VM-Aware

You think you know everything about VirtualCenter?!?  You don’t until you have read all the articles listed on this post at Virtual Strategy Magazine.

This article picks out some of the very best white papers and how-to papers that are out there for VirtualCenter.

Enjoy!

Principled Technologies have undertaken some hardware benchmarking to compare the new(ish) IBM x3850 M2 with an HP ProLiant DL580 G5.

The IBM machine comes out on top with 27% better performance per watt and 8% more performance
from the vConsolidate tool.  vConsolidate is a tool from Intel

You can read a full copy of the report here.

I found a fantastic document over at SQLCAT that outlines how to troubleshoot and diagnose performance issues in SQL Server 2005/2008.

I’ve blogged about it here as the principles are just as applicable to SQL Server in a physical or virtual environment.

Enjoy reading this small, but very succinct document here.

This website is awash with great articles, so if you get chance to check it out then do.

I found a useful page on the VMware website that outlines hardware vendors support paths for Microsoft products running in VMware.

Check it out here.

Oh Yay, Oh Yay, Oh Yay! VMReference have updated their indispensable ESX3 guide!

Download it here, print it out and treasure it, because it will be your friend forever.

Forbes Guthrie you are a king among men!

Edward L. Haletky has put together a rather comprehensive overview document of backups in a VMware virtualised environment that can be found here on vmprofessional.

It covers everything from the speed of the backups to level of compression gained using the following tools:

• VCB (Included with VMware ESX)
• Vizioncore vRanger (~£300 per ESX host socket)
• PHD esXpress (between £250-£1000 per ESX host)
• HP VMM (Free, of sorts)

The article really does go into great detail, even discussing each tool in depth after the comparison matrix.

It is an ongoing document so hopefully it will include Veeam Backup in the next release.