VMware ESX & Virtual Center 3.5 upgrade guide
Posted by VMbloggie on Mar 25, 2009
It might be the time for you to upgrade your VMware ESX servers to VMware 3.5U3 and Virtual Center 3.5U4.
You might even just want to upgrade to any version of VMware ESX & vCenter 3.5. Then this guide linked to below is all you need. It has a great step by step instruction of the process & better its provided by the solution Vendor VMWare :).
VMware ESX & Virtual Center Upgrade guide
VMWare ESX: How to recover your VMFS partition table
Posted by virtualized1970 on Mar 23, 2009
You might wake up for a bad day after a power outage or a storage failure. You thought it was over, after you had succeeded to bring all your machines back up and running. In few minutes you found out that some of your virtual machines are missing. After a small investigation you found out that your VMware Datastores (VMFS) are empty when you try to browse them from VMware vCenter or VI client. If you face this problem there is a big chance that your VMFS Partition table for these LUNs or disks are missing.
To Check Your VMware ESX server VMFS Partition table follow the following procedure:
Redhat announces a change in Virtualization Strategy
Posted by virtualized1970 on Mar 6, 2009
Redhat has announced an interesting change in their virtualization strategy. They seems to dump Xen for KVM in their upcoming releases. This will be a happy news for a lot of open source lovers. As Citrix & Microsoft are controlling the way Xen is evolving, they would rather a real open source alternative. Redhat has a good announcement found at Red Hat Sets Its Virtualization Agenda clearing up the confusion of their Virtualization Strategy after they had obtained Qumranet in the last quarter of 2008.
A brief of the planned changes quoted from Redhat annoucement is below:
Top 10 VMware VMworld 2009 Videos
Posted by VMbloggie on Mar 6, 2009
Finally back home :). Don’t get me wrong Cannes was great, though nothing like being back home.
OK for people who did not get to join us in Cannes, I had for them a free ticket for the replay :).
I wish I could afford to give our visitors a VMworld pass for free, but I have not been making that much money yet. Here I will make up for the tickets, by sharing with you the links for the top 10 VMware VMworld 2009 Vids including the CEO Keynotes & the closing :). So you will feel like you were there with us. Below are the long waited links :).
VMware VMworld 2009 General Keynotes Videos
Citrix XenServer Enterprise for free
Posted by VMbloggie on Mar 2, 2009
After the News that the bomb had been launched by Virtualization.info:
http://www.virtualization.info/2009/02/citrix-xenserver-is-now-free-xencenter.html
Citrix has officially released their enterprise version for free check out the announcement at Citrix XenServer Enterprise for free:
“First of all Citrix is releasing for free the Enterprise Edition of XenServer.
This is not a scaled down, limited version of the Hypervisor. From the end of March on, there will be only one edition of XenServer which will be free.
Secondarily, Citrix is giving away for free with a remarkable number of XenServer enterprise features, including the Enterprise Console to manage multiple hosts (XenCenter), the live VM migration (XenMotion) technology, the resource sharing (Resource Pools) technology and the enterprise storage management technology. “
VMworld 2009 announce vSphere, vCenter Server Heartbeat, VMware vShield Zones
Posted by virtualized1970 on Feb 24, 2009
VMworld Europe 2009. VMware has used the VMworld Europe 2009 to announce two new products that will be available this year:
1- vCenter Server Heartbeat:
Comes to solve the problem arising from a possible collapse of the server that manages the VMware virtualized platforum, specifically vCenter Server earlier known by Virtual Center. The vCenter Server Heartbeat comes to provide High availability for the vCenter. Prior to vCenter Server Heartbeat you were only able to have one vCenter to manage your infrastructure if that vCenter fail VMware’s Live migration with VMotion, load balancing with Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), license management, and performance monitoring all cease to function.
VMware ESX - VMware VMotion
Posted by VMbloggie on Feb 24, 2009
What’s VMware VMotion?
VMware VMotion enables the active migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another without interruption of service, availability of service and complete integrity of transactions.
VMware VMotion moves running virtual machines from one physical server to another while maintaining service availability.
VMware VMotion allows IT organizations to:
- Perform live migrations with zero downtime, undetectable to the user.
- Continuously and automatically optimize virtual machines within resource pools.
- Perform hardware maintenance without scheduling downtime and disrupting business operations.
VMworld Get Your Free SvSAN at Booth 59
Posted by virtualized1970 on Feb 24, 2009
Haha finally at VMworld Europe. What an event!!!
I will keep posting new discoveries on here. The first thing that got my attention as many of you who is attending is the nice free gadgets are available at the different booths. Free is always good is not it.
Though the Free SvSAN offered at booth 59 is really worth your visit to that booth. If you are attending & have not visited Booth 59 then try to hurry before they run out which I belive will not be too long before then with the crowd at the booth.
VMware ESX Healtcheck script
Posted by VMbloggie on Feb 16, 2009
Before asking VMware or your vendor for a health check on your VMware enviornemnt you can use the free Healthcheck script as an early start. Actually its a great idea to automate it to send you and update of your enviornment status weekly. Below is a bit more of the VMware Healthcheck script as posted by Ibeerens on the VMware Community forum:
What is VMware HealthCheck Script?
VMware Healthcheck is a Powershell script that reports information like snapshots, VMware tools version, datastore space, CDROM and/or floppy drives connected, VM details etc. to HTML and e-mail the output. This script can be scheduled so that for example you get every week a rapport in your mailbox with the status of the VMware environment.
VMware Workstation 6.5: The Best of Virtualization (Second Part)
Posted by mrjohn on Feb 5, 2009
This is the second part of this Article. If you have not read the first part you might want to check it out: VMware Workstation 6.5: The Best of Virtualization (first part)
After installing Workstation 6.5, we had it operating and running in just a few minutes. On it, we can install a wide variety of Windows and Linux systems, both 32- and 64-bit ones. Anyone who is familiar with creating virtual machines will have this done in no time.
VMware Workstation 6.5: The Best of Virtualization
Posted by mrjohn on Jan 31, 2009
VMware’s latest version of its PC and laptop virtualization tool continues to bring success to developers and advanced users.
Other manufacturers following in VMware’s footsteps are Sun Microsystems with VirtualBox and, to a lesser extent, Microsoft with its Virtual PC.
VMware Workstation 6.5 is a unique tool used to create and run a wide variety of virtual machines on conventional PCs offers some of the best configuration and administration tools.
The latest version of VMware Workstation is an ideal tool for developers, advanced users working with multiple platforms, and anyone who needs to simulate a network of computers on a single PC. The e-Week Laboratory tested the different versions of VMware Workstation, and 6.5 got our “Analyst Choice” prize for its performance.
Best Practices for VMware Consolidated Backup
Posted by mrjohn on Jan 27, 2009
VMware has updated and made significant improvement to its VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) best practices. One of the most important changes is the possibility of backing up virtual machines using the API Microsoft VSS (Volume Shadow Services), which ensures the consistency of the file system as well as the transaction applications within the virtual machine.
During VMWorld ‘08 in Las Vegas, it was also said that VCB will evolve in the not too distant future and will be integrated as a plug-in within VirtualCenter. This would make installation, configuration and deployment of this framework backup much easier.
You can download the document here.
MED-V: Virtualization for Vista
Posted by mrjohn on Jan 23, 2009
Microsoft has released the beta version of a desktop virtualization software that can run applications from previous versions of Windows on Vista.
Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) is based on a desktop virtualization technology by Kidaro, which Microsoft acquired in May 2008 and which allows Windows XP/2000 applications to run in Windows Vista.
According to The Register, the final version of MED-V will be ready in the second half of the year and will be part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. The pack will include applications like Softricity, DesktopStandard, AssetMetrix, and Winternals Software.
You can download the beta of MED-V here.
Thank you to John Ranchal for a great article that we have translated here.
VMware View 3.0: The new VMware VDI broker
Posted by mrjohn on Jan 4, 2009
Today my friend Elias told me that VMware released version 3.0 (Build 127.642) of its VDI broker, formerly known as Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM).
VMware View 3.0 offers many new features such as offline VDI, which allows users to view their virtual desktops without being connected to the corporate network, using the image stored locally on their laptops.
Another new feature is “linked Clone”, which can reduce the disk space needed to deploy virtual desktops by up to 70%. It will also include a new remote desktop protocol that VMware is developing with Teradici.
VMware offers two editions of View 3.0.
The Premiere Edition includes the Hypervisor (ESX), administration console (vCenter), Connection Broker (View Manager), and the application virtualization platform (ThinApp).
New technical documents about VMware View – Now Available
Posted by mrjohn on Jan 3, 2009
VMware has recently published several very informative technical documents about its new virtualization workstation, VMware View.
If you want to have an architecture reference as well as a better idea how to measure the storage backend in these solutions, these documents will definitely get you on the right track.
Storage Design Options for VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Manager 3 VMware admin guide
VMware View Reference Architecture Kit (registration required)
After you read these three documents, you will be one of the few people that are familiar with the new VMware virtualization workstation.
Happy reading!
This post is based on an article in Spanish by Jose Maria Gonzalez.
