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.

Microsoft’s Server Virtualization Validation Program enables VMware and other software vendors to test and validate that their virtualization tools run well with Windows Server 2008 and previous versions. Through this program, Microsoft provides technical support to joint customers who run Windows Server on validated virtualization software that is not Microsoft’s, such as VMware ESX 3.5… Read More

In this article I am trying to answer the following questions, which seems to pop up all the time.

How to enable Shell Access for the root account in VMware VI3 (VMware ESX)?
Is it the same way in VMware VI3 V3.5?
Why would I want to enable shell Access for the root account?
Why does VMware disable it by default?
What’s your recomendation in this regard?

Ok, Lets take one by one of these questions and answer it:

How to enable Shell Access of the root account in VMware VI3 (VMware ESX)?

To enable Shell Access of the root account in VMware VI3 all you have to do is login to the terminal with your root account. Or login through ssh using a user account then elevate to root.

After that go to the /etc/ssh directory

cd /etc/ssh/
Then edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config using vi

vi sshd_config

Then change the No to Yes next to the PermitRootLogin as shown in the below snapshot

Save the file by pressing :wq

then restart your VMware ESX server.

After that your VMware ESX Root will have shell access.

Is it the same way in VMware VI3 V3.5?

Yes, the same trick still work in V3.5.… Read More

Many people know VMware by products as VMware Workstation or VMware Server but not many know the full power of the enterprise products of the company.

For these who are missing on the VMware Enterprise products amazing functionalities I will leave the following video for them (Unfortunately its only available in English) …..

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VMware had organized a contest so that the users of their products could demonstrate by means of a video how VMware changed their lives… and the way they work.
For all the people with a few years in technology, they know that VMware with no doubt is the most innovating technology of the last decade for the x86 environments and for which we work with day to day.

Virtualization with VMware always have been spoken of with emotion and enthusiasm. As VMware has been the first player in the X86 Virtualization market, they have further combined many features & possibilities of Virtualization around their Virtual Infrastructure product on very fast basis. All that helped them amaze everyone with their products.

As VMware has continually amazed their customers with their products, many of the contest videos came to be amazing. As most of you won’t have the time to watch it all, we thought at least to show the winner video on our blog. The winning video is VMware Virtualized Hardware Hotel which is showing below. Enjoy it.

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VMware has announced several major improvements to its partnership program VMware VIP, which relates to nearly 10,000 partners around the world. The improvements include the Advantage+ Incentive Program, which offers higher margins to partners and reward their efforts with those concluded pro-actively sales of products and solutions VMware, sold to new customers or those who initiated negotiations even if another partner who makes the sale. VMware wants to make better use of its partners, but it is a wonder why this initiative? and why now?

From there you think that the No. 1 in the virtualization market is trying to re-motivate the troops who are increasingly hearing sirens of Microsoft and Citrix/Xen, it was a step … However, products VMware have still early to be too worried about, if one believes the craze still vivid of CIOs for ESX technologies.

Other improvements to the program are added, such as training partners to virtualization, or new marketing tools (emarketing online). … Read More

The VMware team few days back has a very short Webinar on “What’s New in VMware Infrastructure 3.5”. I have missed some of the points, but below are the most important things that have been raised:

ESX Server 3.5 & 3i:
The 3i server will be next generation to the “normal” ESX a decisive strategic plan. End of the year, the first hardware manufacturer will start releasing servers with the 3i server pre-installed. The list price of 3i is $ 495 for 2 CPUs. In the long run, the ESX3i seems to be the replacement for ESX3 stripping the Service Console!

Distributed Power Management:
This feature is an enhancement for the existing DRS. It will power down unoccupiedphysical hosts (to spare electricity) and, power it on if necessary, again!

improved HA:
HA is now no longer limited to hardware failure of a physical hosts respond, but also hanging VMs restart. This will be implemented using the vmware-tools and the associated Heard beat. Thus, each supported VM OS is supported – it is allowed to be curious whether the thing in practice really works!

Storage VMotion:
So far VMotion was only between machines sharing the same storage. If you had to move a VM between different storages you had to turn off the VM then clone it (Basically required down time).… Read More

Tripwire config check for ESX is a nice Free tool to come! Tripwire Config check review the configurations of your Physical & VMware systems based on your specific needs! Tripwire ConfigCheck is designed to sift through the hundreds of configuration settings within VMware’s ESX Server and identify those that are not set according to VMware’s recommendations.

Very Cool Tool. More over its free. Try it out!!!

… Read More

As VMware has changed the way they distribute their Modules across their VMware VI3 versions, many IT Professionals are still wondering how the new distribution work. For that I have decided to post it on here. I hope it will be helpful for everyone. Please post any questions you have about this new distribution. For me it seems more sufficient than the earlier distribution? What do you think?

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