Virtualization & VM Backup

Ultimate Guide: Install Windows 11 on VMware ESXi – Easily Bypass TPM Security Requirement

2024-10-04T13:38:29+10:00

In this article, we’ll show you how to setup or install Microsoft Windows 11 on VMware’s ESXi servers and bypass the Trusted Platform Module version 2.0 (TPM 2.0) requirement. We've also made the TPM bypass ISO image available as a free download.

Key Topics:

Download now your free copy of the latest V9 VM backup now.

VMware ESXi – TPM – vTPM and Windows 11

Trusted Platform Module version 2.0 (TPM 2.0) is required to run Microsoft’s Windows 11. This restricts the operating system’s installation on newer PCs, it also means users with older hardware are likely to be forced to upgrade. While the virtualization world is often more forgiving when it comes to hardware requirements, trying to install Windows 11 on VMware’s ESXi platform usually present the error: “This PC can’t run Windows 11”:

Windows 11 Installation Error in VMware ESXi

Running Windows 11 as a virtual machine on VMware ESXi requires a virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) present. For more details on Microsoft Windows 11 requirements see, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/windows-11-requirements.

While VMware supports vTPM and doesn’t require a physical TPM 2.0 chip, to use it, you need to configure a number of different services, depending on your VMware Platform version, including vCenter, vSphere Native Key Provider and more, making it a complicated task – especially for those running home labs. For more details see, https://core.vmware.com/resource/windows-11-support-vsphere#section2.

The next steps will take you through downloading the TPM ISO image used to bypass the Windows TPM check.

8 Critical Features to Have in a VM Backup Solution

2023-05-16T21:11:57+10:00

Businesses that rely on virtual machines for their day-to-day operations should think twice about securing their infrastructure. Modern use of virtual machines stems from the benefits of virtualization, which include accessibility, reduced operating costs, and flexibility, among others. But your virtual infrastructure becomes obsolete without proper security. One way to achieve that is through virtual machine backup and recovery solutions.

VM backups are crucial for maintaining business continuity. They help businesses prevent data loss and offer a failsafe if something happens to your Hyper-V or VMware virtual infrastructure. These services aren't uncommon. But knowing which one to choose depends on several factors. None are more important than the product's features, which directly impact your ability to keep the infrastructure running.

So that begs the question, what are the essential features of a VM backup software? That's exactly what this short guide focuses on. So, let's dive in.

Key Topics:

Download now your free copy of the latest V9 VM backup now.

Ransomware Protection

Ransomware attacks are making the rounds, and cybersecurity blogs and experts talk extensively regarding the potential damage these attacks can do. A potential ransomware attack can render your data obsolete, locking it and demanding a ransom for releasing said data. Therefore, it becomes a necessity to protect against potential ransomware attacks. Luckily, ransomware protection is a core feature of the V9 VM backup.

The feature makes it impossible for malicious software to tamper with the data on your virtual machines. Moreover, the ransomware data protection feature prevents any user, even with admin or root access, from modifying or deleting the backup data on your backup server. With this level of protection against devastating malware, businesses add another layer of security to their virtual environment.

Storage Saving With Augmented Inline Deduplication Technology

Storage costs are a significant concern for businesses, and choosing a VM backup provider that offers massive storage-saving features is essential. Few storage-saving features are as comprehensive as the Augmented Inline Deduplication Technology with the V9 VM Backup. The feature works by eliminating redundant data, resulting in significant storage savings.

This technology uses machine learning to identify the changed data from the previous backup, thus backing up only the changed data to the customers' backup server or repository. In comparison, most VM backup and restore services approach the backup process differently, removing identical data after the transfer to the backup repository.

The benefits of the technology result in massive storage savings.

Cloud Backup

Differences Between VMware vSphere, vCenter, ESXi Free vs ESXi Paid, Workstation Player & Pro

2022-04-01T09:12:46+11:00

In this article we will cover the differences between VMware ESXi, vSphere and vCenter while also explain the features supported by each vSphere edition: vSphere Standard, Enterprise plus and Plantium edition. We will touch on the differences and limitations between VMware Workstation Player and VMware Workstation Pro, and also compare them with EXSi Free and EXSi Paid editions.

Finally we will demystify the role of vCenter and the additional features it provides to a VMware infrastructure.

Key Topics:

Visit our Virtualization and Backup section for more high-quality technical articles.

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Difference Between VMware vSphere & vCenter

It’s sometimes difficult to keep up to date with the latest names of software. Even the largest technology vendors change their product names from time to time. Unfortunately, getting the product name wrong can result in various costly consequences including purchasing the wrong product or an older version with differentiating feature sets.

Contrary to popular belief, vSphere and vCenter are actually different products:

vSphere is VMware’s name for a suite of Infrastructure products. You can think of it as a platform name which includes lots of different components.
vCenter is the name of one of the components under the vSphere suite. vCenter runs on a Windows Server VM and provides the management and control plane of the entire VMware environment. This is also shown in the diagram below:

Looking at the vSphere suite, the components and features that vSphere includes depend on your licenses. vCenter Server is available on all vSphere editions.

Here is an overview of some features for the main vSphere editions:

You will notice that this vSphere feature table contains many different technologies which are found in different VMware software components.

vCenter is a management tool that helps manage multiple ESXi / vSphere Hypervisors within the datacentre. Earlier versions of vCenter (also known as vCenter Server) ran exclusively on Windows Server (shown in the previous diagram) whereas now VMware now offers the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) which runs on either SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 64-bit (vCSA v6.0) or VMware’s proprietary Photon OS (vCSA v6.5 and above).

You log in to vCenter Server via an HTML5 browser (formally a Flash client) which looks like this:

From here, we can manage all vSphere related components (and their corresponding features) which include:

vCenter Server (vCSA)
vSphere Hypervisors (ESXi Servers)
vSphere Update Manager
vSphere Replication

So, in summary, the difference between vSphere and vCenter is that vSphere consists of a suite of VMware components with vCenter Server being one of those.

vCenter Server is the management software or if you prefer, tool, to help manage your vSphere Components and all their features.

You can use some vSphere components without a vCenter Server but some features will not be available.

What is VMware ESXi?

ESXi is a Type-1 Hypervisor which means it’s a piece of software that runs directly on a bare-metal server without the requirement of an operating system. As a Hypervisor, ESXi manages access to all physical resources such as CPUs, memory, network interface cards, storage (HDD, SSDs etc) and other.

ESXi’s vmkernel sits between the virtual machines and physical hardware and from there it shares the available hardware including CPUs, storage (HDDs, SSDs etc), memory and network interfaces of the physical host amongst the multiple virtual machines. Applications running in virtual machines can access these resources without direct access to the underlying hardware.

Vmkernel is the core software responsible of receiving requests from virtual machines for resources and presenting the requests to the physical hardware.

There are stricter compatibility requirements for ESXi installations as hardware drivers need to be certified. However once ESXi is installed and operational, you get access to Enterprise-grade Virtual Machines features.

VMware ESXi GUI Interface - Click to enlarge

VMware ESXi comes in a variety of flavours. A free version exists if you simply need to deploy basic Virtual Machines with no High Availability or central management requirements. This is best suited for trialling software and labs which are not in production.

For mission-critical applications, you should consider the paid version of ESXi which comes with VMware support and features geared toward professional environments. Add on VMware’s vCenter Server enable central management all of your ESXi servers and take your datacentre one step further with features such as:

Clustering
High Availability
Fault Tolerance
Distributed Resource Scheduler
Virtual Machine Encryption

Difference Between VMware ESXi Free & ESXi Paid Version

The VMware ESXi free vs ESXi paid debate comes up a lot, but fortunately, it is easily answered.

The question to ask yourself is if you are planning to run mission-critical applications on top of ESXi. By mission-critical we mean applications that your business depends on. If the answer is yes, then you will require the paid version of ESXi with support so that you can contact VMware should anything go wrong.

Even if the answer is no, you might still consider a paid version of ESXi if you need the management functions of vCenter Server. Such use cases might be large development companies who don’t consider their test and development environments mission-critical but they do want a way to manage hundreds or thousands of Virtual Machines.

VMware ESXi free is still feature-rich though. Therefore for a small environment where your business won’t grind to a halt if an ESXi server goes offline, might be cost-effective even with additional manual management tasks to conduct. Keep in mind though that backup features will not be available in the free version, meaning that native backup via ESXi won’t be possible. You can work around this by installing and managing backup agents within your operating systems. This is one example of management overhead that you wouldn’t have with a paid version.

When Do You Need vCenter?

It’s worth keeping in mind that even with a paid version of ESXi, you will still need a vCenter Server license to use any clustering features. A paid version of ESXi does offer some benefits (such as VADP backup abilities) but without a vCenter Server license, most of the benefits are not available.

Almost all customers of paid ESXi licenses will also purchase a vCenter Server license so that those licenses ESXi servers can be centrally managed. Once all ESXi servers are managed by vCenter Server, you unlock all the ESXi features that you are licensed for.

So when do you need a vCenter Server? The answer is simple. To unlock features such as Clustering, High Availability (an automatic reboot of VMs on a failed host to a healthy host), Cloning and Fault Tolerance. If you are looking to add other VMware solutions to the datacentre including vSAN, vSphere Replication or Site Recovery Manager, then all of those solutions require access to a vCenter Server.

In summary, if you find that you need the paid ESXi version then you are most likely also going to need a vCenter Server license too. Fortunately, VMware provides discounted Essentials and Essentials Plus bundles with a 3 host (physical servers) limit, these bundles include ESXi and a vCenter server license at a discounted rate to keep initial costs down.

Just by looking at the vSphere Client can you see the various vCenter related options which show the value added by bolting on vCenter to your stack of management software for your datacentre:

VMware vsphere client - Click to enlarge

VMware Workstation Player vs VMware Workstation Pro

VMware Workstation Player is free software that lets you run a Virtual Machine on top of your own Windows PC’s Operating System. There are two versions of VMware Workstation Player; Workstation Player and Workstation Pro.

The key differences between these two versions are that with VMware Workstation Player you can only run one Virtual Machine on your computer at once and enterprise features are disabled. VMware Workstation Pro on the other hand supports running multiple virtual machines at the same time plus a few more neat features mentioned below.

Here is what Workstation Pro looks like - notice how you can have many virtual machines running at once:

VMware Workstation Pro - Click to enlarge

VMware Workstation is essentially an application installed on top of Windows which lets you run connected or isolated Virtual Machines. It’s best suited for developer’s who need access and control to deploy and test code or for systems administrators looking to test applications on the latest version of a particular Operating System, of which over 200 are supported in Workstation Player and Pro.

We’ve already explained that Workstation Player is the free version of Workstation Pro but when it comes to functional differences we’ve detailed those for you below:VMware Workstation Player and Pro both get installed onto your Windows PC or Laptop, on which you can run your virtual machines. Pro is interesting because you can run as many Virtual Machines as your Windows PC or Laptop hardware can handle making it a great bit of software for running live product demonstrations or testing without needing access to remote infrastructure managed by another team. The key element here is to ensure your laptop or PC has enough resources available (CPU/Cores, RAM and HDD space) for the Virtual Machines that will be running on it.

Diving into some of the features that VMware Workstation Pro provides shows how much value for money that software is; Being able to take a snapshot of Virtual Machines is useful so that you can roll back a Virtual Machine to a particular date and time in just a few seconds. You can also clone Virtual Machines should you need many copies of the same VM for testing. Encryption is also available in the event that your local Virtual Machines contain sensitive information.

VMware Workstation Pro is, therefore, a mini version of ESXi, it’s not capable of clustering features but it is an extremely cost-effective way (Approximately $300 USD) to make use of some of the unused resources on your Windows machine.

Summary

In summary here are our definitions for everything covered in this article:

vSphere: vSphere is a naming convention or “brand” for a selection of VMware Infrastructure solutions including vCenter Server, ESXi, vSphere Replication and Update Manager.
vCenter Server: vCenter Server is one of the solutions under the vSphere suite. It is used to manage multiple ESXi servers and enabled cluster level and high availability features for ESXi servers and Virtual Machines. vCenter Server is generally purchased when paid versions of ESXi have been deployed.
Workstation Player: Workstation Player is free software by VMware that lets you run one Virtual Machine at a time within your Windows Operating System.
Workstation Pro: Workstation Pro is the same as Workstation Player but it requires a paid license which enables enterprise features such as the ability to run many Virtual Machines from your Windows PC or Laptop. Features such as Virtual Machine snapshots, cloning and encryption are also supported with Pro.
ESXi: ESXi is the enterprise-grade solution for running Virtual Machines in the datacentre. It is installed onto bare metal servers. There is a basic free version, suitable for labs and test environments but the paid versions are more suitable for running mission-critical virtual machines and applications for your business, enabling cluster level features such as High Availability.

5 Most Critical Microsoft M365 Vulnerabilities Revealed and How to Fix Them - Free Webinar

2021-06-14T09:48:16+10:00

Microsoft 365 is an incredibly powerful software suite for businesses, but it is becoming increasingly targeted by people trying to steal your data. The good news is that there are plenty of ways admins can fight back and safeguard their Microsoft 365 infrastructure against attack.

This free upcoming webinar, on June 23 and produced by Hornetsecurity/Altaro, features two enterprise security experts from the leading security consultancy Treusec - Security Team Leader Fabio Viggiani and Principal Cyber Security Advisor Hasain Alshakarti. They will explain the 5 most critical vulnerabilities in your M365 environment and what you can do to mitigate the risks they pose. To help attendees fully understand the situation, a series of live demonstrations will be performed to reveal the threats and their solutions covering:

O365 Credential Phishing
Insufficient or Incorrectly Configured MFA Settings
Malicious Application Registrations
External Forwarding and Business Email Compromise Attacks
Insecure AD Synchronization in Hybrid Environments

This is truly an unmissable event for all Microsoft 365 admins!

The webinar will be presented live twice on June 23 to enable as many people as possible to join the event live and ask questions directly to the expert panel of presenters. It will be presented at 2pm CEST/8am EDT/5am PDT and 7pm CEST/1pm EDT/10am PDT.

While the event date has passed, it has been recorded and is available for viewing. All material are available as direct downloads. Click here to access the event.

The Backup Bible. A Free Complete Guide to Disaster Recovery, Onsite - AWS & Azure Cloud Backup Strategies. Best Backup Practices

2021-04-08T11:50:54+10:00

The Free Backup Bible Complete Edition written by backup expert and Microsoft MVP Eric Siron, is comprised of 200+ pages of actionable content divided into 3 core parts, including 11 customizable templates enabling you to create your own personalized on-prem and cloud-based (AWS, Azure) backup strategy.

Part 1 and 2 are updated versions of previously released eBooks (Creating a Backup & Disaster Recovery Strategy and Backup Best Practices in Action) but Part 3 is a brand-new section on disaster recovery (Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Blueprint) that includes tons of valuable insights into the process of gathering organizational information required to build a DR plan and how to carry it out in practical terms.

The Backup Bible is offered Free and is available for download here.

Let’s take a look at what’s covered:

The Backup Bible – Part 1: Fundamentals of Backup

Part 1 covers the fundamentals of backup and tactics that will help you understand your unique backup requirements. You'll learn how to:

Begin planning your backup and disaster recovery planning
Set recovery objectives and loss tolerances
Translate your business plan into a technically oriented outlook
Create a customized agenda for obtaining key stakeholder support
Set up a critical backup checklist

The Backup Bible – Part 2: Selecting your Backup Strategy

Part 2 shows you what an exceptional backup looks like on a daily basis and the steps you need to get there, including:

Choosing the Right Backup and Recovery Software
Setting and Achieving Backup Storage Targets
Securing and Protecting Backup Data
Defining Backup Schedules
Monitoring, Testing, and Maintaining Systems
Access both parts for free now and ensure you’re properly protecting your vital data today!

The Backup Bible – Part 3: Aligning Disaster Recovery Strategies to your Business Needs

Part 3 guides you through the process of creating a reliable disaster recovery strategy based on your own business continuity requirements, covering:

Understanding key disaster recovery considerations
Mapping out your organizational composition
Replication
Cloud solutions
Testing the efficacy of your strategy

One of the most useful features of The Backup Bible is the customizable templates and lists that enable the reader to put the theory into practice. These are found in the appendix but are linked in the text at the end of each relevant chapter. If you are going to read this book cover to cover it would be a good idea to fill out the templates and lists as you go through it, so by the time you’ve finished reading you’ll have a fully personalized backup action plan ready for you to carry out!

Sure, it’s not the most exciting aspect of an IT administrator’s job but having a reliable and secure backup and disaster recovery strategy could be the most important thing you do. I’m sure you’ve heard many data loss horror stories that have crippled organizations costing thousands, if not millions, of dollars. This free eBook from Altaro will make sure you’re not the next horror story victim.

Summary

The Backup Bible Complete Edition also works as a great reference guide for all IT admins and anyone with an interest in protecting organizational data. And the best thing of all: it’s free! Learn how to create your own backup and disaster recovery plan, protect and secure your data backup for both onsite/on-premises and cloud-based (AWS and Azure) installations plus more. What are you waiting for? Download your copy now!

SysAdmin Day 2020 - Get your Free Amazon Voucher & Gifts Now!

2020-08-18T11:38:00+10:00

SysAdmin Day has arrived, and with it, gratitude for all the unsung heroes that 2020 has needed. Your hard work has made it possible for all of us to keep going, despite all challenges thrown our way. Now it is Altaro’s turn to thank YOU.

If you are an Office 365, Hyper-V or VMware user, celebrate with Altaro. Just sign up for a 30-day free trial of either Altaro VM Backup or Altaro Office 365 Backup – it's your choice!

What can you Win?

Receive a €/£/$20 Amazon voucher when you use your trial of Altaro Office 365 Backup or Altaro VM Backup.
Get the chance to also win one of their Grand Prizes by sharing your greatest 2020 victory with Altaro in an up to 60-seconds video.

What are you waiting for? Sign up now!

How to Fix VMware ESXi Virtual Machine 'Invalid Status'

2020-06-16T14:34:40+10:00

In this article, we'll show you how to deal with VMs which are reported to have an Invalid Status as shown in the screenshot below. This is a common problem many VMware and System Administrators are faced with when dealing with VMs. We'll show you how to enable SSH on ESXi (required for this task), use the vim-cmd to obtain a list of the invalid VMs, use the vim-cmd /vmsvc/unregister command to unregister - delete the VMs and edit the /etc/vmware/hostd/vmInventory.xml file to remove the section(s) that references the invalid VM(s).

The Invalid Status issue is usually caused after attempting to delete a VM, manually removing VM files after a vMotion, a problem with the VMFS storage or even after physically removing the storage from the ESXi host e.g replacing a failed hdd.

Another difficulty with VMs stuck in an Invalid Status is that VMware will not allow you to remove or delete any Datastore associated with the VM e.g if you wanted to remove a HDD. For safety reasons, you must first remove or migrate the affected VM so that there is no VM associated with the Datastore before VMware allows you to delete it.

Concerned about your VM machines and their data? Download now your Free Enterprise-grade VM Backup solution

The screenshot below shows ESXi failing to delete datastore 256G-SSD - which is used by VM FCX-ISE1 above, now reported to be in an Invalid Status:

As most System Administrators discover in these situations - they are pretty much stuck and the only way to remove the VM, now marked as 'Invalid', is to delete it as the Unregister option cannot be selected when right clicking on top of the VM:

Notice in the screenshot above how the Unregister or Delete menu options are not available.

The only method to delete this VM is to use the SSH console on the ESXi host and execute a number of commands. This implies that SSH has been enabled on the ESXi host.

Read our quick guide on “How to enable SSH on an ESXi host” if SSH is not enabled on your ESXi host.

Once ssh is enabled, connect to your ESXi host with any ssh client such as e.g Putty using your ESXi root credentials, then use the vim-cmd with the following parameters to obtain a list of the invalid VMs:

[root@esxi1:~] vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep invalid Skipping invalid VM '8' [root@esxi1:~]

From the command output it is apparent that VM No.8 is the one we are after. As a last attempt we can try to reload the VM in hope it will rectify the problem by executing the vim-cmd vmsvc/reload command:

[root@esxi1:~] vim-cmd vmsvc/reload 8
(vmodl.fault.SystemError) {
   faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
   faultMessage = <unset>,
   reason = "Invalid fault"
   msg = "Received SOAP response fault from [<cs p:03d09848, TCP:localhost:80>]: reload
vim.fault.InvalidState"
}

Unfortunately, no joy. We now need to proceed to unregister/delete the VM using the vim-cmd /vmsvc/unregister command as shown below:

[root@esxi1:~] vim-cmd /vmsvc/unregister 8

Once the command is executed, the invalid VM will magically disappear from the ESXi GUI interface:

Another way to delete the VM is to edit the /etc/vmware/hostd/vmInventory.xml file and remove the section that references the invalid VM. In the snippet below we need to simply remove the highlighted text:

<ConfigRoot>
<ConfigEntry id="0000">
    <objID>1</objID>
    <secDomain>23</secDomain>
    <vmxCfgPath>/vmfs/volumes/5a87661c-a465347a-a344-180373f17d5a/Voyager-DC/Voyager-DC.vmx</vmxCfgPath>
</ConfigEntry>
…………
<ConfigEntry id="0008">
    <objID>8</objID>
    <secDomain>54</secDomain>
    <vmxCfgPath>/vmfs/volumes/   </vmxCfgPath>
</ConfigEntry>
</ConfigRoot>

When finished, simply save the vmInventory.xml file.

Summary

This article showed how to deal with an ESXi VM that is in an invalid status. We explained possible causes of this issue, how to enable SSH on ESXi and the SSH commands required to reload or delete the invalid VM. Finally we saw how to delete a VM by executing the vim-cmd /vmsvc/unregister command or editing the vmInventory.xml XML file.

How to Enable SNMP on VMware ESXi Host & Configure ESXi Firewall to Allow or Block Access to the SNMP Service

2020-05-29T16:05:00+10:00

In this article we will show you how to enable SNMP on your VMware ESXi host, configure SNMP Community string and configure your ESXi firewall to allow or block access to the SNMP service from specific host(s) or network(s).

Enabling SNMP service on a VMware ESXi host is considered mandatory in any production environment as it allows a Network Monitoring System (NMS) access and monitor the ESXi host(s) and obtain valuable information such as CPU, RAM and Storage usage, vmnic (network) utilization and much more.

Furthermore, an enterprise grade NMS system can connect to your VMware infrastructure and provide alerting, performance and statistical analysis reports to help better determine sizing requirements but also identify bottlenecks and other problems that might be impacting the virtualization environment.

Execution Time: 10 minutes

Related Articles:

Concerned about your VM machines and data? Download now your Free Enterprise-grade VM Backup solution

Enable SSH on ESXi

First step it to enable SSH on ESXi. This can be easily perform via the vSphere client, ESXi console or Web GUI. All these methods are covered in details in our article How to Enable SSH on VMware ESXi.

Enable and Configure ESXi SNMP Service

Once SSH has been enabled, ssh to your ESXi host and use the following commands to enable and configure the SNMP service:

esxcli system snmp set --communities COMMUNITY_STRING
esxcli system snmp set --enable true

Replace “COMMUNITY_STRING” with the SNMP string of your choice.

Enable SNMP on ESXi Firewall

Next step is to add a firewall rule to allow inbound SNMP queries to the ESXi host. There are two scenarios here:

Allow traffic from everywhere
Allow traffic from specific hosts or networks

Allow SNMP Traffic from Everywhere

The below rules allow SNMP traffic from everywhere – all hosts and networks:

esxcli network firewall ruleset set --ruleset-id snmp --allowed-all true
esxcli network firewall ruleset set --ruleset-id snmp --enabled true

Allow SNMP Traffic from Specific Hosts or Networks

The below rules allow SNMP traffic from host 192.168.5.25 and network 192.168.1.0/24:

esxcli network firewall ruleset set --ruleset-id snmp --allowed-all false
esxcli network firewall ruleset allowedip add --ruleset-id snmp --ip-address 192.168.5.25
esxcli network firewall ruleset allowedip add --ruleset-id snmp --ip-address 192.168.1.0/24
esxcli network firewall ruleset set --ruleset-id snmp --enabled true

Block Host or Network from Accessing SNMP Service

To block a previously allowed host or network from accessing the SNMP service simply execute the following command(s):

esxcli network firewall ruleset allowedip remove --ruleset-id snmp --ip-address 192.168.5.25
esxcli network firewall ruleset allowedip remove --ruleset-id snmp --ip-address 192.168.1.0/24

Restart SNMP Service

Now that everything is configured, all we need to do is restart the SNMP service using the following command:

/etc/init.d/snmpd restart

Summary

In this article we explained the importance and usage of the SNMP Service for VMware ESXi Hosts and vCenter. We explained how to enable the SNMP Service on an ESXi host, configure the SNMP community string (public/private) and provided examples on how to configure the ESXi Firewall to control SNMP access to the ESXi host.

How to Enable or Disable SSH on VMware ESXi via Web GUI, vSphere Web GUI (vCenter), vSphere Client and Shell Console

2020-05-13T06:47:07+10:00

SSH access to VMware’s ESXi server is by disabled by default however there are many reasons where SSH might be required. VMware and System administrators often find the need to perform advanced administrative tasks that require SSH access to the ESXi host. For example, deleting or reloading a VM with an Invalid Status can only be performed via SSH.

In this article, we’ll show you how to enable SSH on your ESXi host with just a few simple steps. This task can be achieved via the ESXi Web GUI, vSphere Web GUI (vCenter) vSphere client or ESXi console. We’ll cover all three methods.

Execution Time: 5 minutes

Security Tip: If your ESXi host management IP is not protected or isolated from the rest of the network, it is advisable to enable SSH on an as-needed basis.

Enabling and Disabling SSH Console on VMware ESXi via Web GUI

Log into your ESXi server and select the host from the Navigator window. Next, go to Action > Services and select the Enable Secure Shell (SSH) menu option:

This will immediately enable SSH. To disable SSH, repeat the same steps. You’ll notice that the Disable Secure Shell (SSH) option is now available:

Enabling and Disabling SSH on VMware via vSphere Web GUI Client (vCenter)

For those with a VMware vCenter environment, you can enable SSH for each ESXi host by selecting the host and then going to Manage > Settings > Security Profile > Edit. In the pop-up window, scroll down to SSH Server and tick it. Optionally enter the IP address or network(s) you require to have SSH access to the host:

Enabling and Disabling SSH on VMware ESXi via vSphere Client

Launch your vSphere client and log into your ESXi host. From vSphere, click on the ESXi host (1), then select the Configuration tab (2). From there, click on the Security Profile (3) under the Software section. Finally click on Properties:

On the pop-up window, select SSH and click on the Options button:

Select the required Startup Policy. Note that the ‘Start and stop with host’ option will permanently enable SSH. Next, click on the Start button under Service Commands to enable SSH immediately. When done, click on the OK button:

To disable the SSH service via vSphere, follow the same process as above and ensure you select the “Start and stop manually” Startup Policy option and click on the Stop button under the Service Commands section.

Enabling and Disabling SSH Console on VMware ESXi via ESXi Console

From your ESXi console, hit F2 to customise the system:

At the prompt, enter the ESXi root user credentials:

At the next window, highlight Troubleshooting Options and hit Enter:

Next, go down to the Enable SSH option and hit Enter to enable SSH:

Notice that ESXi is now reporting that SSH is enabled:

Now hit Esc to exit the menu and logout from the ESXi host console.

Summary

In this article we showed how to enable and disable the SSH service on a VMware ESXi host using the Web GUI, vSphere client and ESXi Console. We explained why the SSH service is sometimes required to be enabled and also noted the security risks in permanently enabling SSH.

World Backup Day with Free Amazon Voucher and Prizes for Everyone!

2020-03-18T10:39:05+11:00

Celebrate World Backup Day and WIN with Altaro!

We all remember how grateful we were to have backup software when facing so many data loss mishaps and near-catastrophes.

If you manage your company's Office 365 data, celebrate this World Backup Day with Altaro. All you have to do is sign up for a 30-day free trial of Altaro Office 365 Backup. There’s a guaranteed Amazon voucher in it for you, and if you share your biggest backup mishap with them, you get a chance to WIN one of the grand prizes:

DJI Mavic Mini Drone FlyCamQuadcopter,
Google Stadia Premiere Edition,
Ubiquity UniFiDream Machine
Logitech MX Master 3 Advanced Wireless Mouse

What are you waiting for? Offer expires on the 22nd of April so Sign up now!

Good luck & happy World Backup Day!

Understanding Deduplication. Complete Guide to Deduplication Methods & Their Impact on Storage and VM Backups

2020-01-30T19:51:27+11:00

When considering your VM backup solution, key features such as deduplication are incredibly important. This is not simply from a cost perspective but also an operational one. While is it true that deduplication of your backup data can have considerable cost savings for your business, it is also true that the wrong type of deduplication can often have negative performance and contribute to a negative end-user experience.

This article will explore the various deduplication types including general Inline Deduplication and Altaro’s Augmented Inline Deduplication for your VM Backup Storage. We'll also cover deduplication concerns such as software interoperability, disk wear, performance and other important areas.

Key Topics:

Deduplication Basics
File-Based Deduplication
Block-Level Deduplication
Post-Process Deduplication
Inline Deduplication
Augmented Inline Deduplication
Deduplication Gotchas
- Software Interoperability
- Performance
- Disk Wear
- Operations
The Impact of Augmented Inline Deduplication for VM Backups
Summary

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Deduplication Basics

In fundamental terms, deduplication is the process of minimizing the amount of physical storage required for your data. In this article, we are using your VM backups as the data subject.

While physical storage costs are improving year on year, storage is still a considerable cost for any organization which is why deduplication techniques are being included into common data handing products such as backup software for your Virtual Machines.

There are various forms of deduplication available and it’s imperative to understand each one as all of them have various cost-saving vs performance trade-offs.

File-Based Deduplication

File-based deduplication was popular in the early days of deduplication however this method’s shortcomings became quickly apparent. With this method, files would be examined and checked to ensure identical files wouldn’t be stored a second time. The problem here was that much of a file could be identical to other files despite being named differently and having a different time-stamp. Furthermore other file-level differences would make the deduplication engine to mark the file as unique which would force the whole file to be backed up.

The end result is a significant amount of data being backed up multiple times, reducing the efficiency of the file-based deduplication engine.

Block-Level Deduplication

Block-level deduplication is the evolution of file-based deduplication which successfully addresses the shortcomings of its predecessor. With this method, the deduplication engine now examines the raw blocks of data on the filesystems themselves. By concentrating on the raw blocks of data the deduplication engine no longer worries about the overall file a block is part of and can accurately understand the type of data the raw block contains.

The end result is a very efficient and intelligent deduplication engine that is capable of saving more space on the backup target.

To help better understand the block-level deduplication engine, we’ve included an example of how this process works with Altaro’s VM Backup solution. Our example consists of 3 VMs and the diagram shows how each VM’s data is broken into different blocks (A to E).

In Phase 1, block-level deduplication is performed across each VM resulting in a significant saving of 110GB of space across all VMs. In Phase 2, block-level deduplication is performed across all VMs achieving an amazing 118GB reduction of storage space!

So far, Altaro’s VM Backup has saved 228GB of storage space which represents an impressive 47% reduction of VM Backup storage! In Phase 3, the deduplicated data is compressed to just 151GB and transferred to the backup storage.

As noted in the diagram above, the overall VM backup storage requirements has been reduced from 481GB to just 151GB – representing a 68.8% reduction in size and allowing you to have more backups using much less storage space.

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Post-Process Deduplication

Compared to other deduplication options, post-process deduplication is a more simple form. All VM backup data is sent to the target storage device for your backups. After this, on a schedule, a process runs on the backup device to remove duplicated data.

While this is simple in that no agents are required on your Virtual Machines, your target backup device will need to be large enough to cater for all backup data. Only after the data is there, will you see a reduction of data in time for the next day’s worth of backups.

Post-process is also problematic because you might need to enforce a “blackout window”, this being a period of time when you should not perform any backups because the storage device is busy moving data around and running the deduplication process.

The benefit of post-process deduplication though, is that it does deduplicate your data and not only on a per VM or per backup window but it often (depending on the implementation and vendor) will deduplicate across all backed up data. This can have a massive space-saving benefit, but only after the deduplication process has run.

Inline Deduplication

Inline Deduplication is an intelligent form of deduplication because it usually runs deduplication algorithms (processing) as the data is being sent to the target storage device. In some cases, the data is processed before it is sent along the wire.

In these scenarios, you can benefit from a target storage device with a lower storage capacity than traditionally required, reducing your backup storage target costs. Depending on the type of data being backed up and the efficiency of the deduplication technology by your vendor, savings can range significantly.

Consider a scenario where you are backing up the same operating system a hundred or more times, deduplication savings would expected to be quite good.

Since inline deduplication does not run on the target storage device, the performance degradation on the device is typically lower than other methods. This corresponds to higher throughput available for more backups to run sequentially, allowing for your VM backups to complete within scheduled backup windows.

The main benefits of inline-deduplication are that your target storage device can have a lower capacity than originally required, additional similar workloads will not add much data to the target and the storage target performance is better than when using other deduplication options. You also benefit from less disk wear which can cause a problem with both HDD and SSD drive types.

One of the drawbacks though is that depending on the implementation, in-line deduplication might not deduplicate your VM job’s worth of data across all data on the target storage array. The implementation could be on a per VM or per-job basis resulting in lower deduplication benefits than other methods.

Augmented Inline Deduplication

Augmented in-line deduplication is an implementation of in-line deduplication used by Altaro’s VM backup solution.

In this implementation, variable block sizes are used to maximise deduplication efficiency. This is all achieved with very low memory and CPU requirements, resulting in extra space for more backups in less space than without any deduplication in place.

Another important consideration here is that less bandwidth is required to ship your VM backup data to the backup storage system. If your backup infrastructure is located in a different building or geographic location, bandwidth can get expensive. Now that data is deduplicated before it is sent across the wire, the bandwidth requirements are reduced significantly.

Altaro’s implementation is impressive because it’s a form of inline deduplication, promising deduplication across all backed up data.

In the graphic below we can see that data is shipped to a central backup target from various Virtual Machines. While this is happening, deduplication processes are running.

The benefits of such a solution are clear;

Very Fast backups. There is no storage performance lost as there are no post-processes running on the storage target.
Excellent deduplication rates. Deduplication occurs between the source data and ALL data on the backup target. If the data is already in the backup storage device, it will not be copied to the destination storage again, saving space.
No operational overhead. There are no agents to install or manage. Installation of the feature is a simple checkbox.
No additional SSD or HDD wear on the target. Since there are no post-processes there is no “double touch” of the backed up data. This significantly reduces the wear on HDDs and SSDs resulting in fewer disk failures.

Deduplication Gotchas

If your backup software comes with deduplication as standard, then there is no reason to not use it? This statement is incorrect! You must consider the type of deduplication in use and the overall impact it has on your backup systems.

Software Interoperability

A key consideration when analysing backup solutions is feature interoperability. Some backup vendors will not support deduplication with other features. An example of this is a storage device which runs post-process deduplication combined with backup software that supports instant VM recovery.

Instant VM recovery, direct from the backup target can be a very beneficial feature for your business, however, you must ensure that the vendor supports this feature on deduplicated storage targets (if this is the type of system your business has in place.)

Performance

From a performance perspective, there is no point in having a smart deduplication system if it’s slowing your backups down to the point you cannot complete them. Be sure to trial deduplication features to correctly assess the performance impact on your platforms. Also ensure that there is little or no impact on production Virtual Machines. We know that post-process deduplication has no effect on production workloads, but it is possible that in-line can, so it should be tested.

A quick way to check performance would be to compare backup times before enabling deduplication features with afterwards. From here you can look at a cost-saving vs performance analysis to consider which is better for your business.

Disk Wear

Take a look the SMART data for your disks after enabling deduplication for an extended period of time. If the wear-out time on SSDs is significantly reduced, then consider an inline deduplication feature rather than post-process.

Operations

If enabling deduplication means installing, upgrading and generally managing agents everywhere, consider another solution which does not require agents. Agents will also consume CPU and Memory which can negatively impact the end-user experience of your applications.

For post-process deduplication ensure you are not limited to time windows for your backups and restores. Also, check the performance of this feature, especially on large backup targets.

The Impact of Augmented Inline Deduplication for VM backups

Deploying a VM backup solution that uses augmented inline deduplication is a great idea if you have limited space on an existing backup target. It’s also a good fit if you are looking at a more expensive SSD option, but do not want to stretch your IT budget to one that will natively store multiple copies of the same Virtual Machine.

An example of some of the storage savings can be seen in the below graphic:

Most organizations have multiple Virtual Machines with the same operating system. A typical Windows Server can have around 20GB of data just for the Operating System. Consider 100’s of similar VMs with daily backups and long retention policies. The savings can be considerable.

Unlike physical machines, VMs do not usually require additional agents for deduplication or backups to run - there are some exceptions of course.

Summary

In this article we covered the basics on deduplication, analyzed Post-Process Deduplication, Inline Deduplication and Augmented Inline Deduplication. Further more, we explained the strengths and weakenesses of each deduplication method and provided examples on how organizations can leverage deduplication backups for their VM backups and save space and money.

To wrap-up, there are almost no reasons why a deduplication capable VM backup solution should be ignored when choosing your backup platform. There are some caveats depending on your business and technical requirements, but there are several options available to get started with deduplication.

Fortunately, for the most part, Altaro’s Augmented Inline Deduplication features are a good fit for most scenarios and are available at a competitive price point.

Remember, when selecting your VM backup solution, consider the limitations of the various kinds of deduplication and go with what works best for your business.

FREE Webinar - Fast Track your IT Career with VMware Certifications

2019-11-17T22:35:14+11:00

Everyone who attends the webinar has a chance of winning a VMware VCP course (VMware Install, Config, Manage) worth $4,500!

Climbing the career ladder in the IT industry is usually dependent on one crucial condition: having the right certifications. If you’re not certified to a specified level in a certain technology used by an employer, that’s usually a non-negotiable roadblock to getting a job or even further career progression within a company. Understanding the route you should take, and creating a short, medium, and long term plan for your certification goals is something everyone working in the IT industry must do. In order to do this properly you need the right information and luckily, an upcoming webinar from the guys at Altaro has you covered!

Fast Track your IT Career with VMware Certifications is a free webinar presented by vExperts Andy Syrewicze and Luke Orellana on November 20^th outlining everything you need know about the VMware certification world including costs, value, certification tracks, preparation, resources, and more.

In addition to the great content being discussed, everyone who attends the webinar has a chance of winning a VMware VCP course (VMware Install, Config, Manage) worth $4.5k! This incredible giveaway is open to anyone over the age of 18 and all you need to do to enter is register and attend the webinar on November 20^th! The winner will be announced the day after the webinar via email to registrants.

VMware VCP Certification is one of the most widely recognized and valued certifications for technicians and system administrators today however the hefty price tag of $4.5k puts it out of reach of many. The chance to get this course for free does not come along every day and should definitely not be missed!

While the event date has passed, it has been recorded and is available for viewing. All material are available as direct downloads. Click here to access the event.

6 Key Areas to Consider When Selecting a VM Backup Solution

2019-10-16T11:55:08+11:00

Backup and Disaster recovery are core considerations for any business with an IT footprint, whether that is on-premises or in the cloud.

Your business depends on reliable IT systems to support the business's core functions. Even a short 1-hour outage can cause considerable disruption and have a financial impact to the business. Given our ever-growing reliance on IT systems, it is important more than ever to choose the right VM Backup software for your business to protect your Virtual Infrastructure (Vmware, Hyper-V) and business data in the case of a system failure or security incident while at the same time provide fast individual file or folder, server database or entire VM restoration.

By utilizing Altaro VM Backup as a case study, this article will guide you through the following main 6 areas which you should consider when choosing your VM Backup solution:

Analyze your Business Requirements
Specialist Features
- Deduplication
- WAN Optimization
- Guest Quiescing
- Instant Restore
VM Backup - Billing Model & Price
VM Backup - Security & Encryption
Vendor Reputation
Vendor Support – SLA and Availability
Summary

Analyze Your Business Requirements

The most important part of electing a backup solution is to ensure that the solution will meet your requirements.

There are various requirements that you might have, a few examples are:

Number of Virtual Machines and Hosts

You need to ensure that the backup software is capable of handling the size of your virtualized estate. So if your total number of VM hosts is very large or changing constantly, then you might want to ensure that the solution is scalable and it is easy to add additional workloads into the platform.

Type of Backup Storage

Most backup solutions for a virtualized environment are software-based, meaning that they run on top of a Window Server installation or from within their own appliance which you deploy to your virtualized platform. Other options include a physical appliance with storage built-in.

If you already have storage infrastructure in place, ensure that your choice of backup solution allows connectivity to this backup target natively. If you are looking for a storage device for the backups, consider one which supports a simple standards that works over existing networking infrastructure such as NAS or SMB Network Share.

Specialist Features

Be sure to analyse any existing features that you are using or consider new ones as part of your backup solution selection process.

Some of the features to consider include:

Deduplication

Deduplication of the storage used at the target backup location can significantly reduce the amount of storage that is needed to host your backups. Check with your backup vendor what the average deduplication rates are and ensure you check any small print that is attached to any claims.

When we look at duplication from Altaro’s perspective, they rightfully boast how they can outperform event their closest competitors. With Altaro, you can backup 858GB of VM data into only 390GB of space. Imagine the backup storage costs savings there:

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WAN Optimisation

If you are backing up your Virtual Machines to a secondary site, over a WAN connection then consider a solution which includes WAN Optimisation. Bandwidth isn’t free which is how WAN optimisation can help. Backup data is compressed.

In some better implementations, only data that the backup storage doesn’t already have will be sent over the WAN. This can drastically save your bandwidth and avoid “burst” costs by your ISP. WAN Optimization can also free up the link for other uses and applications.

Guest Quiescing

If you have databases which require backing up, then ensure your selected solution supports backing up of your databases type and version. In this scenario is not enough to backup Virtual Machines on their own. Typically for databases, an agent needs to be deployed to the machine which will instruct the database to flush all writes that are in memory to disk. If you don’t do this then there is a risk that the database will not restore correctly. Something to keep in mind is that with Altaro, Exchange, SQL and other applications only require VMware tools for VMware vSphere environment for guest quiescing. No additional agents are required.

Instant Restore

Instant restore is a more modern approach to restoring Virtual Machines. Some providers will allow you to instantly map the backup file to your systems so that you can get back online in seconds rather than waiting for several hours for a restore to complete.

Altaro aims to meet all of these business requirements through their VM Backup solution. Altaro supports all common storage types out of the box (Network Drive, NAS, iSCSI, eSATA and USB) with no advanced configuration required:

Furthermore, all of the advanced features that you can think of are supported by Altaro VM Backup including Deduplication, WAN Optimisation, Guest Quiescing via VMware Tools and Instant Restore Technology to bring your backups online in just a few seconds, regardless of their size.

VM Backup - Billing Model & Price

There are various billing models out there these days. Most solutions will charge you a fee per server CPU or by the number of Virtual Machines. Then there is usually a maintenance fee on top which covers support and entitlement to new versions of the software.

With various options available, work out if a per CPU or per VM option is more advantageous for your business. This applies for the long term, so forecast this pricing out over 3 or 5 years. It might also be a good time to see if you can consolidate your Virtual Machines down onto fewer hosts and go for a host orientated option rather than per VM.

It would also be wise to look into deals on longer-term agreements and If you have a large estate, to see if there are discounts for signing up to a larger commitment.

Some vendors will offer an OPEX model rather than a fixed price upfront CAPEX solution. Paying monthly can help with budgets so check with your vendor about the options.

When we look at Altaro VM Backup, the billing model is simple; all you need is the number of hosts in your environment and the edition of the software you wish to purchase. 24/7 support upgrades are included for the first year too; you can purchase software maintenance agreements (SMA) for continued upgrade and Technik support in future years. Altaro does not bill you on the number of VMs or sockets so you can leverage a cost-saving over the competition here.

VM Backup – Security & Encryption

Security is a growing concern so don’t fall into the gap and forget about it when looking at your backup solution:

Check to ensure your chosen solution’s backups can put an air gap in place for your production Virtual Machines to prevent the spread of threats such as crypto-locker to your backups.
Do you need to encrypt your VM backups? This can slow down your backup jobs and prevent some features from working so ask your shortlisted vendors what the deal is here.
For ultra-security conscience businesses, you might want your backups to be encrypted as the data is sent down the network to your storage device. This can be advantageous, but there are sometimes cheaper options such as using a VPN or a dedicated VLAN to help protect you to a certain degree.
Backup software such as Altaro can use the inbuild Encryption feature which would encrypt all backups with an AES 256bit Encryption (Military Grade) hence preventing from having one encrypting backups manually and possibly rendering the backups not accessible even to the backup solution itself.

Try Altaro's Free VM Backup Solution - Download Now

Vendor Reputation

Before signing up to a contract with a backup vendor, ask yourself the following questions

How long has the company been in business?
How many version of the software has been released?
Is the software supported by your virtualization vendor (VMware/ HyperV etc)?
How quickly does the backup vendor’s software support a recently released update from your Virtualization vendor?

For peace of mind, Altaro wins awards every year which are published on their website. They have over 30 awards to their name and a series of impressive independent reviews. Altaro also boast over 50,000 customers including:

Vendor Support

When things go wrong and you have to rely on your backup solution to save the day, you need to know that the vendor support is ready to help you should you need them. Here are some things to consider:

Support Reviews

Look online to see if there are any reviews on the solution you are looking at purchasing.

A quick google search should be all you need to see if there are any major issues with the software.

Service Level Agreements

When you receive your terms, review the support clauses to see if the SLAs are in line with your expectations. Ideally, you want the vendor to respond fairly quickly to your support requests especially if they are related to a restore.

Support Availability

For availability, the two main areas for consideration are:

Can you phone or email the support team?

Being able to call the support team is important because other methods such as email and chat are slow and might be triaged for several hours or misclassified into another severity level. Phone support is incredibly important when looking at your options.

Support hours

It always feels as though we need support at the worst possible time. Trying to get an application or Virtual Machine restore completed through the evening so that it is ready for the morning can be a challenge. With this in mind, we should try to choose a VM backup vendor that has a 24/7 helpdesk who you can call at any time and log a case.

One of the great things about Altaro is their support. They commit to responding to support calls in under 30 seconds. Guaranteed!

Summary

This article helped identify the main considerations for your VM Backup solution to ensure business continiouity, data integrity, data availability and more. We talked about the importance of the number of VMs and Hosts supported by the VM backup, type of backup storage supported, advanced storage space conservation techniques such as Augmented Inline Deduplication, WAN Optimization backup techniques to maximise your backups over WAN links, Guest Quiescing for database backups, Instant restore capabilities for fast restoration, VM Billing and Pricing models, VM Backup Security and encryption and vendor support.

We believe that Altaro fits the needs of most organisations due to their scalable, feature-rich solution. With an average call pickup of only 22 seconds, straight to a product expert with no gatekeepers in the way of your support experience is enough on its own for most to look at Altaro as a viable solution.