VMware lately published a whole bunch of must read technical papers:
Storage Design Options for VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Companies planning to deploy VDI face decisions about the use of both local and shared storage,
and in the case of shared storage solutions, choosing between differing technologies available in
today’s market. Selecting the appropriate storage model is important for [...]

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As of ESX 3.5 it was impossible to add an additional NIC to a team as active without resorting to editing the esx.conf file:
# Active and standby setup and maxActive from 1 to 2
mv /etc/vmware/esx.conf /tmp/esx.conf.bak
/bin/sed -e ’s/net\/vswitch\/child\[0001\]\/teamPolicy\/maxActive = \”1\”/net\/vswitch\/child\[0001\]\/teamPolicy\/maxActive = \”2\”/g’ /tmp/esx.conf.bak >> /etc/vmware/esx.conf
So as you can see, a “sed” command changed the maxActive [...]

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There seems to be an incorrect advanced option in VC U3.
HA network compliance check
During the configuration of HA in VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 2, the Task & Events tabs might display the following error message and recommendation:
HA agent on <esxhostname> in cluster <clustername> in <datacenter> has an error Incompatible HA Network:
Consider using the Advanced Cluster Settings [...]

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A while back I wrote down all the HA advanced options. With VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3(and the ESX patch that came with it) VMware added another extra advanced options, this is the complete list:

das.failuredetectiontime - Amount of milliseconds, timeout time for isolation response action(with a default of 15000 milliseconds).
das.isolationaddress[x] - IP adres the ESX hosts [...]

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I wrote about a new patch for ESX(i) 3.5 yesterday and the fact that VirtualCenter 3.5 Update 3 was mentioned. Well today VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3 has been released! You can pick it up here.
I think the most important fixes are the ones for HA. With Update 2 VM started checking the subnets of the [...]

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There are a couple of great articles out there which are definitely worth reading:

Colin McNamara - Cisco releases Nexus 1000v virtual switch for VMware
Scott Lowe - BC2621: Fault-Tolerant VMs in VI: Operations and Best Practices (live blogging)
Scott Lowe - TA2668: VMware ESX Architectural Directions (live blogging)
Rich Brambley - TA3807: VirtualCenter Directions (live blogging)

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My colleague Rene Jorissen just posted a config example for a port-channel and trunk configuration for VMware. So for those interested in networking check it out.

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