Eric Sloof

Extend the OS disk the easy way (ExtPart.exe). The ExtPart utility provides support for online volume expansion of NTFS formatted basic disks. Before installing ExtPart and extending a volume, ensure that you have a working backup of your operating system. It's only 40Kb and free :-)

extpart [volume size]
volume - the volume to extend. e.g. f:, g:, etc (only basic volumes)
size - the size in megabytes by which to extend the volume.

Example:
To extend the g: volume by 1 GB (1024 MB) use the following command:
extpart g: 1024

Screenshot’s and a Dutch 'how to' are available at Arne Fokkema’s ICT-Freak.

With VMware Update Manager, you can automate patch management and eliminate manual tracking and patching of VMware ESX hosts and virtual machines. VMware Update Manager scans the state of the physical VMware ESX hosts, as well as select guest operating systems, compares them with baselines set by the administrator and then applies updates and patches to enforce compliance to mandated patch standards. This capability dramatically simplifies the patch management process while helping you protect your data center against bugs and security vulnerabilities.

Vmwarevirtualizationtraining.com is offering more than 100 Interview Questions with Answers in Storage & VMware Virtualization. Think about this as if they collected interview questions from real interviews attended by their website readers and put it in a document. That helps you understand what are the expectations of the interviewers. It’s like you have a ready list of probable questions , you can get an idea of what to expect if you are going to face an interview soon. But VMware Virtualization is a vast technology & chances are there are a ton of possibilities of different interview questions. Its not an automated exam hence this is not a cheat sheet , this is not a exam dump. This is just questions collected from people’s experiences of attending real VMware job openings.

Chris Skinner, a Senior Technical Instructor at VMware PSO-Education looked at Symantec’s Backup Exec 12.5 (released October 6, 2008) and how it integrates with VCB 1.5. This latest release does not require the separate integration scripts that previous versions of Backup Exec and many others required to integrate with VCB. Additionally, this latest version can restore a virtual machine backup directly into VirtualCenter using the standalone version of VMware Converter.

This paper documents the steps to successfully integrate Symantec's Backup Exec 12.5 with VMware's Consolidated Backup Framework 1.5. With this latest realease from Symantec, integration scripts provided from some vendors is the way to integrate with VCB. Backup Exec 12.5 includes these scripts within the application and provides the ability to restore a virtual machine directly into VirtualCenter using VMware Converter.

http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1191

Vizioncore announced that its flagship backup and restore product for virtual machines – vRanger Pro – has been named in VMware’s VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) Partner Integration Guide. This guide will offer information on VMware Consolidated Backup integrations developed by VMware Technology Alliance Partners. The functionality described is supported by the partner Support
organization directly rather that by VMware Global Support Services.

ESXTutorials.com contains numerous VMware and Windows tutorials with new content being added on a frequent basis.  This site differs by not only giving text based tutorials, but flash video tutorials as well. The following list of tutorials is already available.

• Extending a virtual disk
• Creating a virtual disk
• Unlink a NIC from a virtual switch
• Link a NIC to a virtual switch
• How to configure NTP for ESX
• Permit root logon
• killing a locked up virtual machine

Virtualization for Dummies – Sun and AMD Special Edition is now available! Published by the same folks who create all the "Dummies" books – this special edition version showcases Sun and AMD virtualization offerings, how they work together, and how they can benefit businesses. Learn about the latest virtualization technologies with this brief and easy-to-read booklet. Via Virtualization.info.

Download Now!

After three successful meetings in 2005, 2006 and 2007, the Dutch VMware User Group announced  it’s time for a fourth one!  They would like to invite you to attend the 2008 VMware User Group Event on the 12th of December at the Nieuwegein business centre. With over 3100 members this year’s event will become massive. Join the Dutch VMUG and learn best the practices and optimal use of VMware products, get answers, advice, tips, and suggestions from experts, discover new ideas and gain insight about Virtual Infrastructure, receive special information about new VMware products, network with other technical professionals and be part of the leading edge of VMware users.

I’ll be presenting at  this event. My presentation is called Managing VI3 with PowerShell, but at the 12th of December maybe it’s time to rename it to Managing VI4 with PowerShell.

Registration is open by the end of the week, Viktor van den Berg launched the Dutch VMUG event website with the agenda. It looks prommissing.

One of my students pointed me to a website with a real cheap NFS server, besides that it only consumes around 20 watts.

The Grab’n’GO Media Store is a powerful double bay HDD SATA solution for sharing & store media content like music, photos and videos at home or at the office. The built in UPnP AV media server offers easy access to all your files through compatible media players (like the Grab’n’GO wireless media player) and stream media without using a PC. Besides your media backup, it’s a full function NAS server with 500 MHz CPU and built-in FTP server for file access via Internet and access-right management features to give users different read and/or write permission in the (Gigabit) network. To guarantee optimal functionality, the CH3SNAS can be configured as Standard, JBOD, RAID 0 and RAID 1, so it’s up to you to set your priority to safety, flexibility or speed.

This is a little site about DNS-323 and Conceptronic CH3SNAS which is low-end 2 SATA Drive Bay network-attached storage (NAS) with RAID0/RAID1/JBOD feature.

Lance Berc, Corporate Architect  over at VMware created some PowerShell scripts to automate the ESX configuration.These scripts automate much of the drudgery needed to incorporate a fresh ESXi or ESX Classic Server into a Virtual Center DRS cluster. Automation is the backbone of scalability. Via Vinternals.

Lance Berc : Configure freshly booted ESX with PowerShell