Most of the book was written while vSphere was still in beta so the book covers ESX/ESXi 3.5 and Virtual Center 2.5.

I have only thumbed through it so far but it looks like there is a lot of good information. There are some pretty good tables with the configuration differences between 3.5 and 4 in Chapter 1. The command line reference in Chapter 5 should be useful to both versions, as well as the Security stuff in Chapter 6.

Looking forward to reading the book cover to cover.

To enable it ssh to the service console and log in as root.

[root@vmware]# chkconfig –level 345 vmware-webAccess on

Verify it has been enabled for run level 3, 4, and 5

[root@vmware]# chkconfig –list vmware-webAccess
vmware-webAccess 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

Start the service

[root@vmware]# service vmware-webAccess start
Starting VMware Virtual Infrastructure Web Access:
VMware Virtual Infrastructure Web Access [ OK ]

You can now log in a root at https://vmwareESXhostname/ui/

Does anyone know why VMware disabled this by default?

Awesome resource for anyone looking into deploying or upgrading to vSphere 4.0

We upgraded our test ESXi server this AM to ESXi 4.0 using the vSphere Host Update Utility. The upgrade went very well. The only real problem we ran into was with an older NIC that was not supported. No problems other than that.

Our test ESX server is a HP DL380 G4 with 2 3.6GHz Xeon CPUs (Single Core) and 4 GB RAM. This is managed as a stand alone server, it is not managed by vCenter.

If all goes well we will probably upgrade production ESX host this Sunday night.

Hope to have at least an overview of what I did at EMC World posted in the next day or so, just too busy right now.

http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2009/05/resolution-paths-published.html
–
Many common tech support issues in VMware products can be solved using what we call Resolution Paths. Resolution Paths are collections of modular steps that can be used to solve tech support issues.

These can be very handy and can save you having to make that call into Tech Support. Click the links below. There’s one for each potential problem area.
http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2009/05/resolution-paths-published.html

Cisco actually supports running Unity as a virtual machine guest in ESX. The Desgin Guide is here http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/virtualization_design/guide/cuvirtualdg010.html

Cisco does not support Vmotion, HA, or iSCSI attached storage for a virtualized Unity box. They also do not support a physical to virtual conversion of a Unity server. Hopefully Cisco will support Vmotion and HA at some point.

I also found some interesting information on running an older Call Manager version (4.x) as a VM – http://www.blindhog.net/cisco-install-call-manager-4x-with-vmware/

Here is some info I found on UCCX – http://tannerezell.com/cisco/?p=85

VMware vSphere 4 Launch Supported by Broad Virtualization Ecosystem http://vmblog.com/archive/2009/04/21/vmware-vsphere-4-launch-supported-by-broad-virtualization-ecosystem.aspx

VMware vSphere 4 Provides “Always On IT” for SMB and Branch Office IT Environments With Low Cost, High Availability Solutions http://vmblog.com/archive/2009/04/21/vmware-vsphere-4-provides-always-on-it-for-smb-and-branch-office-it-environments-with-low-cost-high-availability-solutions.aspx

A random collection of what’s new vSphere eye candy http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2009/04/20/a-random-collection-of-whats-new-vsphere-eye-candy/

VMware Launches vSphere – http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2009/04/vmware-launches-vsphere.html

Yellow-bricks.com has put together a great list of vSphere links: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/04/21/vsphere-linkage/

Installing VMware tools on an Ubuntu guest

ESX Server, NIC Teaming, and VLAN trunking

Speed up your Windows 2003 Server guests – Disable File Last Access Check

Hidden network adapters when importing to VMWare

Installing Windows XP on ESX with LSI Logic Driver

Moving hosts from one vCenter server to another.

Enable SSH on ESXi

Hope you find them as useful as I have.

Veeam Stencils is a free collection of VMware Visio stencils that can be used by ESX administrators, system integrators and datacenter managers to create their own diagrams in Microsoft Visio 2003 or higher.

Download them here http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-stencils.html

How do you grow a VM disk? What tcp ports are need by ESX? How do you change the service consoles IP? How many hosts can you have in a virtual cluster? Quickly reference answers to these questions and more using the guide.

The latest version of the quick reference card can be found here – http://www.vmreference.com/vi3-card/

Download it and keep it handy.