Arne Fokkema over at ict-freak.nl just tweeted about the availability of Workstation 7.1 beta. You can get your copy here: http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/ws?view=overview

The VMware Workstation 7.1 Beta includes several new features and hundreds of minor improvements. Some release highlights include:

•OpenGL 2.1 support for Windows 7 and Vista guests: The addition of hardware accelerated OpenGL 2.1 support to the WDDM driver enables many more graphics applications to run inside of your virtual machines.
•Improved graphics performance: Significant enhancements have been made to the VMware WDDM driver that have produced benchmark results that are up to 80% faster. The updated driver also produces smoother video playback and addresses many reported rendering issues. Of course games run better as well!
•8-way SMP support plus virtual disks up to 2TB in size: The virtual hardware continues to become more powerful to meet the needs of Workstation customers who are running server class applications.
•OVF 1.0 support: Including the OVF Tool with this release enables users to easily import or export virtual machines and vApps and move them to vSphere or up into the cloud.•Direct Launch: Blur the distinction between running native and virtual applications by launching an application installed in a virtual machine directly from the start menu or taskbar of the host system.
•Automatic software updates: These VMware applications can now detect when a new version is released and are able to update at the click of a button.
•Fedora 12 virtual machines: We are excited about finally offering support for running one of the most popular Linux distributions on the planet!

You can imagine how honoured I felt when I received an email from the famous Mike Laverick asking me if I would do one of his chinwags. I responded immediately and after some testing the record button was pushed.  Before I’m going to reveal the URL, lets first take a moment and look at the history of Mike’s chinwags. At the end of January Mike announced:

Hey, fellow virtualization blogger. Perhaps your on Eric S list? Well, I have proposal for you. Once a week I want to Video Skype with you and have a good old chinwag. What is a chinwag? Well, it’s defined as ” light informal conversation for social occasions…” but I want our chinwags to be about virtualization. Your challenges, problems, solutions, opinons – hey, maybe you just want to shoot-the-breeze and get something of your chest. Well, you can do it with me via the RTFM ChinWag!

The past weeks some very famous people have appeared on stage:

[Episode 01] Chris Dearden
[Episode 02] Jay Rogers
[Episode 03] Gabrie Van Zanten
[Episode 04] Al Renouf
[Episode 05] Vaughn Stewart
[Episode 06] Mr “Eric” Sloof

We had a great conversation about how I winded up into virtualization, why I became an instructor and of course my little vmClient tool :-) We continued about writing PowerShell code and what a future version of the vSphere client should have. Please visit Mike Laverick’s RTFM Education website to watch a 45 minute show of two 40 year old vExpert instructors talking about their Commodore 64.

I’ve deployed the recently released SimDK Virtual Appliance onto one of my ESX servers and it actually works. Andrew Kutz has created this appliance to demo his most recent invention.

SimDK is able to simulate a vSphere4 environment by replacing the vSphere API/SDK web service with the SimDK web service. The SimDK web service handles requests from vSphere4 clients and instead of communicating with a vCenter database or an ESX server, the requests are handled by the SimDK simulator. The data is persisted in SimDK’s own database tables and the responses are serialized and sent back to the clients.

 

Here’s an example of the Virtualization EchoShell logging onto the SimDK and getting a list of all the virtual machines. The other screen dump shows the PowerCLI Console logged into the SimDK.

During the latest edition #85 of John Troyer’s VMware Communities Roundtable there was a little discussion about using a Linux host as a view client. I’ve discovered a nice little live CD from Thinstation which has the VMware View Open Client 4.0 built-in and it only needs a minimum amount of hardware resources. I don’t know if VMware is planning to release a Linux View Agent but it would be really great for a Linux end to end environment.

Thinstation is a basic and small yet very powerful Open Source "thin client" operating system and some programs which make it possible to connect to servers via a network. Thinstation is mainly intended for office, company or department use. Being a private individual with just one PC you will have little use for Thinstation.

Thinstation is based on Linux, but users may actually never see Linux at all if you decide to connect directly to a Microsoft Windows server, a Citrix server or a Unix server! The user will feel he/she connects directly to the server. But if you want to, you can have a Linux interface - a blackbox or icewm window manager to be exact.

http://www.thinstation.org/LiveCD/

Andrew Kutz already has released amazing pieces of code during the past years, back in May 2007 he revealed the source code of his tool that can add port groups to all your ESX servers. In February 2008 he released the source code of his tool that can be used to create a VI 2.5 plug-in. Andrew really became famous after releasing the Storage VMotion Plug-in. These days Andrew is doing amazing stuff at Hyper9 and announced the immediate availability of the open source (BSD) project from Hyper9, SimDK, a VMware vSphere4 simulator which provides vSphere4 API-compatibility for official vSphere4 clients and other applications built using the vSphere4 SDK.

The picture is taken by Viktor van den Berg.

Andrew Kutz: I think SimDK is one of the most exciting pieces of software released in the realm of virtualization in a long time. If you’re interested in learning more about SimDK or want to become involved with the project, please visit the SimDK homepage (a work in progress). In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at sakutz at gmail. Thanks!

http://akutz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/simdk/

Continue reading "SimDK - VMware vSphere4 simulator"

VMware Labs is the place where VMware engineers share their cool tools.  There is a wide range of tools here for you, including one for automating tasks, getting ESX performance graphs, a rich Internet application framework and much more. You really should check-out the fling section, this is too good to be true.

Fling is defined as "a brief casual relationship" as referenced on this site. The "flings" are skunkworks and ideas by VMware engineers that are not yet part of product offering. Feel free to try them and give your feedback.

Apache Pivot
Apache Pivot is a platform for building rich internet applications in Java. It combines the enhanced productivity and usability features of a modern RIA toolkit with the robustness of the industry-standard Java platform.

Dynamo RIO
DynamoRIO is a runtime code manipulation system that supports code transformations on any part of a program, while it executes. DynamoRIO gives complete control over the runtime code stream and does not limit transformations to trampoline insertion.

esxplot
The software runs on Linux systems, and generates timeseries graphs for selected esxtop fields (as png graphs). The software will also generate simple statistical measures including mean and standard variation for selected esxtop fields.

Onyx
Onyx is a standalone application that serves as a proxy between the vSphere Client and the vCenter Server. It monitors the network communication between them and translates it into an executable PowerShell code. Later this code could be modified and saved into a reusable function or script.

SVGA Sonar
SVGA Sonar is a demo application for SVGADevTap. SVGADevTap is a user-level library that communicates with the VMware SVGA guest driver to provide low-latency notifications of changes to the screen.

vApprun
The vapprun command-line tool brings the full vApp model to Workstation and Fusion. It builds vApps that contain multiple VMs or nested vApps. Configure start/stop ordering of child elements of a vApp. Power-on/power-off/shutdown of vApps.Supports OVF Properties and the OVF Environment.

vCMA
Ever wish you could restart a virtual machine or migrate it to another host from the convenience of your mobile phone? With VMware vCenter Mobile Access, you can monitor and manage VMware Infrastructure from your mobile phone with an interface that is optimized for such devices.

VGC
VMware Guest Console (VGC) is an application to manage the Guest Operating Systems installed on a VM. VGC includes a Unified Task Manager, Guest file system explorer, Snapshot Manager and a VM Manager. VGC is supported with vmware server and desktop products like vSphere, Server 2.0 and Workstation and can connect to multiple hosts simultaneously.

VI Java
The VMware vSphere Java API provides a full set of libraries to manage and control VMware virtual machines and servers. Ver 2.0 includes a high performance Web Service engine much faster/smaller than Apach AXIS.

Virtual USB Analyzer
We developed vusb-analyzer at VMware as an efficient way to debug our own USB virtualization stack. We wanted a tool that made it easy to see problems at a glance, and we wanted a way to solve both correctness and performance bugs. As a result, we ended up with what we think is a fairly unique tool. We’re excited to have the opportunity now to release this tool as open source software, under the MIT license.

http://labs.vmware.com/

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.

15 mar - 18 mar, 2010 Oslo <- English language

26 apr - 29 apr, 2010 Amsterdam <- Dutch language

Update: This training is a valid prereq for VCP4 certification, for people that never did an ICM training but do have the knowledge, and want to become an official VCP4 ... (Thanks Duco)

Cravik1 has posted two technology preview videos of the upcoming VMware Guest Console Virtual Appliance on YouTube.

  

VMware Guest Console (VGC) is an application to manage the Guest Operating Systems installed on VMs. VGC includes a Unified Task Manager, Guest file system explorer, Snapshot Manager, VM Manager and more. VGC is supported with vmware server and desktop products like vSphere, Server 2.0 and Workstation and can connect to multiple hosts simultaneously.

TwitterUpdate: @cshanklin --> Deep in the guts of VMware Guest Console (http://is.gd/9Lvt9) lies VMware VIX - Try it to get more guest control http://is.gd/9Lvcd

TwitterUpdate: @jtroyer --> @esloof @lamw @cshanklin VGC is just the first of many flings you will be having with us. Coming very soon. Love, John

Update : http://labs.vmware.com/flings/vgc

vCenter Update Manager PowerCLI provides an easy-to-use Windows Powershell interface to VMware vCenter Update Manager and has numerous cmdlets and sample scripts. vCenter Update Manager PowerCLI now also has its own VMTN forum. To find additional resources and exchange ideas with other users, visit http://www.vmware.com/go/powercliupdate.

Automate patching and update of the vSphere environment with the vCenter Update Manager PowerCLI. Cmdlets are provided for your most-frequently performed operations such as downloading software updates, creating baselines, scanning and remediating virtual machines components or hosts. vCenter Update Manager PowerCLI is distributed as a Windows PowerShell snapin, and comes with documentation and samples.

Next week I’ll attend the VMware vSphere Manage for Performance Train The Trainer course. The Manage for Performance course equips administrators with the knowledge and skills to monitor and troubleshoot a vSphere installation. It’ll also cover fundamental design decisions to enhance performance. 

Scott Drummonds who has been working for VMware since January of 2007 is the man behind this new course. He participates in a wide variety of performance issues including VDI, performance problem solving, field support, competitive analysis, and general marketing activities:

Nearly a year ago I approached the VMware Education Services about designing a single or multiple day class focused on performance management, troubleshooting performance problems, and designing solutions for maximum performance.  I cited the perennial popularity of the VMworld performance troubleshooting lab as a demonstration of the potential market for this class.  I am incredibly pleased to announce that the content for this class is complete and we are soon to be offering it to the general public.

Scott’s colleague; Tom MacKay already attended the beta version of VMware vSphere Manage for Performance and he commented at Scott’s weblog:

Since I participated in the beta “shakedown” of the class with you, I cannot talk highly enough of the content and result! The overall content is what customers have asked us for over the past few years, and I am not only suggesting that my customer accounts attend the training, but that EVERY VMW SE, PSO, etc, engineer take it as well! Really impressed and excited to see more of this type of depth in training continue to come out of the ed folks!

I’ve already received the instructor guide and can tell you one thing, awesomeness! The course schedule and datasheet are available at VMware’s MyLearn education portal.

I’ve enjoyed a full week of vacation last week but while I was offline there was happening a lot in the virtualization world. One thing I’ve missed was the launch of PowerWF Studio version 2.0. Although the Devfarm team was kind enough to give me a heads up about their pending release,  I didn’t have enough bandwidth and time to download and test their evaluation copy. Now the suitcases are unpacked and I worked my way through a mega full inbox. It’s time to get started with the new release which marks a huge leap forward in the versatility and ease-of-use of PowerWF Studio.

• Extensive testing and user feedback ensure that this is the most versatile, stable and feature-rich version of PowerWF ever.
• Focusing on new users and real-world test cases have made learning PowerShell with PowerWF incredibly easy:
• Revised Help and Getting Started Guide ease the learning curve.
• Integrated examples allow sample workflows to be created directly from Help topics.
• Wizards have been added to simplify adding Input and Output parameters and deploying workflows to the PowerWF Agent.
• User Interface improvements have been made throughout the application.
• Major enhancements were made to several key areas:
• Parameterize workflows with step-by-step creation wizards and redesigned management dialogs.
• Create Workflows directly from PowerShell PS1 files or the embedded PowerShell editor.  Over 500 real-world PowerShell scripts have been successfully converted and tested by the Devfarm team.
• 40% improvement in overall application performance.
• Improved Plug-In Manager with support for removing PowerShell Snap-Ins and Modules from both PowerWF and the PowerShell environment.

After downloading and installing the PowerWF Ultimate Edition, the Plug-In Manager started the discovery process, all the currently installed modules, snapins and plug-ins popped up one by one.
I first opened up the PowerCLI item in the toolbox and every VMware command-let I could think of was there. The dragging and dropping begun and within a minute I produced my first workflow. It worked :-) the guys (and I’ve noticed some nice girls on their website) over at Devfarm really kept their promise, they created an awesome product which is going to rock your world. 30 day evaluation copies and pricing information are available now at PowerWF.com. Here is my little Jing movie.

Continue reading "PowerWF – Visualizing Virtualization "

I thought you might be interested in the new fee tool that VKernel released today. Capacity View provides quick visibility and alerting to the storage and server capacity issues in your VMware virtualized infrastructure. This powerful tool is a desktop app that downloads in 2 minutes and can be connected to ESX, vCenter or VKernel's VM Stats or Optimization Pack applications.

Capacity View identifies capacity based performance issues such as virtual machine I/O latency or under-allocated CPU, memory or storage. Additionally, it monitors your available capacity for new VM deployments and shows you which over-provisioned VMs can be rightsized to free up wasted capacity.

http://www.vkernel.com/solutions/capacity-view

Trilead has released the greatly improved VM Explorer 2.0! VM Explorer now supports VMware vCenter. This allows VM Explorer to keep track of your VMs even if they are moved to another host by DRS or vMotion.

VM Explorer now comes with revamped support for ESX 4.0/vSphere. We also perfected the interoperability of backups between ESX and ESXi. Starting from version 2.0 you can launch vSphere client from within VM Explorer. This enables you to directly login to one of your VMs. Moreover, a lot of minor bugs have been fixed.

All these features are available for the same price as before. The upgrade is free of charge for all customers with a valid subscription. VM Explorer is priced at USD 690 or EUR 490 respectively. Please note that you only need to license VM Explorer per installation (not per ESX host or per core).

You can download the latest version and try it for free from their website - a free trial key can also be requested.

http://www.trilead.com