Follow the instructions from ntpro.nl to configure the backup process or the steps below.

Extract the zip file to a folder SQLMaintenance – SQLScheduler_LatestVersion – Service.

Run – InstallService.bat to install the Windows Service.

Create a shortcut from SQLMaintenance – SQLScheduler_LatestVersion – SQLScheduler – SQLScheduler.exe to the desktop.

Run SQLScheduler.exe

Right click Servers – Select New Server…

Enter the Server Name or use localhost and the database name. The Default database name is SQLEXP_VIM

Example: localhost\SQLEXP_VIM

Click Save

Right click the new server – click New Job…

Enter a Job Name – click the details tab

Click – Insert Backup Template

Edit the ‘<databasename>_’ and <path to backup file> in the Template.

Example: The default database name is ‘VIM_VCDB_’ and backup path is ‘c:\SQLBackups\’

Specify a Script timeout. 120 Seconds seems to be enough time.

Select the Schedule tab

Define a date/time for the backup to occur.

Click Save.

Right Click the new job and select Execute to start the job.

Edit the Job and click the Last Run Results tab to view the log or configure Notifications.

vmware-cmd -l (List current VMs)

Copy the path for the VM that will not power off

vmware-cmd "(VM path)" getstate

Example:
vmware-cmd "/vmfs/volumes/…../Windows 2003/Windows 2003.vmx" getstate
Output will be: getstate – on

Power off the VM
vmware-cmd "(VM path)" stop

Example:
vmware-cmd "/vmfs/volumes/…../Windows 2003/Windows 2003.vmx" stop

Verify if the VM powered off

vmware-cmd "(VM path)" getstate

If the VM is still on it will need to be hard stopped.

vmware-cmd "(VM path)" stop hard

2) Copy the extracted sysprep files to the Virtual Center server.

Place the files in this location:

For 2003 – C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003 or For 2008 – C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep

This location is specific to the 2003 version of Windows.

3) Install Windows 2003 as a guest OS in VMware

Apply latest Service Pack

Install latest updates from Microsoft

Install VMWare Tools

Custom install

Install all VMware Device Drivers

Do not install Share Folders

Do no install Wyse Multimedia Support

Use DHCP to obtain IP Address

Delete all ServicePack and Hotfix uninstall directories from %systemroot%.

They are usually $NTUnistallxxxxxx$ and $NTServicePackUninstall$

Disable Windows Screensaver

Enable Remote Desktop for administration

Remove IE Security Enhancements

Tasks that cannot be done because of Sysprep

The follow items have been found to be undone by sysprep

Changing drive letters for CDRom, secondary HD, etc

Renaming or customizing Network Connections

Notes:

Windows 2003 R2: Use the same customization specification for this OS as your regular Windows 2003.  Do not use the Windows 2003 R2 license key in the customization specification.

Align Windows Disks:

(Use this on additional disk drives added to VMs. Does not apply to 2008 or above)

From a command prompt:

NOTE – VMware Virtual Center 2.5 Update 4 or vCenter 4 is required to use Guest Customizations with Windows 2008.

1. Use an ISO for faster OS setup.

2. Build a new VM that has at least 1 GB RAM and a 20 GB drive.

3. Attach the Windows 2008 ISO to the CD/DVD drive and set it to connect at power on.

4. On the VM Edit Settings window go to the Options tab and in the General section uncheck the Enable logging check box.

5. Go to the Boot Options section and check the box to force going into the BIOS on next boot.

6. Power on the VM and when the setup screen appears go to Advanced, I/O Device Configuration.

7. Disable the Serial and Parallel ports.

8. Go to the Boot menu and set the CD-ROM first in the boot order.

9. Save, exit and install Windows 2008, during the install choose either Standard or Enterprise.

10. On first boot up after install set the Administrator password.

11. Close the “Initial Configuration Tasks” window, after the VMware Tools have been installed we will configure the server.

12. Close the “Server Manager” window.

13. Disconnect the Windows 2008 ISO and set the device type to Client Device.

14. Install VMware Tools, choose Custom install type.

15. Disable the “Shared Folders” driver. This driver can cause issues with profiles unloading properly.

16. Set the “Hardware acceleration” to Full before reboot.

17. After reboot from the VMware Tools install configure the time zone.

18. Configure Networking. Uninstall these networking components. It is best to remove any components not needed to free up resources.

a. QoS Packet Scheduler – Not needed unless you are doing QoS at the Windows layer instead of the L2/L3 switch layer.

b. Link Layer Topology Discovery components – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Layer_Topology_Discovery

c. Uncheck TCP/IP v6

19. Leave the IP address set to DHCP unless DHCP isn’t available on the network.

20. Set the computer name to W2K8TEMPALTE

21. Download and install updates. Turn on Windows Updates to download and notify before install.

22. Check for updates and install the latest critical and recommended updates. If the updates fail to download restart and try again.

23. Enable Remote Desktop

24. Disable the Windows Firewall.

25. Below is a screen shot of how the server should be configured.

26. Check the box to “Do not show this window at logon” and click Close.

27. When the Server Manager window opens check the box to “Do not show me this console at logon” and close Server Manager.

28. Go to the Taskbar properties and check these boxes.

29. Go to the Start Menu tab and check these boxes.

30. Click Customize and check these boxes.

31. Go to the Notification Area tab and check these boxes.

32. Click OK.

33. Go to Computer properties on the desktop and set the Performance options below.

34. Right-click on the desktop and go to Personalization.

35. Go to Screen Saver and set it to blank.

36. Disable the system screen saver, this is the screen saver that starts when no user is logged into the system. Go to start run and type regedit. Browse to this registry path “HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop” and delete the SCRNSAVE.EXE name.

37. Go to Sounds, when prompted choose No.

38. Set the Sound scheme to No Sounds.

39. Click on Change desktop Icons and uncheck the boxes below.

40. Go to Settings Control Panel. Go to View and choose Status Bar and Details

41. Go to Tools, Folder Options, View tab and check/uncheck these boxes.

42. Apply and apply to folders.

43. Delete the Desktop.ini files on the desktop.

44. Right-click on the desktop and arrange icons by Name.

45. Go to Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Server Manger and click on Configure IE ESC, set it to off for both Administrators and Users.

46. Go to Internet Explorer properties and set the home page to blank.

47. Go to the Advanced tab and check/uncheck these boxes.

48. Clear the C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp folder.

49. Go to the properties of the C drive and uncheck the “Index this drive for faster searching” box, click apply and choose Apply changes to drive c:\ only.

50. Go to the cmd prompt and type powercfg.exe -h off to disable hibernation. This command also deletes the hiberfile.sys from C:\

51. Delete the page file and reboot. This is so the C drive can be fully defragmented.

52. After reboot login and delete the pagefile.sys from the C: drive. Defragment the C: drive

53. Go to Control Panel, Power options and set the Power Plan to High performance.

54. Click the change plan settings and set both options to Never.

55. Stop and disable the Windows Firewall service.

56. Create a new temporary user named ptemp and add the user to the local administrators group.

57. Log out an login as ptemp

58. Go to Computer properties, Advanced system settings, User Profiles, Settings

59. Select Administrator and choose Copy To… Type C:\Users\Default and change Permitted to use to Authenticated Users.

NOTE – FOR WINDOWS 2008 R2 FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS FOR COPYING THE USER PROFILE. – http://jeremywaldrop.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/how-to-copy-profiles-in-windows-2008-r2-and-windows-7/

60. Logout and login as Administrator, delete the ptemp user profile and user account.

61. Go to C:\Users\Default and delete the old NTUSER.DAT{ files.

62. Delete these folders.

63. Shutdown the VM.

64. Convert the VM to a template.

65. Create a Windows 2008 Customization Specification for Windows 2008. You do not need to worry about the sysprep files. In Vista and Windows 2008 sysprep is in C:\Windows\System32\sysprep. When the guest OS type is set to Vista VMware VC knows that the sysprep files are already on the OS.

66. When a new VM gets deployed from this template choose your Windows 2008 specification.

67. On first boot up the VM will boot up to a login screen, do not login the VM will reboot automatically after a minute. On the next boot up you should see this screen appear.

68. And this screen. This process may take a few minutes, so be patient.

69. The VM will automatically reboot again. Login and shutdown the VM.

71. The VM is now ready for use.

vSphere: Software iSCSI, Jumbo Frames, Distributed Virtual Switches and Multi-Pathing (MPIO)

With the release of vSphere Update 1, we can now take advantage of Software iSCSI MPIO using the new DvSwitch functionality in vSphere.  Before now, we were limited to only being able to do MPIO on a standard vSwitch.  Using a DvSwitch is a little more involved, here are the steps to set-up the DvSwitch, MPIO and Jumbo Frames: (Please let me know if anything is unclear or incorrect!).

1. Create a new DvSwitch.  We called ours “Storage_dvSwitch”.
2. After creating your new DvSwitch, Edit the settings and change the Max MTU to 9000 to support Jumbo frames.
   
   
3. Now create 2 (or however many you want) new Port Groups.  Nothing special here, we named ours iSCSI1 and iSCSI2.  VLAN configuration may vary depending on network configurations.
4. This part is important – we need to set-up the pNIC fail-over settings properly.  You should have ONE active dvUplink per iSCSI port-group, NO standby NICs and the remaining NICs should be Unused.  Each port-group should get a different dvUplink. This can be changed in the port-group settings page.
   
5. This concludes the vCenter specific configuration.  The following steps will apply to EACH host that you plan to use with Jumbo frames.
6. If you haven’t already, you will need to add the Host’s physical NIC’s to the new DvSwitch we created. You can do this from the ‘Add Host’ link on the DvSwitch summary page.
7. Now we need to create 1 VMkernel port for each Port-Group we created. This is done in the HOST configuration tab, in the Networking section. Select the ‘Distributed Virtual Switch’ view and click the ‘Manage Virtual Adapters…’ link.
8. Click ‘Add’ and add one VMkernel port to each iSCSI port-group you created on the storage DvSwitch.  There may be some benefits to over-subscription here (many VMkernel ports on 1 port-group), but that will vary by environment.  When you are done, your Port-Groups should look something like this:
   
9. Now we need to find the Port number assigned to each vmk port.  You can either click the ‘i’ icons next to each vmk port or by running “esxcfg-vswitch -l” from the CLI.  In this example, vmk1 has a port ID of 1, and vmk2 has a port ID of 129.
   
10. Now, from the CLI, delete the VMkernel ports you just created in the GUI (Awesome, isn’t it?) by running “esxcfg-vmknic -d -s ‘<your dv switch name>’ -v <dv port number>”.  You will need to run this for each VMkernel port you created.  So in our example, it would be:
    • esxcfg-vmknic -d -s ‘Storage_dvSwitch’ -v 1
    • esxcfg-vmknic -d -s ‘Storage_dvSwitch’ -v 129
11. Now re-add the VMkernel ports (using the port numbers you just deleted) with jumbo frames enabled by running: “esxcfg-vmknic -a -s ‘<your dv switch name>’ -i <ip addr> -n <subnet> -m 9000 -v <dv port number>”.  So in our example:
    • esxcfg-vmknic -a -s ‘Storage_dvSwitch’ -i 10.255.38.151 -n 255.255.255.0 -m 9000 -v 1
    • esxcfg-vmknic -a -s ‘Storage_dvSwitch’ -i 10.255.38.201 -n 255.255.255.0 -m 9000 -v 129
12. Enable the software iSCSI initiator if you haven’t already and find the vmhba number assigned to it.  In our example, it is vmhba35:
    
13. Now bind the new VMkernel ports to the iSCSI HBA: “esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmkx -d vmhba35″  Adjust the vmkernel name (vmk0, vmk1, etc) and the iSCSI initiator HBA number (vmhba33, vmhba35, etc) to fit your environment.  Do this for each VMkernel port you will be using for MPIO.  For this example, we run:
    • esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmk1 -d vmhba35
    • esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmk2 -d vmhba35
14. You can verify that your vmk ports were successfully added to the pNIC’s by running “esxcli swiscsi nic list -d vmhbaxx” (in our case, esxcli swiscsi nic list -d vmhba35).  Each vmk port should be listed and should be assigned ONE pNIC.
    
    

3 – Dell R710 Servers with 2-Quad Core Xeon CPUs, 32GB RAM, 3-SAS HDs, and 8 NIC ports.

2 – Cisco 2960G Switches.

1 – Dell Equallogic PS6000x 7.2TB with 16 SAS Drives and Dual Controllers.

The Software:

VMware vSphere vCenter Standard

VMware vSphere ESX Enterprise Plus

Initial Server Configuration:

Enable Intel Virtual Technology in Dell BIOS.

Configure Power Management for High Performance.

Configure Dell DRAC username, password, and IP.

Configure local RAID for RAID 1 + 1 Hot Spare.

Switch Configuration:

Enable Jumbo Frame support:

2970(config)# system mtu jumbo 9000

2970(config)# exit

2970# reload

Verify:

2970# show system mtu

System MTU size is 1998 bytes

System Jumbo MTU size is 9000 bytes

Configure STP or RSTP.

Enable Port Fast on all access ports if using STP.

Configure Link Aggregation for LAN Uplinks.

Switch1:

interface Port-channel1
switchport mode trunk

interface GigabitEthernet0/22
description Up-Link to LAN
switchport mode trunk
channel-group 1 mode auto
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/23
description Up-Link to LAN
switchport mode trunk
channel-group 1 mode auto

Switch2:

interface Port-channel1
switchport mode trunk

interface GigabitEthernet0/22
description Up-Link to LAN
switchport mode trunk
channel-group 1 mode desirable
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/23
description Up-Link to LAN
switchport mode trunk
channel-group 1 mode desirable

ESX 4 Update 1 Installation:

Select Advanced setup during Installation:

Create the following custom partitions:

Name the Local Datastore. (e.g. esx#-localstorage)

Document ESX Host password.

Finish ESX Installation.

vCenter Installation and Configuration:

Install vCenter using the SQL Express Database. The Database will be moved to a SQL server later in the process.

Create a new Datacenter and HA/DRS cluster.

Add the ESX Hosts to the HA/DRS cluster.

Install Licenses.

Configure HA:

Enable Host monitoring.

Select Advanced Options under VMware HA.

Configure Isolation Addresses and Detection Time.

Follow this as a guideline (HA Deep Dive) for HA.

Enable Virtual Machine monitoring.

Set DRS to Fully automated, Level 2.

Configure NTP Server – north-america.pool.ntp.org

Set ESX Service Console to – 800MB

Reboot ESX Host.

Create Standard vSwitches for iSCSI and Service Console:

Configure vSwitch0 as the vSwitch for Service Console only.

Configure vSwitch0 NIC Teaming:

Assign vmnic0 as the Active Adapter.

Assign vmnic4 as the Standby Adapter.

Connect to the ESX Host Console:

Create a new Standard vSwitch.

Command: esxcfg-vswitch –a vSwitch#

Enable Jumbo Frames on the new vSwitch:

Command: esxcfg-vswitch –m 9000 vSwitch#

VMkernel Port Names – (examples)

iSCSI1-VLAN20

ISCSI2-VLAN20

Add VMkernel Ports with Jumbo Frame support:

Command: esxcfg-vswitch –A iSCSI1-VLAN20 vSwitch#

Command: esxcfg-vswitch –A iSCSI2-VLAN20 vSwitch#

Command: esxcfg-vmknic –a –i 192.168.2.2 –n 255.255.255.0 –m 9000 iSCSI1-VLAN20

Command: esxcfg-vmknic –a –i 192.168.2.22 –n 255.255.255.0 –m 9000 iSCSI2-VLAN20

Verify Jumbo Frame MTU and new VMkernel Ports:

Command: esxcfg-vmknic –l

MTU should read 9000

Add physical NICs to the new vSwitch:

From the vSphere Client add vmnic3 and vmnic7 to the new vSwitch. Both NICs will be Active Adapters on the vSwitch.

>

Associate the VMkernel Ports to the Physical Adapters:

From the ESX Host Console –

Command: esxcfg-vswitch –p iSCSI1-VLAN20 –N vmnic3 vSwitch#

Command: esxcfg-vswitch –p iSCSI2-VLAN20 –N vmnic7 vSwitch#

Verify VMkernel Port assignment:

Command: esxcfg-vswitch –l

Each Port Group should only have on Uplink listed.

From the vSphere client. Go to the properties of the new vSwitch.

Go to the properties of first Port Group and select the NIC Teaming tab.

Select Override vSwitch failover order.

Assign only one active vmnic. The rest will be unused.

Repeat the same steps for the second Port Group.

Go to the properties of the vSwitch. Select the NIC Teaming tab.

Set Failback: NO

Click the Security tab and set all settings to Reject.

Create and Configure Distributed Virtual Switches:

Create the new Distributed Switches

Edit the settings for dvSwitch-vMotion. Click Edit dvUplink port.

Name the uplinks something descriptive.

Click OK.

Select Advanced.

Set the Max MTU to 9000.

Enable CDP if wanted.

Click OK.

Repeat these steps for any other Distributed Switch.

The following will need to be completed for each Host.

From the vSphere client. Select a Host, Configuration tab, Networking, and click Distributed Virtual Switch.

Click Manage Virtual Adpaters and add a new VMkernel port.

Click the “i” next to each VMk port and make note of each Port ID number.

From the CLI, delete the VMkernel ports that were just created in the GUI.

Example: “esxcfg-vmknic -d -s ‘<your dv switch name>’ -v <dv port number>”

• esxcfg-vmknic -d -s ‘dvSwitch-vMotion’ -v 133

Re-add the VMkernel ports (using the port numbers you just deleted) with jumbo frames enabled.

Example: “esxcfg-vmknic -a -s ‘<your dv switch name>’ -i <ip addr> -n <subnet> -m 9000 -v <dv port number>”

• esxcfg-vmknic -a -s ‘dvSwitch-vMotion’ -i 192.168.x.x -n 255.255.255.0 -m 9000 -v 133

Repeat the steps above for each ESX Host and VMkernel port that requires jumbo frames.

Enable the iSCSI software initiator.

Configure Dynamic Discovery Send Targets.

Bind the new VMkernel ports to the iSCSI HBA: “esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmk# -d vmhba33″ 

Example:

• esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmk1 -d vmhba33

Repeat the steps above for each ESX Host.

Add Datastores:

Name examples: “SANName or Model” “Connection Type” – Volume Number – Size

EQLOGIC iSCSI – VOL1-400GB

Configure Datastore for Round Robin multipath:

These steps will need to be completed on each datastore on each ESX host and whenever a new datastore is added.

From the vSphere client. Select the ESX Host, Storage, select the datastore, right click and select properties.

Click Manage Paths…

Change Path Selection to Round Robin.

Click Close.

Configure Alerts/Alarms:

Enable email alerts on SAN.

Enable email alerts for vCenter.

From the vSphere Client. Click the Administration Menu.

Select Mail.

Configure Mail settings.

Configure Alarm Actions (Examples: SNMP Traps, Send Email)

Create custom Alarms to monitor Snapshot Size.

Configure Custom Alarm for monitoring Datastores with thin provisioned servers.

First disable the default Datastore alarm.

Create a new custom Alarm.

Configure Update Manager:

Install Update Manager.

Configure Patch Download Settings and Schedule.

Attach Baselines to ESX Hosts.

Convert Physical Servers:

http://my-technet.com/index.php/vmware/cleanup-steps-for-post-p2v/

Create Templates for new Servers: For 2008 or 2003

Configure Time settings for Windows Virtual Machines:

http://my-technet.com/index.php/vmware/vi3-best-practices-for-virtualizing-active-directory-2/

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1385495

Back up the files in the /etc/passwd, /etc/groups, /etc/shadow, and /etc/gshadow directories.
The /etc/shadow and /etc/gshadow files might not be present on all installations.
Back up .vmx files.

Back Up the ESXi Host Configuration

Install the vSphere CLI. 
In the vSphere CLI, run the vicfg-cfgbackup command with the -s flag to save the host configuration to
a specified backup filename.

vicfg-cfgbackup –server <ESXi-host-ip> –portnumber <port_number> –protocol
<protocol_type> –username username –password <password> -s <backup-filename>

Add the Host to be Upgraded. Select Upgrade Host.

Browse to the ESX/ESXi Update ISO. Select Next.

Agree to User License. Click Next.

Enter the Host admin account info. Click Next.

Specify the Console VMDK size. Click Next.

Select Post-Upgrade Options. Click Next.

Click Finish.

Wait for the upgrade…

Click OK after the upgrade has finished.

Postupgrade

Use the License Portal and the vSphere Client to assign licensing. 

After the ESX/ESXi upgrade, you must convert LUN masking to the claim rule format. To do this, run the
esxcli corestorage claimrule convert command in the vSphere Command-Line Interface. This
command converts the /adv/Disk/MaskLUNs advanced configuration entry in esx.conf to claim rules with
MASK_PATH as the plug-in.

See the vSphere Command-Line Interface Installation and Reference Guide.

Restore vSphere Web Access on ESX Hosts.

NOTE: vSphere Web Access is not supported on ESXi hosts. 
Log in to the ESX host using root privileges. 
Type the command to check whether the Web Access service is running.
service vmware-webAccess status
A message appears that says whether the service is running. 
(Optional) If vSphere Web Access is not running, type the command to start Web Access.
service vmware-webAccess start

Clean Up the ESX Bootloader Menu After Upgrade

This procedure is applicable only if you left the default rollback option enabled when you performed the
upgrade. If you deselected the rollback option, this procedure is not applicable. Only a system administrator
can perform this optional procedure.

Before executing this script, make sure that you have copied all required data from the legacy ESX mount
points under /esx3-installation.

In the ESX 4.0 service console, run the cleanup-esx3 command with the optional -f (force) flag.
If you omit the -f flag, the software prompts you to confirm that you want to disable the ability to roll
back to the ESX 3.x.

(Optional) Reboot the host.

While the server is powering on, verify that the bootloader menu does not include an option for ESX
3.x.
The cleanup-esx3 script removes the following files
and references from the ESX 4.0 host:
ESX 3.x references in the /etc/fstab directory 
ESX 3.x boot files in the /boot directory 
The rollback-to-esx3 script in the /usr/sbin/ directory

Upgrade VMware Tools

Upgrade Virtual Hardware

When you upgrade from virtual hardware version 3 to version 7, the upgrade is irreversible, even if you
take a virtual machine backup or snapshot before performing the upgrade. When you upgrade from virtual
hardware version 4 to version 7 the upgrade is reversible if you take a virtual machine backup or snapshot
before performing the upgrade.

Upgrade Virtual Machine NIC Drivers

Note the IP configuration of the Virtual Machine before upgrading the drivers.

In the virtual machine properties, add a new network adapter of the type VMXNET3 and attach it to the same port group/dvPort group as the first network adapter.

Remove the first/original network adapter.

Power on the virtual machine. When the guest operating system is fully booted, log in and recreate the network configuration. Windows may report an error that the network configuration is already used by a different adapter, but proceed anyway.

From a Command Prompt in the Virtual Machine.

Set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

start devmgmt.msc

Click view – show hidden devices

Remove the drivers for the old network adapter.

How To Change Lost Password on Your ESX Server

You will need to have access to the serial console of the server which has your ESX installation, or access to keyboard and display attached directly to the same box.

To change the password, we’ll follow this procedure:

1) Reboot ESX server.

Unfortunately, if you don’t remember your root password, there won’t be a clean way to reboot your server. Try to shutdown all the VMs running on it, and then power-cycle the box running ESX.

2) Boot ESX server in single user mode

In this mode, you won’t be asked for a root password. When you see the following screen, press the "a" key:

… to change ESX kernel boot parameters. Your screen will look like this:

Now, simply type a space and "single" word, then press Enter:

Eventually, your ESX server will boot and give you a root command line prompt, which means you can do what you want from this moment on:

Assuming you want to change your root password, move on to the next step.

3) Change ESX root password to a new one

Simply type "passwd" and give your new password twice:

sh-2.05b# passwd
Changing password for user root.
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

That’s it! You have changed the ESX password! Now it’s time to reboot the system and allow ESX server to come back up online.

4) Reboot ESX server once again

Type "reboot" and wait for the ESX server to come back online in a few minutes:

sh-2.05# reboot