VMware - 33

Juan Casares, a VMware Interaction Designer in Palo Alto has dropped a little post in the Create a GuestOS type of ESX3.5 for deploying test ESX3.5 Servers VMware community discussion.

We are considering making ESX a guest OS type and make running ESX easier in Workstation. Unfortunately, there are many questions regarding how officially we can support this. There are implications on mobility, hardware restrictions, execution mode, performance, QA, etc.

Not everyone is happy with this consideration.  Ulli over at sanbarrow.com gives his 2 cents.

Juan - please do not officially support this kind of usage. I prefer if folks like jmattson just tell us what to do and in this respect ESX -support has been pretty good in the last few weeks. Please go on like that and don't scratch your heads about official support - good tips and quick answers help us much better. Just my 2 cents. Ulli

Brian Madden Keynote at IT Oost Nederland in the Grolsch Veste in Enschede on 24 june 2008.

This document provides the information that you need to deploy Open Systems SnapVault® 2.6 in a VMware® virtual infrastructure. Many of the best practices that have been identified for previous versions of Open Systems SnapVault apply to this version as well. However, backup features that are new to this version require an additional level of best practices and design strategies.

The following document provides detailed configuration information NetApp® storage systems in an ESX environment with Site Recovery Manager from VMware®. The purpose of this document is to set appropriate expectations for customers and NetApp employees with regard to automated failover using SRM.

Before people get married at VMware, they are traditionally dunked in a VMware fountain or pool, then forced to wear a ridiculous costume. It's training for being married. ;-)

This newest version offers the capabilities from before, plus an array of new features, increased performance and stability—including a broader range of guest operating system support, direct access to virtual machine consoles, an intuitive Web-based management interface, and increased memory for greater scalability. With over 3 million downloads worldwide, VMware Server continues to innovate to provide users with a superior introductory experience to virtualization—for free.

What's New

• Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS):  Properly backup the state of the Windows virtual machines when using the snapshot feature to maintain data integrity of the applications running inside the virtual machine.
• Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI): Support for fast and efficient communication between a virtual machine and the host operating system and between two or more virtual machines on the same host.
• Support for SCSI pass-through (generic) devices: Allows for SCSI devices such as tape backup devices to be connected to virtual machines.
• Expand disk capacity on the fly: Allows for adding new SCSI hard disks and controllers to a running virtual machine.
• Firefox 3 as a supported browser for the management interface.
• Remote Client Devices: Access devices such as CD-ROMs that are not physically connected to the host via VMware Remote Console

At the 3th of October the Dutch market leader in virtualization training XTG will deliver the Dutch virtualization event. The Xpert Training Group V-Event is the key virtualization event of the year. At this event you will receive the latest product updates and information, see live demos and get deep level of understanding required to turn your infrastructure challenges into a competitive advantage through server, desktop and storage virtualization solutions and technology. No commercial presentations but the real deal from VMware certified trainers. You can register at the following link.

  Latest Version: Beta 2 | 6/23/08 | Build 99530


Can we start a VM in ESX 3.5 on WS 6.5 ? Yes we can :-)
The beta 2 of VMware Workstation contains a permanent fix for this problem......







New Features in VMware Workstation 6.5:

-Seamless integration of guest & host applications with Unity
-Advanced VM Record and Replay with Visual Studio integration
-Support for Smart Cards & Smart Card Readers
-Link state propagation networking
-Enhanced ACE authoring capabilities
-Easy Install Option's support for Linux
-Improved 3D graphics Support
-Virtual Machine Streaming

Chris Skinner, a Technical Trainer over at VMware created a document for clustering VirtualCenter 2.5 with MSCS. Feel free to distribute to clients and colleagues. A special thanks to Seva and Charu for challenging Chris to do this based on their VC2.0 document. This paper documents the steps to successfully implement a high availability solution for VirtualCenter 2.5 using Microsoft’s cluster services. There are some basic requirements to start the process. Microsoft requires Active Directory for cluster services. Additionally, Windows 2003 Enterprise server or higher will be necessary. This document was compiled from several sources. It demonstrates creating a VC cluster on the same ESX host (cluster-in-a-box) with a SAN-based quorum disk. The hyperlinks at the end of the document has more detailed information for other types of configurations, such as, cluster-across-boxes and physical-to-virtual.

Their customers have been asking to manage their physical and virtual infrastructures through a single console - and we know that many of you have significant investments in HP OpenView and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager.  That's why Veeam's acquisition of nworks, announced today, is exciting news for all our customers.
 
nworks' products are the Smart Plug-In for VMware for HP Software Operations Manager and the Management Pack for VMware for Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager. These connectors allow you to directly incorporate day-to-day VMware management into enterprise management frameworks from HP and Microsoft.

By combining Veeam's resources with nworks' proven enterprise management expertise, we're moving the industry closer to eliminating the management separation of the physical and virtual worlds that has been problematic since the inception of virtual infrastructures.