Hyper-V Virtual networks: A look at High Level
Posted by virtualized1970 on Oct 3, 2008
One of the worst documented area in Virtualization, most confusing, and most troubling to Virtualization newbies is networking in a Virtualized environment. Although network settings in a virtualized environment is quite simple it requires a good understanding of few concepts and terms discussed into this post.
While virtualization architectures and how the virtualization stack makes use of the network resources of the host & host teaming are different in Virtual Server and Hyper-V, the concepts are similar for Virtual Networks.
Hyper-V Live Migration vs. Quick Migration
Posted by virtualized1970 on Sep 29, 2008
As we find out more about Windows Server Virtualization, it is only natural to start having doubts about its features. One of the most famous is Live/Quick Migration.
I would therefore like to spend some time clarifying everything I can about this subject.
First of all, Quick and Live Migration are not the same thing. They are not synonymous or interchangeable terms. Quick Migration is completely different from Live Migration.
The WSV RTM will have Quick Migration available right away while Live Migration (which is the equivalent of VMware VMotion) will be ready in an update a few months after WSV RTM.
Hyper-V: Questions and Answers
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 28, 2008
Drivers and Synthetic Hardware
What is Synthetic Hardware?
How can I tell if the hardware in my virtual machine is emulated or synthetic?
An easy way is to look at the hardware administration console: emulated hardware appears with the name of the hardware manufacturer, while synthetic hardware appears with names like “Microsoft VMBus”.
Virtual networks
How do I set up virtual networks?
Backing up your virtual machine
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 26, 2008
When you’re making a recovery plan and back-up of your virtual environment, you should take into consideration the various factors that may interfere with your back-up such as: the state of the virtual machine at the time you made the back-up (system state, shut down, running) and the type of storage you use for these back-ups.
The integration of the support service with the Volume Shadow Copy service of Hyper-V allows you to make a back-up of both the virtual machine as well as the Hyper-V configuration. There are two basic methods you can use for this type of back-up:
1. Make a back-up copy from inside of the operating system of a virtual machine. This method is useful when you need to save data from a storage device that is not supported by Hyper-V VSS.
Videos on the new version of Hyper V and Hyper V Server
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 25, 2008
It seems as though virtualization never ceases to be in the news. Today, I have some videos on the new version of Windows 2008 Hyper V, which will be available with the launch of Windows Server 2008 R2, whose latest feature (and criticism) is changing cluster nodes without losing power. Also called “Live Migration”, this is a significant improvement of “Quick Migration”, which directed the virtual machine to the live node but restarted it. It’s quite interesting to see how an end user sees no interruption in service during the movement of virtual machines between nodes when using Live Migration which is going to be the replacement for quick migration. Check out the Video below to see Live migration in action & check out Hyper-V Live migration vs Quick migration post to find out more about the difference between them .
VirtualCenter for VM ware Server Real Value
Posted by virtualizedfuture on Sep 23, 2008
I have been reading all over the place about virtualization products. A lot of posts discuss VM ware VI3 & many others discuss Xen or HyperV, but I don’t see many talk about virtualcenter. As I have been using VM ware VI3 & vm ware Virtual server for a while now I can tell you virtualcenter is the most distinguished part of their offering. What struck me the most that vm ware started offering VirtualCenter for their free vm ware virtual server which seems a lot of people are ignoring and not even aware of. In this article I will talk about how useful is it to obtain virtualcenter for VMware server.
VMware makes a big mistake
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 19, 2008
It often happens that the top of the class makes a big mistake. Invariably, the ones at the bottom of the class giggle and make fun of the misfortunes of others. The problem with the recent blunder by VMware is that no one is laughing. The world’s virtualization leader, whose hypervisor represents nearly 95% of the market, has effectively “forgotten” to take out a part of the code from VMware ESX Server 3.5 Update 2, which disables the product that was passed August 12. This time bomb, apparently inserted during the beta phase of the product, was not removed. As a result, thousands of servers that upgraded to the latest version of the software began to malfunction at midnight. The main problem: an inability to start new VMs on the affected servers. In the physical world, this equates to a huge amount of servers persistently refusing to start. Nothing really serious, just a catastrophic problem on the level of a datacenter… The only consolation is that VMs that have already been started will continue to operate normally until they are restarted.
VMware Virtual Machine 6.0 Full
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 14, 2008
VMware Server has been free for a while. Go to the VMware website, download it, and install it on your Ubuntu.
Follow these instructions to install it on your x86 PC.
1. Download the VMware Server from here.
2. Download the latest patch from here.
3. Update everything to ensure that the installation goes smoothly:
a) sudo apt-get update
b) sudo apt-get upgrade
c) sudo apt-get install libx11-6 libx11-dev libxtst6 xlibs-dev xinetd wget
d) apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential
e) sudo apt-get install gcc binutils-doc cpp-doc make manpages-dev autoconf automake1.9 libtool flex bison gdb gcc-doc
4. Now decompress the VMware and patch files:
a) tar xvzf VMware-server-1.0.3-44356.tar.gz
b) tar xvzf vmware-any-any-update113.tar.gz
How to solve installation problems of VMware Server on Ubuntu
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 12, 2008
The other day, Andres asked Josep Ros a question about Ubuntu and VMware. Since Josep Ros know absolutely nothing about Ubuntu, they asked Albert Mas for help. As the wise man says, knowing everything is not as important as knowing the phone number of someone who does.
“Hello Josep,
I am having trouble with VMware and Ubuntu and am not able to solve the problem myself. I was able to fix some errors but have come across one that I have no idea how to fix. Can you help me? Thanks in advance.
-Andres Lamelas”
This is what Albert Mas suggested, and it worked:
Microsoft validates the VMware ESX Hypervisor
Posted by virtualized1970 on Sep 11, 2008
Now Microsoft offers technical support to customers who run the virtualization tool with Windows Server.
VMware, the clear leader of server virtualization, has announced that its VMware ESX hypervisor meets the requirements of Microsoft’s Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). VMware ESX 3.5 update 2 (ESX 3.5u2) is the first hypervisor to join the program, which provides support from both Microsoft and VMware to customers who work with Windows Server and Microsoft applications. “Virtualization is already established within a stream of IT and our relationship with Microsoft shows just how far it has come, providing users of VMware ESX access to valuable support for their virtualized Microsoft applications,” says Bogomil Balkansky, Senior Director of product marketing at VMware. “VMware and Microsoft are working together to make sure that our joint customers enjoy the benefits of virtualization with the reassurance that professional support provides,” he adds.
How to configure the network on VMware ESX from the Ubuntu command line
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 8, 2008
Recently, I needed help with Unix to solve a problem with a network card that was identified as “undetectable” by ESX 3.5 of an Ubuntu virtual machine. Actually, the problem was that I could not configure the network because it was not detected by the system.
First, I thought that I needed to install the VMware tools on this system but I had no clue how to do this. I assumed that it was the same method as any other virtual machine (in the toolbar, Inventory -> Virtual Machine -> Install / Upgrade VMware Tools). But, after connecting to the VMware console, I saw that VMware was started but never finished.
Starting VMware from the Ubuntu login
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 6, 2008
If you don’t have a computer with many resources and you want to use VMware or VMplayer with a Windows XP image (or any other operating system) for a longer period of time (e.g. you must use Word, Excel, Access, etc.), a good solution is to start VMware directly, without downloading GNOME.
To achieve this, you need to create a new account that you can log into from the login screen (GDM). For it, you create the file “/usr/share/xsessions/windows-xp.desktop”:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding = UTF-8
Name = Windows-XP
Exec = /usr/local/bin/startwindowsxp.sh
Icon =
Type = Application
This will execute the file “/usr/local/bin/startwindows.sh”, which you will also have to create with the following content:
#!/bin/bash
cd /mnt/extra/Windows_XP_Professional/
vmplayer –fullscreen /mnt/extra/Windows_XP_Professional/ Windows_XP_Professional.vmx
Resizing a virtual disk with VMware
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 5, 2008
The other day, an old virtual machine of mine with VMware (that I sometimes used to test various configurations, cases, applications, etc.) ran out of disk space since it had only 2GB for storage! By today’s standards, 2GB of storage seems like a joke! But anyways, I had to solve this inconvenient problem or else I would lose time creating a new virtual machine and configuring the operating system from scratch according to the new specifications for virtual disks.
VMware provides a set of line-of-command utilities to support the administration of virtual machines. Among them is a utility called vmware-vdiskmanager that makes this operation much simpler. Simply run the command with the “-x” option and the desired new size for the virtual disk and…problem solved.
VMWARE with Linux Kernel 2.6.24 and Wireless Bridge
Posted by mrjohn on Sep 1, 2008
VMware modules cannot be compiled in (and are not even supported by) Kernel 2.6.24.
The official patch vmware-any-any-update115, from ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/vmware, solves problems with some earlier kernels, but it does not compile in 2.6.24.
Peter Teoh created an unofficial patch, vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz, that DOES compile with 2.6.24. He modified the module vmmon.tar using the previous 115 patch as a base.
But vmware-any-any-update patches do not support bridge networking with wireless network cards. In the source of module vmnet.tar, smac_linux.x386.c, you can find:
“KERN_WARNING vmnet: You are trying to use wireless networking bridged together with vmware-any-any-update. This configuration is not supported, and your wireless bridge will probably not work.”
Microsoft vs. VMware: Companies lose the battle - Part 2
Posted by mrjohn on Aug 31, 2008
Signs of an immature market
But is it really necessary for hypervisors to be a proprietary technology? Efforts by Microsoft and VMware to differentiate their hypervisors remind us of the networking situation thirty years ago, when all power suppliers believed in different technologies (Token Ring, Ethernet, ARCNET, etc.). Gradually, however, manufacturers have accepted the idea that taking a common standard (TCP/IP over Ethernet) and concentrating their efforts on innovation in the upper levels of the software stack, stimulates the growth of the market as a whole and, consequently, the value of the manufacturer’s own share of the pie. It seems that in the case of virtualization, suppliers are not yet ready to see the situation from this perspective. Today, speeches still revolve around concepts such as speed and feeds, but probably the market itself will finish by imposing its own rules.