VMware Hardware Version upgrades – The manual way.

The below process is somewhat manual in the process, but it’s been validated a few hundred times by myself personally. I like to think of VMware’s Virtual Hardware as a virtual motherboard, I remember this explanation was included in the VMware JumpStart materials I used to deliver back in the VI 3.x days. And the Virtual Hardware comes with certain capabilities and restrictions. Newer motherboards are capable of more processors, more memory, more efficient, etc. And commonly, what you normally need to add/remove or replace on a motherboard is the same as Virtual Hardware, in that it often requires a power down to replace or upgrade such items. Yes Hot-Add has changed this somewhat, and definitely for the better, but it’s sometimes an afterthought in many peoples VM templates.

vCenter PowerShell PowerCLI command to to change a VMDK disk from non-persistent to persistent without powering down the VM

While I am certain this already posted on the net in a few places, I wanted to capture it here, as it is a question I get asked often by customers. Especially seeing as the manual method requires shutting down a VM to make the change. Instructions Just replace the text <vcenter_dns_or_ipaddress> with the IP address or FQDN of the vCenter host. You will be prompted to login to vCenter, and will require enough privileges to modify the VM you need to edit. connect-viserver <vcenter_dns_or_ipaddress> Then replace the <vm_name> with the name of the virtual machine you wish to change one or many of its disks to Independent Persistent. It will provide multiple prompts based on how many disks the VM has, and ask you to confirm…