HP TOS: FREE HP OneView 1.20 Technical Overview Seminar

Join us for this 1.5-hour free seminar, to learn about and view live demonstrations of HP OneView – Your new infrastructure management tool.
 

This session will provide a technical overview into HP OneView 1.20. For businesses looking for the advantages of converged infrastructure - simplified and consistent management across servers, storage and networking, HP OneView will transform how you manage your infrastructure.
 

Across both physical and virtual environments and in conjunction with 3rd party solutions, this software-defined approach shifts the focus from 'how devices run' to 'how people work', to eliminate complexity with HP's unique automation simplicity to streamline your IT services. The session will not only cover the benefits of the product, but will also include live demonstrations of the points being made.
 

This seminar is Free and available to all HP Customers.

To register: https://h41268.www4.hp.com/live/index.aspx?qid=13101&design=cs

Keep it vReal son....

VMware had a document to help decipher its new vRealize naming convention and some information of why they changed it… I’m going to miss saying “vCOPS” which might have been the best acronym ever for a product, VMware vRealize Operations just doesn’t have the same ring to it…

 

The VMware Guide to New Product and Services Names can be found at:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vmware-guide-to-new-product-and-service-names.pdf

 

 

VMware vSAN Sizing Tool

The purpose of this tool is to help determine the hardware specifications for hosts in a Virtual SAN cluster required to run a set of virtual machines defined by a set of input characteristics. These important assumptions should be understood before using this tool:

·         All hosts in the cluster are assumed to have an identical hardware profile, i.e. numbers of hard drives and flash devices, amount of physical RAM, and number of CPU cores

·         All virtual machines are assumed to be identical in storage characteristics, i.e. number of VMDKs, size of VMDKs (assumed identical for all disks), number of snapshots, and virtual memory size

·         All virtual machines are assumed to have the same Virtual SAN policy, i.e. number of failures to tolerate and number of disk stripes per object

The tool is designed so that you can easily vary inputs to see the impact on the sizing output, thus allowing you to iterate manually for more sophisticated analyses.

 

Check it out at:

http://virtualsansizing.vmware.com/

 

Free e-learning course - Horizon (With View) Fundamentals [V6.0]

This (4 hours; self paced) free e-learning course covers the main features and components in the View solution and how to install and configure View. The course consists of five modules:

* Introduction to View discusses the View architecture and key benefits and features of the View solution
* Installing and Configuring View Components describes the main steps for deploying View, how to install View Composer and how to install and configure View Manager, how to install and configure a View Security Server and a View Transfer Server, and provides an overview of configuring View Persona Management.
* View Desktops explains the steps for configuring virtual machines as desktops, the tasks for preparing virtual desktops before installing View Agent, how to install View Agent, the steps to prepare virtual machines for a linked-clone deployment, and how to deploy a linked-clone automated desktop pool using the Add Pool wizard in View Administrator.
* Horizon Client Options describes how to install and configure Horizon Client, how to configure View for use on Thin Clients, and how to set up and configure virtual printing.
* Working with View Administrator covers how to how to log in and navigate the View Administrator interface, how to manage users and groups, how to use the Add Pool wizard to create automated pools, how to use role-based administration, the steps to set up RDS hosts, and how to create application pools.

Register Now<http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrreg/courses.cfm?ui=www_edu&a=one&id_subject=58171>

Original post:
http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2669-Free-e-learning-course-Horizon-With-View-Fundamentals-V6.0.html

What’s so great about StoreOnce federated deduplic... - The HP Blog Hub

It has been more than two years since we announced federated deduplication.This technology addresses many of the shortcomings of other deduplication solutions—such as incompatible deduplication algorithms implemented in software and hardware, comparatively slower restore performance versus backup performance, and inefficient methods of scaling deduplication to meet ever expanding capacity requirements. All of these challenges result in increasing risk, additional costs, and significant management overheads for the user. So, let's take a closer look at HP StoreOnce deduplication and the benefits it brings.



[StoreOnceSlideJ.jpg]

Check out our HP StoreOnce portfolio<http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/data-storage/storeonce.html>



Federated deduplication

StoreOnce federated deduplication is a technology developed in HP Labs, which can be deployed across the entire storage infrastructure. It provides deployment independence enabling movement of data across various HP systems without rehydrating the data. Federated deduplication allows data reduction to occur in HP Data Protector Software, in HP StoreOnce Backup appliances, in a virtual machine, or as a standalone deduplication API on a server.



Optimized data deduplication

HP StoreOnce deduplication technology includes several innovations from HP Labs:

* It adopts an approach to eliminate maximum amount of data redundancy along with maintaining a small index to deliver the fastest performance.
* It converts the backup data stream into a series of chunks and implements them in a variable chunking deduplication algorithm. Along with this algorithm, StoreOnce employs a chunk size of 4K – the smallest in the industry. This provides the ability to match data better, since smaller data chunk sizes lead to a higher percentage of "data matches" resulting in higher deduplication ratios. The 4k-chunk size allows for better alignment with mixed workloads. Most of the vendors in the industry use chunk sizes of 8k, 16k or 32k.
* It deploys locality sampling and sparse indexing to significantly lower IO and RAM requirements without compromising on performance.
* It deploys intelligent data matching techniques that enables optimal performance for multiple data types and backup software deployments with no added complexity.

For restoring data, HP's approach involves having large-container technology with superior disk layouts. A high degree of fragmentation is avoided by not replacing small amount of deduplicate data with pointers to faraway places with no related data. Data is defragmented after deduplication. This results in faster restoration of data as reconstituting data does not require many slow random seeks.



StoreOnce Catalyst

StoreOnce Catalyst is a key component in our federated deduplication architecture that enables deduplication anywhere, rather than specific points in the network allowed by the vendor's technology. It leverages a common algorithm across the enterprise and allows deduplication at the:

* Production source or "client"
* Backup or media server
* Target appliance

Catalyst provides a single technology that can be used in multiple locations on the network without requiring rehydration when data is transferred between source server backup device and target appliance.



Data replication

HP StoreOnce deduplication enables network efficient offsite data replication. All HP StoreOnce Backup systems use StoreOnce federated deduplication to significantly reduce the amount of data that needs to be replicated, enabling the use of lower bandwidth, lower cost links to transmit data offsite. StoreOnce enabled replication allows cost-effective centralized backup from remote sites or branch offices, and delivers a consolidated disaster recovery solution for the data center.



Multiple StoreOnce appliances and virtual machines can replicate to a central StoreOnce appliance—with a fan-in of up to 384 remote offices to a single HP StoreOnce 6500 target delivering greater economies of scale for disaster recovery. HP StoreOnce VSA<http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/data-storage/storeonce-vsa.html> can be deployed at:

* Remote offices: Your remote offices can deploy local backup/recovery solutions using your existing IT infrastructure without any dedicated backup appliance. You can set up the backup server and storage appliance to be delivered virtually. The deduplicated data within the VSA can be replicated from the remote offices to a larger physical HP StoreOnce appliance at your data center.
* Cloud providers: Subscribers who do not have a deduplication solution can now utilize HP StoreOnce VSA for high-speed local recovery (with your existing backup software), and then replicate the data via HP federated deduplication to the service provider's HP StoreOnce repository. As a cloud provider, you also have the option of providing individual StoreOnce VSA per subscriber. Each subscriber will have a completely autonomous deduplication appliance within the cloud without the need to replace backup software.

Meeting big data requirements

By combining federated deduplication with our unique scale-out cluster architecture, we deliver the industry's only large-scale deduplication appliance with fully automated high resiliency features such as high availability (dual controllers) and autonomic restart of failed backup jobs. Our solution is designed to simplify and speed up Big Data backup with scalable capacity and performance.



All that—and a deduplication guarantee too

We are so confident about our federated deduplication technology that when companies move from legacy storage backup system to any HP StoreOnce Backup solution, we are willing to offer a 20:1 deduplication guarantee thanks to our HP StoreOnce Get Protected Guarantee Program<http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/data-storage/data-storage-products.html?compURI=1459501>. This reduces the amount of stored backup data by 95% or HP will make up the difference with free disk capacity and support.



Watch this ChalkTalk to learn more about our StoreOnce portfolio



http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Around-the-Storage-Block-Blog/What-s-so-great-about-StoreOnce-federated-deduplication/ba-p/167350#.U9U4e8v8XqA

SLES for VMware End of Availability Announcement

On June 25, 2014, VMware is announcing the End of Availability (EoA) of all SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for VMware offerings.  As a result, the SLES for VMware offering will be removed from the VMware price list on July 25, 2014.  After July 25, 2014, customers that purchase VMware vSphere Standard, vSphere Enterprise, or vSphere Enterprise+ (either standalone or as part of a suite) will no longer be eligible to a free SLES for VMware offering.

All Support and Subscription Services for the EoA product will be unaffected and will continue as per VMware's Support Lifecycle Policy through the published support period until August 25, 2016.

Customers are not required to take any immediate action.  This notification in no ways impacts customer's ability to use SLES for VMware past June 25, 2014.  However, if customers want to take advantage of their eligibility to receive SLES for VMware, they must do so before July 25, 2014.

For any further inquiries, please contact VMware Support.

SLES for VMware End of Availability Announcement

HP OneView v 1.1 demo from HP Discover

Calvin Zito (@HPStorageGuy) was able to record Tom Joyce demo of HP OneView v 1.1

OneView is a great product, once you see it in action you can understand the true value of this type of management software.

Here's the video:

Original Post:

HP OneView v 1.1 demo from HP Discover

Five Reasons to Move to Desktops as a Service [feedly]

When it comes to accessing business services, employees want their data and apps now. Gone are the days when workers expected to be tied to a desktop PC. In the age of mobility, they want to access their desktops on any device, at any time, and from anywhere.

This is all a strong argument for moving from stationary PCs to desktops as a service (DaaS). The DaaS model migrates desktops—and the related applications and infrastructure—to the cloud. But it's not the only reason to consider DaaS.

There are five compelling reasons to move to DaaS, which are outlined in a new white paper from VMware. Here is a quick summary of the Top 5 reasons to consider DaaS:
- Gain financial advantages—Many organizations are moving to DaaS to avoid large capital expenditures on client hardware upgrades as they migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 and 8. In addition, DaaS reduces the need for IT deployment resources and in-house technical support.
- Enable faster, easier deployment for various use cases—From onboarding new employees to setting up test beds for software development teams, DaaS gives your IT organization the ability to provide desktops to users in a matter of hours.
- Support pervasive mobility—DaaS is perfectly in step with the bring-your-own-desktop movement, which is sweeping across the corporate landscape. DaaS helps you ensure a consistent user experience, regardless of device format or brand, while standardizing deployment, security, and support.
- Enhance security—DaaS puts data and applications in the cloud, rather than end-user devices that are more prone to security risks. It enables a consistent set of security protocols across users' own mobile devices, regardless of mobile operating system or hardware brand.
- Avoid a drain on internal IT skills—DaaS puts minimal burdens on your IT staff. It requires less time and expertise than a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployment, and once the environment is up and running, virtual desktops can be set up with a few clicks.

For a closer look at how DaaS could help you address key IT challenges, check out the new white paper on the subject: Top 5 Reasons to Deploy Desktops as a Service.

Goodbye #Earbits - You will be missed

I am saddened to say that the best music streaming service on the net has shut down on June 16^th after 4 and a half years of fantastic service.

 

I’d like to thank Joey and the Earbits team for their great services and also would like to wish each member of their team the best of luck in their future endeavors.

 

Read more at:  www.earbits.com

 

HP Discover Announcements - Day 2

A number of major announcements have been made by HP at Discover in the past 24 hours, here is a highlight of just a few of them:

 

New HP 12Gb SAS Enterprise Value SSDs for HP ProLiant Servers Offers Breakthrough Performance

The HP 12Gb SAS Enterprise Value SSDs deliver the correct balance between performance, cost-of-ownership, and reliability. Optimized for real performance driven workloads such as read caching and web servers, these HP Enterprise Value SSDs have industry-leading performance up to 96,000 read IOPS (random 4KiB, Q16) and deliver the enterprise reliability customers count on. HP Firmware on these SSDs ensures consistency, compatibility, and performance inside the HP ProLiant Servers.

 

Mind Blowing Performance: The ConvergedSystem 900 beats the Competition by 2x

We all like a winner, but if it's our team playing for the championship or trying to get to the next round of the playoffs  many  prefer a blow-out versus a close game.  Yet blow-outs are rare when facing the best teams.  The competition is tough and gaining any advantage is difficult to do.

However, with HP's recent SPECjbb2013-MultiJVM benchmark results on the new HP ConvergedSystem 900 for SAP HANA running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 for SAP Applications HP did just that - blow-out the competition.

 

New HP 5400R Switch Series Delivers Resiliency & SDN

he HP 5400R zl2 Switch Series is our next-generation modular switch specifically designed for enterprise edge as well as SMB and branch office core deployments. Based on our 5th generation HP Networking Provision ASIC, the 5400R:

·         Simplifies network management with unified, single policy across wired & wireless with IMC

·         Enables business continuity with redundant management, hitless failover & nonstop switching

·         Delivers future-proof SDN capability with OpenFlow 1.3 support & programmable ProVision ASIC

·         Consolidates services with integrated module: unified wireless, UC&C and virtualization

·         Removes hidden costs with license-free, fully featured software and HP Lifetime Warranty 2.0

 

HP announces new data encryption innovations

Announced today at HP Discover 2014 in Las Vegas, the new HP Atalla solutions support data whether it’s at rest, in motion or in use—across cloud, on-premises and mobile environments—to ensure continuous protection of an organization’s most sensitive information. Designed for organizations that need to protect sensitive information, including financial institutions, retailers, energy companies, healthcare providers and governments, HP Atalla solutions provide added protection against the exposure of sensitive data while supporting optimal performance and flexibility.

 

HP Discover - Storage Announcements

As HP Discover is now fully underway,  I’m going to take some time over the next couple of days to highlight some of the major things that are being announced.

 

Please see Calvin Zito’s great ChalkTalks around a couple of the announcements from HP Storage

 

HP 3PAR StoreServ All Flash gets dedupe

Here are the highlights:

 

·         Intelligent sparing reduces$/GB.  In addition, we have 1.9TB cMLC SSD with more than 30% more usable capacity per drive and patented Adaptive Sparing.

·         Hardware-accelerated inline deduplication

·         Patented Express Indexing - this is the method we use to do hashtag look up and because of it, we can scale a 7450 All Flash System to over 1.3 PB, significantly higher than other all-flash systems.

·         We are offering a 5 year warranty on all SSDs.

·         One last highlight is the Get 6-Nines Guarantee.  With proven tier-1 features like synchronous remove replication, long distance 3-site replication, and peer persistence (just to name a few), the 7450 All-Flash array is a tier-1 platform; and we're so sure of it, we're offering a 99.9999% availability guarantee. And note this HA guarantee is available across all HP 3PAR systems with 4 nodes or more.

 

http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Around-the-Storage-Block-Blog/HP-3PAR-StoreServ-All-Flash-gets-dedupe/ba-p/163768#.U5dwifldVAg

 

 

Blockbuster storage news from HP Discover

·         HP 3PAR StoreServ All-Flash gets dedupe

·         HP StoreOnce Federated Catalyst

 

http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Around-the-Storage-Block-Blog/Blockbuster-storage-news-from-HP-Discover/ba-p/163630#.U5dw6_ldVAg

 

Server Essentials for a New Era of Compute at HP Discover

How amazing would it be to have the capability to boost application performance by four times while lowering your total cost of ownership?

At HP Discover, you can uncover the best kept secret as we unveil new HP PCIe Workload Accelerators and HP Enterprise Solid State Drives.

Server Essentials for a New Era of Compute at HP Discover

by Thomas Brooks, Worldwide Product Marketing Manager, HP Solid State Products and Tiffany Owens, NPI Marketing Manager, HP Solid State Products

Latest Fling from VMware Labs - Wavemaker Integration for vCenter Orchestrator

This Fling enables you to easily run vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) workflows from within Wavemaker web applications. It covers much of the Workflow Presentation dialogs available in vCO, with Java services exposing the main vCO functionality. Additionally, you get a demo application.

Features:

- Widget library for Wavemaker
- Java services, exposing the main vCO API functions
- WaveOperator demo project, mimicking the popular WebOperator vCO application, and extending it to new and exciting capabilities.

Downlaod Wavemaker Integration for vCenter Orchestrator

HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 Storage: Bringing Tier-1 innovation to the midrange market

3PAR StoreServ 7000 Storage has certainly shaken things up in the midrange SAN storage market over the past year. The impressive market share gains and recent spate of industry awards are testimony to that. (In a recent blog post, HPStorageGuy Calvin Zito describes how 3PAR StoreServ is selling like hotcakes.) 

Our customers are taking advantage of the Tier-1 data services available in the 7000, including two unique innovations that set 3PAR StoreServ 7000 apart from any other midrange arrays in the market today:

- Persistent technologies that power 3PAR StoreServ 7000 in delivering high availability Tier-1 resiliency with Persistent Cache, Persistent Ports and Peer Persistence
-  HP 3PAR Priority Optimization software that enables service levels for applications or tenants with a flexible priority policy

Read on to see how the 3PAR StoreServ 7000 truly delivers on its promise of Tier-1 storage at midrange prices.

HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 Storage: Bringing Tier-1 innovation to the midrange market

Original post by:
Aravindan Gopalakrishnan, HP 3PAR Product Manager

Storage Happenings at HP Discover

With HP Discover around the corner in Las Vegas from June 10-12, I wanted to let you know how you can get the most out of the storage happenings there - and as in the past, there is a lot. 

The Big 3

What are the big 3?  The storage keynote, the booth ceremony and our storage party.  These are not to be missed!

The storage keynote is hosted by SVP and GM of HP Storage David Scott.  The title is Say "yes" to change! Why customers are moving to HP Storage and is session #TK4190.  Our keynote essentially kicks off HP Discover on Tuesday at 10 AM. 

Join us in the Discover Zone on Tuesday night at 6:30 PM where we'll have a special booth ceremony.  If you attend the keynote and come to the Discover Zone booth ceremony, you'll have a chance to win one of 10 Beats by Dr. Dre wireless headphones.  But you'll need to be at the keynote to get those details.

To attend the HP Storage party come to the storage  keynote and the booth ceremony to get the details and your way into the party on Tuesday night.

New Book - Disaster Recovery using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.5

This is a step-by-step guide that will help you understand disaster recovery using VMware vSphere Replication 5.5 and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 5.5. The topics and configuration procedures are accompanied with relevant screenshots, flow-charts, and logical diagrams that makes grasping the concepts easier.

If you are a solution architect or administrator who is interested in using VMware s vCenter Site Recovery Manager as a DR solution, this is the book for you. It is also an excellent handbook for on-field engineers, customer engineers, and support professionals. Although, the book assumes that you have a basic knowledge of virtualization using VMware, it can still be used by those of you who are new to virtualization.

Disaster Recovery using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager

Available On Demand - Troubleshooting VMware vSphere [V5.5] Webinar

Listen and learn how to increase your skill and competency using the VMware vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI) to analyze problems. The webinar discusses best practices using products VMware ESXi 5.5, VMware vCenter Server 5.5, and vCloud Director. You'll gain knowledge on specific troubleshooting issue techniques for:

SSL certificates
Networking
Storage
VMware vCenter™ Single Sign-On
VMware vCenter Server
VMware ESXi host
VMware vSphere Cluster
VMware vSphere vMotion
Virtual Machine

Register for Troubleshooting VMware vSphere [V5.5]

New Way to Learn Puppet - Download the Learning VM [feedly]

The Learning VM now includes fun quests to help you learn Puppet at your own pace. The new and improved Learning VM — along with its companion Quest Guide — is here to help you level up on Puppet.

Explore the technology in depth with a series of detailed, multi-step quests. Master topics such as accessing the Puppet Enterprise console, writing and using Puppet modules, and delving into Puppet resources, manifests, facts and more.

The Learning VM comes with Puppet Enterprise pre-installed to help you familiarize yourself with its features and capabilities. To evaluate Puppet Enterprise in your existing infrastructure, download it now — and use it for free on up to 10 nodes.

Download the Learning VM

Heartbleed Security Bug fixes for VMware

It seems to be patch Saturday as today a whole bunch of updates of products were released. All of these updates relate to the heartbleed security bug fix. There is no point in listing every single product as I assume you all know the VMware download page by now, but I do want to link the most commonly used for your convenience:

VMware vCenter Server 5.5 U1a VCVA 5.5 U1a VMware vCenter Server 5.5c VCVA 5.5c VMware vCloud Networking and Security 5.5.2

Time to update, but before you do… if you are using NFS based storage make sure to read this first before jumping straight to vSphere 5.5 U1a!

"Heartbleed Security Bug fixes for VMware" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com.

Latest Fling from VMware Labs - Horizon View Event Notifier [feedly]

The Horizon View Event Notifier connects to one or more existing Horizon View Event Database(s) and allows the user to customize which types of alerts to be notified on.

It can be run from any Windows based system and it collects and sends the alerts via email (SMTP) to users that are specified during the configuration process.

It allows aggregation of alerts across multiple Horizon View Pods and for near real-time alerting of Horizon View alerts that are otherwise very difficult to be notified on.

Download Horizon View Event Notifier 

Log Insight 2.0 - Beta Is Available [feedly]

VMware vCenter Log Insight delivers the best real-time log management for VMware environments, with machine learning-based Intelligent Grouping and high performance search, enabling faster troubleshooting and better operational across physical, virtual, and cloud environments. It can analyze terabytes of logs, discover structure in unstructured data, and deliver enterprise-wide visibility via a modern web interface.

What's New in Log Insight 2.0 Beta

Scale-Out with High Availability5x-10x throughput improvement in Cluster modeSingle UI to query all the data Proactive AnalyticsMachine learning enabled summarization of event types & schema recognitionSmart fields to aid in extractionSuper-Powered DashboardsEasily add new data filters on the flyInteract between dashboard widgetsRESTful API for log ingestionImproved self-monitoring toolsWindows collection agentForwards Windows event logsMonitors & forwards flat log filesCentralized reporting & management

Download Log Insight 2.0-beta

VMware vCenter Log Insight Getting Started Guide

VMware Hands-on Labs BackStage Pass Webinars | VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog - VMware Blogs

I highly recommend everyone takes the time to attend these:

http://blogs.vmware.com/hol/2014/03/backstagepass-hands-on-labs.html

Getting Started with the vSphere Distributed Switch

Getting Started with the vSphere Distributed Switch Product Walkthrough.
Part 1
Part 2

The importance of securing your virtual world

Information security breaches are in the news a lot these days, but for many companies security doesn’t get the attention it deserves, until something bad happens. Let’s face it, implementing better security in a data center is a pain in the ass and inconveniences everyone from administrators to end users. Better security doesn’t make anyone’s job easier and as a result everyone tends to be resistant to it. But the reality is that unless you want to end up in the newspaper headlines you have to do it, and not just make a half-ass effort at it, you need to do it right and you also need to stay vigilant at it. Security isn’t something you do once and you’re done, it’s an ongoing job that requires discipline, time and effort to do.

Implementing virtualization makes security a more difficult job, not only do you have to secure the physical side of your data center but you also have to secure the virtual side. In a traditional non-virtualized environment implementing security was much simpler, adding virtualization to the mix makes it much more difficult and complicated as there are many more attack vectors that you need to protect. You would probably notice someone carrying a physical server out of your data center, but in a virtual environment whole servers can leave your data center in someones pocket, without them even entering your data center.

I did an article a while back for Tech Target, “How To Steal a VM in 3 Easy Steps” that described a simple scenario on how someone could make copy a VM and carry it home with them on a flash drive. From there they could easily power it on in their own environment and access the OS,  applications and data on it. To prevent this you need to start by following security best practices for virtualization and make sure you understand where the weak points are in your virtual environment and secure them properly. The ESXi hypervisor has good built-in security but it’s easy to change settings to make administration easier that results in weakening it and opening up attack points into your virtual environment. There are also a number of very good 3rd party virtualization security products from vendors like Catbird and HyTrust that can help provide an additional layer of security and monitoring to improve the security of your virtual environment.

VMware has just updated their Security of the vSphere Hypervisor white paper which provides a good overview of the security things that you need to know in vSphere. definitely give this a read and also check out some of the security resources below:

Security of the VMware vSphere Hypervisor - Good high-level overview of how ESXi security architecture and controls address common concerns in the security community regarding virtualizationVMware Security Hardening Guides - Step by step guides specific to each vSphere version that provide prescriptive guidance for customers on how to deploy and operate VMware products in a secure mannerPCI DSS Virtualization Guidelines - Provides supplemental security guidance on the use of virtualization technologies in cardholder data environmentsVMware Solution Guide for Payment Card Industry (PCI) - VMware specific security guidelines to address PCI Compliance standardsVerizon Enterprise 2013 Data Breach Report - Great report that shows where and how most corporate data breaches occur and what types of victims are typically targeted

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Cool Tool - RVTools version 3.6 now available for download

RVTools is a windows .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display information about your virtual machines and ESX hosts. Interacting with VirtualCenter 2.5, ESX Server 3.5, ESX Server 3i, VirtualCenter 4.x, ESX Server 4.x, VirtualCenter 5.0, VirtualCenter Appliance, ESX Server 5.0, VirtualCenter 5.1, ESX Server 5.1, VirtualCenter 5.5, ESX Server 5.5. RVTools is able to list information about VMs, CPU, Memory, Disks, Partitions, Network, Floppy drives, CD drives, Snapshots, VMware tools, Resource pools, Clusters, ESX hosts, HBAs, Nics, Switches, Ports, Distributed Switches, Distributed Ports, Service consoles, VM Kernels, Datastores, Multipath info and health checks. With RVTools you can disconnect the cd-rom or floppy drives from the virtual machines and RVTools is able to update the VMware Tools installed inside each virtual machine to the latest version.

Version 3.6 (February, 2014)

New tabpage with cluster informationNew tabpage with multipath informationOn vInfo tabpage new fields HA Isolation response and HA restart priorityOn vInfo tabpage new fields Cluster affinity rule informationOn vInfo tabpage new fields connection state and suspend timeOn vInfo tabpage new field The vSphere HA protection state for a virtual machine (DAS Protection)On vInfo tabpage new field quest state.On vCPU tabpage new fields Hot Add and Hot Remove informationOn vCPU tabpage cpu/socket/cores information adaptedOn vHost tabpage new fields VMotion support and storage VMotion supportOn vMemory tabpage new field Hot AddOn vNetwork tabpage new field VM folder.On vSC_VMK tabpage new field MTURVToolsSendMail: you can now also set the mail subjectFixed a datastore bug for ESX version 3.5Fixed a vmFolder bug when started from the commandlineImproved documentation for the commandline options

Get your free copy of RVTools version 3.6

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VMware vSphere Mobile Watchlist - Now Available

VMware vSphere Mobile Watchlist allows you to monitor the virtual machines you care about in your vSphere infrastructure remotely on your phone. Discover diagnostic information about any alerts on your VMs using VMware Knowledge Base Articles and the web. Remediate problems from your phone by using power operations or delegate the problem to someone on your team back at the datacenter.

IMPORTANT NOTE: A VMware vSphere installation (5.0 and above) is required to use VMware vSphere Mobile Watchlist. Access to your vSphere infrastructure may need a secure access method like VPN. Contact your IT department for further assistance.

   

FEATURES:

·   EASILY CREATE VM WATCHLISTS
Select a subset of VMs from your VMware vSphere VM inventory to tell the app what VMs to track. Use multiple lists to organize these important VMs.

·   VMS AT A GLANCE
Review the status of these VMs from your device including: their state, health, console and related objects.

·   SUGGESTED KB ARTICLES
Got an alert on your VM? Let VMware vSphere Mobile Watchlist suggest what KB Articles might help you or search the web to gather more information.

·   REMEDIATE REMOTELY
Use power operations to remediate many situations remotely from your device.

·   DELEGATE TO YOUR TEAM
For those situations where you are not able to fix an issue from the device, VMware vSphere Mobile Watchlist will enable you to share the VM and alert information along with any suggested KB articles and other web pages relevant to the current problem. Your colleagues back in the datacenter can use this context to resolve the issue.

 

Download Now

iTunes App Store:    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vmware-vsphere-mobile-watchlist/id792869677?ls=1&mt=8

Google Play:            https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vmware.beacon&hl=en

VMW Community:  https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/vsphere-mobile

 

This entry was originally posted in vCenter Server, vCloud Suite, vSphere and tagged 5.1, alerts, mobile, Performance, smartphone, vcenter, vcenter appliance, virtualcenter, VMware, vSphere 5.1, vsphere 5.5, watchlist on February 11, 2014 by Justin King.

 

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2014/02/now-available-vmware-vsphere-mobile-watchlist.html