I manage to capture some screen shot to share over the Cisco UCS platform running with VMware vSphere 4

Summary tab it shows Cisco as the product manufacturer.

Screen shot capture on DV switch which using dual 10G Ethernet uplink.

Screen shot of the summary tab of the B200 M1 blade system in the UCS 5108. You will notice the hardware details and specification in the picture as well.

Related posts:

1. Nexus 1000V come with free when Virtualization with VMware vSphere 4 on Cisco UCS
2. Memory Architecture of Cisco UCS
3. Virtual CPU Increase on Demand in vSphere

Please make sure you have selected Other 2.6x Linux 32bit as per your guest OS.

Download Chrome OS VMware Image at http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/

Related posts:

1. Apply VMware vSphere 4 Update 1 Patches
2. Not possible to resize /var/log on vSphere 4 Host
3. vSphere PURPLE screen

The Redhat Linux and Windows 2003 & 2008 Virtual Machines VMware tools upgraded successful and everything look goods after the Update 1 patched.

I would suggest you refer to VMware Communities – vSphere Upgrade and Install forum & “vSphere 4u1 – any issues” thread before apply any VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi Update 1 patches on production environment.

Read more details about VMware ESX 4.0 Update 1 Release Notes here.

Updated:
Please make sure you check VMware Knowledge Base – Upgrading ESX 4.0 to 4.0 U1 using Update Manager fails or times out and rebooting the host results in a purple diagnostic screen
A quick note: The problem with U1 is now known to be limited to HP Proliant systems and HP Insight Management agents are running.

Related posts:

1. VMware vSphere 4 Available for Download Now
2. Upgrade from ESX 4 to ESX 4 update 1 with update manager fail
3. Running Chrome OS on vSphere Update 1

Want to be a vSphere beta participant?
We are looking for beta participants to test out some new vSphere features currently in development. Interested? If so, contact your VMware account team for further details.

What are you waiting for? Contact your local VMware Account Team now!

Good luck!

Related posts:

1. vSphere client on windows 7
2. VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager 1.1 Public Beta Released
3. New vSphere Client

Read FAQ show below as posted VMware Sales portal few days back.

FAQ
1. Are the promotions extending as well?
No the upgrade promotions are ending as planned on December 15, 2009

2. Why is VMware changing its position?
Customers have asked us to make this change in policy as they plan out their 2010 budgets and plan their vSphere implementations. They want these items to align with their Enterprise Plus upgrades. We want to provide maximum flexibility for every customer situation.

3. Is there a new date for Enterprise end of availability?
No, no specific date has been set. We expect Enterprise unit share to continue to decline as customers upgrade to Enterprise Plus and higher core processors enter the market. However, we want to provide maximum flexibility for every customer situation.

4. What happens to customers that bought Enterprise Plus because they believed Enterprise was going away?
VMware will not be implementing any kind of price protection program. Enterprise Plus provides exceptional additional value through the new features (vNetwork Distributed Switch, Host Profiles, 8-way vSMP, large memory configurations) and additional processor core entitlements. Ultimately, Enterprise Plus provides a significantly lower total cost per application than any other solution or option.

5. How does the 6-core restriction work for Enterprise?
The Enterprise core entitlement remains at 6-core and is technically enforced in the product. However, two Enterprise licenses can license one 8, 10, or 12 core processor

6. Will you introduce STD->ENT upgrade SKUs?
No, there are no plans at this time. Enterprise unit sales are already declining versus Enterprise Plus and this trend will only accelerate over Q4 and 2010. Enterprise Plus provides significant additional value at a lower cost per application.

7. Will VMware re-introduce the Enterprise Acceleration Kits?
No, there are no plans at this time. Our market research has shown that the vSphere Advanced Acceleration Kit provides a compelling set of integrated availability features for mid-size businesses at a lower initial price than vSphere Enterprise while vSphere Enterprise Plus provides the tools for minimizing total cost per application for larger deployments.

8. What kind of customer feedback did VMware receive?
Customers have asked us to make this change in policy as they plan out their 2010 budgets and plan their vSphere implementations. They want these items to align with their Enterprise Plus upgrades. We want to provide maximum flexibility for every customer situation.

9. Will Enterprise support more than 6 cores?
No, the Enterprise core entitlement remains at 6-core and is technically enforced in the product. However, two Enterprise licenses can license one 8, 10, or 12 core processor

10. Does this mean customers are not buying Enterprise Plus?
No, not at all. Customers are already buying and deploying Enterprise Plus as they upgrade from VI3 to vSphere 4. However, some customers have longer budget cycles and need to plan their upgrades far in advance. We want to provide maximum flexibility for every customer situation.

Hope this is clear and useful!

Related posts:

1. 6 cores limitation per socket for vSphere enterprise
2. Questions to VMware new licensing model
3. License key VS License file in vSphere 4

If you plan to have VMotion over long distance, you may need to full fill the requirements as listed above.  Virtual Geek had blog it in details about the long distance vmotion supported on vmware. Feel free to take a look here.

Related posts:

1. VMotion compatible from ESX 3.5 to vSphere 4
2. Storage VMotion through GUI in vSphere
3. SRM 4 is ready for VMware vSphere 4

Related posts:

1. Security Hardening reference guides for VMware vSphere 4
2. SRM 4 is ready for VMware vSphere 4
3. Performance tuning on Virtual Infrastructure with MD3000i

We had been running Vmware in our environment for more than 2 years now in production mode and found that 80% of our production virtual machine should easily could be handled on either NFS and ISCSI. I will suggest to have FC and IP SAN in place within the virtual infrastructure. This will allow the administrator to select the right storage option to support the IO requirement for each system been hosted in VMware. The mission critical and high IO requirements systems will be deployed on  the FC SAN, but the low IO requirement virtual machines will be migrated to IP SAN. With the storage vMotion option in vSphere 4, this will able to be done with zero down time. At cost perspective, it will make the hosting package to be more competitive to support the customer need.

Related posts:

1. Storage VMotion through GUI in vSphere
2. Performance tuning on Virtual Infrastructure with MD3000i
3. Match RDM to Actual LUN on SAN Storage with vSphere

Introducing VMware vSphere 4 Forward
The next generation in VMware Virtualization.
VMware leads the industry with innovative technology and an unparalleled virtualization experience.
Come and experience the latest breakthrough in virtualization – VMware vSphere 4.0.

VMware vSphere 4.0 delivers greater efficiency, greater choice and unparalleled control.

Learn how VMware vSphere 4.0 will enable you to:

• Improve availability and uptime for business critical applications
• Reduce capital and operating costs
• Cut server deployment time from weeks to hours to minutes
• Improve consolidation ratios and virtual machine management
• Drive your IT infrastructure agility and business responsiveness

Date: Wednesday, 12th August 2009
Time: 8.30am – 12.30pm
Venue: The Royale Chulan
Tun Sri Lanang 1,
Ground floor,
6, Jalan Conlay,
50450 Kuala Lumpur

Agenda:
Time Topic
8.30am – 9.00am Registration
9.00am – 9.15am Welcome Address
9.15am – 10.30am Virtualization Takes Another Giant Leap – VMware vSphere 4.0
10.30am – 10.45am Refreshment Break
10.45am – 11.20am Embarking on the Virtualization Journey
11.20am – 11.40am IBM – Optimizing Your Infrastructure with Highly Scalable Virtualization
11.40am – 12.00pm DELL – Taking IT Efficiency To Greater Heights with vSphere 4.0
12.00pm – 12.30pm Unlocking the Value of vSphere 4.0
12.30pm End of Session

Official Web site for VMware vSphere 4 event here.

Click ‘Register‘ and lock-in your seat now.

For general enquiries,
please contact: Vince/Vivian
Telephone number: 603-2091 9045
Email address: vsphwave2 at ap-comms.com

Related posts:

1. VMware vSphere 4 Launch in Malaysia

Benchmark Test Configuration
2 x VMware vSphere 4 hosts
2 x Dell PE2950 Hardware
– Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5410 @ 2.33GHz
– 16GB RAM
– Qlogic QLE8042 10GbE Mercury Converged Network Adapter(CNA) – connected to PCIe 8x slot

Updated: PERC 6/i version. 6.2.0-0013 & BOIS version. 2.6.1

VMware vSphere vCenter
– running as virtual machine
– 4vCPU
– 6GB RAM
– Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard edition

2 x Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard edition virtual machines
– 4vCPU
– 4GB RAM

Software:
Netperf

MTU 9000 setup
VMware vSphere host
esxcfg-vswitch -m 9000 vSwitch2

Windows Server 2003 standard edition virtual machine
Device Manager -> Network Adapters -> VMXNET3 Ethernet Adapter -> Properties -> Advanced -> Jumbo Packet -> Jumbo 9000 and Speed / Duplex -> 10Gbps Full Duplex

Cisco Nexus 5000K – Enable MTU 9000 and Jumbo Frame

VMware vSphere hosts
name: esx05
name: esx06

Windows Server 2003 standard edition virtual machine
name: test1 (running on esx06)
name: test2 (running on esx05)

Virtual Switch
Port Group name – test262 (Connected with single vNICs detected as Intel 82598EB 10 Gigabit AF Dual Port Network) with VLAN ID 1.

Note: vSphere auto detect as ISP8432 4Gb FCoE PCI Express HBA & Intel 82598EB 10 Gigabit

And the result:

click to enlarge.

Updated: 10 July 2009
CNA connected back to back on 2 VMware vSphere servers.

Probably you may refer to VMware documentation as link below:
- 10GugE Performance
- ESX Networking Planning

Another tricky part is, I’m managed to get total of 6G out of 10G if I running 10 VMs instances with 8192 Message Size and 163840 Socket Size as suggested in documentation as above. Again, single netperf session will get about 2.7G for Linux and 1.5G for Windows either Nexus 5K nor back to back connection. And you may get better result with 1 CPU compare to 4 CPUs or 8 CPUs which I believed a limitation on netperf itself.

Updated: 27 July 2009

Windows 2008 Standard Edition with 1vCPU, E1000 vNIC and 5G single file transfer.

Windows 2008 Standard Edition with 1vCPU, E1000 vNIC and netperf.

Windows 2008 Standard Edition with 1vCPU, VMXNET3 vNIC, Internet Download Manager HTTP multiple sessions download.

Windows 2008 Data Center Edition with 1vCPU, VMXNET3 vNIC, 5G single file transfer.

Windows 2008 Data Center Edition with 8vCPU, VMXNET3 vNIC, 5G single file transfer with default TCP setup.

Windows 2008 Data Center Edition with 8vCPU, VMXNET3 vNIC, 5G single file transfer with TCP tuning enabled.

Summary:
The result are not consistent and I believed they may have some limitation on VMware or Microsoft Windows Operating System or Qlogic CNA card driver.

Updated:
Thanks to Maurizio & Craig comments. I’m fully agreed with you guys that the Cisco Nexus 5000 is not the bottleneck but other factors.

Related posts:

1. Nexus 1000V come with free when Virtualization with VMware vSphere 4 on Cisco UCS
2. How to remove Cisco Nexus 1000V plugin
3. New Release from Cisco Nexus 1000V R1.2 on VMware vSphere 4