DMZ Virtualization Using Vsphere and Cisco Nexus 1000v Virtual Switch

Migration from Physical to Virtual

Click here for Whitepaper on DMZ with Nexus and vSphere

How to get your 60 day trial for the Cisco Nexus 1000v

Go to http://www.cisco.com/go/1000v to access the design, install and upgrade guides—look for the “Support” box on the upper right part of the page

Go to http://www.cisco.com/go/1000vdownload a pull down a copy of the software - install it per instructions
Go to http://www.cisco.com/go/1000veval and obtain your eval license

Ports Required for vCentre and Managed Hosts

Just what is Virtual Connect?

Ethernet Module

Fibre Module

Excerpt from HP site:

"Virtual Connect Ethernet and Fibre Channel modules are interconnect options for HP BladeSystem c3000 and c7000 enclosures used in place of conventional pass-thru or managed switch modules. They abstract and pool the server-edge connections so they look like NICs and HBAs to the external LAN and SAN. This allows server administrators to independently manage server blades and their connectivity to, so you can maintain high-availability connections throughout your server racks as you securely administer Media Access Control (MAC) addresses and World Wide Names (WWN) for each server"
More About Virtual Connect

503 Service Unavailable when using Web Interface for Vsphere Host

503 Service Unavailable displays when you type in IP address of Vsphere host into web browser.

By default the service is disabled, you will need to console on to the actual vsphere host and run the following command

service vmware-webAccess start

Vizioncore Free Products

Link to download from

The vConvertor SC and Virtualization EcoShell is of interest mainly.

The convertor for Physical to Virtual migrations. demo video
The EcoShell; scripting for the Sys Admins.



Managing VMware vSphere 4 with The Virtualization EcoShell from Eric Sloof NTPRO.NL on Vimeo.

Adrian Brough earns his VCP4 Certification

An experienced Senior Technical Specialist in my team has earned his VCP4 Certification.
He has earned his 2x, 3x, and now the 4x VCP certification.

He has provided a few guidelines you could say to assist in preparing for those wanting to earn their VCP4 Certification.

Total Questions - 85 ( Some key words mentioned, should head you in the right direction)

- Common Maximums
- No VCB
- Alot on Vcentre
- Vcentre related topics / especially plugins. Default etc
- Guided Consolidation / High Confidence/ Confidence Metric
- iSCSI
- HBA
- NPIV
- Fault Tolerance
- Uplink Ports

Try a practice test from SimonLong/Blog

Vsphere Practice Test

Sometimes when you prepare for an exam, the question becomes have you prepared enough?
It does help knowing someone who has sat the exam already :)

Default Service Console Partition Values for ESX4.0 and Explanations

If a default installation of ESX4.0 or Vsphere were to be done the values would be the same as what you will see in this post. Except for the VMFS volume which will depend on the storage available for you at the time of installation. There are required partitions and optional partitions, You may slightly increase the values depending on available storage and design considerations. A good resource for the maximum guide is available from VMware or the VMware Cookbook from O'reilly Publishing which covers this quite in depth.

Example:

Storage Device: mpx.vmhba0:C0:T0:L0

Service Console Partitions (Required):

The below partitions are for ESX, which are created during installation, with the exception of /var/log which is optional but gets created by default when the graphical or text installer is used.

vmkcore 110MB debug information for tech support  Cannot be on a software iSCSI Volume


vmfs3 39.75GB where VM's will reside this varies


swap 600MB ESX swap; minimum is 600MB maximum is 1600MB


ext3 5.00GB / ESX OS and services accessible through the service console.  Also contains 3rd Party services or applications installed


ext3 1.10 GB /boot Information required to boot the ESX OS, e.g. where the Grub loader resides


ext3 2.00 GB /var/log Used for logs

Optional Partitions

/home (512MB and above recommended - storage for individual users)
/usr (1024MB and above recommended - used for user programs and data)
/var/log (2000MB and above recommended - used for logs, I would recommend 4000MB)