Install VMware ESXi on a Hyper-V

It is possible to use nested virtualization to run VMware ESXi as a Virtual Machine in Hyper-V. To some, this may be a viable option if you are unable to acquire any new hardware, or if you simply want to test new VMware products on your Windows 10 desktop.

Although this process is not officially supported by VMware or Microsoft, it is possible to get an ESXi environment stood up using Hyper-V. There are a number of prerequisites to adhere to as well as an understanding that following this process may not give a smooth end-to-end user experience.

Before we start we MUST prep the ISO and inject Hyper-V compatible Network drivers. If you do not do this the process will fail and you will be unable to connect to your ESXi server. (more…)

How to install and configure VMware PowerCLI version 10

VMware PowerCLI is a collection of Windows Powershell modules which are used to manage and maintain a VMware virtual environment. PowerCLI is a great tool for system administrators and can be used to gather detailed information and/or execute bulk commands against multiple VMs, Hosts, Network or Storage devices.

It is typically installed on Microsoft Windows based operating systems. A desktop or server must have network access to the VMware vCenter server(s) and be capable of running a minimum of Windows PowerShell 2.0 with .NET 3.5 SP1 pre-installed. However, it is highly recommended to install the very lastest official releases of Powershell and PowerCLI modules.

This step by step procedure is to prepare your system to run VMware PowerCLI Version 10 (released February 2018), configure shortcuts to your infrastructure and make the first connection to your vCenter server(s). (more…)

How to set up a Hyper-V failover cluster

Hyper-V can enable high-availability using Windows Server Failover Cluster Manager. This allows you to create a virtual infrastructure which is resilient to server failures.

A typical Hyper-V failover cluster setup consists of 2 or more servers, which share clustered network and clustered storage resources. In the event of a server failure, the clustered resources are seemlessly failed over to the next available server. To the end user, there is generally no impact on services running on the server.

Failover is an automated process which is managed by the Operating System. Hyper-V enables you to create clustered storage and clustered networking which are an infrastructure requirement for cluster failover manager. (more…)

How to create a VM Template with Hyper-V

Microsoft Hyper-V lacks the capability to create and manage templates and this can be troublesome for IT specialists requiring to deploy a large number of identical virtual machines. A time-consuming task that could be much more efficient and simple.

To save your time, we suggest the following methodology that is more similar to a work-around. You will be able to deploy several virtual machines without much effort but it will still be difficult to deploy hundreds (or worst thousands) of them.
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How to configure virtual machines auto start on VMware ESXi

If you are a VMware system administrator, you may find useful to configure a group of virtual machines to auto start at the ESXi host boot.

There may be different reasons to do that, but the most common is to recover from a blackout. ESXi hosts can power on automatically when the power comes back and the virtual machines will be powered on with them.
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How to add a new user to a customized vCenter Role

The privileges and Roles allow the administrator of a VMware virtual environment to configure a granular security policy defining individual user rights.

For a VMware system administrator it’s good practice to define the user access rights from the vCenter servers. There are several technologies to secure a virtual environment, this time we are going to see how to assign a customized role to an individual user.

In our previous article we talked about how to create a customized Role to which we gave only the privileges to configure the Virtual Machines.

It’s considered a best pratice not to modify the default roles because they can be useful for future reference.

In this article we’ll explan how to create a new user which we’ll assign to a customized Role named VM Configuration Manager.
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How to create custom vCenter Server Roles

The VMware vCenter comes with several privileges grouped in Roles by default. The privileges and Roles allow the administrator to configure a granular security policy defining individual user rights.
On the vCenter there are three system roles as follows:

  • No Access
  • Read-Only
  • Administrator

The system roles are permanent. there is no way to modify them. The No Access and Read-Only roles are very useful for restricting user access quickly.

The six default role samples are as follows:

  • Virtual Machine Power User
  • Virtual Machine User
  • Resource Pool Administrator
  • VMware Consolidated Backup User
  • Datastore Consumer
  • Network Administrator

While it is possible use the default sample roles as they are, it’s also possible to use them as a starting point to create custom roles. It’s considered a best pratice not to modify the default roles because they can be useful for future reference.
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