As part of VMware’s strategic vCloud initiative, VMware is developing a new Cloud Services team that is 100% focused on deploying VMware-based “clouds” at Service Providers as well as enterprises. The Cloud Services team is organized centrally within the WW Technical Services Organization and will work directly with the VMware Cloud sales and architecture teams to help customers implement a VMware-based cloud. The Cloud Services team will focus initially on Cloud Service Providers, but will also be involved in developing the services model for bringing cloud computing to enterprise customers.

So if you are interested and are looking for a new challenge take a look at the following openings:

• Consulting Architect-TS Cloud Services
• Senior Consultant-TS Cloud Services
• Senior Consultant-TS Cloud Services
• Senior Engagement Project Manager -TS Cloud Services

If you need more info about Professional Services, VMware as an employer or whatsoever please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. (duncan at yellow-bricks.com)

As you can imagine we will more than likely need someone to fill Yvo’s spot as a Senior Consultant. So for one of you this might just be what you have been waiting for. If you are fluently Dutch and English, willing to travel, flexible and an expert on virtualization and have got solid consultancy skills you might just be the person we need. If you think you are or if you want more info, drop me an email and I will get you in contact with the right people or we can have an informal chat about the position. (duncan at yellow-bricks.com)

I guess the quote of Scott’s article captures the essence:

In the customer’s first implementation of the virtual infrastructure, both SQL Servers, X and Y, were placed on RAID group A. But in the native configuration SQL Server X was placed on RAID group B. This meant that the storage bandwidth of the physical configuration was approximately 1850 IOPS. In the virtual configuration the two databases shared a single 800 IOPS RAID volume.It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that users are going to complain when a critical SQL Server instances goes from 1050 IOPS to 400. And this was not news to the VI admin on-site, either. What we found as we investigated further was that virtual disks requested by the application owners were used in unexpected and undocumented ways and frequently demanded more throughput than originally estimated. In fact, through vscsiStats analysis (Using vscsiStats for Storage Performance Analysis), my contact and I were able to identify an “unused” VMDK with moderate sequential IO that we immediately recognized as log traffic. Inspection of the application’s configuration confirmed this.

Here’s a short list of the obvious things I usually discover during a health check:

• Snapshots
• Lack of redundancy on Service Console or VMkernel
• Inconsistent naming schemes(Port groups)
• Inconsistent configuration
• DNS configuration issues
• Missing advanced HA settings
• Faulty hardware
• Free space on VMFS volumes

Unfortunately for me vSphere will catch most of these issues.

• Snapshots
  Storage view
• Lack of redundancy on Service Console or VMkernel
  HA will not configure correctly
• Inconsistent naming schemes(Port groups)
  Host Profiles or Distributed vSwitch
• Inconsistent configuration
  Host Profiles
• DNS configuration issues
  Host Profiles (partly)
• Missing advance HA settings
  currently not addressed
• Faulty hardware
  Alarms
• Free space on VMFS volumes
  Storage view & Alarms

Thanks vSphere, you will cost me my job… Only thing left is “DNS configuration issues” and “missing advanced HA settings”.

The global VMware Professional Services Organization (PSO) influences the success of each VMware implementation. The PSO team is dedicated to the success of the customer and their virtualization strategy and implementation. The PSO team ensures that VMware customers are successfully implementing their business plans from adoption all the way to a fully functioning virtualized data center. The VMware PSO team includes Implementation/Managed Services, Project/Engagement Management, Education Services, Partner Management and Technical Account Management (TAM) Services.

Our department is responsible for delivering custom projects, jumpstarts, training and more. As you can imagine it’s a real challenge, and it’s exciting to work for a company like VMware.

Where most companies are cutting down on workforce VMware PSO is still expanding. We are looking for Technical Account Managers and (Senior) Consultants. If you are curious what a Consultant or a TAM does visit this section of the PSO website on the VMware.com website.

Here we go:
Technical Account Manager – Russia
Technical Account Manager – Belgium (Must speak French and English)
Technical Account Manager – Norway
Senior Consultant – Russia
Consultant – Austria
Senior Consultant(VDI) – Italy
Senior Consultant – Italy
Senior Consultant – Italy
Senior Consultant – Sweden
PSO Manager – Eastern Region

If you think you are up for the challenge, are looking for a new job and want to work for one of the best and fastest growing Technology Companies in the world send me an email and I will get you in contact with the right people within VMware.

I personally use the following tools:

• Health Check script by A.Mikkelsen → for a quick overview of the current situation and setup, small files and easy to carry around, runs from the Service Console.
• VMware Health Analyzer Appliance → A linux appliance that can connect to your VC/ESX and analyze log files. At this point in time it’s only available for VMware Employees or Partners with access to Partner Central.
• Powershell: Report into MS Word → Alan Renouf created this great reporting powershell scripts. It dumps info into a word document. (And i’ve heard he’s also working on a Visio export)
• Powershell: Health Check Script → Create an html report with datastore, cpu, memory and snapshot info… and more.
• RVTools → Gives a quick overview of current VM setup like snapshots, memory, cpu etc.
• Common sense → I hardly encounter really huge problems, mainly decreased availability cause of choices made during implementation / design phase without following VMware’s guidelines. Use common sense is the best advise in this case and read the best practice documents and VMware’s collection of pdf’s!
• And when there are some disturbing errors in one of the various log files you have the option to run it through one of the many toolkits we internally have.

I’m not using the following tools actively during engagements because of licensing but they can be very usefull in your enviroment:

• Replicate Datacenter Analyzer → Analyze your VI3 environment, I wrote an article a few weeks ago on RDA, click here
• Veeam Monitor → Monitor your VI3 environment including performance graphs etc.
• Veeam Reporter → A reporting tool, which will come in handy when documenting environments and comparing the current config to an old config.
• Vizioncore vFoglight → Might come in handy when doing analyses of trends and pinpointing resource contention.
• Tripwire Configcheck → Analyze the security of your VMware ESX environment. Check my blog post on Configcheck here.