Entries from Eric Sloof

During the TSX event in Nice there was a lot of speculation about new features in the next version of VMware ESX server. Mike Laverick  managed squeeze some comments out of Yu-Shen Ng.  And the past few weeks more and more news leaked out. Let’s take a look at the rumors and the facts. The release date of version ESX 3.1 will be around the end of October 2007. In this new version there will be better redundancy for iSCSI. Data replication in the kernel and filtering by third party apps will be possible. Besides authentication with AD, LDAP is going to be supported. When you logon to WebAcces there will be more possibility’s like creation of VM’s and controlling the resource pools and clusters. Different CPU family type’s within the Intel brand and connected internal switches are going to be supported in combination with VMotion. And last but not least VCB file level back-up for Linux VM’s.

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.

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.

Download : http://www.ntpro.nl/software/VMCDConnected.zip

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.

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.

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" »

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?

Rob Bastiaansen has been added as a speaker for the VMworld 2007 event, held September 11 - 13 at the Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, California. Rob is a VMware certified instructor and also has a lot of other activities besides his work as a consultant and trainer he is also a freelance journalist for a number of Dutch IT magazines. Therefore he has a very broad knowledge of the IT market. He is certified as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and because of the multi-platform strategy of Novell he also tries to keep up with his Linux knowledge. Besides the activities listed above he has also translated a few computer related books from English to Dutch, such as Network and System Integration for Dummies and JavaServer Pages from O'Reilly. And he authored and published a book on VMware technology.

Session ID: S288040
Session Title: Linux virtual machines: Templates, P2V and other tips and tricks
Track: 1 IP Infrastructure Planning

This Xtravirt utility is designed to reduce the time to deploy and configure VMWare ESX 3 servers and well as eliminate inconsistencies that can arise with manual operations. This Windows GUI based utility is based upon similar functionality of the VMware Web based Scripted Installer but with the additional options of creating post configuration files and loading and saving configurations for repeated use. Complete the form and select the Save option from the toolbar or File menu to generate a pre-configured deployment file. The resulting file can then be used to automatically deploy a fully configured VMWare ESX 3 server. There is tool tip help for each line in the form as well as a help page in the Help menu. All fields must be completed, and a partition file created/selected to create a valid custom configuration file. The resulting ks.cfg file is written in binary format so is fully compatible with Linux Operating Systems.

Alex Mittell, prolific and well known contributer to the VMware forums has joined Xtravirt.  You can look forward to more of Alex's insights, solutions and utilities posted at Xtravirt. Alex released a new verion of the VISBU – The Virtual Infrastructure Scripted Backup Utility. VISBU is a free backup utility that is run from the Service Console that provides VMDK level backups of any VM on the host. The script is designed to be easy to use and offers all features from a simple menu driven interface, so a non-Linux administrator can use it with the minimum of fuss. It provides email reports, automated restoration scripts for every backed up VM, and supports backups to SMB, NFS, EXT3, iSCSI and SAN based volumes – in both 2GBsparse or non-2GBsparse format. It also handles scheduled backups, configuration file creation, automatic SMB volume mounting, and provides a good level of logging for easy troubleshooting.