Today Bouke Groenescheij over at Jumé discovered the comfort of using iGoogle. He tells us that you can create your own cool looking start page with all the feeds you like. He is very interested in the Virtualization feeds so he gathered the best feeds around for you to cut and paste in iGoogle or just click on the 'add to Google' button.
Wednesday, June 13. 2007
vmCDConnected revisited
A few weeks ago I started building my first Visual Basic 2005 application. What I wanted to do is talk to the VMware Virtual Center API. I published a PDF document that describes how to connect to this API and I released some code fragments. In this process Robert Baumstark helped me a lot with great tips and suggestions. He even shared the source code of his viclient.dll which can be used to get properties from VM’s and logon to the Virtual Center server. After a lot of late hours of coding I finally can release the vmCDConnected application. What’s so special about this application ? Well it scans all the Virtual Machines and shows if they have a CD connected to it. After scanning the VM’s you can disconnect all the CD’s with a click of a button. Why do we need it ? Imagine you have a DRS cluster with 80 VM’s, when one of those VM’s is connected to a CD it will stay on the same ESX server because V-Motion doesn’t work in combination with a connected CD. During beta release of this application some people reported a failure message after login in. I tested this application during several VI-3 Install and Configure classes I delivered but never have seen that error myself. When you encounter problems please report them. I'm also open to suggestions that might be implemented in the next version.
Monday, June 11. 2007
ESX Console Manger released by ESXGuide
Manfred Meier a Web- and System-Administrator from Switzerland has written the ESX Console Manger utility that can do the following. List Virtual Machines and Virtual Disk information with the location and size of the files and directories (also for unregistered Virtual Machines). Rename Virtual Disks of registered Virtual Machines. Kill Virtual Machine Process (if the VM can't be powered off). List All Virtual Disk Flatfiles on a Datastore with size and modification date. And view Logfiles on the ESX Host. He also publishes lots of other VMware tips and tricks on his website ESXGuide.
P2V features comparisons matrix
Peter van den Bosch from PQR created a features comparisons matrix of virtualization migration products. This matrix compares the features of the industries most popular virtualization migration products. The focus of the differences between the products is the remigration possibilities. The products often offer more then migration possibilities, disaster recovery and backup on remote sites are among those extra options.
Sunday, June 10. 2007
Fast-track VI3-IC
Last week I delivered my first fast-track VI3-IC course in Veenendaal. On forehand I was a bit skeptical about the fast-track teaching method because there is a grey area with lots of bad test exams. Those test exams are causing a devaluation of the VCP status. But I managed to stay out of the grey area and one of my students did me a great favor and described his thoughts and feelings about the past week. He also passed his exam with great figures. Curios ? here’s the story (in Dutch).
Continue reading "Fast-track VI3-IC" »Wednesday, June 6. 2007
Eric Siebert started vmware-land.com
Eric Siebert started a great website with lots if VMware tips and tricks. His website runs under the name VMware-land. Eric is a 25 year IT veteran who has been dealing with computers his whole life. He has done everything from working on mid-range computers (S/36, AS/400), programming (RPG, dBase, Javascript, Lotuscript, VB Script), telco, cabling, networking, OS/2 administation, Novell Netware administation, Windows server administration, Lotus Domino administation, Websphere (App server, Portal server, MQ) administration, Siteminder administration, IIS administration, SQL administration and VMware administration. He has been using the VMware technology for over 2 years and has completely immersed himself in learning the product inside and out. He recently managed a very successful Windows server consolidation project migrating over 50 physical servers to 4 virtual servers. Eric resides in Arvada, Colorado with his wife and 3 children. Some topics you can find at http://vmware-land.com are dealing with:
How can I specify an alternate location for VM snapshot files?
How do I create an account so I do not have to use root?
How can I set a static MAC address for my VM?
How can I modify the ESX/VC UI web page?
How can I migrate my Vmware Server VM’s to ESX?
How do I upgrade a existing virtual disk from BusLogic to LSI Logic?