Entries from Eric Sloof

In addition to planning and designing small and large virtualization environments, mightycare solutions GmbH (MCS) also develops helpful tools. For customers which decide not to use the VMware Site Recovery Manager the new MCS-DR-Quick-Reg tool is the fastest and simplest way to register virtual machines from replicated LUN´s. The tool is easy to handle both as experienced administrator and normal users.

The MCS-DR-Quick-Reg connects to a VMware ESX Server 3.x, vSphere4 Server, Virtual Center Server 2.5 or vCenter server. After registration on the Infrastructure Server the registered virtual Machines can be displayed. Now you can search on individual datastores for unregistered virtual Machines. When using the tool a new registry key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER-> Software-> MightyCare-> vTools will be created. In this key you can find the connection parameters.

Check out their website next Friday. http://mightycare.de/

MokaFiveTV is now up on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MokaFiveTV

They already have a few videos up there, including an overview of the layered approach to desktop virtualization management with co-founder John Whaley, and the back-story of MokaFive from Stanford professor and MokaFive founder, Monica Lam.

They also wanted to let you know that MokaFive has a blog to which the company leaders post regularly - a BriForum recap is the most recent entry: http://blog.mokafive.com/

New in this release: dockable windows in the main console, new message pane, support for Posh v2 modules, and configurable, recently opened files function that remembers your tabs in the editor.  See the release notes attachment for details.

http://www.powergui.org/downloads.jspa

Dockable panes in the Admin console: now you can just open the View menu and select the panes you need to be displayed; then you can right-click the title bar of any pane, and select Dockable – to drag, resize, or close the window, arranging the panes in the way you like.

Messages pane: this feature will be extremely helpful in maintaining the tool. Select Messages from the View menu, and all errors, warnings, and information messages produced during PowerShell commands execution or scripts operation will become available for tracking in a special Messages pane.

PowerShell 2 modules support: PowerGUI now allows you to work with PowerShell modules. Modules are the new form of PowerShell cmdlet/function libraries introduced in PowerShell v2. Like the snapins, modules are accessible to PowerPacks. PowerGUI supports intellisense, F1 help, and debugging for PowerShell 2 cmdlets from module scripts.

Recently opened files: PowerGUI will “remember” the files you opened in Script Editor, and reopen them at startup, with the breakpoints, bookmarks, positions, splitted windows – to make your work with Script Editor even more convenient.

Intellisense for function parameters in PowerShell 2: note that the function needs to be loaded in PowerShell before it appears in intellisense, which means that it is not enough to type its definition - you actually need to run your script or profile loading your function libraries.

Re-worked Actions: instead of predefined Links/Actions/Common Actions groups, PowerGUI now lets you organize your actions in any custom categories. Note that Link (which used to be a separate entity) has been replaced with another entity – Action, outputting its results in a nested view.

The Schedule Builder is open for business! If you are registered, you can book classes now at http://bit.ly/4cj7uJ. The most popular session is already overbooked. If you want to attend Carter’s VM2241, the only option is the waiting list. I’m sure this session will be upgraded to a bigger room.

VM2241  Managing vSphere with VMware PowerCLI
Yavor Boychev, Scott Herold and Carter Shanklin

Abstract:  Are you vexed by VMs? Drowning in datastores? Scared of snapshots? Do you ever feel like your Virtual Infrastructure is out of control and nothing can help?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you've got a problem that only automation can solve and VMware's free PowerCLI (formerly known as the VI Toolkit for Windows) is the best tool for the job. In this session, learn how PowerCLI's powerful commands and strong community will help you tame your ESX, vCenter, and Update Manager servers in virtually no time at all.

Don't forget to check-out TA2650 - Take PowerCLI to the Next Level :-)

Mike's new book can be pre-ordered at Amazon.

Written by internationally recognized VMware expert Mike Laverick, this is an in-depth implementation guide to VMware's new suite of virtualization technologies, vSphere4. The book provides best practices for deploying the vSphere product in real-world enterprise environments. You will get insider tips for planning, designing, implementing, and securing a virtual infrastructure and automating tasks and procedures.

Paperback: 704 pages

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (February 5, 2010)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0071664521

ISBN-13: 978-0071664523

Ricky El-Qasem ovet at virtualizeplanet.com has released the Resource Pool Scheduler 1.2, it's an application that is managed with a GUI but runs a service and is used to periodically change the settings of a vSphere Resource Pool for example:

You may require to divert the CPU share allocation of a resource pool to a resource pool which is used for backup servers at 7pm and then revert the CPU share allocation back to how it was at 7am. This is useful to give the backup servers priority between the hours of 7pm and 7am.

At August 31, 2009, you can join VMware's development engineers at the Moscone Center in San Francisco for the first VMware Technology Exchange Developer Day. This event is dedicated to all the developers building solutions on the VMware platforms and is co-located with VMworld 2009. As a "Developer Day", the primary focus is on helping developers integrate with VMware platforms. VMware will cover developer technologies related to all three of VMware's product areas – datacenter, desktop and cloud – in sessions and corresponding demos. A sample of topics to be covered include vSphere Web Services SDK, APIs for managing and automating guest OS, vCloud API introduction, vApps, vStorage, productivity tools and much more. Packaged into beginner and advanced level sessions, the content will be tailored specifically to help developers learn about VMware's integration APIs, understand implementation best practices and see examples. Corresponding demos will provide further opportunity for training and discussion with VMware engineers in small-group settings.

http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/techexchange/register

     

https://www.youtube.com/user/heyitspablo#play/uploads

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David Feathergill, Chief Software Architect, Vizioncore, about the vAPI web service interface. While the vAPI web service interface acts as a facade, exposing services in the vRanger Pro 4.0 DPP platform to the outside world. The main areas that these services cover are: inventory, repositories, connections, and jobs. Developers can choose to expose functionality in their clients as they see fit. For example, an application may choose to observe events relating to jobs and display notifications about their completion and result. Another could create backup and/or restore jobs in vRanger and run them. For the administrator, we’ve created special vAPI clients, the PowerShell cmdlets.

The vAPI web service interface is developer focused, the PowerShell cmdlets are administrator focused. The set of cmdlets that we have created give the administrator open-ended access to the platform. By using these, we allow the administrator to integrate vRanger with third-party software and to create scripts automating the protection of their virtual infrastructure. The administrator’s abilities have been greatly enhanced compared to previous releases. We expose much more of our platform functionality than ever before, with 33 cmdlets covering the main functional areas of the vRanger platform.

Hyper9 officially launched the GA of Hyper9’s Virtualization Optimization Suite™ (VOS) today.  It helps IT managers and administrators gain better business insights into their virtual environment — and helps stem the tide of “VM Sprawl”.

Details from Press Release here - Link: http://community.hyper9.com/blogs/products/archive/2009/07/29/hyper9-announces-virtualization-optimization-suite.aspx

Hyper9’s VOS combines usability and dashboard features with in-depth analytics and reporting to help users find, reclaim and right-size virtual resources. The product provides cross-functional, user-specific views into the virtual infrastructure across myriad data sources, with key features and capabilities that include:

Continue reading "Hyper9 Announces Virtualization Optimization Suite" »

The broadcast will explore the key technical benefits of virtualization, and highlight some of the primary features available in the latest generation of VMware Infrastructure known as vSphere 4. Features covered will include VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS), VMotion, Storage VMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), Distributed Power Management (DPM), High Availability (HA) and Fault Tolerance (FT). The broadcast will also cover the latest news on vSphere training courses and certification.