And here it is... the bit that will go wrong with your vSphere installation - vCenter Single Sign On!
Now when this was initially released there were several problems, seemingly due to installation bugs with SSO, most of these appear to have been resolved according to the release notes and installations I've performed since, however there are some caveats that if you do not pay attention to, will cause you an issue during the install.
First thing to note when running the vSphere 5.1 installer and you get the below bunch of install options (see first image), DON'T go for the "Simple Install", firstly my experience is this does not work everytime, secondly if one of the components do have a problem (usually SSO) you can work on the problems with that component.
After installing VMware Horizon View HTML Access on the Connection Server and enabling HTML Access for the required desktop pools you may see the following error message:
"This desktop does not support the requested display protocol"
You may want to change the queue depth for several reasons... Support recommendations / Performance tuning etc.
Here I will show you how to change the queue depth for a Qlogic HBA from 32 to 64.
VMware default this to 32 as this generally is the best for most configurations, however everyone has different needs.
Here we are right at the beginning of a multi part how to series I'm putting together on vSphere 5.1.
First things first we are going to install ESXi Server 5.1.0. This is the baremetal hypervisor that will run our VMs and may be one of several servers you wish to build into a cluster managed by vCenter server to provide HA, DRS and vMotion features for VMs.
The ESXi server installation is straightforward, at this initial stage all we need to do is get the hypervisor installed, give it an IP address and password before proceeding with the various steps for the vCenter Server install.
1. Check the server hardware you are installing ESXi 5.1 onto is supported and on the VMware HCL.
2. Login to the VMware license portal to check/upgrade/buy your vSphere licenses.
3. Read the ESXi Setup Guide to ensure you understand the pre-requisites.
Since the release of VMware Horizon View 5.2 Feature Pack 1, it has been possible to access View virtual desktops simply via a HTML5 browser, without the need for the View Client.
Now in Horizon View 5.3 Feature Pack 1, this ability now has an improved feature set and really makes this a viable alternative in some cases to the full VMware View Client. It is particularly useful if you need to get access to a desktop quickly where the View client is not installed or cannot be installed, such as working remotely on a non company owned device.
Some of the improvements to functionality are:
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TweetAll advice, installation/configuration how to guides, troubleshooting and other information on this website are provided as-is with no warranty or guarantee. Whilst the information provided is correct to the best of my knowledge, I am not reponsible for any issues that may arise using this information, and you do so at your own risk. As always before performing anything; check, double check, test and always ensure you have a backup.