Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

Viktor van den Berg, Product Manager and Technical Trainer at the Xpert Training Group is going to present a session about the Unattended Deployment of VMware Infrastructure 3 at the VMworld Europe 2009 Cannes.

An unattended deployment of VMware infrastructure 3 reduces the time needed for installation and configuration of your VMware ESX and vCenter server(s). It also reduces the risk misconfiguration. Unattended deployment of these products will gain you a consistent configuration. At Xpert Training Group, an indepedent VMware Authorized Training Centre from The Netherlands, unattended deployments of VI-3 are used on a regular basis. In this session you will learn how to automatically deploy your ESX servers and how to connect these fresh installed ESX servers to a vCenter server. After the introduction of a step-by-step plan for unattended deployment, this session will focus on some useful scripting techniques used in a unattended deployment scenario. Expect some bash and powershell scripting in this session.

Do you wonder about virtualization? Are you seeking for the best virtualization platform for your specific environment? Project VRC shows you the way!

Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC) is a joint venture of Log•in Consultants and PQR, who have researched the optimal configuration for the different available hypervisors (hardware virtualization layers). The project arises from the growing demand for a founded advice on how to virtualise Terminal Server and Virtual Desktop (VDI) workloads. Through a number of researches, Log•in Consultants and PQR show you the scaling possibilities for Terminal Server environments as well as Virtual Desktops.

VMworld Europe 2009 will again offer an extensive set of breakout session for attendees. You will be able to listen to virtualization experts on a variety of topics. In the video you'll see Douglas Phillips, VMware senior marketing manager for EMEA.

VMware's Christian Hammond and David Trowbridge have released a new tool called Parasite that can hook into GTK+ applications to facilitate interactive GUI debugging.

Parasite will provide a visual outline of the widget hierarchy and allow you to dynamically modify various widget properties while the program is running. It also includes a built-in Python shell interface that you can use to programmatically manipulate the GUI. You can even use it to add new GTK+ widgets to a window while the program is running. A few other features are also bundled, including a tab that shows GTK+ Action items and a special mode that will display a visual indication when widgets are being repainted.

Read the complete article by Ryan Paul.

When you’re living in or near the Netherlands, you have the opportunity to attend the "VMware Cost Efficiency Roadshow 2009" for free. This half day event will be held at the following places and dates. You can register here.

• Den Haag 03-02-2009
• Apeldoorn 05-02-2009
• Eindhoven 10-02-2009
• Luxembourg 12-02-2009
• Mechelen 17-02-2009
• Namur 18-02-2009

Quickly following up on Beta 1, Beta 1.5 introduces three important new features:

• In addition to VMware Infrastructure 3 and VMware Server 2, VMM now supports the management and monitoring of Citrix XenServer 1.5.
• VMM now works on ALL mobile devices via its new Lite Mode. VMM will gracefully degrade itself to a zero-Javascript version if a fully-Ajax capable browser is not detected. You can now manage and monitor VMware and Xen from your BlackBerry, Windows Mobile device, or any phone with a web browser!
• Beta 1.5 introduces a feature we are calling Accidental Touch Detection (ATD). ATD prevents users from accidentally brushing up against a power button in full mode (as opposed to the new lite mode) and shutting down a VM. ATD requires an intentional touch (measured by a depression of 500 milliseconds).

Get beta 1.5 and read more about VMM at http://lostcreations.com/vmm/.

StorMagic’s SM Series Lite with no expiration will be available in 30 days. That’s right! In 30 days, you will have the opportunity to unlock the full potential of your ESX Server with StorMagic’s SM Series Lite. After VMware users asked StorMagic to develop an easy SAN Management solution to help users like yourselves, StorMagic is ready to release a breakthrough product redefining Shared Storage. It’s time to benefit from all the features your ESX Server has to offer and let StorMagic take you there!  And the best part? The SM Series Lite has no expiration which means you enjoy the benefits of shared storage for life!

• VMware Certified
• Turn unused internal disk drives into a virtual SAN
• Integrated into VI Center
• Single step storage provisioning
• Automatically expand you environment as your business grows
• Manage your VMs, Data Storage and O/S from 1 management tool

In 2009, VMware plans to add several new products and technologies to its virtual datacenter operating system, which dramatically simplifies computing in the datacenter. This webcast provides an overview of these exciting new products and the benefits they can bring to your datacenter by increasing infrastructure efficiency, increasing availability and reducing operating costs.

View this webcast to:

• Learn about upcoming new products from VMware.
• Evaluate the additional cost savings and increased availability from these new products.
• Find additional resources that will help prepare you to implement these in your environment.

jtroyer @davidmdavis Let us know if the VMware Sneak Peek 2009 webcast was more than Leena already presented in Vegas. http://tinyurl.com/88r5tb 39 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to davidmdavis

Carter's VMworld PowerShell session is accepted

Are you vexed by VMs? Drowning in datastores? Scared of snapshots? Do you ever feel like your Virtual Infrastructure is out of control and nothing can help? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’ve got a problem that only automation can solve and VMware’s free VI Toolkit (for Windows) is the best tool for the job. In this session, learn how the VI Toolkit’s powerful commands and strong community will help you get your Virtual Infrastructure under control in virtually no time.

VMware has released a part of the session and speaker Catalog, I didn’t notice any sessions which were submitted via the call for participation. There’s a lot of speculation if sessions are already rejected, I’ve seen Brian Madden, reporting his sessions is accepted.

tom_howarth I have nothing as Yet but the sessions are up on VMworld and the VMTN Expert panel is not mentioned about 1 hour ago from web

sbeaver @tom_howarth The sessions listed are all VMware employees and big time sponsors. All is not lost yet I do not think they have everything 40 minutes ago from twhirl in reply to tom_howarth

Update : Pre-registration for sessions is not available. Additional sessions and details from various presenters and speakers will be added between now and the conference, so please check back for new information.

Replicate Technologies has announced a new software update for its flagship product, Replicate Datacenter Analyzer™. The new release, Replicate Datacenter Analyzer (RDA) 1.2, expands its best practices library to add IP Knowledge Modules that increase the innovative product’s ability to detect and resolve configuration issues across a broader range of network issues, provides enhanced notification capabilities and drill down diagnostics, offers an easy-to-use user interface with advanced navigation and an updated dashboard, and supports VMware ESX 3i.

RDA 1.2 offers the following new capabilities:

New IP Knowledge Module – including the ability to detect and resolve configuration issues across a broader range of network issues. RDA can now identify routing and subnet misconfiguration and can determine if a guest VM network stack is operating correctly, as well as check for duplicate IP address usage in a common subnet.

Expanded drill down diagnostics – providing data to explain issues and guide IT towards a quick resolution – going beyond the basic identification of errors to save IT time and money.

Advanced item level notification – offering email notifications which now include full details on the exact changes that RDA has detected. The detailed notifications provide IT administrators with the latest information, delivered directly to their inbox.

Broader platform support – including support for VMware ESXi.

Increased scalability – offering significant performance improvements, including enhanced support for large scale datacenters of 100+ hosts.

As a provider of news, analysis, reviews, events, and education on information technology, Network World has compiled “Top 10 Companies to Watch” lists across a variety of technology categories for over a decade. With virtualization gaining adoption in both large and small businesses, Network World distinguished BlueStripe for its innovative approach to application service management, highlighting its capability to automatically discover application interdependencies, follow an application through physical and virtual environments and detect performance problems.

In my VMware home lab, I want to use one NIC for the production data generated by my Virtual Machines and the other NIC exclusively for the Service Console. This setup also could work if you want to combine your management network with a VMotion Kernel Port Group.  I created one vSwitch with two NICS and two Port Groups and then used the “Overriding Policies for a Port Group policy” to bind the Service Console to vmnic0 and the Virtual Machines to vmnic1. On top of that, I still have redundancy. If one in the NICS will fail, both the Service Console and the Virtual Machine Port Group will use one NIC exclusively. Load is balanced by selecting a different Active Adapter for each Port Group. Select an other active and standby adapter for both Port Groups. In a failover situation, standby adapters activate in the order specified below.

Override vSwitch failover order and select active and standby adapters for the Service Console and Virtual Machine Port Groups. In a failover situation, standby adaptors will become active.