vReality

vSphere VM version impact on available CPU instructions

Aug

7

2014

While working on new vCenter Orchestrator workflow for scheduling VM version upgrades I ended up doing some fact checking on low level differences of available VM versions. Using simple cat /proc/cpuinfo method on Linux, I noticed that set of CPU instructions exposed to guest OS is actually dependent on VM version. I tested VM versions 7, ...

RHEL, CentOS and Oracle Linux 7 support on vCloud Director 2

Aug

6

2014

VMware vCloud admins heads up, please note that recently released RHEL, CentOS and Oracle Linux 7 releases are NOT supported on current vCloud Director 5.5 releases. And in this case “no supported” also means not going to work! RHEL 7 introduced radical OS level changes which require changes in vCloud Director guest customization workflows, mostly on ...

vCenter Server 5.5 keeps on crashing, fix available

Aug

5

2014

A fellow vSphere administrator on #vmug_fi IRCnet channel was hit by obscure issue on vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1b, after a vCenter Server Windows host reboot vpxd.exe kept on crashing immediately after it started. VMware support came through and provided a resolution in no time, it seems that vCenter Server 5.5.x thread stack size is too ...

Manage ESXi host power saving state using vCenter Orchestrator

Aug

4

2014

VMware ESXi software is capable of utilizing CPU power saving techniques by controlling CPU clock speed and core run state dynamically by demand. In some cases dynamic CPU power saving can have impact on system performance, depending on system total load and application used, performance can be reduced up to 20% compared to system with ...

Manage vSwitch VM portgroups with vCenter Orchestrator

Aug

1

2014

Here is something handy for those managing large vSphere clusters without luxury of having distributed virtual switch available. I have developed a vCenter Orchestrator workflow for managing ESXi host standard vSwitch VM portgoups on a cluster level, with this workflow you can add and remove VM portgroups across large clusters with a single task. There ...

RHEL, CentOS and Oracle Linux 7 tips 4

Jul

29

2014

Here are some miscellaneous tips for RHEL, CentOS and Oracle Linux 7 systems I have found useful. This post is a work in-progress, I will update it every now and then as I come up with more tips. Systemd basic usage Systemd has replaced legacy initd and init scripts, systemd services are managed with systemctl. Start ...

Oracle Linux 7 released

Jul

23

2014

Oracle Linux 7 is GA as of today, installation medias are available for download free of charge at Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. Oracle Linux 7 is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL), but unlike RHEL, Oracle Linux is supported by free OS updates from Oracle. Techical support and additional features such as Ksplice and ...

Fix for Google Chrome and Cisco UCS CIMC remote console Web Start bug

Jul

21

2014

Cisco UCS CIMC remote console access (KVM) has annoying issue with Google Chrome browser, instead of launching Java Web Start to launch console application Google Chrome will just download Web Start link as file with malformed extension. Fortunately there is an very easy fix for this, in Google Chrome Web Store is an extension “Fix ...