The esxtop utility can be used to measure how much I/O is moving across various devices. The esxtop utility is interactive. As such, pressing certain keys changes the view. Configuring monitoring using esxtop To monitor storage performance per HBA: Start esxtop by typing esxtop at the command line. Press d to switch to disk view (HBA mode). Press f to modify the fields that are displayed. Press b, c, d, e, h, and j to toggle the fields...

Tired of login in into the Virtual Center Client?  Try this… A very useful, yet very undocumented feature of the Virtual Infrastructure Client is that it can be configured to automatically pass your Active Directory credentials without you typing them in. To use: create a shortcut to the Virtual Infrastructure Client, then right-click on it and edit the shortcut properties. You’ll need to pass the program two arguments when...

Another setting often overlooked is Disk.UseLunReset and/or Disk.UseDeviceReset. ESX defaults to Disk.UseLunReset=1 and Disk.UseDeviceReset=1. This means that when a SCSI bus is reset all SCSI reservations are cleared, not for a specific LUN but for the complete device. This is useful when one uses local storage, but within a VMware environment most companies utilize a SAN and you don’t want to disrupt the entire SAN when it’s not...

Table of Contents Section 1. Introduction Section 2. CPU Section 2.1 Worlds and Groups Section 2.2 Global Statistics Section 2.3 World Statistics Section 3. Memory Section 3.1 Machine Memory and Guest Physical Memory Section 3.2 Global Statistics Section 3.3 Group Statistics Section 4 Disk Section 4.1 Adapter, Device, VM screens Section 4.2 Disk Statistics Section 4.2.1 I/O Throughput Statistics Section 4.2.2 Latency Statistics Section...

Hugo over at PeetersOnline.nl has a new Script Repository on his site. If you’re looking for PowerShell scripts for VMWare, you want to start here.

Some vendors license their application per processor, also in a virtualized environment. So if your VM has 4 vCPU’s your vendor will want you to buy a 4 processor license for the application. But you can avoid this by telling the VM that it has cores instead of processors. In others words, instead of having 4 processors you would have 1 processor with 4 cores: Power off the VM Right click on the VM and select “Edit...