Eric Sloof

37migrations.com is a fun project created by the people who brought you VIPlugins.com. The purpose of this site is to allow people to upload their VMotion count to our database, which in turn allows them to plot said data on a nifty Google map, making it easy to see where in the world VMotion operations are occurring. The map plots all of the VMotion events that have occured between 00:00 and 23:59 of the current day. The 37migrations VI client plugin uploads the location id you provide when a VMotion event on your VI server occurs. This process increments your VMotion count on the 37migrations server by 1. The location you provide is not stored, instead it is turned into latitude and longitude coordinates and those are stored. We store the data in a MySQL server that only we have access to. Even if someone were to obtain the data, there is no way that it can be traced back to you. They are not out to collect data for malicious purposes, they simply think this is a neat idea.

Frane Borozan over at physical2virtual.backup has launched a new product called Terminal services log. It will provide exact information for your users activity on terminal servers, showing how much user was total connected on server, how much of that time was idle (not working anything) and how much user was active (working something on server).

Main features of terminal services log:
- Connection start (date and hour)  user  duration
- Total time connected
- IDLE time
- Active time
- Disconnected session time
- Connection end (date and hour)
- Status

Reports are available also as summary by each date. Summaries consist of:
- Times logged in
- First log in
- Last log out
- Total time on server
- Total time idle
- Total time disconnected

As you continue to grow your VMware ESX virtual environment, managing capacity grows increasingly important — and increasingly difficult. Which makes quickly identifying and resolving capacity bottlenecks essential. That's why Alex Bakman would like to offer you this free white paper: How to Resolve Capacity Bottlenecks and Ensure Great Performance in Your VMware ESX Environment. In this guide, Alex Bakman, a 27-year computer-industry veteran, discusses the impact of server virtualization on the data center and capacity management — one of the biggest headaches in a virtual environment. Plus, you'll get Alex's formula for:

- Finding current capacity bottlenecks
- Identifying future capacity bottlenecks
- Finding pockets of capacity in your current environment

The new VMware VMsafe Technology Allows the Virtual Datacenter to Be More Secure Than Physical Environments. Twenty Industry-Leading Security Vendors, Including CheckPoint, McAfee and Symantec, Endorse VMsafe Technology and Announce Plans to Build Interoperable Security Solutions. The global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced new security technology called VMware VMsafe(tm) that protects applications running in virtual machines in ways previously not possible in physical environments. The VMsafe APIs allow vendors to develop advanced security products that combat the latest generation of malware. VMsafe technology integrates into the VMware hypervisor and provides the transparency to prevent threats and attacks such as viruses, trojans and keyloggers from ever reaching a virtual machine.  Twenty security vendors have embraced VMsafe technology and are building products that will further enhance the security of virtual machines, making the virtual environment unmatched in the level of security and protection it provides compared to physical systems.

The VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Plugin and Extension Programming Guide - Revision 1 is now available at VIPlugins.com. This document is not sponsored or supported by VMware in any way. This paper focuses on educating developers on:

Client Plugin Architecture
This includes where plugins are installed, how the VI client discovers local plugins and ones advertised on the VC server, and finally how to create a client plugin.

Server Extension Architecture
Includes how to register server extensions and how to make client plugins centrally available.

Tomcat Architecture
Discusses how the VirtualCenter Tomcat installation impacts server extension daemons.

Database Schema
Review the new VirtualCenter database tables that are related to extensions.

Creating Windows Installers
Reveals some problems with creating Windows Installers for server extensions.

Namespaces
Details the namespaces and assemblies VMware provides to create plugins and extensions.

Terminology
Coins new terminology that developers can use when discussing the above concepts.

VMware Customer Education is developing an instructor-led training course for customers who are building VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructures. The course offers skills training and hands-on experience on VMware Virtual Desktop Manager and related technologies. We are pleased to invite enrollments in the test delivery of this course.

Here is a preliminary course outline:

Module 1: VDI/VDM Overview
Module 2: Virtualizing Active Directory for VDM
Module 3: Group Policy Objects and Roaming Templates
Module 4: Remote Desktop Protocol
Module 5: Best Practices for XP and Vista Virtual Machines
Module 6: Installing VDM
Module 7: Using VDM Clients
Module 8: VDM Administration
Module 9: VDM Dynamic and Static Pools
Module 10: VDM Security Server
Module 11: VDM Load-Balancing and Multi-Server
Module 12: VDM Tunneled and Direct Connections
Module 13: VDM Security
Module 14: VDM Logs and Troubleshooting
Module 15: VMware Update Manager

EDU-DATASHEET-VDM-beta.pdf (84.5 K)

Elias Knaser created a real cool trailer for his upcoming ESX 3.5 CBT. We can expect this new version in March.  Elias' current focus is on Server Based Computing and Virtualization. He is currently the Sr. Network Engineer for Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL with a Citrix implementation serving 14000 customers. Prior to that, he was the Server Based Computing Architect for General Growth Properties, the second largest shopping mall owner and operator in the world. He co-authored many books including: "Citrix CCA MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0 and 4.0 (Exams 223/256) (Exam Cram)" by Que Publishing, "MCSE Designing Security for a Windows Server 2003 Network: Exam 70-298 Study Guide and Dvd Training System", and "Citrix MetaFrame XP Including Feature Release 1" by Syngress Publishing.  He was the Citrix series trainer for a computer based training company and developed their Citrix MetaFrame XP 1.0 FR1 & FR2 training videos.  Elias is a Contributing Author at WindowsITPro Magazine, Techrepublic.com, Certcities.com, Cramsession.com, and Brianmadden.com.

I have written a few articles about VMware and the PowerShell command let’s and at the VMworld 2008 EUROPE in Cannes you can explore the  PowerShell interfaces for VMware Infrastructure in the Automating VMware with PowerShell: Hands-On Lab. But the downside of PowerShell is that there isn’t a nice user interface. Wouldn’t it be great to use the PowerShell .net library’s and connect to your Virtual Centre server with Visual Basic Express 2008. It isn’t documented but I have found a way to connect to VC using the following code :

Public Class Form1

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

        Dim Config As New VMware.VimAutomation.Client20.VimClient

        Config.ConnectivityService.Login("https", "VC.NTPRO.LOCAL", "443", "Admin", "vmware")

        MsgBox(Config.ConnectivityService.IsConnected)

        MsgBox(Config.ConnectivityService.GetApiInfo.ApiVersion)

    End Sub

End Class

If everything goes well you will receive two message boxes, the first one will tell you “True�? so you’re connected and the second one will display “2.5�?, this is the version of the API. The remainder of the code is up to you, please let me know if you can stop and start a VM. The beta version of the VI3 Windows Toolkit will be launched in March.

Pearson was kind enough to send me a review copy of the Vmware ESX Server in the Enterprise book. This book is written by Edward Haletky and all I can say is that he really did a great job. Since some of the information in his book is based on VI3 (ESX 3.0) I asked him how the readers are going to be updated to the ESX 3.5 version. I received his answer a few minutes later and at this moment he is working on the Errata. You can find it online at his website. John Troyer conducted an interview with Edward last week which can be found here.

Frane Borozan over at physical2virtual.backup created process for backing-up physical servers into virtual machines using VMware converter and VMware server. The whole process is described on the www.p2vbackup.com website. This process only uses free tools and scripts written by Frane. VMware importer will be used for importing data into virtual machines, and VMware server will be used for managing data imported into virtual machines.

I asked Frane why he created the website ?

" I created the website to help system administrators implementing backup and disaster system because backup is a very important segment of every network infrastructure. As our bosses always want the best and the most cheap solution the only way to do this right is to choose virtualization and virtual servers for backup cause in the start they are giving us big savings in one way or another. "