For those of you upgrading to vCenter 2.5 U4 and and are planning to use the new Performance Overview Plugin, there are some additional steps required to making this work. Pretty much the biggest thing is that you need the Java Development Kit installed on the vCenter server. All of this is covered in VMware KB 1008296, but for your convenience I’ve included the steps here.
Prior to installing the Performance Overview plug-in:
- Copy the VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4 build to the VirtualCenter Server system.
Note
: If the contents of the folders vpx\perfCharts (iso) or bin\perfCharts (ZIP) are not copied to the local drive of the VirtualCenter Server, an Access Denied error appears when the install.bat command is run later in the installation process. - If you are upgrading to VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4, stop the VMware Infrastructure Web Access service before upgrading the VirtualCenter.
- Install or upgrade to VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4 and start the VMware Infrastructure Web Access service.
- Download Java SE Development Kit 6u11, and install JDK 1.6.
- Configure the environment variables:
- Right-click My Computer and click Properties.
- In the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables.
- In the System variable list, select Path and click Edit.
- In Variable value, append
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11\bin\
If an older version of JRE is present, run the following command in the command window:
set path=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11\bin\;%path%
-
In the System variable list, select JAVA_HOME and click Edit. If JAVA_HOME does not exist, click New and in the Variable name, enter JAVA_HOME.
-
In Variable value, enter C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_11
-
Log out and log back in to the VirtualCenter Server.
To install the Performance Overview plug-in:
- In the command window of VirtualCenter Server system, go to the vpx/perfCharts folder, the location where the Performance Overview plug-in is available.
If you are using the ZIP file, go to the bin\perfCharts folder. - Run install.bat <VirtualCenter_Username> <VirtualCenter_Password>
Note:
- If the VirtualCenter Server is using the Oracle database, see Performance Overview Plug-In Requirements When VirtualCenter Is Using the Oracle Database (1008328).
- If the VirtualCenter Server is using the SQL Express Bundled database, see Performance Overview Plug-In Requirements When VirtualCenter Is Using the SQL Express Bundled Database (1008329).
- If you did not stop the VMware Web Access service before upgrading to VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4, see Performance Overview Charts Might Fail to Display if VirtualCenter Is Upgraded Without Stopping the VMware Infrastructure Web Access Service (1008330).
:: February 27, 2009 by Rick Scherer
Posted under ESX 3.5 Tips, ESXi 3.5 Tips, Monitoring, this blog has 7,599 views and 3 responses.




12:16 pm on February 27th, 2009
I’m a little confused by the question, are you asking what would be the best hardware to run virtual instances on? This really depends on what type of load your Virtual Machines will use and what type of consolidation ratio you’re looking for.
Also note that Unix will not run on VMware (AIX/HP-UX/Solaris Sparc). For Virtual Unix I would suggest using Solaris Zones (containers) or LDOMs.
For Linux, RedHat/Suse, obviously I would suggest running these virtual machines on VMware ESX or ESXi.
12:10 pm on February 27th, 2009
What would be the best platform / OS (i.e. hardware) model for VPS hosting in linux / unix?