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Tools and utilities simplify the day to day administrative tasks for VMware Administrator. We can’t expect to manage and repair the car without a screwdriver and spanner.
As similar to that, you shouldn’t expect to manage the VMware infrastructure without some of the important tools. These tools are essential sysadmin tools for VMware administrators.
This article lists the top 21 Must-have VMware admin tools which are necessary to carry out the daily operations of VMware infrastructure. Usually choosing the favorite tool varies from user to user. Since choosing one best tool in each category is very difficult so I have included 1 0r 2 tools which are in the same category in the below list. These Must-have VMware admin tools lists are carved out from my experience in managing VMware infrastructure. I have personally used all of this sysadmin tools in my daily job. I decided to list them out for my readers.
1.VMware Workstation & VMware Workstation Playerand VMware Workstation player helps us to create completed isolated, secure virtual machines that encapsulate an operating system and its application. Both can be installed on your desktop or Laptop. For anyone who wants to start with VMware Virtualization, either or VMware Player could be the starting point. Using and VMware Player, admin can set up the test lab and test the configuration changes before applying it to the real infrastructure. Even though I have my virtual lab with high compute blade and rack servers, my personal preference is installing on my laptop using VMware Workstation.
It allows me to play with my even during my flight travel.Take a look at my article on & 2.VMware Converteris the free utility from VMware which helps to convert your Windows and Linux based physical machines and third-party image formats such as images, also other virtual machines to VMware virtual machines. VMware vCenter Converter converts local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any downtime.has Centralized management console allows you to queue up and monitor many simultaneous conversions, both local and remote, such as in headquarters and branch offices. In addition to the, VMware Converter can also be used to perform Virtual to Virtual (v2v) migrations too. Not only for migration purposes, You can use VMware Converter to other tasks such as and DTake a look at my article 3.Putty & MobaXtermPuTTY is a free secure shell or SSH client that you can use to connect and manage your, vCenter Server appliance and other VMware appliances such as NSX Manager, vRelaize Log insight, the vSphere Replication manager, etc from the command line. I am sure every VMware admin would have used Putty atleast once in their lifetime to manage their vSphere hosts.
Download Ovf Tool Windows
It is one of the unavoidable and Must-have VMware admin tools for VMware administrators.is the ultimate toolbox for programmers, webmasters, IT administrators who want to perform the remote administration of servers in a simplified fashion. I use MobaXterm to remotely manage my and virtual machines such as and Linux guest operating system from my Windows laptop. It simplified my command line administration in a very simplified way.
No need for multiple tools for performing multiple operations such as, File copy, and transfer, RDP to windows and Telnet, etc. All are bundled under one tool calledTake a look at my article & 4.WinSCP & Veeam FastSCPWinSCP is a free and open-source SFTP, FTP, WebDAV and SCP client for Microsoft Windows.
Its main function is secure file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Most of the VMware admins aware about Winscp. I use WinSCP to transfer the VM-support files generated on the ESXi host to my desktop to get it upload it to VMware Support to analyze the logs of my host. Apart from that, Copying driver files, VIB files and installer files into ESXi host, vCenter appliance and other VMware appliances from my desktop.Take a look at my articlecan copy files over 6 times faster than WinSCP and other SCP-based tools as it uses full network capacity.
The Veeam FastSCP engine also features traffic compression and empty block removal for best file copy performance.Veeam FastSCP uses SSH as a control channel to generate a one-time username and password for each file transfer session. Veeam FastSCP does not require putting ESXi into “unsupported” mode or compromise its security by enabling additional services. & 5.VMware PowerCLIVMware PowerCLI is a powerful command-line tool that lets you automate all aspects of vSphere management, including network, storage, VM, guest OS and more. You can use PowerCLI scripts to perform automation of your day to day tasks. It saves a lot of effort and time of VMware administrators. It is one of the must-have VMware admin tools for administrators to automate the vSphere Management.Take a look at some of my PowerCLI Scripts 6.
Cross vCenter VM Mobility – CLIWith the recent past, I am getting a lot of requests in my infrastructure to perform vMotion and clone of virtual machines across vCenter Servers. From vSphere 6.0, the vSphere HTML5 Web Client allows users to perform Cross-VC operations like migration and cloning if two VCs are linked. If VCs are not linked, users cannot view the infrastructure across multiple VCs and thus, cannot utilize this functionality through UI.Cross vCenter VM Mobility – CLI is a command line interface (CLI) tool that can be used to migrate or clone a VM from one host to another host managed by a linked or isolated vCenter (VC) instance.
It has been built using vSphere Java-based SDK APIs. Cross vCenter VM Mobility -CLI is a Free tool (Fling from VMware).This Fling provides a way for users to access this vSphere feature through simple CLI commands. It also supports cross-cluster placement and shared storage vMotion between two VCs.Take a look at my article 7.
Cross vCenter Workload Migration UtilityGUI always simplify the life of administrators especially Windows-based administrators like me. Cross vCenter Workload Migration utility is the GUI based utility allows users to easily migrate virtual machines in bulk from a graphical user interface between vCenter Servers (same & different SSO Domains supported) using the Cross-vCenter vMotion feature. Live connection to ESX host or vCenter Server. Flexible way of batch output. Load batch output and replay them. Multiple windows to display different data at the same time.
Line chart for selected performance counters. Flexible counter selection and filtering.
Embedded tooltip for counter description. Color coding for important counters 11. VMware vRealize Log InsightLog files play the major role in auditing and troubleshooting vSphere environment. It is important to collect and store log files of your vSphere hosts. Is a virtual appliance that allows administrators to view, manage and analyze Syslog data. Log Insight gives administrators the ability to consolidate logs, monitor and troubleshoot vSphere and to perform security auditing and compliance testing.The article related to vRealize Log Insight: 12.
VMware vCenter Support AssistantAs VMware administrator, We work closely with VMware Support to troubleshoot the issues faced in our VMWare virtual infrastructure. To simplify the support, VMware released VMWare vCenter Support Assistant, a free vCenter plug-in, to shorten the time needed to submit support requests, collect and upload diagnostic support data, and troubleshoot technical issues.
Support Assistant allows you to open and manage support requests directly from the. It also automates the process of collecting and uploading ESXi and vCenter Server log files and matches this data to a continuously updated list of known customer issues to provide you with proactive alerts and recommended fixes. 13.
Install Panorama on an ESXi ServerDownload the Panorama base image Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) file.Use your browser to access the. Install Panorama in vCloud AirDownload the Panorama base image Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) file.Go to the. (If you can’t log in, go to thefor assistance.)In the Panorama Base Images section, Download column, click the link for the desired release to download the OVA file.Import the Panorama image to the vCloud Air catalog.For details on these steps, refer to the.Install the OVF Tool on your client system.Access the client system CLI.Navigate to the OVF Tool directory.For example:C:Program FilesVMwareVMware OVF ToolConvert the OVA file to an OVF package: ovftool.exeUse a browser to, select yourVirtual Private Cloud OnDemandlocation, and record the browser URL. You will use the URL information to complete the next step. The URL format is: the OVF package, using the information from the vCloud Air URL to complete the, and variables. The other variables are your vCloud Air username and domain @, a, and a.ovftool.exe -st='OVF' ' 'vcloud://@:password@.vchs.vmware.com?vdc= &org= &vappTemplate=.ovf&catalog=default-catalog'Install Panorama.Access the vCloud Air web console and select yourVirtual Private Cloud OnDemandregion.Create a Panorama virtual machine. For the steps, refer toin the vCloud Air Documentation Center.
Configure theCPU,MemoryandStorageas follows:Set theCPUandMemorybased on how many firewalls Panorama will manage:1-10 firewalls—4 CPUs and 4GB memory11-50 firewalls—8 CPUs and 8GB memory50-1,000 firewalls—8 CPUs and 16GB memorySet theStorageto at least 52GB. For better logging and reporting performance, select theSSD-Acceleratedoption.Panorama uses approximately 11GB for log storage. Increasing the disk size doesn’t increase the log storage capacity. View the IP address assigned to the Panorama management interface.View resource utilization metrics on hard disk, memory, and CPU. You can use these metrics to enable alarms or actions on the vCenter server or vCloud Director.Graceful shutdown and restart of Panorama using the power off function on the vCenter server or vCloud Director.Enables a heartbeat mechanism between the vCenter server and Panorama for verifying that Panorama is functioning, or if the firewall/Panorama is rebooting. If the firewall goes into maintenance mode, heartbeats are disabled so that the vCenter server does not shut down the firewall. Disabling heartbeats allows the firewall to stay operational in maintenance mode when it cannot not send heartbeats to the vCenter server.