VMware administrator resources

When it comes to finding technical information on VMware products there are a number of obvious sources of information such as the official documentation and books but there are also some not so obvious sources that contain tons of great technical information.

VMware’s Knowledge Base

First there is VMware’s online knowledge base. It continues to amaze me about the volume and quality of information provided in VMware’s knowledge base. Typically many users access vendor knowledge bases as a tool to try and resolve problems in their environment as many known problems are documented there. VMware’s knowledgebase, however, has much more than that and also contains how-to articles, troubleshooting tips, sample configurations, best practices and so on. Here’s just a sample of some of the great content published there in the last 10 days:

• Configuring the speed and duplex of an ESX Server host network adapter
• Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) network information via command line and VirtualCenter on an ESX host
• Sample Configuration - ESX connecting to physical switch via VLAN access mode. External Switch VLAN Tagging (EST Mode)
• Troubleshooting SCSI Reservation failures on Virtual Infrastructure 3 and 3.5
• Advanced Configuration options for VMware High Availability
• Advisory for advanced VMkernel parameter NFS.LockDisabled
• Sample Configuration - Network Load Balancing (NLB) Multicast mode over routed subnet - Cisco Switch Static ARP Configuration
• VLAN Configuration on Virtual Switch, Physical Switch, and Virtual Machines - ESX 3.X
• Diagnosing an ESX Server that is Disconnected or Not Responding in VirtualCenter

They even have a knowledge base article on how to search the knowledge base. I encourage you to frequently check out the knowledge base as new documents are added daily. You can also subscribe to a weekly digest by editing your VMware account preferences and setting up your email subscriptions.

VI:OPS

Next there is a new website VMware launched called VI:OPS that contains many documented proven practices from both VMware itself and customers. The information is organized into several different zones: Strategy, Applications, Security, Management and Availability. Already there are dozens of great documents there that provide some fabulous information.

Another great resource is the fabulous technical and white papers that VMware publishes. There are over 200 of them available on a wide variety of subject matters.

There is a wealth of information available on the VMworld website from the all the great sessions each year. Only attendees can access the current year’s sessions but anyone can register for a free account and access previous years.

VMTN

You may have used the VMTN community forums for posting technical questions but did you know there is a whole separate documents section that users can create technical documents to share their information and tips with other users. There are hundreds of documents already created there with some great tips from both other users and VMware employees.

In addition to all these great VMware resources be sure and check out all the great tips and information on both SearchServerVirtualization.com and SearchVMware.com.