Being a former Windows admin, I can never remember the steps to install VM Tools on a Linux VM, so I end up searching Google each time and finding the specific steps.  So I am finally posting this more for me, but I hope it will help out others as well!

So here are the steps I use:
1.  From the vSphere client, select the VM, Right click, select Guest, then Install/Upgrade VMware Tools.  This will mount the ISO file to the VM
2.  In the Install/Upgrade Tools window, select Interactive Tools Upgrade button and click OK
3.  Now log onto your Linux VM as root
4.  Create a mount point and mount the CD-Rom using:
-          mkdir /mnt/cdrom
-          mkdir /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
5.  Unpack the Tools Tar gzip file:
-          Tar –xzvf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-version-build.tar.gz
6.   Run the Install.pl to install VMware Tools:
-          ./vmware-install.pl –d  ( -d will use the default answers when installing tools )
7.   Unmount the CD:
-          umount /mnt/cdrom
And you’re done! The last few I have installed in Cent OS did not need a reboot..

I am so honored to be voted vExpert again this year!  Congratulations to all of the Class of 2014 vExpert’s!
The list can be found here- http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2014/04/vexpert-2014-announcement.html
The neatest vExpert announcement I have seen is from Tintri,
http://www.tintri.com/congratulations-2014-vexperts-you-are-rock-stars
The marquee with all the vExperts is very cool!
My thanks to the vExpert program team for all their work!

With the release of vSphere 5.5, the vCenter Server Appliance now supports 100 hosts and 3000 virtual machines.
If you are looking to reduce the number of Windows servers used for your management, the vCenter appliance is a great option.
And if you have stateless hosts, or are looking to use the new VSAN, you can use Auto Deploy to boot your hosts, thus freeing up your local disk drives.  I have done both Auto Deploy and boot from SAN, and feel Auto Deploy is much easier to use, and it does not use up your SAN storage.
To use Auto Deploy you need the vCenter server, an Auto Deploy server, a tftp server, PowerCLI, and a DHCP server with reservations for your hosts.
There is a Auto Deploy Service integrated in the vCenter Appliance, shown below, but you need to start the service.

The vCenter Appliance also has a tftp service embedded in it, however it is not started by default, or when you start the Auto Deploy service.
If you SSH to your appliance and check the "atftp" service it shows as unused.

So you will need to start the atftp service, then update chkconfig to make sure it starts after reboots. I use chkconfig --level 2345 atftp on
Once the atftp service is running, you can use the vCenter appliance as your Auto Deploy server and tftp server!

In the next post, I will cover creating the image profiles and DHCP reservations for deploying your servers!

The 2013 vExperts were announced in May and I am honored to be one of them!
The complete list can be found here
One perk to being selected as a vExpert for 2013 is Trains Signal has offered a free 1 year subscription to all of their on line training videos!  You other vExperts can find the info here .  I would recommend the Train Signal video training to everyone working on a new or updated certification, whether for VMware, Cisco Microsoft or many others.
I want to thank all my co-workers  who nominated me and told me to apply!  Hope to be on the vExpert list in the coming years!!