resources in a virtualized environment. The utility can be configured for manual or automatic control.

16. What is Fault Tolerance?Fault Tolerance (FT) is a new feature in vSphere that takes VMware’s High Availability technology to the next level by providing continuous protection for a virtual machine (VM) in case of a host failure. It is based on the Record and Replay technology that was introduced with VMware Workstation that lets you record a VM’s activity and later play it back.

17. What is High Availability?VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) provides easy-to-use, cost effective high availability for applications running in virtual machines. In the event of physical server failure, affected virtual machines are automatically restarted on other production servers with spare capacity. In the case of operating system failure, vSphere HA restarts the affected virtual machine on the same physical server.

18. What is Clone?A clone is a copy of an existing virtual machine. The existing virtual machine is called the parent of the clone. When the cloning operation is complete, the clone is a separate virtual machine — though it may share virtual disks with the parent virtual machine.

19. What is Storage V Motion?Storage vMotion is a component of VMware vSphere that allows the live migration of a running virtual machine's (VM) file system from one storage system to another, with no downtime for the VM or service disruption for end users. This migration occurs while maintaining data integrity.

20. What is LUN (Logical unique Number)?A logical unit number (LUN) is a unique identifier used to designate individual or collections of hard disk devices for address by a protocol associated with a SCSI, iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC) or similar interface. LUNs are central to the management of block storage arrays shared over a storage area network (SAN).

21. What is Storage Area Network?A storage area network (SAN) is a high-speed special-purpose network (or sub network) that interconnects different kinds of data storage devices with associated data servers on behalf of a larger network of users.

22. What is Network Area Storage?Network-attached storage (NAS) is a dedicated hard disk storage device that is set up with its own network address and provides file-based data storage services to other devices on the network.

23. What is SRM (site Recovery Manager)?VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager makes disaster recovery rapid, reliable and manageable, so that organizations can meet their recovery objectives. Site Recovery Manager delivers centralized management of recovery plans and automates the recovery process. It turns complex paper run books associated with traditional disaster recovery into an integrated element of virtual infrastructure management, allowing organizations to improve recovery plan testing dramatically.

24. What is VMware vSphere standard virtual switch? The VMware vSphere standard switch (vSwitch) is your basic "network virtualization" switch. Most of the features were required to connect the virtual machines to the virtual host and physical NIC cards so that they all have network connectivity.

25. What is VMware vSphere distributed virtual switchVSphere distributed virtual switch (also called a vDS, or vNetwork Distributed Switch), you must have a license for vSphere Enterprise plus Edition. From there, you can take advantage of the following features: Centralized configuration for all network switch ports, across the entire virtual infrastructure. Ethernet port, CDP, and Net flow statistics that go with a virtual machine as it moves from one ESX Server

to another due to VMotion. Network policies that go with a virtual machine during VMotion. Rx rate limiting. Private VLANs. Support for third-party switches (with the only option today being the Cisco Nexus 1000-V).

26. What is hot plug in?VMware vSphere's hot-add RAM and hot-plug CPU functions allow you to add additional virtual hardware to running virtual machines. The benefit of being able to do this is the ability to provide more resources to your machines without bringing servers down to add the additional resources. Simply put, this is additional capacity without downtime.

27. What is Host Profile?Host Profiles is a VMware vCenter feature that is available on hosts licensed with Enterprise Plus, and it allows you to take an ESX or ESXi’s configuration profile and apply it to other hosts. It’s a quick and easy way to replicate configurations for hosts in a cluster, and also to monitor a host’s compliance with the selected host profile.

28. What are the minimum hardware’s require to install ESXI 5.1 server?Supported server platformFor a list of supported platforms, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility

64-bit Processor ESXi 5.1 will install and run only on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs. ESXi 5.1 requires a host machine with at least two cores. ESXi 5.1 supports only LAHF and SAHF CPU instructions. ESXi 5.1 requires the NX/XD bit to be enabled for the CPU in the BIOS. ESXi 5.1 supports a broad range of x64 multicore processors. For a complete list of supported processors, see

the VMware compatibility guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

RAM 2GB RAM minimum

Provide at least 8GB of RAM to take full advantage of ESXi 5.1 features and run virtual machines in typical production environments.

Hardware Virtualization Support To support 64-bit virtual machines, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must be enabled on

x64 CPUs. To determine whether your server has 64-bit VMware support, download the CPU Identification Utility from

vmware.com. Network Adapters One or more Gigabit or 10 GB Ethernet controllers. For a list of supported network adapter models, see the

VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

29. What is a VMware tool?VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine's guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine. Without VMware Tools installed in your guest operating system, guest performance lacks important functionality.

30. What is vSphere?

VMware Inc. is a software company that develops many suite of software products specially for providing various virtualization solutions. There are many cloud products, datacenter products, and desktop products and so on.

vSphere is a software suite that comes under datacenter product. vSphere is like Microsoft Office suite which has many software’s like MS Office, MS Excel, and MS Access and so on. Like Microsoft Office vsphere is also a software suite that has many software’s like vCenter, ESXi, vSphere client and so on. So the combination of all these software’s is vSphere. vSphere is not a particular software that you can install and use, “it is just a package name which contains sub components”

1. What are the changes made in configuration files while taking a snapshot of the running virtual machine? The snapshot feature is most useful when you want to preserve the state of the virtual machine so you can return to the same state repeatedly. To simply save the current state of your virtual machine, then pick up work later with the virtual machine in the same state it was when you stopped, suspend the virtual machine.

2. What is Single Sign on in v Sphere 5.1?Ans: vSphere 5.1 introduces the vCenter Single Sign On service as part of the vCenter Server management infrastructure. This change affects vCenter Server installation, upgrading, and operation. Authentication by vCenter Single Sign-On makes the VMware cloud infrastructure platform more secure by allowing the vSphere software components to communicate with each other through a secure token exchange mechanism, instead of requiring each component to authenticate a user separately with a directory service like Active Directory.

3. What are the different between ESXI 4.1 & ESXI 5.1 Capability ESX ESXi

Troubleshooting performed via Service Console ESXi Shell

Active Director Authentication Enabled EnabledSecure Syslog Not Supported Supported

Management Network Service Console Interface VMKernel Interface

Jumbo Frames Supported Supported

Hardware Montioring3 rd Party agents installed in Service

console Via CIM ProvidersBoot from SAN Supported in ESX Supported in ESXi

Software patches and updates

Needed as smilar to linux operation system

Few pacthes because of small footprint and more secure

vSphere web Access Only experimentalFull managenet capability via

vSPhere web client

Locked Down Mode Not present

Present . Lockdown mode prevents remote users to login

to the hostScripted Installtion Supported Supported

vMA Support Yes Yes

Major Administration command-line

Command esxcfg- esxcli

Rapid deployment via Auto Deploy Not supported Supported

Custom Image creation Not supported Supported

VMkernel Network Used for

vMotion,Fault Tolarance,Stoarge Connectivity

Management Network , vMotion, Fault Tolarance,

Stoarge Connectivity, ISCSI port binding

4. What are the procedures to do physical 2 virtual migrations what are the port required to do the same. Refer Q5 or Refer pdf file

5. What is the difference between NTFS & VMFS partition? Refer Q3

6.If my v Center is down so what impact happen in my Virtual environmentAns : Nothing will when v center down and Virtual environment run fine.

7. Difference between clone & snapshot? A clone is a copy of a virtual machine. A template is a master copy of a virtual machine that can be used tocreate many clones.When you clone a virtual machine, you create a copy of the entire virtual machine, including its settings, anyconfigured virtual devices, installed software, and other contents of the virtual machine's disks. You also havethe option to use guest operating system customization to change some of the properties of the clone, such asthe computer name and networking settings.Cloning a virtual machine can save time if you are deploying many similar virtual machines. You can create,configure, and install software on a single virtual machine, and then clone it multiple times, rather than creatingand configuring each virtual machine individually.A template is a master copy of a virtual machine that can be used to create and provision virtual machines.Templates cannot be powered on or edited, and are more difficult to alter than ordinary virtual machine. Atemplate offers a more secure way of preserving a virtual machine configuration that you want to deploy manytimes. A snapshot preserves the state and data of a virtual machine at a specific point in time.

The state includes the virtual machine’s power state (for example, powered-on, powered-off, suspended). The data includes all of the files that make up the virtual machine. This includes disks, memory, and other devices, such as

virtual network interface cards.

8.What are the causes facing the issue to do the virtual 2 virtual migration and how troubleshoot this. Refer : Q8 V2V

9. If my v Center goes down so what is the procedure to create the new v Center and how i can configure all the previous settings done on old v Center same apply to new v center.

10. What is Server hardening? Refer Q6 or refer xlx file

11. Who we can update client windows patches from WSUS server procedure to configure the WSUS server from client site what are the change should be made on registry and how WSUS works.

12. What are the deference between windows 2008 & windows 2012?

13. What is Thin provisioning and thick provisioning.A: Thin provisioning[1] is a mechanism that applies to large-scale centralized computer disk storage systems, SANs, and storage virtualization systems. Thin provisioning allows space to be easily allocated to servers, on a just-enough and just-in-time basis. Ref Q1 below14. What are the prerequisite to do Virtual 2 Virtual migration ports required to do the same? Refer Q8

15.What are the new features implement in v Sphere 5.1 Refer : Q9

16. Current setup of your site ( explain) which Server, storage, ESXI version, VM, Data backup, VM backup has been used in company.

17. Day to day activities performing (job role & Responsibilities) at the client side.

18. What is update manager? Q7 or Refer PDF

19. How we can update the ESXI versions what are the steps should be taken to do the up gradation

Q1. What's the difference between thick-provisioned and thin-provisioned disks in ESX 4.0?

Versions of ESX prior to 4.0 were only capable of creating thick-provisioned disks. Disks in this format are created with the entire size of the disk pre-allocated on physical storage at the time the disk is created. This pre-allocation means that creating a 100GB virtual disk actually consumes 100GB of physical disk space on your drives.

Q. How can I convert a thin-provisioned disk to thick, or a thick-provisioned disk to thin, in ESX 4.0?

Allocating physical space to virtual disks can be a resource intensive operation. The internal process that carves out disk space on your physical disk drives could have an impact on the performance of other virtual machines (VMs). Thus, pre-allocation provided a way to ensure that this resource-intensive operation occurred all at once, only when new disks were provisioned.

Compare this behavior to thin-provisioned disks. With a thin-provisioned disk, the amount of physical disk storage used by a virtual disk is equal to the amount of actual data on that disk. If you create a 100GB disk but only use 20GB of that disk, the actual disk consumption on your physical drives will be 20GB.

There are two downsides to thin provisioning. First, each expansion of the requires a small amount of extra resources to accomplish. This activity can have a slight impact on disk performance, particularly when many VMs share the same Datastore. Second, administrators must pay careful attention to disk consumption. Because every disk "believes" that it has more space available than it actually has, the situation becomes possible where a well-meaning VM consumes all your physical storage. The result of filling up your disks in this manner can be painful at best.

Today’s improvements to disks, SANs, and disk provisioning have reduced the performance impact of thin provisioning. Thus, using thin-provisioned disks can dramatically reduce your wasted disk space. However, you must be exceptionally careful to never fill that disk space to capacity. Monitoring disk space usage and having extra disks on hand in an emergency are vitally important.

This article provides steps to change the provisioning of a virtual disk from thick to thin, or from thin to thick. The procedure uses the vSphere Client and vCenter Server to perform this task.

ResolutionNote: Before following these procedures, VMware highly recommends that you have a valid backup of the virtual machine and enough space to convert the virtual machine's disk(s) from thin to thick.

To change the provisioning of a virtual machine base disk from thin to thick from the Datastore Browser:1. Power off the virtual machine.2. In vSphere Client, right-click the virtual machine in the inventory.3. Click Edit Settings to display the Virtual Machine Properties dialog box.4. Click the Hardware tab and select the appropriate hard disk in the Hardware list.

Note: The Disk Provisioning Type section on the right displays either Thin Provision or Thick Provision. If the disk provision type is Thick, disk provisioning has already taken place. In this case, the disk provisioning is Thin.

5. Click Cancel to exit out of Virtual Machine Properties dialog box.6. Click the Summary tab of the virtual machine.7. Under Resources, right-click the datastore where the virtual machine resides and click

Browse Datastore.8. Double-click the virtual machine folder to display the .vmdk file.9. Right-click the .vmdk file, and click Inflate. The Inflate option converts the disk to thick provisioned.

Notes: If the Inflate option is grayed out, this may indicate that the virtual machine is not powered off or that it

is not thin provisioned. There should be no snapshots and the conversion is performed on the base disk.

To convert a virtual machine base disk from thick to thin provisioning by changing the datastore and using offline virtual machine migration:

1. Power off the virtual machine.2. Right-click the virtual machine, and click Migrate.3. Click Change datastore.4. Click Next, and select a datastore that is not the same as the current datastore.5. From the dropdown, select the Thin Provision virtual disk format.6. Click Next, then Finish.

Note: This process requires more than one datastore. If only a single datastore exists, you can clone the virtual machine to a destination machine with thin provisioned disks instead of migrating.

Q2 :Understanding Clones

A clone is a copy of an existing virtual machine. The existing virtual machine is called the parent of the clone. When the cloning operation is complete, the clone is a separate virtual machine — though it may share virtual disks with the parent virtual machine: see Full and Linked Clones).

•Changes made to a clone do not affect the parent virtual machine. Changes made to the parent virtual machine do not appear in a clone.

•A clone's MAC address and UUID are different from those of the parent virtual machine.

If you want to save the current state of the virtual machine, so you can revert to that state in case you make a mistake, take a snapshot. If you want to make a copy of a virtual machine for separate use, create a clone.

Why Make a Clone?

Installing a guest operating system and applications can be time consuming. With clones, you can make many copies of a virtual machine from a single installation and configuration process.

Clones are useful when you must deploy many identical virtual machines to a group. For example:

•An MIS department can clone a virtual machine for each employee, with a suite of preconfigured office applications.

•A virtual machine can be configured with a complete development environment and then cloned repeatedly as a baseline configuration for software testing.

•A teacher can clone a virtual machine for each student, with all the lessons and labs required for the term.

With clones you can conveniently make complete copies of a virtual machine, without browsing a host file system or worrying if you have located all the configuration files.

Full and Linked Clones

There are two types of clone:

•A full clone is an independent copy of a virtual machine that shares nothing with the parent virtual machine after the cloning operation. Ongoing operation of a full clone is entirely separate from the parent virtual machine.

•A linked clone is a copy of a virtual machine that shares virtual disks with the parent virtual machine in an ongoing manner. This conserves disk space, and allows multiple virtual machines to use the same software installation.

Full Clones : A full clone is an independent virtual machine, with no need to access the parent. Full clones do not require an ongoing connection to the parent virtual machine. Because a full clone does not share virtual disks with the parent virtual machine, full clones generally perform better than linked clones. However, full clones take longer to create than linked clones. Creating a full clone can take several minutes if the files involved are large.

Linked Clones : A linked clone is made from a snapshot of the parent. (See Understanding Snapshots.) All files available on the parent at the moment of the snapshot continue to remain available to the linked clone. Ongoing changes to the virtual disk of the parent do not affect the linked clone, and changes to the disk of the linked clone do not affect the parent.

A linked clone must have access to the parent. Without access to the parent, a linked clone is disabled. See Linked Clones and Access to the Parent Virtual Machine

Linked clones are created swiftly, so you can easily create a unique virtual machine for each task you have. You can also easily share a virtual machine with other users by storing the virtual machine on your local network, where other users can quickly make a linked clone. This facilitates collaboration: for example, a support team can reproduce a bug in a virtual machine, and an engineer can quickly make a linked clone of that virtual machine to work on the bug.

Full Clones and Snapshots of the Parent

A full clone is a complete and independent copy of a virtual machine. However, the full clone duplicates only the state of the virtual machine at the instant of the cloning operation. Thus the full clone does not have access to any snapshots that may exist of the parent virtual machine.

Q3 : 1. Installing an ESXi to retrieve backup data thru VMFS is much faster than installing Windows to retrieve backup data thru NTFS.

2. If all ESXi hosts are down, you will still need to setup a new ESXi host anyway in order to run the backup VMs.

3. Chances of VMFS corruption - never experienced before. Chances of NTFS corruption? Quite often. At least an virus attack to delete files on an VMFS volume is highly unlikely.

4. Simulaneous connection (write) in a SAN volume is supported by VMFS but not NTFS which will lead to corruption. (Having 2 backup app writing to the same volume at the same time etc?)

Having said the above, someone reminded me about the big difference between using the storage for backup and replication. For replication, it will be VMFS instead of NTFS. However, since backup will be compressed and dedup, we will need Veeam to restore it, or use extract utility provided. Thus, NTFS will provide direct access to restore the backup from any connected Windows computer or even execute the backup VMs to boot up immediately thru vPower. With VMFS, we will add an additional step of mapping the VMDK files into a Windows VM etc to access it. That's the only disadvantages I can agreed upon, apart from the 2TG limits.

Q4 : What Is Captured by the Snapshot?

The snapshot captures the entire state of the virtual machine at the time you take the snapshot. This includes:

•The state of all the virtual machine's disks.

•The contents of the virtual machine's memory.

•The virtual machine settings.

Q5 : P2V

Introduction to VMware Converter

VMware Converter is designed to do the following:

convert local and remote physical servers with NO DOWNTIME convert many P2V conversions at the same time with a centralized console convert third party VMs to VMware. For example- MS Virtual PC, MS Virtual Server, Backup Exec

LiveState, & Ghost. Clone and backup physical machines to virtual machines as part of a DR plan.

VMware Converter comes in two flavors. They are:

VMware Converter Starter (FREE Edition) VMware Converter Enterprise

Of course not all feature are supported on the free edition. For a comparison chart between these two editions, see this link.

Currently, VMware Converter is only supported to convert Windows systems from physical to virtual (for specific versions, see the FAQ). For specific information on VMware Converter, see this data sheet.

Downloading & Installing VMware Converter

To download VMware Converter, simply go to the download link on the product webpage. This will take you to the download site to download the VMware Converter Starter edition. Click Download Now. After filling out the registration form and accepting the license agreement, you will see

something like this: Either Run or Save the download. Once downloaded, click Run, like

this: You'll be taken to the VMware Converter Installation Wizard, like this:

Now click Next, accept the license agreement again, take the default installation directory, and take the Typical (Recommended) installation method by clicking Next. Next, click Install. When installation completes, you should see this. Check the checkbox for Run VMware

Converter and click Finish. Finally, after VMware Converter starts, you should see this

screen: Now that you have installed this amazing 17Mb program, let's find out what it can do in part 2

Summary

In summary, VMware Converter is a very cool application that can speed up your physical server migration and assist in other ways such as disaster recovery. With VMware Converter being available in the FREE Starter Edition, there is no reason not to try out VMware Converter 3.0 and start converting those physical machines to virtual machines today!

Using VMware Converter

When VMware Converter starts, you will be asked if you want to enter a license (to use the Enterprise version) or move into Starter mode. To go into Starter mode, click Continue in Starter Mode.

There are two purposes for VMware Converter:

1) Import a Virtual Machine from a physical machine or other type of virtual machine

2) Configure Virtual Machine to make an existing image bootable

In our case, we are going to demonstrate how you can import a hard drive from a physical machine (while that machine is running), change the drivers on it to be VMware drivers, and boot it in VMware. The first step of this is importing the virtual machine.

Importing Virtual Machines

To Import a virtual machine, just click on the Import Machine button the top left side of the interface.

Next, you'll see the Import dialog box come up. Click Next twice. Select the type of

source to import from: In our case, we selected physical computer but notice all the different sources you can import virtual machines from. You could import an existing virtual machine, a physical machine that this program is running on, or a remote machine over the network.

We filled out the remote IP address and administrator username/password, then clicked Next. The VM Converter will connect to the remote machine over the network at this time. You will get the message that the VM Converter agent needs to be installed on the remote machine.

Click Yes After the agent install is done, you will see a window that looks like this:

Here you need to select the volumes you want to convert and if you want them to be resized. I chose to only convert the C drive and to reduce the size to the smallest size possible. After doing that, click Next.

Next you will need to choose a destination, click Next.

We will choose to put this physical machine on our standalone VMware Server (as that is all we have installed).

Click Next.

Now you will need to specify a name for this virtual server and a shared folder that is accessible to both virtual machines. To do this, I created a folder called C:\SharedVM and opened it up to full control for everyone (see below).

After you fill out the new name and the share, click Next.

Now, take the default to allow the disk space to grow (that is really up to you).

Click Next.

Take the default network options and click Next. Take the default on customizations and click Next.

You are now ready to import the virtual machine!

Click Next

Monitoring & Verifying the Import

The import will now begin. Here is what it looks like:

In my case, because I chose to transfer a physical machine over the LAN (with one device using wireless), it took me 2 hours and 6 minute to transfer the complete 8GB image. When it was done, here were the results:

Q6

This guide covers the following components of vSphereVirtual MachinesESXi hostsVirtual NetworkvCenter Server, plus its database and clientsvCenter Update Manager

Everything else is out of scope and hence NOT covered by the guide. This includes

vCenter Virtual AppliancevSphere Management Assistant (vMA)any other add-on component

Description of fieldsEach guideline is uniquely identified by the concatenation of Product-Version-Component-ID. Some examples:

vSphere-5.0-esxi-apply-patchesvSphere-5.0-vm-prevent-device-interaction-editvSphere-5.0-vnetwork-reject-mac-change-dvportgroupvSphere-5.0-vcenter-isolated-vum-proxy

When referring to guidelines within a single version, the Product-Version may be omitted and the component-ID used by itself, e.g.

esxi-apply-patches

The Profile field indicates the relative increase in security provided by the guidelines. Some guidelines

describe an issue with more than one defense, and these will be associated with more than one profile

Profile 3: guidelines that should be implemented in all environmentsProfile 2: guidelines that should be implemented for more sensitive environments, e.g. those handling more sensitive data, those subject to stricter compliance rules, etc.Profile 1: guidelines that only be implemented in the highest security environments, e.g. top-secret government or military,

extremely sensitive data, etc.

Control Type indicates how the guideline is implemented

Parameter: A system-level parameter should be set to a particular value, either specified in the guideline or else site-specificConfiguration: A certain hardware and/or software configuration or combination of settings should be usedOperational: Indicates an ongoing check, either monitoring for certain actions or conditions, or else verifying the use of proper

procedures

Assessment Procedure: describes how to validate whether or not the guideline is being followed. The remediation procedure is generally not described, but in some cases the remediation steps are available in an external reference.

The following fields are filled in where applicable or determinate

Configuration ParameterConfiguration FileDesired ValueIs Desired Value the Default?

Negative Functional Impact indicates if this guideline has any side effects that reduce or prevent normal functionality

Where possible, CLI commands for assessment and remediation are provided. The commands

are provided for the vSphere CLI (vCLI), ESXi Shell, and PowerCLI.Reference to the API which relates to a guideline is also provided if possible.

For the ESXi guidelines, a special column indicates whether or not the guidelines can be configured using Host Profiles

Q7

Update Manager

Simplify VMware vSphere management by automating patches and updates. vSphere Update Manager makes it easy to manage tracking and patching of vSphere hosts.

Keep machines up to date and in compliance

Reduce risks of patching

Eliminate vSphere downtime related to host patching

Keep Machines Up-to-date and in Compliance

Automate patch management and eliminate manual tracking and patching of vSphere hosts and virtual machines. vSphere Update Manager compares the state of vSphere hosts with baselines, then updates and patches to enforce compliance to mandated patch standards.

Gain visibility into patch status across the virtual infrastructure with a patch compliance dashboard

Stage and schedule patching for remote sites

Deploy offline bundles of patches downloaded directly from vendor websites

Reduce the Risks of Patching

Store snapshots for a user-defined period so administrators can roll back the virtual machine if necessary

Securely patch offline virtual machines without exposing them to the network, reducing the risk of non-compliant virtual machines

Make sure the most current version of a patch is applied with automatic notification services

Eliminate vSphere Downtime Related to Patching

vSphere Update Manager works in conjunction with vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) to provide non-disruptive host patching when remediating a cluster. vSphere Update Manager works with vSphere DRS to put hosts in maintenance mode one by one and migrates virtual machines live to other hosts while patching.

Automatically migrate virtual machines to other hosts during patching Migrate virtual machines back after patching

Q8 V2V

How to Import a Virtual Machine into ESXi Part 1: P2V Migration, I described cold and hot migrations, the difference between physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) migrations, and how to perform a P2V migration using VMware vCenter Converter. In the second half of this two-part series, I’ll explain how to import an existing virtual machine (VM) into an ESX/ESXi Server.

VMware vCenter Converter supports several different kinds of virtual machines. It can import into ESX/ESXi virtual machines created in a VMware application or in a competing product. It’s important to note, however, that not all virtualization products use the same virtualization method when running guest machines. VMware Workstation, VMware Player, VMware Server, VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop, Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server — all of which are compatible with vCenter Converter — use hosted virtualization.VMware ESX/ESXi Server and Microsoft Hyper-V Server, on the other hand, use bare-metal virtualization to run VMs. The former group of software runs on top of an existing operating system, while the latter group runs on top of the host hardware.

These differences mean little once vCenter Converter has completed the conversion process, but virtual machines created in hosted virtualization software require different migration steps from virtual machines created in bare-metal virtualization platforms.

Just about all V2V migrations are cold migrations, which require that the source system be powered off during the conversion process. It is, however, possible to perform a hot migration of a virtual machine using the hot migration method as described in How to Import a Virtual Machine into ESXi: Part 1. After installing vCenter Converter Standalone to the virtual machine, launch the Conversion wizard. Select “Powered-On Machine” from the drop-down menu, click “Local Machine,” and then follow the same steps as described in the section P2V: Hot Migration.

One thing to keep in mind before performing a hot migration, however, is that, in some instances, vCenter Server can interfere with the migration process. If the source system is inside a Distributed Resource Schedule (DRS) cluster that vCenter Server controls, DRS Power Management (DPM) will turn off the ESX/ESXi host that vCenter Converter is working with. Change DPM to Manual via the cluster’s Settings screen before performing the hot migration. Once the migration is complete, revert Power Management to its previous configuration.

Although hot migrations have their purpose, they’re only needed when a virtual machine is too important to be taken offline. In all other instances, you should perform a cold migration. The following steps detail the offline conversion process.

V2V: Cold Migration

1. Power down the source machine before proceeding. Select “Convert Machine” from the toolbar to launch the Conversion wizard.

See steps 2a and 2b to import a VM from a hosted virtualization platform; See steps 3a and 3b to import a VM from a bare-metal virtualization platform.

2a. Hosted Virtualization: Choose “VMware Workstation or Other VMware Virtual Machine” or “Backup Image or Third-Party Virtual Machine” from the Source Type drop-down menu, depending on which platform the source machine is using.

2b. Hosted Virtualization: Enter the full file or network path linking to the virtual machine. Supported third-party platforms include Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server (.vmc), and Parallels Desktop (.pvs). Use .vmx for virtual machines created in VMware. Note that if you’re importing a VM from Microsoft Virtual PC, you should remove the Virtual PC Additions from the machine, as they can interfere with the conversion process.

Enter the login credentials for the server if accessing a network share, and then click “Next.” Skip to step 4.

3a. Bare-Metal Virtualization: Select “VMware Infrastructure Virtual Machine” or “Hyper-V Server” from the drop-down menu on the Source System screen. If vCenter Converter is not installed to Hyper-V Server, a prompt will appear requesting permission to install the application to the system. Confirm the installation of the software to proceed with the conversion.

Enter the server address and login credentials for the ESX/ESXi or Hyper-V Server. Click “Next” to go to the Source Machine screen.

3b. Bare-Metal Virtualization: Search through the inventory to locate the source system. If you’re accessing ESX/ESXi through vCenter Server, choose “Hosts and Clusters” or “VMs and Templates,” depending on where the source machine is housed. Select the virtual machine to import into the ESX/ESXi Server, and then click “Next.”

4. Select “VMware Infrastructure Virtual Machine” from the Select Destination Type drop-down menu. Enter the address, user name, and password for ESX/ESXi Server into the required fields. Click “Next” to go to the Destination Virtual Machine screen.

5. Enter a new name for the destination machine or use the default name. Select a destination location for the VM if managing ESX/ESXi through vCenter Server. Click “Next” to go to the Destination Location screen.

6. Select a host, resource pool, or cluster to accommodate the virtual machine; select a datastore where the files associated with the virtual machine should be stored (optional); and then select the virtual hardware version from the drop-down menu (optional). Use Version 4 for machines running ESX/ESXi 3.x, Version 7 for machines running ESX/ESXi 4.x, and Version 8 for machines running ESX/ESXi 5.x. Click “Next” to go to the Options screen.

7. Click “Edit” to make changes to a hardware device. If you’re importing a virtual machine based on the Microsoft Windows operating system, select “Advanced” from the middle pane to view the Post-Conversion tab. Uncheck “Remove System Restore Checkpoints on Destination.” Check “Reconfigure Destination Virtual Machine” to personalize the OS (e.g., create a unique name and

password, enter a new product license, or change the workgroup or domain settings). Click “Next” after making the desired changes.

8. Review your selections on the Summary screen; then click “Finish” to begin importing the VM.

Q9

VMware vSphere 5.1 is a minor update, not a new vSphere version, but admins are discovering plenty of features and patches in vSphere 5.1.

ThisVMware's vSphere 5.1 is a minor version update in name, but with changes to data backup, replication and the default interface, vSphere 5.1 features have garnered a lot of interest.

Whether you've already upgraded and want to get more from your virtual infrastructure or want to know what to expect from vSphere 5.1, this guide will introduce features like the default Web client, replication, VMware's controversial single sign-on ID authentication and more. Along with the features' specs, learn about the patches VMware issued for vSphere 5.1, which some admins say came out without proper testing.

Table of contents:

Single sign-on: Is it the hero or villain of vSphere 5.1?

Do you still need Site Recovery Manager?

Goodbye, Windows client. Hello, Web client!

VMware Data Recovery goes into retirement

Licensing evolves with SMBs in mind

Single sign-on: Is it the hero or villain of vSphere 5.1?

VMware single sign-on (SSO) made its debut as a much-reviled vSphere 5.1 feature. SSO uses a standalone server as an authentication broker between administrators and various VMware products. It won notoriety quickly for its bugs, and VMware issued patches. Regardless of this stumble, SSO is integral to vSphere, changing the way VMware administrators manage directories. VMware now offers authentication against the corporate directory with a centralized mechanism for VMware applications to use.

Learn how vSphere 5.1 SSO breaks your dependence on Microsoft Active Director and vCenter

Are you experiencing these problems with VMware SSO?

Some claim VMware pushed 5.1 out too soon, leading to SSO and SSL patches

Do you still need Site Recovery Manager?

Many VMware admins want to replicate virtual machines (VMs), mirroring them to another location in case the primary storage fails. Before vSphere 5.1, this meant buying VMware Site Recovery

Manager (SRM) or a third-party tool. VSphere 5.1 features a limited version of replication -- vSphere Replication -- that's missing some of SRM's features. VSphere Replication needed its own patch to fix two issues: one with installation and the other with recovering VMs at a secondary site.

Shared-nothing live migration, which is a related feature of vSphere 5.1, is part of VMware's roadmap for SRM and Replication. Shared-nothing live migration will play a role in SRM's integration with vCloud Director and disaster recovery to cloud service providers. In the 2013 vSphere update, look for more features around policy-based disaster recovery and integration between vSphere Data Recovery, VMware High Availability and SRM.

You might be able to use vSphere Replication instead of SRM

Get to know VMware's shared-nothing live migration

Fix replication problems with the vSphere 5.1 patch

Goodbye, Windows client. Hello, Web client!

Get used to working with the Web client. VMware made its Web client the default interface for vSphere in 5.1, and features new to vSphere 5.1 will not be available in the Windows-based client. VMware boasts that in the 5.1 update it improved the Web client's scalability and disaster recovery capabilities.

No more white screens of death when you use the vSphere Web client

VMware Data Recovery goes into retirement

When IT pros complained about backup limitations in VMware Data Recovery (VDR), the company released vSphere Data Protection (VDP) with version 5.1. VDP communicates with VMware vStorage API for Data Protection. VDP eliminated VDR, but hasn't eliminated all of the limitations of its forerunner. It does back up only changed blocks, reducing backup time significantly.

Licensing evolves with SMBs in mind

Enough with the technical features. VMware shed its virtual RAM (vRAM) licensing scheme with the release of vSphere 5.1, going back to physical CPU-based licensing. The change of heart especially benefits small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which can now license an enterprise-class vSphere installation.

Q10 Required ports for vcenter

The VMware vCenter Server system must be able to send data to every managed host and receive data from every vSphere Client. To enable migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source and destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.

VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated ports for data from the vCenter Server system. If a firewall exists between any of these elements and Windows firewall service is in use, the installer opens the ports during the installation. For custom firewalls, you must manually open the required ports. If you have a firewall between two managed hosts and you want to perform source or target activities, such as migration or cloning, you must configure a means for the managed hosts to receive data.Note: In Microsoft Windows Server 2008, a firewall is enabled by default. This table outlines the ports required for communication between components: Port

Description

80 vCenter Server requires port 80 for direct HTTP connections. Port 80 redirects requests to HTTPS port 443. This redirection is useful if you accidentally use http://server/ instead of https://server/ . Note: Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) also use port 80.

389 This port must be open on the local and all remote instances of vCenter Server. This is the LDAP port number for the Directory Services for the vCenter Server group. The vCenter Server system needs to bind to port 389, even if you are not joining this vCenter Server instance to a Linked Mode group. If another service is running on this port, it might be preferable to remove it or change its port to a different port. You can run the LDAP service on any port from 1025 through 65535.If this instance is serving as the Microsoft Windows Active Directory, change the port number from 389 to an available port from 1025 through 65535.

443 The default port that the vCenter Server system uses to listen for connections from the vSphere Client. To enable the vCenter Server system to receive data from the vSphere Client, open port 443 in the firewall. The vCenter Server system also uses port 443 to monitor data transfer from SDK clients. If you use another port number for HTTPS, you must use ip-address:port when you log in to the vCenter Server system.

636 For vCenter Server Linked Mode, this is the SSL port of the local instance. If another service is running on this port, it might be preferable to remove it or change its port to a different port. You can run the SSL service on any port from 1025 through 65535.

902 The default port that the vCenter Server system uses to send data to managed hosts. Managed hosts also send a regular heartbeat over UDP port 902 to the vCenter Server system. This port must not be blocked by firewalls between the server and the hosts or between hosts.

903 Port 903 must not be blocked between the vSphere Client and the hosts. The vSphere Client uses this ports to display virtual machine consoles

8080

Web Services HTTP. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.

8443

Web Services HTTPS. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.

10080

vCenter Inventory Service HTTP.

10443

vCenter Inventory Service HTTPS.

10109

vCenter Inventory Service Service Management.

10111

vCenter Inventory Service Linked Mode Communication.

60099

Web Service change service notification port.

It is necessary to know different terminology used with VMware, list of those terminology are mentioned as belowESXi - Esxi is a thin, embedded version of the ESX server that does not have a service console. It moves the Server Kernels to a dedicated hardware device.ISO image - A CD or DVD image that can be downloaded and burnt on a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM or, mounted as a loopback device.Cluster - A server group in the virtual environment. Clusters enable a high-availability solution. A cluster is a collection of ESX Server hosts and associated virtual machines that share resources and a management interface.HCL (hardware compatibility list) - The definitive list of hardware that VMware supports.Host - A computer that uses virtualization software to run virtual machines. Also called the host machine or host computer. The physical computer on which the virtualization (or other) software is installed.Guest Operating System - An operating system that runs on a virtual machine.VMware VCenter - A virtual infrastructure management product that manages and provide valuable services for virtual machines and underlying virtualization platforms from a central, secure location.VMware vSphere client - An interface that allows to connect any windows PC remotely to a vCenter Server or ESX/ESXi.SAN (storage area network) - A large-capacity network of storage devices that can be shared among multiple VMware ESX server hosts. A SAN is required for VMotion.Root user - The superuser who has full administrative privileges to log in to an ESX Server host. The root user can manipulate permissions, create users and groups, and work with events.Virtual Machine - A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating system and applications. Multiple virtual machines can operate on the same host system concurrently.VMFS - A clustered file system that stores virtual disks and other files that are used by virtual machines.Service console - The modified Linux kernel that serves as the management interface to the ESX server.VMkernel - A kernel that controls the server hardware and schedules virtual machine computations and I/O operations.VMotion — the capability to move a running virtual machine from one ESX host to another and faster than some other editions.Storage VMotion — the capability to move a running virtual machine from one storage device to anotherDRS — Distributed Resource Scheduler — automatic load balancing of an ESX cluster using VMotionHA — High Availability — In case of hardware failure in a cluster, the virtual servers will automatically restart on another host in the cluster.

What’s New in vSphere 4.1 With this release, the VMware virtual datacenter operating system continues to transform x86 IT infrastructure into the most efficient, shared, on-demand utility, with built-in availability, scalability, and security services for all applications and simple, proactive automated management. The new and enhanced features in vSphere 4.1 are listed below.

Installation and Deployment

Storage

Network

Availability

Management

Platform Enhancements

Partner Ecosystem

Installation and Deployment

VMware ESX. VMware vSphere 4.1 and its subsequent update and patch releases are the last releases to include both ESX and ESXi hypervisor architectures. Future major releases of VMware vSphere will include only the VMware ESXi architecture.

o VMware recommends that customers start transitioning to the ESXi architecture when deploying VMware vSphere 4.1.

o VMware will continue to provide technical support for VMware ESX according to the VMware vSphere support policy.

o To learn more about the ESXi architecture and how to migrate from ESX to ESXi, go to the VMware ESX to ESXi Upgrade Center.

Scripted Install for ESXi. Scripted installation of ESXi to local and remote disks allows rapid deployment of ESXi to many machines. You can start the scripted installation with a CD-ROM drive or over the network by using PXE booting. You cannot use scripted installation to install ESXi to a USB device. See the ESX and vCenter Server Installation Guide, the ESXi Installable and vCenter Server Setup Guide, and the ESXi Embedded and vCenter Server Setup Guide.

vSphere Client Removal from ESX/ESXi Builds. For ESX and ESXi, the vSphere Client is available for download from the VMware Web site. It is no longer packaged with builds of ESX and ESXi. After installing ESX and ESXi, users are directed to the download page on the VMware Web site to get the compatible vSphere Client for that release. The vSphere Client is still packaged with builds of vCenter Server. See the ESX and vCenter Server Installation Guide, the ESXi Installable and vCenter Server Setup Guide, and the ESXi Embedded and vCenter Server Setup Guide.

Storage

Boot from SAN. vSphere 4.1 enables ESXi boot from SAN (BFN). iSCSI, FCoE, and Fibre Channel boot are supported. Refer to the Hardware Compatibility Guide for the latest list of NICs and Converged Adapters that are supported with iSCSI boot. See the iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide and the Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide.

Hardware Acceleration with vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). ESX can offload specific storage operations to compliant storage hardware. With storage hardware assistance, ESX performs these operations faster and consumes less CPU, memory, and storage fabric bandwidth. See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide.

Storage Performance Statistics. vSphere 4.1 offers enhanced visibility into storage throughput and latency of hosts and virtual machines, and aids in troubleshooting storage performance issues. NFS statistics are now available in vCenter Server performance charts, as well as esxtop. New VMDK and datastore statistics are included. All statistics are available through the vSphere SDK. See the vSphere Datacenter Administration Guide.

Storage I/O Control. This feature provides quality-of-service capabilities for storage I/O in the form of I/O shares and limits that are enforced across all virtual machines accessing a datastore, regardless of which host they are running on. Using Storage I/O Control, vSphere administrators can ensure that the most important virtual machines get adequate I/O resources even in times of congestion. See the vSphere Resource Management Guide.

iSCSI Hardware Offloads. vSphere 4.1 enables 10Gb iSCSI hardware offloads (Broadcom 57711) and 1Gb iSCSI hardware offloads (Broadcom 5709). See the ESX Configuration Guide, the ESXi Configuration Guide, and the iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide.

NFS Performance Enhancements. Networking performance for NFS has been optimized to improve throughput and reduce CPU usage. See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide.

Network

Network I/O Control. Traffic-management controls allow flexible partitioning of physical NIC bandwidth between different traffic types, including virtual machine, vMotion, FT, and IP storage traffic (vNetwork Distributed Switch only). See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide.

IPv6 Enhancements. IPv6 in ESX supports Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) with manual keying. See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide.

Load-Based Teaming. vSphere 4.1 allows dynamic adjustment of the teaming algorithm so that the load is always balanced across a team of physical adapters on a vNetwork Distributed Switch. See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide.

E1000 vNIC Enhancements. E1000 vNIC supports jumbo frames in vSphere 4.1. See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide.

Availability

Windows Failover Clustering with VMware HA. Clustered Virtual Machines that utilize Windows Failover Clustering/Microsoft Cluster Service are now fully supported in conjunction with VMware HA. See Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service.

VMware HA Scalability Improvements. VMware HA has the same limits for virtual machines per host, hosts per cluster, and virtual machines per cluster as vSphere. See Configuration Maximums for VMware vSphere 4.1 for details about the limitations for this release.

VMware HA Healthcheck and Operational Status. The VMware HA dashboard in the vSphere Client provides a new detailed window called Cluster Operational Status. This window displays more information about the current VMware HA operational status, including the specific status and errors for each host in the VMware HA cluster. See the vSphere Availability Guide.

VMware Fault Tolerance (FT) Enhancements. vSphere 4.1 introduces an FT-specific versioning-control mechanism that allows the Primary and Secondary VMs to run on FT-compatible hosts at different but compatible patch levels. vSphere 4.1 differentiates between events that are logged for a Primary VM and those that are logged for its Secondary VM, and reports why a host might not support FT. In addition, you can disable VMware HA when FT-enabled virtual machines are deployed in a cluster, allowing for cluster maintenance operations without turning off FT. See the vSphere Availability Guide.

DRS Interoperability for VMware HA and Fault Tolerance (FT). FT-enabled virtual machines can take advantage of DRS functionality for load balancing and initial placement. In addition, VMware HA and DRS are tightly integrated, which allows VMware HA to restart virtual machines in more situations. See the vSphere Availability Guide.

Enhanced Network Logging Performance. Fault Tolerance (FT) network logging performance allows improved throughput and reduced CPU usage. In addition, you can use vmxnet3 vNICs in FT-enabled virtual machines. See the vSphere Availability Guide.

Concurrent VMware Data Recovery Sessions. vSphere 4.1 provides the ability to concurrently manage multiple VMware Data Recovery appliances. See the VMware Data Recovery Administration Guide.

vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) Enhancements. VADP now offers VSS quiescing support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. This enables application-consistent backup and restore operations for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 applications.

Management

vCLI Enhancements. vCLI adds options for SCSI, VAAI, network, and virtual machine control, including the ability to terminate an unresponsive virtual machine. In addition, vSphere 4.1 provides controls that allow you to log vCLI activity. See the vSphere Command-Line Interface Installation and Scripting Guide and the vSphere Command-Line Interface Reference.

Lockdown Mode Enhancements. VMware ESXi 4.1 lockdown mode allows the administrator to tightly restrict access to the ESXi Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) and Tech Support Mode (TSM). When lockdown mode is enabled, DCUI access is restricted to the root user, while access to Tech Support Mode is completely disabled for all users. With lockdown mode enabled, access to the host for management or monitoring using CIM is possible only through vCenter Server. Direct access to the host using the vSphere Client is not permitted. See the ESXi Configuration Guide.

Access Virtual Machine Serial Ports Over the Network. You can redirect virtual machine serial ports over a standard network link in vSphere 4.1. This enables solutions such as third-party virtual serial port concentrators for virtual machine serial console management or monitoring. See the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide.

vCenter Converter Hyper-V Import. vCenter Converter allows users to point to a Hyper-V machine. Converter displays the virtual machines running on the Hyper-V system, and users can select a powered-off virtual machine to import to a VMware destination. See the vCenter Converter Installation and Administration Guide.

Enhancements to Host Profiles. You can use Host Profiles to roll out administrator password changes in vSphere 4.1. Enhancements also include improved Cisco Nexus 1000V support and PCI device ordering configuration. See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide.

Unattended Authentication in vSphere Management Assistant (vMA). vMA 4.1 offers improved authentication capability, including integration with Active Directory and commands to configure the connection. See VMware vSphere Management Assistant.

Updated Deployment Environment in vSphere Management Assistant (vMA). The updated deployment environment in vMA 4.1 is fully compatible with vMA 4.0. A significant change is the transition from RHEL to CentOS. See VMware vSphere Management Assistant.

vCenter Orchestrator 64-bit Support. vCenter Orchestrator 4.1 provides a client and server for 64-bit installations, with an optional 32-bit client. The performance of the Orchestrator server on 64-bit installations is greatly enhanced, as compared to running the server on a 32-bit machine. See the vCenter Orchestrator Installation and Configuration Guide.

Improved Support for Handling Recalled Patches in vCenter Update Manager. Update Manager 4.1 immediately sends critical notifications about recalled ESX and related patches. In addition, Update Manager prevents you from installing a recalled patch that you might have already downloaded. This feature also helps you identify hosts where recalled patches might already be installed. See the vCenter Update Manager Installation and Administration Guide.

License Reporting Manager. The License Reporting Manager provides a centralized interface for all license keys for vSphere 4.1 products in a virtual IT infrastructure and their respective usage. You can view and generate reports on license keys and usage for different time periods with the License Reporting Manager. A historical record of the utilization per license key is maintained in the vCenter Server database. See the vSphere Datacenter Administration Guide.

Power Management Improvements. ESX 4.1 takes advantage of deep sleep states to further reduce power consumption during idle periods. The vSphere Client has a simple user interface that allows you to choose one of four host power management policies. In addition, you can view the history of host power consumption and power cap information on the vSphere Client Performance tab on newer platforms with integrated power meters. See the vSphere Datacenter Administration Guide.

Platform Enhancements

Performance and Scalability Improvements. vSphere 4.1 includes numerous enhancements that increase performance and scalability.

o vCenter Server 4.1 can support three times more virtual machines and hosts per system, as well as more concurrent instances of the vSphere Client and a larger number of virtual machines per cluster than vCenter Server 4.0. The scalability limits of Linked Mode, vMotion, and vNetwork Distributed Switch have also increased.

o New optimizations have been implemented for AMD-V and Intel VT-x architectures, while memory utilization efficiency has been improved still further using Memory Compression. Storage enhancements have led to significant performance improvements in NFS environments. VDI operations, virtual machine provisioning and power operations, and vMotion have enhanced performance as well.

See Configuration Maximums for VMware vSphere 4.1.

Reduced Overhead Memory. vSphere 4.1 reduces the amount of overhead memory required, especially when running large virtual machines on systems with CPUs that provide hardware MMU support (AMD RVI or Intel EPT).

DRS Virtual Machine Host Affinity Rules. DRS provides the ability to set constraints that restrict placement of a virtual machine to a subset of hosts in a cluster. This feature is useful for enforcing host-based ISV licensing models, as well as keeping sets of virtual machines on different racks or blade systems for availability reasons. See the vSphere Resource Management Guide.

Memory Compression. Compressed memory is a new level of the memory hierarchy, between RAM and disk. Slower than memory, but much faster than disk, compressed memory improves the performance of virtual machines when memory is under contention, because less virtual memory is swapped to disk. See the vSphere Resource Management Guide.

vMotion Enhancements. In vSphere 4.1, vMotion enhancements significantly reduce the overall time for host evacuations, with support for more simultaneous virtual machine migrations and faster individual virtual machine migrations. The result is a performance improvement of up to 8x for an individual virtual machine migration, and support for four to eight simultaneous vMotion migrations per host, depending on the vMotion network adapter (1GbE or 10GbE respectively). See the vSphere Datacenter Administration Guide.

ESX/ESXi Active Directory Integration. Integration with Microsoft Active Directory allows seamless user authentication for ESX/ESXi. You can maintain users and groups in Active Directory for centralized user management and you can assign privileges to users or groups on ESX/ESXi hosts. In vSphere 4.1, integration with Active Directory allows you to roll out permission rules to hosts by using Host Profiles. See the ESX Configuration Guide and the ESXi Configuration Guide.

Configuring USB Device Passthrough from an ESX/ESXi Host to a Virtual Machine. You can configure a virtual machine to use USB devices that are connected to an ESX/ESXi host where the virtual machine is running. The connection is maintained even if you migrate the virtual machine using vMotion. See the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide.

Improvements in Enhanced vMotion Compatibility. vSphere 4.1 includes an AMD Opteron Gen. 3 (no 3DNow!™) EVC mode that prepares clusters for vMotion compatibility with future AMD processors. EVC also provides numerous usability improvements, including the display of EVC modes for virtual machines, more timely error detection, better error messages, and the reduced need to restart virtual machines. See the vSphere Datacenter Administration Guide.

Partner Ecosystem

vCenter Update Manager Support for Provisioning, Patching, and Upgrading EMC's ESX PowerPath Module. vCenter Update Manager can provision, patch, and upgrade third-party modules that you can install on ESX, such as EMC's PowerPath multipathing software. Using the capability of Update Manager to set policies using the Baseline construct and the comprehensive Compliance Dashboard, you can simplify provisioning, patching, and upgrade of the PowerPath module at scale. See the vCenter Update Manager Installation and Administration Guide.

User-configurable Number of Virtual CPUs per Virtual Socket. You can configure virtual machines to have multiple virtual CPUs reside in a single virtual socket, with each virtual CPU appearing to the guest operating system as a single core. Previously, virtual machines were restricted to having only one virtual CPU per virtual socket. See the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration Guide.

Expanded List of Supported Processors. The list of supported processors has been expanded for ESX 4.1. To determine which processors are compatible with this release, use the Hardware Compatibility Guide. Among the supported processors is the Intel Xeon 7500 Series processor, code-named Nehalem-EX (up to 8 sockets).