Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

Richard Garsthagen over at Run-Virtual created another nice tool. VMjuggler is an application Richard wrote to use during demonstrations. The program is quite simple, it connects to VirtualCenter 2.x and you can select a VM and 2 hosts. After selecting this you can start the VMjuggler and the VM will be moves every 10 seconds between the hosts. The VMjuggler has been added to the vm4all.com website.

I wrote a little PowerShell script that lists all the virtual hard disk files (and their paths) who are in snapshot mode. It’s nothing fancy really, just gives a little insight in how to retrieve objects.

Get-VIServer "VCSERVER" -User eric -Password sloof 
$Datacenter = Get-Datacenter 
$AllVirtualMachines = Get-VM -Location $Datacenter 
$AllSnapshots = Get-Snapshot $AllVirtualMachines
Get-HardDisk -Snapshot $AllSnapshots | findstr "Filename"

FullArmor delivers on its promise of virtual machine provisioning and automation capabilities with the release of Workflow Studio version 1.1 beta 1.  So, what's new in version 1.1? Among the eleven new enhancement there is one interesting library in particular: the VMware Infrastructure Task Library. With this library you can completely provision and automate your VI3 infrastructure.  Create, start, stop, suspend, resume, move, delete, and modify VMs.

ManageIQâ„¢, the emerging leader in the management and automation of virtualized computing environments, today announced EVMâ„¢ Insight. EVM Insight, a component of the company's new Enterprise Virtualization Managementâ„¢ (EVM) suite, gives organizations unparalleled visibility into their virtual environments by providing the comprehensive configuration information they need to effectively manage and control their virtual infrastructure.

I wrote a PowerShell script that takes a few samples of your VM CPU MHZ average. The script uses the VMware PowerShell snap-in, the output is piped to the Out-String cmdlet. The Out-String cmdlet converts the objects that Windows PowerShell manages into an array of strings. By default, Out-String accumulates the strings and returns them as a single string, but you can use the stream parameter to direct Out-String to return one string at a time. This cmdlet lets you search and manipulate string output as you would in traditional shells when object manipulation is less convenient.

Vizioncore will be launching vConverter 3.0 with the "Direct to ESX Server" feature on November 28, 2007. Vizioncore's vConverter P2V/V2V solution is an enterprise class converter that significantly reduces the time and effort spent converting physical servers to  VMware, Microsoft or Virtual Iron virtual machines. Some of the unique features that set vConverter apart include:

- "Direct to ESX Server" allows you to convert straight to a live ESX Server.
- Live agent-less conversions.  No boot CD, driver issues, or downtime.
- Intuitive GUI or CLI interfaces for any level admin.
- Resize partitions on-the-fly to save on storage.
- No infrastructure install required for fast setup.
- Lightweight application footprint.
- Heterogeneous support for multiple platforms.
- Two editions:  Server Consolidation & Disaster Recovery.

At the end of the VMworld 2007 event in San Francisco VMware launched the “what rocked my world� video contest. The aim is to capture all the excitement and inspiration of the VMworld 2007. Since I captured some nice events and posted my video footage on YouTube, I thought let’s give it a try. I uploaded my video’s to the contest page. For a long time I was under the impression that I was going to win the fully loaded Alienware Gaming Laptop until Sean Clark and his colleagues uploaded their movie. I knew right away that it was going to be a close call because they did a great job. After some delay I finally received an email from VMware. Yippee…

Hello Eric:

Congratulations!  Thank you for your patience and efforts!  You have been selected as the grand prize winner in the VMworld 2007 video contest!! Your video, VMworld 2007 Day one, combined with the many other videos you had submitted, best captured the spirit and excitement of VMworld!

Congratulations and thanks!

Keith Wong, VMware - Program Manager

Wow, that’s great! Many thanks Keith! Hope to meet you next year in Vegas. I’m going to look for a new VMware video contest in the months preceding VMworld 2008. Don’t forget to make your plans now to attend VMworld 2008 in Las Vegas, September 16-18.

This new site provides unbiased news analysis, a library of essential tips, informative learning guides and white papers -- all in an effort to arm you with the tools and tactics you need to do your job successfully and make the right technology decisions.  You'll get expert advice on implementing VMware-related virtualization technologies for server consolidation, disaster recovery, lab and test, desktop centralization or other production usage. The SearchVMware.com editors will provide you with the type of high quality content you're accustomed to from SearchServerVirtualization.com. You can even sign up for newsletters focused on different aspects of VMware virtualization technologies like:

- Desktop virtualization and VMware
- Virtual machine migration
- VMware backup, disaster recovery and storage
- VMware management and performance
- VMware platforms
- Managing virtual environments

Eric Sloof is interviewing John Troyer at the VMworld 2007

On VMware Connected, he is going to talk about the greater community of virtualization users and how they connect, both at the home base of communities.vmware.com and elsewhere on that series of pipes. John Troyer has been working on the communities team at VMware for about two years. He worked with internal and external bloggers, keeping the VMTN Blog on a slow steady drip, and is the de facto RSS guy on the web team. He’s also involved with projects like the Virtual Appliance Marketplace, and takes full responsibility for anything you don't like about it.

The eG Monitor for VMware infrastructures (the eG VM MonitorTM), part of the eG Enterprise Suite, is a comprehensive solution for monitoring and managing all aspects of virtual hosts and guests, whether the infrastructure is used to support server or desktop applications. Coupled with the ability of the eG Enterprise Suite to monitor over 80 applications, including Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAP, and others, the eG VM Monitor – with its patent-pending In-N-Out MonitoringTM technology -- provides a comprehensive end-to-end solution for monitoring and managing the performance of virtual IT infrastructures.

This evening I had the chance to play some more with the PowerGadgets tool. I want to use VMware PowerShell Snap-in to collect statistics about my VM and display the data in a nice chart. The following three lines produce the chart in the image. Isn’t it great . Btw if you have problems with connecting to your Virtual Center server and you are receiving the following error message “Get-VIServer : Unexpected Error. ID Core_GetViServer_NewClient_Nullclient At Line:1 char:13� you should check your locales setting and make sure you put it on English (credits to Bas).

PowerGadgets is a revolutionary new data visualization product that utilizes Windows PowerShell, Microsoft’s new scripting shell, to allow the creation of Gadgets in Windows. PowerGadgets requires no complex development environments, servers or browsers to run real-time Gadget components such as charts, gauges and maps on your desktop or in the Windows Sidebar. With just two lines of code you can present the outcome of your VMware PowerShell scripts into a PowerGadget. The image shows all my virtual machines presented in a chart by using the following code.

$vc = Get-VIServer -Server "VCServer" -User Eric -Password Sloof
Get-VM |out-chart -View3D_Enabled true

Out-chart: PowerGadgets provides a powerful charting engine providing over 60 chart types and a wealth of aesthetical and functional features. A chart plots data in the form of series and points with each series containing one or more points. Out-gauge: In addition to charts, PowerGadgets provides an out-gauge cmdlet to display single variable graphical objects. Single variable analysis is very powerful when combined with PowerGadgets’ flexible real-time capabilities.

Brian over at “Quick and Dirty Scripting� a blog that focuses on automating system administration tasks for Linux, Windows, and VMware ESX is (like me) a VMware PowerShell pioneer. He created a script that creates a new virtual machine. He also tried to create a new VM from a template, but he continually got an error while doing so. I guess this just goes to show that VMware is still developing this code and it has some ways to go.

Workflow Studio is a new platform that enables simple yet enterprise-scale data center and business process automation through the power of Windows PowerShell and the flexibility of workflow.  Through a graphical workflow designer, you can build full automation of your business and/or IT processes including user account management, server and application provisioning, security enforcement and automation, disaster recovery automation, and routine and emergency maintenance on data center resources. You can integrate all these features with the VMware PowerShell command let’s and  automate and provision VMware’s virtual machines. The image shows a simple tryout. Within the hour I created a workflow that creates a CSV file with all the virtual machines registered at a Virtual Center Server. The trail period is 30 days so I got 29 days of fun left.