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VMware Continues on the SVVP Certification Track

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:08:00 GMT

VMware Continues on the SVVP Certification Track

Mike D is first with the news: VMware Continues on the SVVP Certification Track.

Eight new ESX configurations have been approved by Microsoft for support under the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). The new configs allow up to 64 GB memory in any virtual machine. This is an increase from the previous 4 GB limit, and will be useful to customers deploying Exchange Server, SQL Server, or any memory-intensive application. All future SVVP configs will be listed at our product’s maximum memory limit.

Under SVVP, any customer will be supported by Microsoft when running any of a long list of Microsoft products on VMware. Any version of Windows back to Windows Server 2000 SP4 is also supported, including all OS roles such as Active Directory, File Services, etc.

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Two new docs at our community site: esxtop, VMFS

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:28:00 GMT

Two new docs at our community site: esxtop, VMFS

Two nice new resources from us are now available in the VMware Communities: one on esxtop statstics, and the other on VMFS best practices. (See all the community documents here.) I do not know if these will show up in our white paper directory at some point. Hmm, Rod may be right -- there are many places to find technical resources at VMware, and we need to make sure people can find what they need. I will do some asking about internally. Hat tips to Tom and Arne for pointng them out.

Documentation on Esxtop | PlanetVM.

Scott Drummond[s] of VMware has just created a document of the forums that details the Esxtop command, you can find it here Interpreting esxtop Statistics this looks like a detailed piece of work that somebody has needed to do for a while

VMware: VMFS Best Practices « ICT-Freak.nl.

This paper gives a technology overview of VMFS, including a discussion of features and their benefits. The paper highlights how VMFS capabilities enable greater scalability and decreased management overhead. It also provides best practices and architectural considerations for deployment of VMFS. You can download the whitepaper over here: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9276

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Come Visit VMware Fusion at Macworld

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:54:00 GMT

Come Visit VMware Fusion at Macworld

VMware: Team Fusion: Come Visit VMware Fusion at Macworld.

What We’ll Be Up To

We’ll be demoing VMware Fusion 2 on five demo stations, handing out “My Mac Loves VMware” laptop and bumper stickers, and doing presentations in our theater.

Even better, we’ll have some special guests in our theater. Every day at 2PM, Joe Kissell from Take Control Publishing, will be presenting tips and tricks from his awesome book “Take Control of VMware Fusion 2”, the quintessential power user’s guide to VMware Fusion 2.

So if you would like to come say hi, whether you’re a curious would-be user, a current customer, press, partner, or so on, our booth is the place to be. We’ll have something for everyone.

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Nine Web sites IT pros should master in 2009

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 01:49:00 GMT

Nine Web sites IT pros should master in 2009

Congrats to my colleagues in the VMware Communities team for creating and fostering a place that made #3 on this list of web sites that IT pros should master in 2009.

There's some grousing in the comments over at Network World that some of the sites recommended here are "social sites," but I think that anybody who has participated at the VMware Communities is aware of the value it's brought them and their career. Virtualization as a platform and data center architecture touches on every part of your stack -- hardware, networking, storage, security, apps, and more. Being a part of a community of your peers -- one that's global and 24/7 and damn knowledgeable -- is as important a tool in your toolbox as a stack of white papers. This should be your first stop when you have a problem, and I hope you stick around afterward -- you'll probably learn something!

Nine Web sites IT pros should master in 2009 | By Carolyn Duffy Marsan, Network World.

3. VMware Communities

Chances are you’ve already embarked on a server virtualization project, and continued consolidation of your servers is a key money-saving goal for 2009. Most of you are using VMware for your server virtualization projects, and our product reviewers recommend you stick with VMware over Microsoft’s Hyper-V for the foreseeable future. To get the best real-world feedback on how best to deploy VMware, keep your eyes on the VMware Communities Web site. It’s got user groups in your community and lots of tips from other VMware developers that can help you solve problems faster.

[You can also find this at InfoWorld]

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Happy New Year

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 01:35:00 GMT

Happy New Year

Just wanted to wish everybody a happy (and prosperous) new year in 2009. This year should bring a lot of interesting developments to the virtualization world. (Last year sure seemed to be busy.)

It's been 3 years since I started gathering together blogs and technical resources about VMware and virtualization. That topic deserves its own post, but if you've been watching you've seen the virtualization discussion continue its exponential growth, both when looked at over the last year and over this last quarter in the blogs on Planet V12n and lately Twitter. (Feel free to follow me on Twitter as jtroyer; again, Twitter deserves its own post in the next week or two after everybody gets their engines revved back up after the holidays -- it's been pretty quiet over the last two weeks.)

So welcome to 2009. If you're in the northern hemisphere, stay warm and/or dry. And to everybody, thanks for coming by and keep on virtualizing!

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VMmark Review Panel Convenes

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:38:00 GMT

VMmark Review Panel Convenes

Those of you who follow VMmark know that there are currently more than forty benchmark results from our partners posted on the VMmark Results Page . All of these results have been carefully reviewed by VMware to ensure compliance with the benchmark run and reporting rules. It has been very gratifying to see VMmark embraced and used so widely. Of course we try not to rest on our laurels and constantly seek opportunities to improve the utility of the benchmark.

As of December, the benchmark review process will be enhanced. A VMmark Review Panel comprised of several of our partners has recently been formed in order to provide additional rigor and transparency to the benchmark reviews. The founding members of the review panel are AMD, Dell, and HP, in addition to VMware. (We hope to add more partners soon.) I am delighted to welcome them to the review panel and thank them for showing their support for VMmark by devoting resources to this effort. This broader and more open review process will produce an even greater level of confidence in the accuracy and compliance of published results. Please see the VMmark Review Panel Guidelines for more information.

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SRM demo video, usage tips: new from Uptime

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:44:00 GMT

SRM demo video, usage tips: new from Uptime

Our new blog Uptime continues to deliver the goods. Two new posts from VMware's own Lee Dilworth cover vCenter Site Recovery Manager from the overview (if you're still trying to get a handle on what SRM does and how it replaces that paper DR plan and set of scripts you've never really fully tested) to the first FAQ and set of tips if you've been trying it out.

First, the video. You might recognize VMware Evangelist & VMworld Europe impressario Richard Garsthagen as well, fresh off his first video hit, VMware Infrastructure 3 demo.

Link: Site Recovery Manager Demonstration Video now online!

Next, Lee's FAQ & tips on SRM:

Link: VMware Site Recovery Manager - "From general release to Update1, what have we learnt and what's new?". Lee goes into a bit more detail, but here's sample question:

Q: What are the SRM failback options we see no button for failback which is confusing us?
SRM absolutely supports failback and each storage vendor documents the failback process for their specific replicated storage configuration. What you have to consider is that without SRM in your virtual environment you are back to manual and/or home grown scripts for DR you will no longer have automated Recovery Plans, no offline DR testing capabilities, and no DR audit trail.

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New blog from VMware: Uptime

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:33:00 GMT

New blog from VMware: Uptime

The newest blog from the VMware stables has left the starting gate. The blog, entitled Uptime, will cover business continuity, high availability, and disaster recovery. Welcome!

VMware: Uptime (VMware and Business Continuity).

We continue to see a lot of interest and questions about how to protect VMware environments as well as a lot of excitement about the new and future technologies that VMware has developed and talked about, so we wanted to create a place where we can give you some additional insight into what we're seeing and working on here at VMware. This blog will focus on products and solutions for business continuity in virtualized environments. We’ll talk about data protection, high availability, and disaster recovery solutions that include VMware Infrastructure and products like VMware Consolidated Backup, High Availability, Site Recovery Manager.

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Executive Viewpoint: Predicting the Future

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:51:00 GMT

Executive Viewpoint: Predicting the Future

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Top 10 Predictions for 2009 from Steve Herrod | VMblog.com

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:08:00 GMT

Top 10 Predictions for 2009 from Steve Herrod | VMblog.com

VMware CTO Steve Herrod gives his thoughts on the year ahead...

VMware: Top 10 Predictions for Virtualization in 2009 : VMblog.com - Virtualization Technology News and Information for Everyone.

1. Virtualization of the Enterprise Desktop Breaks Out.

The “desktop dilemma” – i.e., the business choice of whether to provide thick or thin clients for employees – will begin to be solved in 2009. Thick clients, including fully loaded personal computers (PCs) and laptops, provide employees with a rich set of applications in their desktop environment, but can be a management challenge since applications can be distributed across thousands of PCs that must be provisioned, updated, patched and secured individually. Thin clients are cheaper, more secure, and more cost-effective to manage, but traditionally have not been able to deliver the richness, flexibility, or compatibility of thick clients. Most businesses provide thin clients only for employees, such as call center staff, who can be productive in this more restrictive environment. New virtualization-based approaches will solve this dilemma by combining the benefits of both approaches – delivering rich, personalized virtual desktops to any device (whether thick or thin), while simplifying management and securing endpoints with virtual desktops hosted in the datacenter. Virtualization is the essential platform for efficient, manageable desktops in an increasingly mobile world. In addition, better remote display protocols and use of the local machine’s compute resources will ensure an even better user experience, and the combination of online and offline modes will enable use when employees are traveling or when they do not have access to a higher-speed network.

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VMware Appoints General Manager for EMEA Region

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:12:00 GMT

VMware Appoints General Manager for EMEA Region

PALO ALTO, Calif. – December 17, 2008 – VMware, Inc. (VMW: NYSE), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, announced today the appointment of Maurizio Carli as General Manager (GM) of VMware’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Carli is responsible for strategic planning, business operations and management of key functions for the region, including sales, channels, services and marketing. He will report directly to Carl Eschenbach, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations, for VMware. Carli brings more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry and expansive knowledge of the EMEA region across several...

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VMware Spreads Its Wings, Users Benefit

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:09:00 GMT

VMware Spreads Its Wings, Users Benefit

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Operating System Specific Packages for VMware Tools

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:05:00 GMT

Operating System Specific Packages for VMware Tools

We are pleased to announce the General Availability of Operating System Specific Packages (OSPs) for VMware Tools. Using OSPs, enterprise customers virtualizing Linux on VI will be able to install/update/manage their VMware Tools installations using the guest operating systems' native packaging format (rpm, deb etc) and update mechanisms (apt, yum, rug, etc).

More details including a list of supported ESX releases, guest operating systems, documentation and package repository are available from the OSP web page at http://www.vmware.com/download/packages.html (or just packages.vmware.com).

Operating System Specific Packages Home Page - VMware.

Welcome to the VMware Operating System Specific Packages (OSPs) website

On this site, you will be able to search, browse and download VMware Tools software packaged in the native package format (e.g. rpm, deb etc) for select supported Operating Systems.

You will also be able to use your Operating System's native update mechanisms to automatically download, install and manage VMware Tools for these supported Operating Systems. ...

See also Matthijs Haverink. How did Matthijs get the news? He, like 176 other clued-in individuals, is following jtroyer on Twitter. I announced this and the searchable HCL there first. Please feel free to c'mon by and join us on the back porch of the Internet.

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Searchable, database-driven hardware compability guide

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:28:00 GMT

Searchable, database-driven hardware compability guide

We're pleased to announce the availability of a new database-driven system for our compatibility guides. From the page: "This online Hardware Compatibility Guide replaces the former Hardware Compatibility Guides for systems, I/O devices, and SAN arrays for ESX 3.0 and greater versions, as well as VMware View Client. For compatibility guides of other VMware products or earlier ESX releases and VMware View Client, please use the Other Documents tab."

Try out the system for yourself at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/ There are also HCL RSS feeds available at http://vmware.simplefeed.net/subscription

Rodos has a nice walkthrough with this modified screenshot. Musings of Rodos: VMware release searchable HCL system. Note you can click on the entries to get a more detailed popup screen.

See also Jason Boche who would still like the pdfs (but you can export these searches as pdf), Dave Lawrence, and Sven Huisman, who would like a combined guide -- we still provide a separate Guest Operating System Installation Guide.

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VMware Helps Riverstone Residential Grow its Business

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:12:00 GMT

VMware Helps Riverstone Residential Grow its Business

Business Growing 100 Percent Annually, Riverstone Needed Scalable IT Platform and High-Performance, High-Availability Application Environment. PALO ALTO, Calif. —December 16, 2008 – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced that Riverstone Residential Group (RRG), the largest privately owned residential management company in the United States, has virtualized nearly its entire Windows application environment on VMware’s industry-leading management and virtualization platform, VMware Infrastructure 3. RRG manages over 192,000 apartment units in 29 states and the District of Columbia. The company’s...

Enable Network Card on Windows 2000 Professional or Server Virtual Machine Running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5.0i (1006945)

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Enable Network Card on Windows 2000 Professional or Server Virtual Machine Running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5.0i (1006945)

ws650, enable network card, Windows 2000 Professional or Server virtual machine, McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.5.0i To...

Latest Updates

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:23:00 GMT

Latest Updates

These are the changes or updates made to the Guest Operating System Installation Guide since it was last published:

Added a new section that describes support for VMware Tools Operating System Specific Packages. See “VMware Tools Operating System Specific Packages” on page 34.

Added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server on ESX 3.0.2, 3.0.3, 3.5, 3.5 Update 1, 3.5 Update 2, and 3.5 Update 3. See “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5” on page 129.

Added support information about Server Core functionality for Windows Server 2008. See “Windows Server 2008” on page 40.

PDF: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/GuestOS_guide.pdf

HTML: http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/

EnableResignature and/or DisallowSnapshotLUN | Yellow Bricks

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:03:00 GMT

EnableResignature and/or DisallowSnapshotLUN | Yellow Bricks

Our VMware blogs are turning out to be a great resource to dig into topics that, while they might be covered in the docs or white papers, are helped by pulling them out and viewing them in tighter focus -- and letting them be indexed by Google. Some examples include

HA - tricky options for different use cases
Snapshots - often misunderstood, easy to lose track of
ESX Beaconing and link failures

And now VMware's own Duncan Epping has a nice and thorough look at two storage parameters you should know about: EnableResignature and DisallowSnapshotLUN. From looking at the comments on Duncan's post, I'd say you don't want to have to figure out these specialized options on the fly when something goes wrong.

EnableResignature and/or DisallowSnapshotLUN » Yellow Bricks.

I’ve spend a lot of time in the past trying to understand the settings for EnableResignature and DisallowSnapshotLUN. It had me confused and dazzled a couple of times. Every now and then I still seem to have trouble to actually understand these settings, after a quick scan through the VCDX Enterprise Study Guide by Peter I decided to write this post and I took the time to get to the bottom of it. I needed this settled once and for all, especially now I start to focus more on BC/DR. ... I do want to stress that setting the options should always be used temporarily considering the impact these changes can have! When you set any of both options reset them to the default.

VMware ESX Server 3.5, Patch ESX350-200802408-SG: Security Updates to the Python Package (1003451)

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT

VMware ESX Server 3.5, Patch ESX350-200802408-SG: Security Updates to the Python Package (1003451)

alertz Summaries and Symptoms This patch provides service console updates for the Python package. The patch...

Two top 10 lists for you*: PowerShell scripts, Security resources

vmtn@vmware.com (VMTN) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 03:01:00 GMT

Two top 10 lists for you*: PowerShell scripts, Security resources

Top 10 lists are win-win. They're often easier to write than, say, a big essay or technical investigation. And they're easy to consume, because most of us don't have the time to read, say, a big essay or technical investigation.

Now both Eric Siebert and Edward Haletky are by no means slackers, but in between working on their new books, they've both produced a new top ten list for you.

Top 10 PowerShell scripts that VMware administrators should use by Eric Siebert at Virtual Strategy. (Eric's home for all his lists is VMware-land.) Note that some of these scripts came from the PowerShell scripting contest and can be found at the http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/utilitiesVMware Developer Community Sample Code repository.

Top VMware security links by Edward Haletky at Virtualization Pro. (Edward's home for all his good stuff, including the Virtualization Bookshelf, is the AstroArch Wiki.) Edward also recommends the Top 100 Virtualization Security Questions from VI:OPS.

*And a bonus resource. Since we're here and talking about reference material, Rod Haywood has also updated his very handy huge list of all VMware technical paper abstracts. Go check out his whole blog if you haven't yet -- a lot of very smart and deep, yet very practical, thinking about VDI and Cloud topics.