Windows Nano Server and VMware ESXi

Microsoft introduced the Nano Server with Windows Server 2016. Nano Servers have no GUI and are even more reduced than Server Core installations. Nano servers are only managed remotely and corresponding images must first be created. It is quite simple for Hyper-V, as VHD files can be created directly here. However, it also works ... Read more

Exchange 2016: Optimization on VMware ESXi 5.5 / 6.0

Many people will now be running Exchange Server as virtual machines. There are a few things to consider so that Exchange 2016 also delivers optimum performance in a VM. I would like to briefly present the most important ones here: Exchange 2016 on VMware ESXi 5.5 vCPUs: The rule for virtual CPUs is: as much as necessary, as little as possible. This is where ... Read more

Quick and Dirty: Space Reclaimation using PowerCLI and VAAI Storage

Today we have another small script from the Quick and Dirty series. If you use VAAI-compatible storage and provision VMs thinly, you need to perform a space reclaim from time to time to be able to use the deleted VMFS blocks again. In the VMware Knowledge Base the procedure is described using "esxcli", I find the ... Read more