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VMware vSphere 4.1 License Comparison Chart

Malaysia VMware Communities

jlchannel

20 Jul 2010 | 8:39 pm
VMware VUM: Still haven’t found what I’m looking for…

RTFM Education

Mike Laverick

28 Jul 2010 | 1:08 pm

This weeks chinwaggee is Daniel Eason – I know Dan from attending the User Group in London. Plus I follow his blog and tweets. He’s currently an IT Infrastructure Architect from the UK working for airline. His main specialisms are within the key areas of a Datacentre Infrastructure, and this covers technology such as Virtualisation [...]
The x64 Push Continues with vSphere 4.1

Blogs

27 Jul 2010 | 4:13 pm

And VMex adds to it, with a solution that can deliver a complete infrastructure solution in simple fashion.
Vegas Baby! The B-Side

IT Security, Compliance and Best Practices

Matt Hixson

27 Jul 2010 | 7:07 am

The evening of July 20 was a both joyous and bittersweet. Why? It was joyous because I spent the evening with so many Tripwire colleagues that I’ve loved working with, who were all congratulating me and wishing me well. It was bittersweet because this was my farewell party at Tripwire: thirteen years after I founded [...]
Under the Covers with VMware FT (Fault Tolerance)

VMware Networking Blog

Guy Brunsdon

20 Jul 2010 | 6:30 pm

The Console
Open Standards for Interoperability, Portability, and Security

VMTN

19 Jul 2010 | 10:39 pm

Posted by Winston BumpusDirector of Standards Architecture, VMware I’m Winston Bumpus, director of standards architecture at VMware and president of the Distributed Management Task Force Inc. (DMTF). I want to share some thoughts on the ever-evolving cloud computing environment, specifically around open standards and open source software. You might have seen an announcement this week on OpenStack, and I wanted to take this opportunity to shed light on VMware’s opinion on the value of open source and the need to view it differently from interoperability. OpenStack, an initiative between…
VMware vSphere 4.1: Advancing the Platform for Cloud Computing

VMTN

13 Jul 2010 | 5:00 am

Posted by Steve Herrod Chief Technology Officer A number of our recent VMware blog posts have focused on the newer VMware technology areas... SpringSource, RabbitMQ, Gemstone, and the partnerships we're forming to deliver cloud-portable applications. With this blog post, I get to highlight vSphere and vCenter, VMware's largest engineering investment areas and the very foundation of our broader cloud computing story. Today we are announcing general availability of VMware vSphere 4.1, and I'd like to share a bit more about it from both a technology and an engineering process perspective. First,…
Google and VMware's "Open PaaS" Strategy

VMTN

19 May 2010 | 10:02 am

Posted by Steve Herrod Chief Technology Officer Wow… it has been an incredibly exciting, err, Spring for VMware's SpringSource division. In early April, we announced the acquisition of Rabbit Technologies, leaders of the open source RabbitMQ products used by thousands of customers for highly scalable, and reliable application messaging. In late April, we announced VMforce, a partnership between VMware and Salesforce.com to build an enterprise Java cloud with access to the vast data and great application services offered by the Force.com platform. And just last week, we announced the…
VMforce and VMware’s “Open PaaS” Strategy

VMTN

27 Apr 2010 | 5:00 am

Posted by Steve Herrod Chief Technology Officer It was almost 9 months ago that we acquired SpringSource, bringing VMware one of the most popular Java development frameworks, stewardship of the Apache Tomcat, Apache HTTP Server, Hyperic, Groovy and Grails open source communities, and a group of talented engineers focused on the efficient development of applications for the cloud-computing era. We’ve recently augmented this team with the acquisition of Rabbit Technologies, the company behind the popular open source cloud messaging technology RabbitMQ. These products, along with…
VMforce and VMware’s “Open PaaS” Strategy

VMTN

27 Apr 2010 | 4:59 am

Read Steve Herrod's post: VMforce and VMware's "Open PaaS" Strategy.

vSphere PowerCLI Blog
Enhanced VMkernel Networking Configuration in vSphere PowerCLI 4.1

Irina Nikolova

30 Jul 2010 | 9:03 am

You can now use PowerCLI to manipulate VMKernel networking and routing. There is a new functionality that supports setting a default gateway for VMKernel networks as well as creating, removing and updating of host routes. Here is an example illustrating how to set a default gateway for VMKernel. All you need is to have a configured VMKernel adapter in the same subnet as the gateway you want to set to default. Let’s say you want to set a default gateway 10.21.84.1. First you should check which VMKernel adapter to use: Get-VMHostNetworkAdapter -VMKernel | select 'Ip', 'SubnetMask',…
New Nested Properties for Navigating to Parent Objects in PowerCLI 4.1

Irina Nikolova

30 Jul 2010 | 6:19 am

While automating with PowerCLI scripts, you have most probably stumbled upon a situation when you need to access the parent of an object – the virtual machine of a CD drive, the host of virtual machine, the cluster of a host etc. In PowerCLI 4.0 U1 all object types which have “parents” are enhanced with the “Parent ID” property. Using this property you can easily get the parent object by invoking the corresponding Get-* cmdlet and filtering by ID. In the latest PowerCLI 4.1 release these “child” object types are enhanced with an even more useful nested property which holds the…
Dealing with the inevitable events in life – reporting problems with PowerCLI

Dimitar Hristov

23 Jul 2010 | 7:02 am

There are certain events in life that we all strive to avoid, yet they seem practically inevitable. Facing problems, when using some software product is one of those. And using PowerCLI and vSphere makes no exception. Occasionally, you will stumble upon a configuration, environment, or a PowerCLI/vSphere problem itself. This article shows how you can effectively report the problem to VMware. You will need this if cannot solve some problem yourself and need outside help or just want to inform VMware about the problem so they can fix it at some later point. Reporting a problem with PowerCLI is…
Error handling with PowerCLI 4.1

Dimitar Hristov

23 Jul 2010 | 1:55 am

Complex scripts need to handle errors and resolve common error scenarios without user interaction. A step in that direction is exposing the entire specter of vCenter server error hierarchy along with PowerCLI specific exceptions (for example when validating input parameters). This improvement makes possible to write scripts which handle expected errors and deal with them as it’s shown below: In addition to this feature the full exception chain is available in the error records as inner exception. So if the error is PowerCLI specific exception, the inner exception can be used to…
Deploying a VM with Static IP in 3 Steps

Dimitar Hristov

23 Jul 2010 | 1:10 am

VM customization is a very powerful feature that can make miracles during the deployment process. Since vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 U1, you can use cmdlets to modify a number of network settings of the newly created virtual machines. Here is how to do it: Regards, Nedko Nedev Member of PowerCLI Dev Team

VMware Networking Blog
Under the Covers with VMware FT (Fault Tolerance)

Guy Brunsdon

20 Jul 2010 | 6:30 pm

By any measure, FT (Fault Tolerance) is a ground-breaking technology. Introduced a year ago with vSphere 4.0, FT enables an application to continue uninterrupted even after a complete and catastrophic physical server failure. But how does it work? What is the impact or requirement upon the network? Dan Scales, Mike Nelson, and Ganesh Venkitachalam from the VMware engineering team that brought FT to life, recently published an in-depth, 27 page technical report on The Design and Evaluation of a Practical System for Fault-Tolerant Virtual Machines.” The paper goes deep with discussion on the…
Got Network I/O Control?

Guy Brunsdon

13 Jul 2010 | 11:09 am

vSphere 4.1 launched today with a bunch of great new features and improved performance. Network I/O Control (NetIOC) was the major feature enhancement for networking. NetIOC is a must have for anyone using or considering 10GigE. Why NetIOC? NetIOC enables you to guarantee service levels (bandwidth) for particular vSphere traffic types. For example, if you’re concerned about iSCSI (or NFS) bandwidth/latency when a vMotion or some other activity fires up, or maybe you wish to protect your FT traffic from congestion; or of course, you wish to ensure your VM traffic meets minimum or required…
Using 10GigE with VMware vDS and Cisco Nexus 1000V

Guy Brunsdon

27 Jun 2010 | 11:26 pm

In a blog post last month titled, “vSphere loves 10GigE”, I mentioned a deployment paper was in the works. The paper titled, “Deploying 10 Gigabit Ethernet on VMware vSphere 4.0 with Cisco Nexus 1000V and VMware vNetwork Distributed Switches”, is now posted on Cisco website. We will follow suit in the coming week and post it at the usual place under resources at vmware.com/go/networking.
More on HP Virtual Connect

Guy Brunsdon

24 Jun 2010 | 11:00 am

I wrote a blog entry earlier this year around using HP Flex-10 with vSphere … or perhaps I should say I wrote a pointer to an entry on Flex-10 written by Kenneth van Ditmarsch at virtualkenneth.com I thought I’d add a few more papers that cover Virtual Connect with vSphere… HP Virtual Connect Ethernet Cookbook (read this paper first!) http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01990371/c01990371.pdf?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN HP Converged Infrastructure Reference Architecture for VMware View: http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-9256ENW.pdf HP reference…
FCoE Webcast coming up

Guy Brunsdon

16 Jun 2010 | 9:40 am

My previous post was on why vSphere loves 10GigE. You can converge all those 1GigE links into a pair of 10GigE to not only improve your network performance but reduce the complexity of your infrastructure. FCoE takes reduction of complexity one step further in eliminating the HBA, Fibre Channel links and adjacent Fibre Channel switches/directors and carries that traffic over lossless Ethernet. In conjunction with Cisco and Emulex, we’ve been running a SAN Virtuosity series of webcasts with accompanying co-authored papers. The next SAN Virtuosity webcast is on the topic of FCoE on Wednesday,…

VMware Security Blog
A New Generation of vShield Security Products

Charu Chaubal

15 Jul 2010 | 3:11 pm

UPDATE: Newer URLs provided below for joining the betaWe are pleased to announce the availability of beta for two new vShield products: vShield App 1.0 dynamically protects applications within the virtual data center (vDC) from internal threats by ensuring proper segmentation and enforcing rules on business-defined Security Groups. vShield Edge 1.0 provides a set of perimeter services akin to a DMZ, protecting a customer virtual datacenter or organization and intended to be the boundary between the Service Provider (internal or public) and a tenant organization. vShield Edge…
Come visit us at SANSFIRE 2010

Charu Chaubal

3 Jun 2010 | 2:37 pm

VMware folks will be staffing a booth at the SANSFIRE 2010 event in Baltimore on June 8. There will also be a Lunch-and-Learn sponsored by VMware on June 10. Stop by and chat if you want to learn more about virtualization networking, security, and compliance, including the recently released vSphere 4.0 Security Hardening Guide.
vSphere 4.0 Hardening Guide Released

Charu Chaubal

19 Apr 2010 | 9:29 am

VMware would like to announce the availability of the final release of the vSphere 4.0 Security Hardening Guide. This version incorporates the extensive feedback from the VMware community on the previous draft release, which was published in January. We would like to thank all the people who took the time to go through the draft release and provide their comments.This guide represents a new approach to providing security guidance from VMware. As compared with the previous VI3 Hardening Guides, the current guide has the following highlights. Structure: this version uses a…
Guide to Deploying Secure Multi-Tenancy

Charu Chaubal

9 Apr 2010 | 3:39 pm

Cisco, NetApp, and VMware have been collaborating to help customers interested in moving towards a cloud model of IT by providing guidance on how to deploy a secure multi-tenant architecture. The latest in this effort is a web document entitled “Deploying Secure Multi-Tenancy into Virtualized Data Centers”. This Deployment Guide is structured to provide server, network, and storage architects and engineers with the implementation details to deploy and secure multi-tenant environments. This document also describes the procedures required to deploy the secure…
vShield Zones Reviewer's Guide available

Charu Chaubal

3 Feb 2010 | 4:20 pm

We recently published the VMware vShield Zones Reviewer's Guide. The purpose of this document is to support a self-guided, hands-on evaluation of VMware™ vShield Zones. This document is intended to provide IT professionals with the necessary information to learn the capabilities of vShield Zones and see how they can be used in practical situations.The content includes a product overview, brief installation instructions, and a walk-through of a scenario that shows the main features of vShield Zones in action.You can download the guide from here.

VROOM!
VMmark 2.0 Beta Overview

Bruce Herndon

30 Jul 2010 | 4:07 pm

As I mentioned in my last blog, we have been developing VMmark 2.0, a next-generation multi-host virtualization benchmark that models not only application performance in a virtualized environment but also the effects of common virtual infrastructure operations. This is a natural progression from single-host virtualization benchmarks like VMmark 1.x and SPECvirt_sc2010. Benchmarks measuring single-host performance, while valuable, do not adequately capture the complexity inherent in modern virtualized datacenters. With that in mind, we set out to construct a meaningfully stressful…
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Performance on VMware vSphere 4.1

Julie Brodeur

26 Jul 2010 | 11:45 am

VMware recently released a whitepaper showing the performance scalability of SharePoint Server 2007 on VMware vSphere 4.1. This paper demonstrates that vSphere 4.1 exhibits high performance and includes advanced features that can improve the overall user experience in multi-tier applications such as SharePoint.Results of the experiments, in which up to 171,600 heavy SharePoint users were supported on a single physical server, highlight the benefits gained by the ability to easily deploy additional SharePoint virtual machines as needed to satisfy changing demands This paper also…
Understanding Memory Resource Management in VMware ESX Server 4.1

Fei Guo

21 Jul 2010 | 12:44 pm

We have published a whitepaper about how ESX server 4.1 manages the host memory resource. This paper not only presents the basic memory resource management concepts but also shows experiment results explaining the performance impact for four different memory reclamation techniques: Page sharing, ballooning, memory compression and host swapping used in ESX server 4.1. The experiment results show that: 1) Page sharing introduces negligible performance overhead; 2) Compared to host swapping, ballooning will cause much smaller performance degradation when reclaiming memory. In some cases,…
Enhanced VMware ESX 4.1 CPU Scheduler

Seongbeom Kim

20 Jul 2010 | 1:21 pm

Check out our technical paper on ESX CPU scheduler in vSphere 4.1. This is revised from the previous version to reflect a new feature, wide VM NUMA support. This paper attempts to answer the following questions: How is CPU time allocated between virtual machines? How well does it work? What is the difference between “strict” and “relaxed” co-scheduling? What is the performance impact of recent co-scheduling improvements? What is the “CPU scheduler cell”? What happened to the scheduler cell in ESX4? How does ESX scheduler exploit the underlying CPU architecture…
Performance Implications of Storage I/O Control in vSphere Environments with Shared Storage

Chethan Kumar

13 Jul 2010 | 1:48 pm

vSphere based virtualized datacenters often employ a shared storage infrastructure to support clusters of vSphere hosts. Applications running in virtual machines (VM) on vSphere hosts share the storage resources for their I/O needs. Performance of applications can be impacted when VMs contend for storage resources that are shared. Without proper access control for sharing the resources, the performance of all applications tend to get affected in a non-trivial way. Storage I/O Control (SIOC), a new feature offered in VMware vSphere 4.1, provides a dynamic control mechanism for proportional…

VMBLOG
ScaleMP Experiences Record Growth in Q2

David Marshall

30 Jul 2010 | 6:19 am

ScaleMP , a leading provider of virtualization solutions for high-end computing, today announced that the company experienced record growth in the... Read more at VMblog.com.
LPI Launches Enterprise-level "Virtualization" Exam

David Marshall

30 Jul 2010 | 4:02 am

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world's premier Linux certification organization, launched the "Virtualization and High Availability"... Read more at VMblog.com.
Dell and HP to Resell Oracle VM

David Marshall

30 Jul 2010 | 3:54 am

Oracle today announced Dell and HP will certify and resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their respective x86 platforms.... Read more at VMblog.com.
Microsoft's Linux Integration Services v2.1 Now Available

David Marshall

29 Jul 2010 | 5:01 pm

Today, Microsoft announced the availability of the Hyper-V Linux Integration Services for Linux Version 2.1. When installed in a supported Linux... Read more at VMblog.com.
ChangeBASE AOK launches VMware ThinApp application compatibility Plug-in

David Marshall

29 Jul 2010 | 3:40 pm

ChangeBASE AOK, the world leader in automated application compatibility testing and remediation, today announces the first VMware ThinApp Plug-in to... Read more at VMblog.com.

Virtualization.com
Citrix Reports Q2 2010 Financial Results, Shares Soar

Robin Wauters

29 Jul 2010 | 11:38 am

Citrix Systems today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2010, sending its shares soaring. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Dell, HP To Certify And Resell All Three Oracle Operating Systems

Robin Wauters

29 Jul 2010 | 11:35 am

Oracle today announced Dell and HP will certify and resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their respective x86 platforms. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Profitability.net Selects Extreme Networks for Virtualized Data Center and Cloud Network

Robin Wauters

29 Jul 2010 | 11:33 am

Extreme Networks today announced that colocation provider Profitability.net has chosen its virtualized 10 Gigabit data center, cloud and storage networking solutions based on its 4 Pillar Data Center strategy, as it rolls out its Appica.com cloud service. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Release: OpenNebula 2.0 Beta 1

Robin Wauters

28 Jul 2010 | 3:19 pm

The OpenNebula team has released the first beta version of what is to become OpenNebula 2.0 next September. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Convirture Releases ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise Edition

Robin Wauters

28 Jul 2010 | 3:14 pm

Today saw the release of ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise edition from Convirture Corp. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

News
Ballmer Outlines Mobile Strategy at Microsoft Event

29 Jul 2010 | 7:58 pm

Microsoft's business strategies were described at the company's Financial Analyst Meeting on Thursday.
Novell Ships Mono Tools for Visual Studio 2.0

29 Jul 2010 | 11:39 am

Visual Studio add-in extends support to Mac OS X and features improved debugging and deployment.
Early Windows Phone 7 Previews Mostly Positive

29 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am

With working prototypes of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 in the hands of developers, and the software now at the technical preview stage, substantive judgments of the phone can be made.
Microsoft To Release Updated EMET Security Tool

28 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am

Microsoft announced today that it is planning to release a new version of its security mitigation tool for ISVs and Windows users.
Microsoft Looks to Supreme Court as i4i Patent Confirmed

27 Jul 2010 | 5:55 pm

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office confirmed i4i's patent, sending another blow to Microsoft's legal strategy.

blog.scottlowe.org
Changing RDP Settings in VMware View Open Client for Mac

slowe

21 Jul 2010 | 5:55 pm

I’ve been using the VMware View Open Client for Mac OS X for a few weeks now, ever since I was approved to participate in EMC’s pilot VDI program. The one thing that I don’t like about the View Open Client is how it leverages the Mac-native Remote Desktop Connection application to make connections to the View hosted desktops. It does so in a way that makes it impossible to customize the behavior of the RDP session—or so I thought. It turns out there there is a way, after all, to customize the behavior of the RDP session that the View Open Client leverages. The View…
Help Me Out

slowe

21 Jul 2010 | 7:47 am

Can I ask a favor? In the spirit of transparency and honesty, I want to point out that this is a request for my own benefit, but it shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes of your time. You see, a local EMC partner named eGroup (here’s their web site) is running this contest to win an iPad. The contest involves taking pictures of an “I love eGroup” sticker in various and interesting places. Since I recently traveled to Cork, Ireland, to support some of EMC’s European partners, I took a few photos while I was in Ireland and I submitted them to the contest.
Enabling RAID 1 on a Mac Mini Server

slowe

17 Jul 2010 | 6:54 pm

Today I bought a new Mac Mini running Mac OS X Server to replace an aging home-built Linux server that supports my home network. You might recall that in early 2009 I wrote an article about how I had worked to provide some Ubuntu-Mac integration on the home network. Although the integration has worked well since that time, many of the functions that the Ubuntu server was providing have since been taken over by an Iomega ix4-200d NAS box. It’s the Iomega that now handles all my Time Machine backups and CIFS/AFP file sharing. In addition, I’ve been looking for a way to create a…
Spouse Activities: Back for Another Year!

slowe

12 Jul 2010 | 5:00 am

Have you ever attended a technology conference and had your spouse go with you? More than likely, your spouse just sat around the hotel room, bored, waiting for you to get back after a long day of sessions and lectures and labs. Then, when you’re tired and just want to relax, your spouse wants to go out on the town, explore, and see some cool stuff. Does that sound familiar? Since 2008, my wife (Crystal, @crystal_lowe on Twitter) has organized a fix for this very problem, at least for one technology conference: VMworld spouse activities. Now back for a third year (see information for…
vMotion Practicality

slowe

12 Jul 2010 | 5:00 am

About a month ago I posted an article titled The vMotion Reality. In that article, I challenged the assertion that vMotion was a myth, not widely implemented in data centers today due to networking complexity and networking limitations. In a recent comment to that article, a reader again mentions networking limitations—in this instance, the realistic limits of a large Layer 2 broadcast domain—as a gating factor for vMotion and limiting its “practical use” in today’s data centers. Based on the original article’s assertions and the arguments found in this…

Gabes Virtual World
Setting logfile location, swap file, SNMP and vmkcore partition in ESXi

Gabrie van Zanten

26 Jul 2010 | 1:23 am

With the release of VMware vSphere 4.1 it has become even more apparent that the next vSphere release will only have an ESXi version. This isn’t world shocking news since VMware had announce this... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
VMware vSphere 4.1 released – What’s new?

Gabrie van Zanten

12 Jul 2010 | 11:55 pm

As many of you expected, the new VMware vSphere version is called VMware vSphere 4.1. The hints have been clear these past few weeks and today it became official. Today was the official release and... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
First vSphere Plugin for WordPress! by Nicholas Weaver

Gabrie van Zanten

12 Jul 2010 | 3:31 pm

On my blog, on the right hand, the last widget on the page is called “Home Lab” and shows the current state of my ESX lab at home. This WordPress plugin is written by Nicholas Weaver. Its... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
[RUMOR] VMware to buy Novell?

Gabrie van Zanten

30 Jun 2010 | 6:24 am

This week I’ve had some questions from people on how this “Strategic Partnership” between Novell and VMware, could be the first step to VMware buying Novell or a number of products from Novell. This... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Must have apps for the iPad

Gabrie van Zanten

26 Jun 2010 | 11:14 am

You probably wonder what has gotten in to me, iPad postings have nothing to do with virtualization. Yes you’re right, but lately I see so many tweets of people in the virtualization community... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Virtual Black Hole
Important Update About vWire

12 months ago I took on a new initiative here at Tripwire focused on virtualization management. The vWire project was a separate line of business from Tripwire Enterprise, entirely focused on solutions to make the VI professional’s life easier. What a ride it has been! Over the past year I had ...
Using PowerShell To Get Content From a File

On my quest for PowerShell knowledge I was working on a script to rescan HBA's and then to list the paths to the datastores but, I only wanted the script to run on certain specific hosts at a time. Usually the rule is when you add storage or paths to ...
vSphere Service Console Partitioning

There is a very good blog post on the best practices for vSphere (ESX 4) Service Console Partitions by Rich Brambley on the VM /ETC blog. The original article can be found here. In this article he had a very nice chart for custom partitioning. Custom Partitioning The following Custom Partitioning Design ...
Where to download VMware Cold Clone

I had the opportunity recently to try to help a friend on his quest to P2V a Microsoft ISA Server. We tried all sorts of different setting to allow communication between the ISA and in this case both Virtual Center and a Platespin server trying to get either one to ...
Let’s Talk About VMware DPM

Today's topic is going to be about VMware's Distributed Power Management or otherwise known as VMware DPM. If you have not heard about VMware DPM before, I found an interesting video interview with Anne Holler who works at VMware as a Senior Staff Engineer. I found this interview at Vladan ...

h0bbel.p0ggel.org
vmaware.net goes live

Christian Mohn

21 Jul 2010 | 3:12 am

My new site vmaware.net has finally gone live. This is my new digital playground for all things virtualization and related topics.Not much content yet, but that is due to change pretty quickly. :)Update: Well, turns out vm-aware.net was already occupied by someone with very similar interests as myself, so I've renamed the site to vNinja.net to avoid confusion. Enjoy!
New Photo Blog: blog.opticalpork.com

Christian Mohn

5 Jun 2010 | 3:55 pm

In an effort to try and clean-up my online presence, I've set up a new site blog.opticalpork.com. This site will, from now on, be my main photography/portfolio site.This is the first of several planned changes in how/where I publish my online content, more stuff to come later on!
Tape is dead, long live tape or how water can ruin your weekend

Christian Mohn

17 Mar 2010 | 4:27 pm

A little while ago, disaster struck. What seemed like a normal day at work, suddenly turned into a frenzy I have yet to experience anything similar to.What happened? We realized something was wrong when we lost contact with one of our non-virtualized servers. I couldn’t contact it at all; it had just vanished from the face of our network.My natural reaction was to run into our server room, to check what had happened. I figured it would be a power supply failure, or NIC failure.Boy, was I wrong.It turns out that a plastic pipe going through the wall, providing shielding for the power cables…
HP Proliant ML 115 G5, Windows Server 2008 and nvstor.sys

Christian Mohn

9 Mar 2010 | 1:33 pm

I initially bought a HP Proliant ML 115 server as a cheap test/lab server for VMware vSphere and miscellaneous rollout projects at work, but all of a sudden I needed it for some other project that required that I install Windows Server 2008 directly on the hardware itself.As is the story with most HP Proliant servers, you should install it with the tools that HP provides. In the case of the ML 115, you can't use the normal SmartStart setup, but it's little cousin Easy Set-up CD.The installation started fine, after running through the initial HP wizard, but when the time came to actually get…
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool Re-Released

Christian Mohn

10 Dec 2009 | 6:12 am

Microsoft has re-released the previously revoked Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. This time around, it's GPL licensed with source-code.The tool has previously been released and subsequently revoked again after Microsoft was made aware that the tool, developed by a third party, included GPL licensed code in the compiled binary.Personally I'm happy that the tool is available again, and that Microsoft "did the right thing ®" and released it with the proper license.

Malaysia VMware Communities
VMware vSphere 4.1 License Comparison Chart

jlchannel

20 Jul 2010 | 8:39 pm

VMware vSphere 4.1 was release on 13 July 2010 last week. VMware vSphere 4.1 introduced an impressive number of new features and new licensing format. The following is complete VMware vSphere 4.1 license comparison chart. click to enlarge. Please feel free to download from here. Related posts:Extending VMware vSphere 4 Enterprise Availability FAQ VMware vCenter 4.0 Update 2 & VMware vSPhere 4.0 Update 2 Released VLAN ID not remove Tags: chart, comparison, Enterprise, essential, License, licensing, VMware, vSphere
Dell TechCenter VMware Technical Wiki Page

jlchannel

20 Jul 2010 | 8:00 am

The Dell TechCenter VMware Technical Wiki Page just went live recently. This wiki page is intended to provide technical content around Dell solutions stacks utilizing VMware products. It will be monitored and updated regularly by VMware architects. I do not see much information so far and If you are interested to be part of the contributor, click “Apply to be a Writer” on top of the page. Click on Dell TechCenter VMware Technical Wiki page here or http://www.dell.com/vmwaretech. Enjoy! Tags: Contributor, Dell, Help, TechCenter, Technical, Tips, Video
VLAN ID not remove

jlchannel

19 Jul 2010 | 9:13 pm

To support VLANs for VMware Infrastructure users, the virtual or physical network must tag the Ethernet frames with 802.1Q tags using virtual switch tagging (VST), virtual machine guest tagging (VGT), or external switch tagging (EST). If you’re looking for how to configure VLAN tagging in VMware vSphere, you may refer to VMware KB 1004074 & KB 1004252. Last week I have configured a VLAN tagging on one of my vSphere 4 Update 2 cluster and due to some reason, I have remove the VLAN ID manually. After hard reboot, the VLAN ID remains and it’s not removing from Port Group. I was…
IT as a Service with Service Provider Partnership

craig

19 Jul 2010 | 5:49 pm

Cloud computing no longer a new term to many of us, and we can see how the cloud computing concept had innovated the IT infrastructure in the current environment for the pass 24 months. Today we have those familiar term such as SOD = Storage On Demand, COD – Cloud on Demand, Provision & decommission on demand and many many mores term created. Another area, the ultimate goal of the cloud computing is to transform IT into the service base model. Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Services, Software as a service and now IT as a Service. We all know that the success of the cloud…
Windows 2008 R2 officially supported on vCenter 4.1

craig

14 Jul 2010 | 5:52 am

With the VMware vSphere 4.1 release, VMware had officially supported the Windows 2008 R2 with the latest release of the official document. It had taken such a long period for VMWare to officially announce in the compatibility matrix documentation. Please find the full information from here. Related posts:Oracle officially supported on VMware Virtualization SQL Native client on vCenter 4 with Windows 2008 64 bits Packet Drop on Windows 2008 with Nexus 1000 version 1.2 Tags: ESX, VMware, vSphere 4.1, windows 2008 R2

NTPRO.NL - Eric Sloof
VMware has committed 75,000+ man-hours in Lab creation and development to produce 30 Lab topics

29 Jul 2010 | 12:19 am

In 2010, all VMworld Labs will be powered by the VMware cloud and presented via a self-service Lab Cloud portal, allowing VMware to increase the number of Labs offered and give you more opportunities to explore how virtualization can make a powerful impact on your organization. Unlike traditional instructor-led Labs, you are empowered not only to schedule which topics you want to take, but also when you want to take them, enabling you to choose the content that is right for your own business objectives on a schedule that allows you to maximize your conference experience. VMworld will stage…
New Book: Data Protection for Virtual Data Centers

27 Jul 2010 | 11:40 pm

This new book with essential information on how to protect data in will be released on August 2, 2010Virtualization is changing the data center architecture and as a result, data protection is is quickly evolving as well. This unique book, written by an industry expert with over eighteen years of data storage/backup experience, shows you how to approach, protect, and manage data in a virtualized environment. You'll get up to speed on data protection problems, explore the data protection technologies available today, see how to adapt to virtualization, and more. The book uses a "good,…

RTFM Education
A funny experience with Windows 7, Sysprep and View 4.5

Mike Laverick

30 Jul 2010 | 1:22 pm

I had a funny experience this week. Earlier I completed my upgrade to vSphere4.1 (I think the change is not related, but not 100% sure…). I was inspired to get back to work on my guide on View 4.5. But when I started to create new Window 7 desktops I got a weird error which [...]
Chinwag with Mike… Daniel Eason [Episode 22]

Mike Laverick

29 Jul 2010 | 6:18 am

This weeks chinwaggee is Daniel Eason – I know Dan from attending the User Group in London. Plus I follow his blog and tweets. He’s currently an IT Infrastructure Architect from the UK working for airline. His main specialisms are within the key areas of a Datacentre Infrastructure, and this covers technology such as Virtualisation [...]
VMware VUM: Still haven’t found what I’m looking for…

Mike Laverick

28 Jul 2010 | 1:08 pm

I wrote an article recently about VMware U2. And I made this god awful pun associated with U2… Update 2 and the rockband U2. Geddit? Sadly, that reference didn’t really make the article on TechTarget. I dunno, perhaps Bono rang them up and said they couldn’t use it. The article was written sometime before the [...]
What’s New in vSphere4: Clustering with HA/DRS/DPM

Mike Laverick

28 Jul 2010 | 10:54 am

This is the final article in a series about the new vSphere4.1 release. To be honest as I begin to the use the software on a daily basis I’m beginning to count a significant number of tiny enhancements here and there, that went totted up together really make difference. So I’m thinking at some stage [...]
Upgrading to vSphere 4.1

Mike Laverick

27 Jul 2010 | 6:58 am

Today Yesterday, I embarked on an upgrade from vSphere 4.0 U2 to vSphere 4.1. There’s a couple of caveats here and some gotchas. Firstly, I backed up my vCenter DB, and also shutdown my SQL2K8 and vCenter VMs, and took a snapshot of them before beginning. In terms of the order – you MUST started [...]

SearchServerVirtualization Blog
Dell, HP to resell Oracle VM. Yes, really.

Colin Steele

29 Jul 2010 | 11:09 am

Vendor lock-in is a big concern in the server virtualization market, especially as more vendors come out with converged infrastructure and virtualization-ready appliances. Vendor lock-in is also a big concern when you’re talking about Oracle, especially now that it owns Sun and has plans to build its own Oracle VM machine. But it turns out that even Oracle recognizes the importance of customer choice when it comes to virtualization. In a somewhat surprising bit of news today, hardware rivals Dell and Hewlett-Packard have certified Oracle VM, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Solaris and will…
Virtualization Vendor Profile: Uptime Software

Colin Steele

29 Jul 2010 | 6:58 am

Welcome to the latest edition of the Virtualization Vendor Profile. Every once in a while I’ll talk with a smaller or lesser-known company, learn about their business, discuss some industry trends, and write up a recap. The issue of mixed virtual environments — running multiple platforms together, such as VMware and Hyper-V — has received a decent amount of coverage this year. Still, most admins would prefer to standardize on one platform, according to last year’s Virtualization Decisions survey results — and according to Alex Bewley, CTO of Uptime Software, a…
Stealth company Actifio looks to improve virtual server DR, data protection

Beth Pariseau

26 Jul 2010 | 1:57 pm

Last week, I attended the New England VMware User Group (VMUG) meeting, and sat in on a presentation in the afternoon from a new company called Actifio, which recently raised an $8 million Series A funding round and will begin shipping products in August. The company’s focus and heritage is in storage. President and CEO Ash Ashutosh is best known in the storage world for founding AppIQ, which he later sold to HP; AppIQ became HP’s Storage Essentials product line. But it’s also relevant to virtual server users, who have told me during my own transition from covering the…
VMware reports Essentials growth, but SMB market share remains unclear

Beth Pariseau

21 Jul 2010 | 12:03 pm

VMware revealed on last night’s earnings conference call that revenues from its low-end Essentials license SKU grew 100% from the first quarter of this year to the second. This is an interesting data point given VMware’s recent moves to lower pricing and add features such as VMotion to Essentials Plus and Standard editions of its licenses. However, while Microsoft is offering HA and Live Migration free (along with the free Hyper-V hypervisor that’s part of Windows), VMware raised the price of those licenses with the addition of VMotion. Meanwhile, VMware also permanently…
Virtualization Vendor Profile: VM6 Software

Colin Steele

20 Jul 2010 | 2:14 pm

Welcome to the latest edition of the Virtualization Vendor Profile. Every once in a while I’ll talk with a smaller or lesser-known company, learn about their business, discuss some industry trends, and write up a recap. Last week I covered the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference for our VAR-focused sister site, SearchSystemsChannel.com. While at the show in Washington, D.C., I met with Eric Courville, founder and COO of VM6 Software, a Toronto-based vendor. The company has a history that’s as interesting as its product, VMex, which it calls an “all-in-one virtualization…

Virtualfuture.info
vSphere 4.1 released, vMotion part of Standard edition.

Sven Huisman

13 Jul 2010 | 12:10 am

VMware released vSphere 4.1 with a couple of new features like “Memory compression”, “Storage I/O Control” and much more. I’m not going to repeat all the information, because you can already read it here: Gabesvirtualworld Jase’s Place vSphere-Land VMware One thing that I don’t read is that vMotion is now part of vSphere Standard edition. And that’s a big improvement [...]
VDI comparison chart

Sven Huisman

25 Jun 2010 | 12:23 am

When you enter “VDI comparison” in google, the first hit you get is actually one of my first blogpost I published 2 years ago. The blogpost is about a VDI-broker feature comparison created by Quest. Although it was a useful document (to see which features Quest vWorkspace has), it wasn’t created by (an) independent person(s). It’s [...]
7 “challenges” migrating from XP to Windows 7 using VDI

Sven Huisman

20 May 2010 | 3:00 am

Migrating to Windows 7 is something many companies will face the next couple of years. Using desktop virtualization or VDI in the process is something a lot of those companies consider (read Ruben Spruijt’s article about the different types of dekstop virtualization and the role of Windows 7). In this article I would like to point out a couple of challenges [...]
VMware View 4.5 Expected Features

Matthijs Haverink

18 May 2010 | 11:30 pm

Yesterday I had a presentation (not under NDA) from VMware about the improvements and features that we can expect with View 4.5 (no guarantees) and I was impressed as well as disappointed. Impressed by the small additions/improvements that together create a more mature and complete Desktop Virtualization solution. Disappointed about the fact that the feature [...]
VMware ThinApp 4.5: How to upgrade your packages?

Sven Huisman

24 Mar 2010 | 1:26 pm

A new feature in ThinApp 4.5 is the “relink” utility. With this utility, it is very easy to update all you ThinApp applications to the latest ThinApp version. The old way: Install/update ThinApp 4.5. Then rebuild each ThinApp package. The new way: Install/update ThinApp 4.5. Then use the relink utility to update your ThinApp applications: relink.exe “Mozilla Firefox.exe” The old version [...]

Blogs
Microsoft Virtualization Ecosphere Takes Shape

29 Jul 2010 | 3:54 pm

And VMex adds to it, with a solution that can deliver a complete infrastructure solution in simple fashion.
The x64 Push Continues with vSphere 4.1

27 Jul 2010 | 4:13 pm

Aside from running lots of features into the enterprise-class virtualization suite, a number of requirement changes are being rolled in.
ESXi Hosts, AD Integrated Security Gotcha

22 Jul 2010 | 12:33 pm

Configuring Active Directory-integrated security for ESXi hosts is easy; managing the license, a bit more complicated.
vSphere's Array Integration – Start of Good Things?

20 Jul 2010 | 5:42 pm

One feature that I am somewhat mixed on is the vStorage APIs for array integration (VAAI).
vSphere 4.1 Throws Bone to SMBs

15 Jul 2010 | 12:09 pm

Smaller companies will appreciate the concessions VMware has put into vSphere to make it attractive for use at the SMB level.

IT Security, Compliance and Best Practices
An Exciting Day! Leaving Tripwire To Begin My Next Chapter In Life

Gene Kim

27 Jul 2010 | 3:41 pm

The evening of July 20 was a both joyous and bittersweet. Why? It was joyous because I spent the evening with so many Tripwire colleagues that I’ve loved working with, who were all congratulating me and wishing me well. It was bittersweet because this was my farewell party at Tripwire: thirteen years after I founded [...]
Vegas Baby! The B-Side

Matt Hixson

27 Jul 2010 | 7:07 am

We are pumped to be at B-Sides Las Vegas! This week a group of us are hanging out at B-Sides in Las Vegas. We are very excited about the event after we were first exposed to the B-Sides movement in San Francisco this year during RSA. We have had the good fortune of getting to know [...]
Stuxnet Worm Affecting Controls Systems

~Previous Contributers

23 Jul 2010 | 12:14 pm

Post written by Kent Dahlgren A recently discovered worm called Stuxnet is affecting industrial control systems worldwide, with over half of the infections occurring in the United States. The worm exploits a zero-day vulnerability present in unpatched Windows software, and is targeting supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. These systems are used to operate power [...]
True FIM—Tripwire FIM: Summary

Ed Rarick

6 Jul 2010 | 9:38 am

Summary Tripwire has the only true File Integrity Monitoring solution. All others do little more than just detect changes, whether the changes are good or bad—because they have no way of telling the difference. Tripwire FIM, with its unique ChangeIQ capabilities, provides multiple ways to determine low-risk change from high-risk change, and do so [...]
True FIM—Tripwire FIM: Unauthorized vs. Undesired

Ed Rarick

1 Jul 2010 | 9:24 am

Good News PCI DSS 11.5 requires merchants to “…alert on unauthorized modification of critical system, content or configuration files…”. That should be good news, right? Alerting on unauthorized change requires more from a FIM than simply detecting change. It requires the ability to analyze each detected change to determine if it is expected or unexpected. Tripwire [...]

Virtually Speaking Blog RSS | ZDNet
Device independence and the future of mobility

Dan Kusnetzky

29 Jul 2010 | 2:30 am

Dave Buchholz, Technology Evangelist, Intel IT, and I had a interesting romp through the history of systems and how things have changed over the years. It was wonderful to meet a fellow computer archeologist! Then, based upon recent trends, we considered where things are likely to go. Some of that discussion touched upon a paper [...]
BYOC - what does it mean for the industry?

Dan Kusnetzky

28 Jul 2010 | 3:07 am

As I travel from event to event, I’ve begun to notice a pattern. Attendees tell me that they’re using a device such as a computer, an internet tablet, a netbook or a smartphone that they themselves purchased rather than using a company-supplied device. This trend is known as “bring your own computer” or BYOC. The [...]
A Special Offer From Our Sponsor

28 Jul 2010 | 3:07 am
Security and performance issues delay Google's L.A. Email roll out

Dan Kusnetzky

27 Jul 2010 | 3:28 am

There have been many industry reports concerning a delayed roll out of Google’s cloud Email service for the city of Los Angeles. The City, by the way, is moving from its current GroupWise implementation to Google’s cloud based Email service.It is reported that some city agencies have complained about performance and others complain about security [...]
Dell KACE offers tool to create "secure browser"

Dan Kusnetzky

26 Jul 2010 | 3:05 am

Dell KACE offers free security tool to FireFox users. Others will have to buy something to use the tool.

VM /ETC
VIRTUMANIA Episode 20: Powershell is Latin to Me

Rich Brambley

27 Jul 2010 | 5:15 am

VIRTUMANIA Episode 20 was far from scripted, but some of the best known names in virtualization scripting join us for this show. The following is the podcast summary: VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 20 – Powershell is Latin to Me. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of StorageRap.com with special guests Scott Herold (@vmguru) of vmguru.com and Hal Rottenberg (@halr9000) of halr9000.com. This week’s discussion focuses on using Powershell in virtual environments instead of a GUI, compares learning scripting to learning the verbs and nouns of a new language such as…
VIRTUMANIA Episode 19: Security Is The Dark Side Of Virtualization

Rich Brambley

19 Jul 2010 | 5:02 am

The VIRTUMANIA continues with Episode 19! Rick Vanover joins Marc and I again along with very special guest Ed Haletky for an extremely important discussion about security in virtualization infrastructure. The following is the podcast summary: VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 19 – Security is The Dark Side of Virtualization. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com with show regular Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com host Ed Haletky (@texiwill) of The Virtualization Practice Blog. This episode includes interesting discussion about…
Live Coverage – GestaltIT Tech Field Day Veeam Presentation

Rich Brambley

15 Jul 2010 | 4:35 am

I am in Seattle, WA for the third GestaltIT Tech Field Day (TFD). This time I am part of the presenting team for Veeam Software, and we are first up on the agenda. As with other recent events, I am using Cover It Live (CiL) to provide real time coverage and of our presentation and the reaction of the delegates (bloggers) attending. The best part about using Cover It Live is the event can be played back in the future, so check it out even if you missed it live. I’m automatically pulling in the tweets of all involved, so I should have a good stream of both bloggers and sponsors represented…
Where It’s At: GestaltIT Field Day Seattle

Rich Brambley

12 Jul 2010 | 8:11 am

"There’s a destination a little up the road from the habitations and the towns we know." For me this week that destination is Seattle, WA. In a turn of the tables, but not the turntables Beck refers to, I’ll be a presenter at the latest GestaltIT Tech Field Day (TFD) in Seattle on Thursday. I’ve previously attended the inaugural TFD in San Jose last fall as an independent blogger, but this time around I am employed by sponsoring vendor Veeam Software. I sat shoulder to shoulder with a few of the delegates last time, but now I will be standing in front of them.
VIRTUMANIA Episode 18: Putting The Mustard On Free Virtualization Charcuterie

Rich Brambley

12 Jul 2010 | 4:44 am

Although VIRTUMANIA 18 has been out via the RSS feed for over a week, I am just finally posting about it! Sorry for the delay but I’ve been on vacation. So, if you do not already subscribe to the show via iTunes or Podbean please add us to your favorite media player or feed reader. You can even catch Virtumania as soon as it comes out on the Mobile Site. In this episode Rick Vanover joins me again as co-host, and Jason Perlow from ZDNet is our special guest. The following is the podcast summary: VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 18 – Putting The Mustard On Free Virtualization Charcuterie. Rich…

Mike D's Blog
$5 for Your Cloud Thoughts

Mike DiPetrillo

15 Jul 2010 | 10:48 am

VMware has just opened up a survey to find out about what you think about cloud. And here’s the good news – they’ll give you a free cup of Joe to help you stay awake through the survey. In all seriousness this is your chance to influence what VMware is doing in the cloud space. Tell them what you want, what your pain points are, etc. Here’s more about the curvey with the link. To gather your feedback, we’ve created a quick public cloud survey: http://bit.ly/publiccloudsurvey. Our survey asks why you chose your provider, the type of workloads you’re running, if you…
Lazy Developers

Mike DiPetrillo

24 Jun 2010 | 5:30 am

That title should get some people’s attention. So why do I start off by offending everyone? Blame it on Microsoft. I recently came across a rather funny and curious ad on-line. Actually someone sent it to me via email. Apparently Microsoft has launched a campaign to get rid of IE6 – it’s nearly 10 year old web browser. It turns out that not everyone is upgrading to the newer IE8 (or even IE7). First, here’s the ad: I have to give a big thumbs up to whoever came up with this ad. So how does all of this lead to lazy developers? It’s simple. A little while ago I…
My Talk at the Charlotte VMUG on Cloud

Mike DiPetrillo

22 Jun 2010 | 8:54 am

Recently I was up at the Charlotte VMUG which was a HUGE and very well organized event. David Davis from Train Signal was there and in the audience as I talked all about cloud. He recorded the talk and you can see the video below. NOTE: This is *not* the official VMware talk but one that I put together to disseminate information and keep the audience engaged. You’ll figure that out quickly as you start to watch the talk. Enjoy!
Orange Business Services Builds a VMware Cloud

Mike DiPetrillo

22 Jun 2010 | 6:37 am

A lot of people keep asking what I’m up to and why I’m so quiet all of the time. I’ve been telling you all that I’ve been super busy building VMware based public clouds. Well, one of my customers just broke their silence so I thought I’d give you a pointer on the types of environments I’ve been working in. Orange Business Services (think France Telecom) has just announced their cloud intentions. It’s a very exciting project that builds on top of the cloud service they already have launched with VMware. This is one of the largest telcos in the world…
NetApp Plug-in for VMware vCenter

Mike DiPetrillo

21 Jun 2010 | 5:07 am

This past week I was resetting the cloud lab that I maintain at VMware. We have several storage systems on the back end to test out with our cloud reference architecture that I’m building. One of the arrays we have is a NetApp FAS-3170. Since we were using NetApp on the back end I decided to download one of the two plug-ins available from NetApp for use in VMware vCenter Server. They have an array mapping utility as well as the RCU (Rapid Clone Utility) plug-in. Both can be downloaded using your NetApp NOW account. The plug-in I used was the one that maps out all of the storage and…

Yellow Bricks
VMworld San Francisco Run 2010

Duncan Epping

31 Jul 2010 | 1:19 am

In 2009 I was one of the people who came up with the idea to run the Golden Gate Bridge during VMworld. This idea got a little out of hand and we ended up with roughly 200 runners and 4 Sponsors. It was probably one of the best social events I ever attended during VMworld. This year we expected that a lot more people wanted to join and as such the VMworld Organization is running (:-)) the event this year. src What: 5k out-and-back course When: Sunday, August 29th at 5:00 p.m. Where: Crissy Field, San Francisco Who: VMworld 2010 attendees and spouses How: Registration and further information…
VMware related acronyms

Duncan Epping

29 Jul 2010 | 10:17 am

We were just talking about some random VMware acronyms during a lab day and I thought I would write the ones down which some of us didn’t know. (Even google did not have the answer to some) I guess the most difficult one to figure out was VPXA/VPXD, which refers to VPX which was the official name for vCenter back in the days…. ESX = Elastic Sky X GSX = Ground Storm X also some times referred to as Ground Swell X VPX = Virtual Provisioning X VPXA = Virtual Provisioning X Agent VPXD = Virtual Provisioning X Daemon VMX Virtual Machine eXecutable AAM = Automated Availability…
Storage Migrations?

Duncan Epping

28 Jul 2010 | 7:35 am

On an internal mailing list we had a very useful discussion around storage migrations when a SAN is replaced or a migration needs to take place to a different set of disks. Many customers face this at some point. The question usually is what is the best approach? SAN Replication or Storage vMotion… Both have its pros and cons I guess. SAN Replication: Can utilize Array based copy mechanisms for fast replication (+) Per LUN migration, high level of concurrency (+) Old volumes still available (+) Need to resignature or mount the volume again (-) A resignature also means you will need to…
VCDX Prep Workshop Powerpoint published…

Duncan Epping

26 Jul 2010 | 12:50 pm

Just got noted that the Presentation of the VCDX 3 Preperation Workshop has been published. This Powerpoint presentation was given by John Arrasjid and Pang Chen during Partner Exchange and got a lot of great feedback. For everyone aiming to become a VCDX over the course of the upcoming months this is definitely a must read! VCDX Defense Preparation Preparation time Plan on working a minimum of 30-40 hours to complete the application and supporting documentation. Mandatory VDCX documentation Architectural design document with diagrams and blueprints Implementation and next steps…
HA/DRS and Flattened Shares

Duncan Epping

22 Jul 2010 | 9:34 am

A week ago I already touched on this topic but I wanted to get a better understand for myself what could go wrong in these situations and how vSphere 4.1 solves this issue. Pre-vSphere 4.1 an issue could arise when shares had been set custom on a virtual machine. When HA fails over a virtual machine it will power-on the virtual machine in the Root Resource Pool. However, the virtual machine’s shares were scaled for its appropriate place in the resource pool hierarchy, not for the Root Resource Pool. This could cause the virtual machine to receive either too many or too few resources…

VMware Videos - Virtualization News and How-To
VIDEO: Solving vSphere Performance Issues with Veeam Monitor Free Edition

David Davis

30 Jul 2010 | 8:04 am

I just added the new vSphere Pro Vol 2, 21 hour training course to my vSphere video training package from Train Signal. In the new Volume 2 is 4+ hours on Veeam’s Management Suite (including Backup, Monitor, and Reporter). I really like Veeam Monitor for performance reporting and, fortunately, for those who don’t have thousands to spend, Veeam Monitor is available in a free edition. While the integrated vSphere performance tools are good, I recommend that every VMware Admin have an third-party performance monitoring and alerting application. In the video below, I cover how to…
VIDEO: 5 Minute Guide to Backing up VMs with Veeam Backup

David Davis

26 Jul 2010 | 10:49 am

In my new Train Signal vSphere Pro Vol 2 video, I cover using Veeam Backup in -depth. While I spent over 45 minutes just on backing up VMs with Veeam Backup in that series, I wanted to show VMware Admins out there that Veeam Backup isn’t complicated. While it is powerful and has lots of options, you can backup your vSphere VMs with Veeam Backup in a matter of minutes. To see how, watch my video below covering How to Backup VMs with Veeam Backup in under 5 minutes.
VIDEO: Using the Free Veeam FastSCP to Transfer VMs and ISOs to vSphere

David Davis

22 Jul 2010 | 6:29 am

Getting the ISO files used to install operating systems or the existing VMs you may have onto an ESX / vSphere host can be baffling to new VMware Admins who don’t have the right tool. The “right tool” is a SCP (secure copy protocol) file transfer application. There are a number of free options out there but the “tried and true” SCP program when using vSphere is Veeam’s FastSCP. It has been around the longest and is, by far, the easiest to use. As part of my new vSphere Pro Vol 2 video training course, I covered the Veeam Management Suite. FastSCP is a free…
VIDEO: vChat – Episode 1 – New vSphere 4.1 and Top 15 Killer Features

David Davis

14 Jul 2010 | 7:23 am

In our first ever vChat (episode 1 / “The Pilot”), Simon Seagrave and David Davis discuss the new vSphere 4.1 and its top 15 killer features. vChat is a regular virtualization video chat covering VMware vSphere, Cloud Computing, Virtualization News, and maybe some geeky humor. Regular contributors are 3 vExperts – Simon Seagrave (TechHead.co.uk), Eric Siebert (vSphere-Land.com), and David Davis (VMwareVideos.com). Sponsored by vSphere Video Training from TrainSignal.com
VIDEO: New vSphere 4.1 ESXi Tech Support Mode

David Davis

13 Jul 2010 | 8:08 am

With the new vSphere 4.1, the ESXi “hidden” tech support mode is no longer hidden. You can enable access the ESXi command line on the console and remotely via SSH easily in the new ESXi Tech Support Mode features, inside the Direct Console User Interface (DCUI). In the past, you had to press ALT+F1, type unsupported, and type the root password (all without any echo/response on the screen). Now, to access the ESXi console locally or via SSH, just press F2, go to Troubleshooting Options, and enable local and/or remote tech support mode. From there, you can login just like an ESX…

VMware Tips
VMware vSphere 4.1 is Available!

Rick Scherer

13 Jul 2010 | 12:46 am

Just about an hour ago VMware lifted the NDA on VMware vSphere 4.1 and made available all of the information on this latest release as well as the bits for download available to the public. I will be covering a more in-depth review on this latest release really soon but I did want my readers to know that the bits are available for download from the VMware website. http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_4/4 The upgrade to ESX(i) 4.1 should be relatively easy by using traditional update methods such as VMware Update Manager (VUM). However, the upgrade to…
Get to VMworld 2010 and Save Some Money

Rick Scherer

6 Jul 2010 | 3:24 pm

For those of you who haven’t purchased your pass to VMworld yet do I have a surprise for you! Being an employee of EMC combined with EMC being a great partner of VMware allows me to extend some good perks to my readers. If you use the following link (http://www.vmworld.com/registration.jspa?sponsorCode=EMC) to register for VMworld and enter in the promotion code EMC_EB_US2010 you will save $300 from the regular admission price (reg $1,795). VMworld 2010 is going to have some great sessions, including some awesome Ask the Experts sessions as well as the opportunity to meet a good…
VMware VCAP4-DCA Beta Exam Experience

Rick Scherer

25 Jun 2010 | 12:03 pm

Sorry this took so long to get out, my new position at EMC has proven to be extremely demanding…which I LOVE! I love going out and evangelizing about what great things we’re doing in the virtualization space. Anyways, back to the review… Two weeks ago (June 9th) I took the VCAP4-DCA Beta Exam at the Pearson Vue office in Anaheim, CA. The overall process was the same as taking any other VMware exam, you sign-in and verify your identity then they log you into a workstation where the exam awaits. What’s immediately different about the DCA exam is that it is 100% lab…
EMC Webcast on 6/24 - VAAI: Learn all about vStorage API for Array Integration

Rick Scherer

18 Jun 2010 | 10:34 am

EMC is running a webcast hosted by Chad Sakac next Thursday and the topic should be of an interest to any VMware or Storage administrator. If you haven’t heard about VAAI and it’s great offloading capabilities I strongly urge you to register for this webcast. Thursday, June 24, 2010, 11:00 am ET Host: Chad Sakac, VP VMware Technology Alliance, EMC Register Now by Clicking Here During this discussion, you can learn about vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) There are some functions that your storage system can handle more efficiently than your virtual servers and their hosts…
VMware ALERT: View customers using PCoIP are advised to NOT apply Update 2 to ESX 4.0 (yet)

Rick Scherer

15 Jun 2010 | 3:50 pm

Everyone in the virtualization blogosphere has already covered this but I figured I should let my loyal readers know… Earlier today VMware became aware of an issue affecting users of VMware View after applying Update 2 to their ESX 4.0 hosts. The problem only effects PCoIP, RDP works normally. There is a discussion of the problem in the VMware Communities here. While our IT Teams work to resolve the issue, the Knowledge Base Team has responded by creating an up-to-the-minute live document at: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022830 and using @vmwarecares and @vmwarekb Twitter accounts to alert…

Citrix XenServer
Citrix Ready Demo (NFR) Licensing FAQ

Vasu T.N.

29 Jul 2010 | 10:11 pm

This document will answer all the questions on Demo (Previously known as NFR) License Q: How do I get NFR/demo license for XenApp? A: XenDesktop Platinum Edition includes XenApp Platinum Edition plus significant additional functionality and benefits. Please download and use the XenDesktop Platinum edition licenses The Screenshot shows the Citrix Products which are included under XenDesktop License. (XenDesktop License) Q: How do I get a Demo (Previously known as NFR) License copy of XenDesktop 4? A: Demo (Previously known as NFR) License copies of XenDesktop 4 are only available to authorized…
Moving Apps to the Cloud - Half the Fun is Getting There

Pete Downing

28 Jul 2010 | 9:14 am

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Nathan Day, the CTO of Softlayer and ask him a few questions surrounding cloud computing. Back at Synergy 2010, Citrix launched seven turnkey cloud solutions, focused on practical cloud use cases and delivered by proven cloud providers, that let enterprises take advantage of cloud economics to address pressing business and IT needs. Citrix Cloud Solutions let enterprises leverage existing investments, including third-party virtualization technologies and tools, to migrate application workloads to the cloud without having to overhaul existing…
Hosted Applications - how to find them

Scott Swanburg

28 Jul 2010 | 7:33 am

There is a cry to the IT industry today to provide succinct information about Cloud Computing... especially among Small and Medium Businesses (SMB). According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, over 52% of all small businesses are actually Small Office-Home Office or SOHO businesses. The need for these companies to keep their operational costs down is tantamount to their success. Because IT is a huge part of these businesses (everything from web site marketing to CRM applications) utilizing services online are a natural way for these companies to…
Don't forget the XenServer Master Class on Thursday, July 29th

Eric Bauer

28 Jul 2010 | 6:46 am

For those of you who have not yet experienced a XenServer Master Class, now is the perfect opportunity. We are holding a live webinar (with after class discussions) covering High Availability and Disaster Recovery on XenServer. As with past Master Classes, future topics are defined by you, so help direct the discussion! Not yet registered? Register now! If this is the first time you have heard of the XenServer Master Class, please follow our official Facebook fan page, LinkedIn group and Twitter feed. That's where you'll find the latest XenServer news,…
NetScaler Automation - Part 1

Craig Ellrod

20 Jul 2010 | 8:55 am

Connect to NetScaler VPX with Workflow Studio By now you have heard of Citrix Delivery Center and it's various components. Automating resources in the cloud is easy. One way is through the use of Citrix Workflow Studio to automatically provision the Citrix NetScaler. Workflow Studio is easy to use, but you might need some help getting over the hump, so I am going to walk you through getting the two working together. First I installed XenServer 5.5 on a Dell 2950 I had running in the lab, it was leftover from other projects, so I didn't have to buy any new hardware. Then I installed Citrix…

VCritical
Microsoft seeks to stem Azure exodus with huge appliance

Eric Gray

12 Jul 2010 | 3:38 pm

How big is an appliance, anyway? Before today, a refrigerator is probably the largest appliance you or I have encountered. But today, Microsoft announced an Azure appliance that consists of hundreds of servers — a “cloud-in-a-box” that is managed by Microsoft but hosted in a customer datacenter. Why would Microsoft go through the trouble of creating and managing numerous miniature Azures? One possible explanation is that customers are trying the proprietary platform to see what the fuss is all about, but not sticking with it — kind of like garlic ice cream at the…
These are not the files you are looking for

Eric Gray

21 Jun 2010 | 2:08 pm

If you have been following along on my Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization series, you may have noticed that the RHEV marketing hasn’t matched reality. Red Hat’s claims about being best in class and equivalent to VMware vSphere are dishonest. As much as I’d enjoy writing about something more interesting, I do have a few more important realities to share with the virtualization community about this latecomer. RHEV Comparison Whitepaper Red Hat published a PDF comparing RHEV to VMware vSphere and Hyper-V. Here is one of the entries on virtual storage: Okay, so far so good. …
Multiple hypervisors? What about multiple SANs?

Eric Gray

15 Jun 2010 | 11:40 am

Some of the cool kids are talking about a multi-hypervisor strategy these days. Mostly journalists and such who could never truly feel the pain of dealing with two vastly different virtualization management platforms. As you may recall, Red Hat is attempting to bring their new RHEV product to market by playing the old “don’t get stuck with a single vendor” trick. Red Hat’s CEO claims: “…customers don’t want one platform. They want two.” Let’s save the multi-hypervisor discussion for another day, but shift to the topic of storage diversity.
Idle RHEV Hypervisors save power?

Eric Gray

7 May 2010 | 2:40 pm

Quick datacenter power consumption quiz: Q: How much power does an idle server consume? A: Way more than a powered-off server. VMware vSphere saves energy — and money — in your datacenter by powering off unused hosts during off-peak periods. Take a look at this new technical paper on VMware DPM that covers the technology in-depth. Despite competitor claims, this powerful capability is unique to VMware vSphere. Imitation: The highest form of flattery Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization has a seemingly-similar feature called Power Saver that also consolidates virtual machines onto…
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization: Pentium II Inside!

Eric Gray

3 May 2010 | 8:28 pm

Hypervisors offer the flexibility to selectively expose a subset of physical CPU features to virtual machines. The trade-off is broader live migration compatibility at the expense of performance and cutting-edge capabilities. In a homogeneous VMware ESX cluster, all CPU instructions in the underlying host CPU are exposed to guest operating systems. VMware vCenter Server also offers the state-of-the-art Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC), allowing administrators to specify a baseline in a mixed cluster that maximizes use of most modern CPU features during transition to newer generation…

VCritical
Microsoft seeks to stem Azure exodus with huge appliance

Eric Gray

12 Jul 2010 | 3:38 pm

How big is an appliance, anyway? Before today, a refrigerator is probably the largest appliance you or I have encountered. But today, Microsoft announced an Azure appliance that consists of hundreds of servers — a “cloud-in-a-box” that is managed by Microsoft but hosted in a customer datacenter. Why would Microsoft go through the trouble of creating and managing numerous miniature Azures? One possible explanation is that customers are trying the proprietary platform to see what the fuss is all about, but not sticking with it — kind of like garlic ice cream at the…
These are not the files you are looking for

Eric Gray

21 Jun 2010 | 2:08 pm

If you have been following along on my Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization series, you may have noticed that the RHEV marketing hasn’t matched reality. Red Hat’s claims about being best in class and equivalent to VMware vSphere are dishonest. As much as I’d enjoy writing about something more interesting, I do have a few more important realities to share with the virtualization community about this latecomer. RHEV Comparison Whitepaper Red Hat published a PDF comparing RHEV to VMware vSphere and Hyper-V. Here is one of the entries on virtual storage: Okay, so far so good. …
Multiple hypervisors? What about multiple SANs?

Eric Gray

15 Jun 2010 | 11:40 am

Some of the cool kids are talking about a multi-hypervisor strategy these days. Mostly journalists and such who could never truly feel the pain of dealing with two vastly different virtualization management platforms. As you may recall, Red Hat is attempting to bring their new RHEV product to market by playing the old “don’t get stuck with a single vendor” trick. Red Hat’s CEO claims: “…customers don’t want one platform. They want two.” Let’s save the multi-hypervisor discussion for another day, but shift to the topic of storage diversity.
Idle RHEV Hypervisors save power?

Eric Gray

7 May 2010 | 2:40 pm

Quick datacenter power consumption quiz: Q: How much power does an idle server consume? A: Way more than a powered-off server. VMware vSphere saves energy — and money — in your datacenter by powering off unused hosts during off-peak periods. Take a look at this new technical paper on VMware DPM that covers the technology in-depth. Despite competitor claims, this powerful capability is unique to VMware vSphere. Imitation: The highest form of flattery Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization has a seemingly-similar feature called Power Saver that also consolidates virtual machines onto…
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization: Pentium II Inside!

Eric Gray

3 May 2010 | 8:28 pm

Hypervisors offer the flexibility to selectively expose a subset of physical CPU features to virtual machines. The trade-off is broader live migration compatibility at the expense of performance and cutting-edge capabilities. In a homogeneous VMware ESX cluster, all CPU instructions in the underlying host CPU are exposed to guest operating systems. VMware vCenter Server also offers the state-of-the-art Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC), allowing administrators to specify a baseline in a mixed cluster that maximizes use of most modern CPU features during transition to newer generation…

Vmware Scripting
List VM's with disks on more than one LUN

29 Jul 2010 | 5:01 am

Code:Get-View -ViewType "VirtualMachine" | Where-Object {$_.Config.DatastoreUrl.Count -gt 1} | select Name
**Indy VMUG Demo Days 3**

15 Jul 2010 | 5:08 am

**Indy VMUG Demo Days 3**FREE to all attendees, including parking!Where: Indiana Convention CenterWhen: Tuesday, July 27th - 7am-6pmRegister at: http://demodays.info-50 vendors in the exhibitors hall-28 Breakout Sessions-ThinApp hands on lab-Cl...
Re: svMotion all VMs from on LUN to another

13 Jul 2010 | 11:28 am

ooooo very nice
Find which hosts have not been upgrade to vSphere Update 2

13 Jul 2010 | 11:27 am

Code:Get-View -ViewType HostSystem -property Name,Config.Product.fullname | ? {$_.Config.Product.fullname -ne "VMware ESX 4.0.0 build-261974"} | ForEach-Object { Write-host $_.Name $_.Config.Product.fullname}
Re: sVmotion list of VM's from CSV

13 Jul 2010 | 7:09 am

If you are migrating from one LUN to another you can use the examples I posted here:http://www.vmwarescripting.com/index.php?topic=1331.0.If you are migrating specific VMs (all files) yo...

Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft virtualization blog
I quit!

Ilija Brajkovic

26 Jul 2010 | 10:39 am

Don’t be afraid, it’s nothing serious this time. After being a Microsoft Student Partner for more than 2,5 years, it’s time to say goodbye. I will graduate in a month, and this is the best time to say thanks to Microsoft for a chance to be one of only few thousand students around the world [...] Copyright © Ilija Brajkovic http://www.brajkovic.info
How NOT to install a virtual Windows Server?

Ilija Brajkovic

14 Jul 2010 | 8:19 am

Few days ago I learned one "important" lesson from the field, which is actually my lab, which is actually my laptop. I’m in a process of writing my final thesis, and I write about Exchange Server 2010. I need to do some demo, so I decided to start a few virtual machines. Actually, 6! On [...] Copyright © Ilija Brajkovic http://www.brajkovic.info
Procedo no more

Ilija Brajkovic

30 Jun 2010 | 5:19 pm

Today was my last day at company Procedo. I’ve been working there since February 15th. Although is learned many things while working there, I realized that I have to finish some other more important tasks first, and spend my time trying to achieve a “bigger goal”. First of all, I have to write my final [...] Copyright © Ilija Brajkovic http://www.brajkovic.info
Some info about Dynamic Memory

Ilija Brajkovic

7 Jun 2010 | 3:35 pm

I’m sure many of you already know that Dynamic Memory feature will be added into Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. With this feature, it will be possible for administrators to provide a range of RAM to a virtual machine. Hyper-V will then dynamically provide RAM to a virtual machine, based on virtual machine needs. [...] Copyright © Ilija Brajkovic http://www.brajkovic.info
Redmond

Ilija Brajkovic

3 Jun 2010 | 4:24 pm

Last week I had a chance to visit Microsoft headquarters in Redmond. A few months ago I worked on some project for Microsoft Croatia, and we had a review in Redmond. After a very long flight from Croatia (via Frankfurt and San Francisco) on Wednesday, we had a review meetings on Thursday and Friday, [...] Copyright © Ilija Brajkovic http://www.brajkovic.info