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As with anything in VMware there is the right way to do something and the wrong way to do it... or rather, there is the I slapped this together and it works way (the wrong way) or the best practice wont give you any trouble way (the correct way). So I am going to focus on right way to setup the Software iSCSI initiator setup in vSphere 4 with this post; yes it is true that you can simply right click the SWiSCSI device in vCenter (or the VIC) and click enable and give it a target to discover, and that may work for a while... but in reality there is a more complex and correct way to set the SWiSCSI up. read more

Recently Citrix released a product called XenClient Express (released in RC format). You can download it here: http://citrix.com/xenclient/download ; and yes it is free. Why is this such an important release? This is the first consumer grade Level 1 hyper-visor; meaning you boot the hyper-visor, the same way that VMware's ESX and XenServer does. It also gives FULL power of the physical hardware to the guest (think 3D graphics in a VM or multiple VMs).

Now here are some insider tips on how to hack and use this awesome new product: read more

Meditech Magic originally written in the 1990's is one of those things that you would never think to virtualize. Why would you? It runs well on a Dell 2U server with a direct attached Power Vault and a direct attached tape drive. Sure that is early 1990's technology and it is probably time to replace your old servers with something made in the modern era to run this program from the 90's; but this is healthcare and margins are tight. So here is a rough how to guide on doing this... read more

Back in December I took my first VCDX exam the Enterprise Exam and once I got the notice that I passed (took over a month for the results to come in) I scheduled my Design Exam which I took last week. Overall I passed both exams with more than enough points to qualify for the next stage. So here is the break down on what to study and how to study it.

Enterprise Exam: read more

With the new version of IIS 7.5; which is included with Windows 2008 R2; the FTP service (new and improved of course) in IIS 7.5, allows for the use of SSL Certificates and SFTP, it also allows the use of the Windows TCP/IP stacks Random port range and a separate customizable range for the FTP Service. Read on to learn how to customize these ranges to allow specific firewall port ranges. read more

In the past we have covered performance tweaks for the Initiator side, Linux OS tweaks, and networking speed tweaks; we have not covered the Target side though, and that is what we will do now. So read on for the details on how to optimize the IET.conf file to optimal performance. read more

I just encountered something scary, frightening and down right nerve racking about the defaults that are enabled on vSphere 4. If you walk up to any vSphere 4 (full installation the i versions are not affected by this problem), and press CTL + ATL + DEL, you would expect it to behave just like ESX 3.x and 2.x and nothing should happen; but that is not the case with vSphere 4. read more

During a recent upgrade of the Onboard Administrators for a c7000 chassis I ran into an odd problem. The version of OA that was installed was 2.02 (I know it is very old nearly the first release). I attempted to upgrade from 2.02 to 2.51 without taking any intermittent steps, this large jump cause quite a few issues and problems once the upgrade was complete. read more

After a lot of feedback on the first posting about the improved iSCSI performance in vSphere 4, I decided that I should re-test the values and see what performance I can get. So here it goes... read more

Here is the instructions for upgrade the HP Power Management Controller, this will correct the errors on the Onboard Administrator after upgrading to version 2.5x. read more