Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

Peter Rudolf over at mightycare-solutions released another great (freeware) Tool from Mightycare Solutions to display the logical Partitions of all virtual Maschines on VMware ESX 3.x or Virtual Center 2.x . The Tool can display how many Gigabyte the Customer can save when he decrease the logical partition to a size the VM really need.

This evening Thomas Hagedorn over at Magirus Nordic treated us a nice Italian dinner. We had a lot of fun especially the four birthdays in the same restaurant  led to a lot of singing and handclaps. Earlier today I had the opportunity to speak with Mike Laverick about the battle of the RPD protocols. He also shared his findings about the Virtual Desktop Manager 2. Finally I couldn’t resist asking him about the upcoming Advanced Technical Design Guide, and why it’s taking so long . I recorded the interview and you can download it here.

Today I attended the Virtual Desktop Manager 2 Train The Trainer course at VMware in Frimley (UK) delivered by Andy Cary, Undeleeb Din and Richard Garsthagen.  It was a great day with lots of discussion about Group Policy’s and mandatory profile’s besides that we looked at the classroom setup. As always I brought my camera with me and made some pictures during the course. I even managed to collect some video footage and posted it on Blip.tv.

Monday the 7th of April I’ll fly to London Heathrow. I’m staying at the famous Lakeside International Hotel. This hotel is also known from the Frimley Green Darts Tournament. On Tuesday I’ll attend the Virtual Desktop Manager Train the Trainer. This hands-on training course, aimed at experienced VMware Infrastructure 3 administrators, covers installation, configuration, and management of a VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) using VMware Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM). I’m among the top VMware trainers from Europe, so stay tuned, because I’ve packed my camera and microphone.

Last moth Dell released an updated version of “Installing Dell™ OpenManage™ Software in a VMware® ESX® Server Software Environment�. This document provides installation steps, usage, and support information for the Dell™ OpenManage™ systems management suite on VMware® ESX Server software. Dell OpenManage is a suite of system management applications for managing Dell PowerEdge servers. This section lists the features available in Dell OpenManage and details what is supported and what is not supported when running Dell OpenManage on VMware ESX Server software

This morning I posted an article about the Yankee Group report regarding the comparison between Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) and VMware ESX. This report contains a lot of errors and is pulled from the Yankee Group site to be reworked. But why is the report still available at the Microsoft website ?

  What's New in VMware Workstation 6.5

- Use Unity to integrate your guest apps with your host
- More Powerful VM Record and Replay
- Support for Smart Cards & Smart Card Readers
- Enhanced ACE Authoring
- Link State Propagation Networking
- Improved 3D graphics Support

Plans for Workstation 6.5 include adding support for additional host and guest operating systems such as CentOS, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Asianux, and newer editions of operating systems already supported. Windows Server 2008 is experimentally supported as a guest. You are welcome to try Workstation 6.5 on these operating systems and send feedback. Precompiled kernel modules are not available for the newly added Linux operating systems. Therefore, when you start Workstation for the first time, a dialog box might prompt you to compile the kernel modules. If you experience issues with this new module updater feature, run the following command: vmware-config.pl --compile.

I’m delivering an instructor led VMware Sales Professional training this Friday so I thought what’s the best way to deliver such a training? The first thing I did was getting certified myself. After studying hard on the sales topics I’m finally a VSP. Hoera! Here are my scores :

Selling Infrastructure Optimization Solutions  01-Apr-2008  83.0%
Delivering the VMware Message  31-Mar-2008  81.3%
VMware Solutions Overview  31-Mar-2008  93.4%
VMware Products Overview  30-Mar-2008  90.0%
VMware Corporate Overview  30-Mar-2008  87.5%
Virtualization Overview   30-Mar-2008  0.33 90.0%

The VMware Sales Professional (VSP) program is an online, self-paced curriculum that has been broken down into an accreditation for each of VMware’s four main solution areas. The first accreditation can be completed in about 5-7 hours and each subsequent accreditation requires about 1-2 hours. Together, this sales-focused training curriculum:

• Jumpstarts a person’s understanding of how to sell VMware products & solutions
• Reduces the time needed to be effective
• Ensures a consistent message is being evangelized

Coming soon to a city near you: VMware Virtualization Forum 2008. VMware Virtualization Forum 2008 is the key virtualization event of the year. The Forum will bring together the industry's market leaders to address the business and technology challenges that CIOs and IT managers face today. At VMware's Virtualization Forum 2008 you will receive the latest product updates and information, see live demos and connect with VMware and VMware's partners. The Forum will provide you with the deep level of understanding required to turn your infrastructure challenges into a competitive advantage through VMware's virtualization solutions/technology.

The bottom line of the Yankee Group report "Virtualization Price War: VMware’s Little Big Horn?" is - Rapid commoditization and intensified competition in virtualization technology has precipitated a price war, which is a key element of emerging Anywhere Applications environment. This war is a boon for corporate enterprises who can pick and choose from a wide array of products at discounted prices.� And makes a comparison between Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) and VMware ESX. - I didn’t know that Longhorn has HA and where is Hyper-V in the comparison? Don’t make me laugh!

This course is open to anyone but is designed for students who have already taken a VMware Infrastructure 3 instructor-led course. It assumes a strong working knowledge of VMware Infrastructure 3. The course contains sixteen brief eLearning modules. Topics include: an overview module of many the new features, a module on upgrading an existing VMware Infrastructure to ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5, and several guided demonstrations on how to operate three of the key new features: Storage VMotion, VMware Update Manager, and Guided Consolidation. In addition, the course provides eight interactive simulations, which give the student hands-on practice with the procedures being demonstrated.