Entries from Eric Sloof

You can preregister for the VMworld Europe 2008 in Cannes held from 26 February till 28 February. Don't miss the first VMworld Europe - where thousands of your peers, technology providers and industry experts from around the world will gather in Cannes, France to experience the latest and greatest in virtualization technology and business solutions. VMworld Europe will also incorporate VMware TSX Europe, the company's annual technical symposium, making it ideal for attendees of all levels of experience in virtualization - from business decision-makers to technical experts and systems architects.

It’s not just a certification, like the slew of them we can all put on out resumes to impress the next interviewer, it’s a career-enhancing move. Does the certification make you any more of an expert than you may or may not be? That’d be debatable on a case-by-case, person-by-person basis, but it’s definitely a mark that you know what’s hot, and aren’t “stale�?. The hotness-factor of the VCP is high, the demand is there in the market, and the value a VCP can add to your career makes it worth the time and effort to earn. Read the rest of this great post from Joe Foran here.

Ever wondered why vRanger is copying VMDK files via the COS so fast ? Here’s the answer. Someone from Vizioncore showed me this video at the TSX in Nice. The vzboost-vmkmod module is written by a Vizioncore software engineer who studied the original VMFS module code from VMware and rewrote it into the vzboost-vmkmod module. You can take a look at vzboost in action using this link. First you see the original VMware driver running with 280 writes per second after the vzboost driver is loaded the speeds will jump to 639 writes per second.

vOptimizer is an advanced optimization solution that quickly and easily reduces a Microsoft or VMware virtual machines virtual hard drive to the smallest possible size while optimizing the Windows guest operating system to boost performance. vOptimizer FreeWare and Desktop Editions enable local VM optimization while Network Edition enables entire repositories of VMs located anywhere on the network to be optimized via scheduled automated jobs. Vizioncore vOptimizer Freeware may be used for a maximum of two (2) users within Licensee's organization. For more than two (2) users within an organization licenses must be obtained. This license does not entitle Licensee to receive hard-copy documentation, technical support, telephone assistance, or enhancements or updates to the Product from Vizioncore. Thanks to Alessandro Perilli over at virtualization.info for the download link.

Free Citrix product that allows for basic VM administration of ESX servers via a smartphone. You can download this cool VMware tool here. The Mobile VM Manager was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the VMware software development kit (SDK). The development of this application illustrates the advantages of using Visual Studio to develop applications that can be delivered to a smartphone through Citrix Presentation Server.

Viktor van den Berg is a busy guy these days. He contracted three new sponsors for the Dutch VMware User Group event 2007 in the Nieuwegein Business Center on December the 7th. Besides XTG, CDG, Dell, Etc and VMware the following three companies will be present with interesting new products: Equallogic, FalconStor and VeeAm. The speaker list is also available. Who is that intelligent looking guy at the bottom? ;-) Stay tuned for more information.

Did you ever wonder how your ESX server looks like when you lose one of your storage processors ? Well the past three weeks I  attended the SAN Technology training over at CoreEducation in Eindhoven along with 8 VMware trainers. On the last day Frederik Vos yanked out one of the storage processors from an EVA 5000.   In the picture taken by Viktor van den Berg (the professional photographer) you’ll see the paths vmhba1:0:1 and vmhba2:1:1 became red and Dead. When I plugged the storage processor back, within a few minutes the original path was restored and became active again. I learned a lot about SAN storage but the most important lesson was:  never let a bunch of trainers play with your equipment, eventually it will die. ;-)

SearchServerVirtualization is pleased to announce that their newest site,  SearchVMware.com, will be launching in mid November. This new site offers the Web's best independent resources on managing VMware environments.  You'll get expert advice on implementing VMware-related virtualization technologies for server consolidation, disaster recovery, lab and test, desktop centralization or other production usage. For more information on the upcoming SearchVMware.com and to sign up for VMware-specific newsletters, click here: http://go.techtarget.com/r/2366544/6232044

V-Ployment enables users to configure and rapidly deploy ESX Server builds to a consistent standard, whilst drastically cutting down effort, time and cost when provisioning or building additional servers. How Is V-Ployment Used? V-Ployment simplifies the build and configuration process of VMware's ESX Server (VI3), saving time and effort. It also reduces the skill level required to produce consistent ESX server builds and provides template examples containing over 5 years of VMware awarded best practice. V-Ployment is a fast, consistent and easy-to-use tool that allows you to deploy and configure VMware ESX 3.x servers rapidly in your environment. It is a .NET2 Windows application that processes configuration information from a formatted CSV file (supplied by Repton) and outputs the specified ESX host build scripts into a configured ESX boot image file (.iso).

The location where the Dutch Vmug conference will take place is the Nieuwegein Business Center. On the 7th of December over 300 enthusiastic Vmug members will enjoy a day full of virtualization. For the third year in succession you can attend a lot of really technical sessions. So if you are living near or in the Netherlands, you don’t want to miss out on this event. The agenda is online and when you take a close look at it you will see that Eric Sloof is going to talk about Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. On more reason to attend ;-)