Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

Just used http://twilk.com to put my friends' faces on my Twitter background. Check it out!

The name Twilk is a combination of Twitter and milk. Milk has nothing to do with the service other than the creator of Twilk really likes milk. It helps that the domain name is short, and was available.

How are people arranged on the background?

People are sorted by how much you mention their user name ( @ replies, retweets, etc ) in your Twitter feed. It goes from top to bottom starting in the first two columns on the left. If you mention people the same amount (or not at all), the order of those people will be random.

This cool video was taken at the French VMware User Group meeting last Thursday. It shows VMware's bare metal view (client) hypervisor running on a laptop.

VMware vSphere: Troubleshooting

This lab-intensive course focuses on providing system administrators with the advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve competence in troubleshooting the VMware vSphere™ virtual infrastructure. In this course, you will spend most of the time diagnosing and rectifying configuration problems created on VMware® ESX™/ESXi hosts and VMware vCenter™ Server systems.

Op woensdag 2 december 2009 organiseert Azlan een GRATIS informatiesessie over VMware View 4!
Ton Hermes, System Engineer bij VMware zal u dan op de hoogte brengen van alle ins en outs

Wat is VMware View 4?

VMware View 4 is de nieuwste geïntegreerde desktop-virtualisatie-oplossing, waardoor kosten voor destops gereduceerd worden, hoge mate van beveiliging geboden wordt en desktop beheer enorm vereenvoudigd!

VMware View 4 maakt gebruik van de nieuwste versie van vSphere, waardoor de meest recente virtualisatie technologieën benut worden. Een voorbeeld is PCoIP, een nieuw protocol voor desktops, wat specifiek ontwikkelt is voor het leveren van virtuele desktops over het WAN of LAN.

Dit biedt een enorme optimalisatieslag voor de beschikbare bandbreedte zonder het verlies van de gebruikersproductiviteit.

Meer informatie/inschrijven? Klik HIER!

This morning a tweet from @Jtroyer caught my eye: New blog post about #techfieldday: The ethical technology blogger junket http://bit.ly/6ulzzL

After I followed the link, I was suddenly staring at John Troyer’s new weblog. It’s called Social Media Stories, you can find it at http://johnmarktroyer.com and it already contains some real good articles, nice job John!

John Mark Troyer manages social media and blogging programs at VMware. His blog talks about experiences creating & managing successful social media programs and vibrant online communities.



Photo taken by professional photographer Viktor van den Berg.

I’m John Mark Troyer. I manage the social media and blogging programs for VMware, an enterprise software company. Over the last few years, my colleagues and I, collaborating with the great people of our community, have created a set of successful social media experiences. These programs have benefited the participants, have increased the overall success of our customers and partners, and have been invaluable for VMware. In this blog, I am sharing some of our Social Media Stories from our past as well as how we’re still learning and having fun as we go forward.

http://johnmarktroyer.com

The Dutch VMUG conference will take place at the Nieuwegein Business Center. On the 11th of December over 600 enthusiastic Vmug members will enjoy a day full of virtualization. For the fifth year in succession you can attend a lot of really technical sessions. So if you are living near or in the Netherlands, you don’t want to miss out on this event. The final agenda with 3 parallel tracks is online.

My session “Managing VMware vSphere 4 with the Virtualization EcoShell - Eric Sloof and Scott Herold” is scheduled in the Front Grand Hall at 10:50. Be There !!!

QLogic announced that its 2nd Generation, Single Chip, 8100 Series 10Gb Converged Network Adapters are now certified by VMware for ESX/ESXi 4.0. This is key because a number of end users have been waiting for VMware to announce certification for 2nd Generation CNAs since QLogic announced the industry’s first 2nd Gen CNAs in June 2009 with support for only Windows/Linux.  EMC, IBM, and NetApp are already supporting the 8100 Series CNAs today. The combination of QLogic second generation CNAs with VMware vSphere 4 enables customers to attain a higher degree of data center efficiency -- an Intelligent Converged Data Center.

The 8100 Series 2nd Gen CNAs are the first 2nd Gen CNAs to be listed on the vSphere 4 HCL. This is key because the 2nd Gen CNAs (in comparison to currently shipping 1st Gen CNAs in the market) offer:

• 150% higher performance
• 1/3rd the power consumption
• Standard PCI Express form factor which enables the adapter to be deployed in most leading rack/tower servers.
• Compatible with the latest released standards for FCoE

vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide continues from an idea started several years ago by a few engineers. The idea was simple, provide an easy to use reference guide for all level administrators, consultants and architects. Recently VMware introduced many new features in vSphere 4.0 and with this handy pocket guide you will learn about each of these new features. With each chapter, the pages in this essential guide will answer common questions while giving you unprecedented insight into: Expert tips & tricks Pitfalls to avoid RemoteCLI & PowerCLI (PowerShell) scripts Configuration how to’s Virtualization best practices.

Dave Mishchenko
Duncan Epping
Bernie Baker
Thomas Bryant
Stewart Radnidge
Alan renouf

VMware has released an updated version of VMware Data Recovery. VMware’s Data Recovery product manager, Azmir Mohamed about the new release:

The most obvious change is the addition of a new  File Level Restore (FLR) client for Windows virtual machines – this is the fully supported version of the FLR client to allow granular restore of individual files.    This new functionality complements the full virtual machine restore capability that has been available since VDR 1.0.

With the VMware Data recovery Restore Client you can select a restore point or an individual disk from a list, then click Mount. Once a virtual disk has been mounted, click on Browse to open an instance of Windows Explorer at the location where te drive has been mounted. Mounted virtual disks will be unmounted automatically when the Data recovery Restore Client is closed. I’ve created two Jing demos of the FLR Client.

Currently I’m working very hard on my upcoming Dutch VMUG presentation. While I was testing the demo part which is going to be real cool btw, I discovered a real useful feature in the Virtualization EcoShell. The EcoShell Provides pre-defined and customizable reports as well as automated maps without hassle in HTML, XML and CSV formats, including support for Microsoft Visio. But if you want to hassle with XML, what’s the best way? The example screenshots show how to export a selection of data stores to an XML file and then create an Microsoft Excel Map by importing the XML from the file. Excel really does a good job with creating an XML-based representation objects from the EcoShell. The under laying technique is based on the Export-Clixml cmdlet, it creates an XML-based representation of an object or objects and stores it in a file. You can then use the Import-CLIXML cmdlet to re-create the saved object based on the contents of that file. This cmdlet is similar to ConvertTo-XML, except that Export-Clixml stores the resulting XML in a file. ConvertTo-XML returns the XML, so you can continue to process it in Windows PowerShell.

Introducing VMware View 4, the industry’s first purpose built solution for delivering desktops as a managed service.

Download VMware View 4

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_view/4_0

After Google announced the availability of the Chrome OS / Chromium OS source code, one of GDGT's engineers (Jon Ursenbach), immediately got to work on compiling the code, trying to see if he could get an instance of Chromium OS running in a virtual machine.

He was finally able to do it! You can download a copy of the virtual machine to use in VMware (300MB compressed / 700MB uncompressed): http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/

VMware vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 Update 1 has been tested against the beta release of vSphere 4.1. To find the related issues, see Known Issues, Compatibility with VMware vSphere 4.1 Beta.

What's New in This Release?
This release of vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 Update 1 introduces the following new capabilities:

•Managing the failover and load-balancing policies of VirtualSwitch and VirtualPortGroup objects with Get-NicTeamingPolicy and Set-NicTeamingPolicy.
•Copying files in and out of guest operating systems with Copy-VMGuestFile.
•Restarting virtual machines with Restart-VM.
•Managing the power state of hosts using Start-VMHost, Restart-VMHost, Suspend-VMHost, and Stop-VMHost.
•Managing guest networks with Get-VMGuestNetworkInterface, Set-VMGuestNetworkInterface, Get-VMGuestRoute, New-VMGuestRoute, Remove-VMGuestRoute, and Set-VMGuestRoute.
•Retrieving and removing USB devices with Get-UsbDevice and Remove-UsbDevice.
•Managing NIC customization settings with Get-OSCustomizationNicMapping, New-OSCustomizationNicMapping, and Set-OSCustomizationNicMapping.
•Handling virtual machine questions with Get-VMQuestion and Set-VMQuestion.
•Working with host storages and iSCSI HBA devices with Get-VMHostHba, Set-VMHostHba, Get-iScsiHbaTarget, New-iScsiHbaTarget, Remove-iScsiHbaTarget, Set-iScsiHbaTarget, and Set-VMHostStorage.
•Moving templates with Move-Template and Move-Inventory.
•Managing the access control system with Get-VIPrivilege, Get-VIRole, New-VIRole, Remove-VIRole, Set-VIRole, Get-VIPermission, New-VIPermission, Remove-VIPermission, and Set-VIPermission.
•Managing DRS recommendations with Get-DrsRecommendation and Apply-DrsRecommendation.
•Upgrading hosts with Install-VMHostPatch.
•Managing virtual appliances with Get-VApp, Export-VApp, Import-VApp, New-VApp, Remove-VApp, Set-VApp, Start-VApp, and Stop-VApp.
•Managing PCI and SCSI passthrough devices with Add-PassthroughDevice, Get-PassthroughDevice, and Remove-PassthroughDevice.
•Running BAT (Windows) and BASH (Linux) scripts with Invoke-VMScript.
•Granting and revoking shell access with New-VMHostAccount and Set-VMHostAccount.
•Uploading firmware packages with Set-VMHostFirmware.
•Creating virtual machines with thin provisioned disks with New-VM.
•Cloning powered-on virtual machines with New-VM.
•Resizing virtual disks and guest partitions with Set-HardDisk.
•Extending, cloning, inflating, and reallocating virtual hard disks with Copy-HardDisk, New-HardDisk, and Set-HardDisk.
•Managing the host time zones with Get-VMHostAvailableTimeZone and Set-VMHost.
•Working with default Datastore Provider and Inventory Provider drives.
•Working with files and directories in datastores by using the Datastore Provider.
For more information on changes made in vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 Update 1, including deprecations and security enhancements, see the vSphere PowerCLI Change Log.

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/sdkwin40u1/ZHcqYmQlcHRiZGVqdA

The following information provides highlights of some of the enhancements available in this release of VMware ESX:

VMware View 4.0 support – This release adds support for VMware View 4.0, a solution built specifically for delivering desktops as a managed service from the protocol to the platform.

Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 support –This release adds support for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 as well as 64-bit Windows 2008 R2 as guest OS platforms. In addition, the vSphere Client is now supported and can be installed on a Windows 7 platform. For a complete list of supported guest operating systems with this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Enhanced Clustering Support for Microsoft Windows – Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) for Windows 2000 and 2003 and Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering is now supported on an VMware High Availability (HA) and Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) cluster in a limited configuration. HA and DRS functionality can be effectively disabled for individual MSCS virtual machines as opposed to disabling HA and DRS on the entire ESX/ESXi host. Refer to the Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service guide for additional configuration guidelines.

Enhanced VMware Paravirtualized SCSI Support – Support for boot disk devices attached to a Paravirtualized SCSI ( PVSCSI) adapter has been added for Windows 2003 and 2008 guest operating systems. Floppy disk images are also available containing the driver for use during the Windows installation by selecting F6 to install additional drivers during setup. Floppy images can be found in the /vmimages/floppies/ folder.

Improved vNetwork Distributed Switch Performance – Several performance and usability issues have been resolved resulting in the following:

•Improved performance when making configuration changes to a vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) instance when the ESX/ESXi host is under a heavy load
•Improved performance when adding or removing an ESX/ESXi host to or from a vDS instance

Increase in vCPU per Core Limit – The limit on vCPUs per core has been increased from 20 to 25. This change raises the supported limit only. It does not include any additional performance optimizations. Raising the limit allows users more flexibility to configure systems based on specific workloads and to get the most advantage from increasingly faster processors. The achievable number of vCPUs per core depends on the workload and specifics of the hardware. For more information see the Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0 guide.

Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 3400 Series – Support for the Xeon processor 3400 series has been added. For a complete list of supported third party hardware and devices, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Resolved Issues – In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_4/4