Eric Sloof - NTPRO.NL

Windows PowerShell V2 CTP3 introduces several significant features to Windows PowerShell 1.0 and Windows PowerShell V2 CTPs that extends its use, improves its usability, and allows you to control and manage the Windows environment more easily and comprehensively.

Selected New and Updated Features in Windows PowerShell V2 CTP3

Community Website for Benchmarking Virtual Machine Resource Allocations CompareMyVM.com, a free website tool that allows visitors to exchange and compare VMware ESX Server virtual machine (VM) resource allocations with that of the community at large. If you’re unsure about how much resource capacity (CPU, memory, and storage) to allocate to an Exchange VM supporting 1000 users as an example, you can use CompareMyVM to find detailed information on similar VM profiles submitted by the user community. When you visit CompareMyVM, you can take the following actions on the site:

• Submit – Anonymously contribute by submitting VM profiles via the ‘Snapshot My VMs’ Java applet or manually loading the info.

• Browse – Peruse the community submissions to learn how other are allocating resources and how to better provision specific application VMs.

• Edit – Make changes to your VM profile submissions as you change resource allocations.

• Vote – Help rank user submitted VM profiles based on proper resource allocations

The download seemed to take forever and after the first 30 MB it stalled. It took more than two hours to receive the full 100 MB. Finally I installed Veeam Monitor with the local SQL2005 Express database. I tried to monitor a vSphere server but after the initial connection, it greyed out. Adding an ESX 3.5U3 server succeeded. I could even add my VC server. The tool looks great and has a feature I didn’t see before. Veeam implemented the remote console ActiveX object. I tried out some features like generating a report and alarm modelling. Everything works great, good job Veeam.

Veeam Monitor 3.0.2 features a new functionality mode which is automatically enabled when you install the product without a license, of if your license expires. Veeam Monitor Free Edition has the following limitations compared to the full version.

- Performance history lookup is limited to 24
- Number of alarms is limited to 10
- Performance and trend reporting is disabled
- Alarm modelling is disabled