VM /ETC

Archive for February, 2009

Fluid Operations, owner of the eCloudManager Project, has open sourced it’s VMFS Driver Project. The driver is actually an application that can run on Linux, Windows or any operating system that supports Java. It apparently provides read only access to VMware VMFS volumes.

The VMFS driver has been developed for use in fluid Operations’ eCloudManager Storage Edition which is described as:

“… the industry’s first solution which allows for managing CPU and storage virtualization through a single pane of glass. This solution allows high-performance applications to be rolled out on an enterprise cloud utilizing multi-vendor server virtualization and storage technologies. This first release orchestrates VMware Virtual Infrastructure as server virtualization and NetApp filer technology as storage.”

eCloudManager is in beta, but is available both as a plugin for VirtualCenter or as a web interface.

The implications of the open source availability of the VMFS driver are huge in my opinion. For example, a VMFS driver could allow the creation of a liveCD that would be able to access virtual machines on a failed ESX host. Those stranded VMs could then be transferred to another working ESX host. There are also numerous other VM backup, disk analysis, and monitoring possibilities from a non VMware server.

Here’s some more information from the fluid Operations Community Page:

“This driver enables read-only access to files and folders on partitions formatted in the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) by VMware. VMFS is a clustered file system that is used by the VMware ESX hosts to store virtual machines and virtual disk files. The VMFS driver is developed and maintained by fluid Operations and is included in upcoming releases of the eCloudManager product, where it is used to allow enhanced features like offloaded backups of virtual machines hosted on VMware ESX hosts. The VMFS driver comes with a command line interface (CLI) to mount and analyze VMFS volumes. The VMFS driver was tested on Linux and Windows based hosts, but should work on any platform that supports Java.”

The VMFS Driver Java application is available for download via it’s Google Code Project page. There is also a FAQ with the following additional information (and more – go check it out) about the VMFS driver. Read the rest of this entry »

This February has been a month of highly anticipated award traditions. With their red carpet fashion, televised ceremonies and acceptance speeches, and then exclusive after parties, The Grammys (02.08) and the The Oscars (02.22) came and went, but today the best awards of the month (in my opinion) began with nothing but a tweet in the middle of the night:

Now, all over the world, but primarily on the coast of France in a city known for it’s own festival and awards, VMware vExpert recipients are opening their email and being notified they’ve been recognized.

vExperts are making their own acceptance speeches, but you won’t find those on televsion. Winners are announcing themselves via Twitter, blogs, and web sites, and will probably continue to do so all day long as the sun moves west across the planet. You’ll have to visit Planet v12, Tweetgrid, or do a “vExpert” search on search.twitter.com to catch the vExperts at their virtual podiums.

Consider this post my “acceptance speech”. I am honored to have won a 2009 vExpert award, and I am truly in a distinguished company of fellow vExperts! Congrats to all the winners!

I am sure that John Troyer and VMware will publish a list of all winners once all the vExperts have been notified. For now you can go to the VMware vExpert Landing to learn a little more about the title and the program.

Oh, by the way, I’m walking my ugly green carpet back to bed. It’s 2:30 a.m. in my part of the world. What I’m wearing is definitley not designer!

updated 02.25.09 – I discovered that John added a post about the vExpert awards on his VMTN blog after I published this post.

Just a quick note that the recorded version of the VMware Europe 2009 Day 1 Keynote is available to view from VMworld.com I did not have have to use my VMworld.com account to start the replay. Enjoy!

As expected, several news releases from VMware can be found this morning to coincide with the first day of the VMworld Europe 2009 Conference under way in Cannes, France. The initial reports I have seen of Paul Maritz’s opening Keynote session (mostly via live blogs and Twitter) indicate that most, if not all, of the content in these press releases was presented to the thousands of VMworld Europe attendees. I plan to watch the recorded Keynote when it becomes available on Vmworld.com.

Here is my early take on what has been announced.

• VMware has confirmed that the VDC-OS initiative will ship in 2009 and foster the adoption of internal, private cloud infrastructure. VMware envisions this shift in infrastructure to include the desktop with technologies that provide the vClient initiative. I am hoping to hear a clearer message about the VDC-OS / vSphere / ESX naming of initiatives / technology layers / products, but news provided today does not seem to offer any additional clarity.
• VMware has a bare metal desktop hypervisor and it’s name is CVP. Working with VMware View, CVP will allow users to work offline and be managed centrally by VDI administrators.
• VMware and Neverfail have developed a high availability solution for VirtualCenter (VC) in the form of an active / passive host based cluster named VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat. This solution appears to be primarily designed for VC to fail over to a standby server on the LAN, but apparently a WAN configuration is also available. Previously, virtual administrators would have to rely on MSCS Clustering solutions to provide high availability for physical instances of VC.
• The introduction of VMware vShield Zones in ESX Clusters will allow for a more efficient mix of virtual machines without compromising security. VI design in the past has presented challenges when considering how to isolate VMs in the DMZ from VMs in production for example, and this has lead to the creation of additional ESX hosts and Clusters to insure isolation and prevent system compromise. Now with the vShield Zones virtual appliance, different security policies can be created and enforced even as guests migrate between ESX hosts thus allowing the consolidation of ESX hosts and VMs.
• Fujitsu Siemens Computers and VMware have announced Flexframe for SAP which allows companies to virtualize SAP. Flexframe is a solution that provides guaranteed resources for the best end user experience under dynamically changing conditions.

In the rest of this post I am providing a link to all the announcements along with some key quotes from each press release. For full details read the original announcements in their entirety. Read the rest of this entry »

VMware has released Update 4 of the VirtualCenter Management Server (also now known as vCenter). The latest Release Notes detail a couple new features, several Plug-In updates, and numerous resolved issues. The current build of ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 3 has not changed as of this post.

The following cut and pastes were taken while skimming through the release notes and highlight the changes that caught my attention.

What’s New

• Guest Operating System Customization Improvements – VirtualCenter now supports customization of Windows Server 2008 guest operating systems.
• Performance Overview Charts – VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 4 introduces the Performance Overview plug-in, which provides a single view of key performance metrics for CPU, memory, disk, and network without having to navigate through multiple charts. The aggregated charts show high-level summaries of resource distribution.

Plug-Ins Updates

This release of the VMware Infrastructure 3 software suite also includes the following:

• An update to VMware Converter Enterprise. For more information, see the VMware Converter Enterprise Update 4 for VirtualCenter 2.5 Release Notes.
• An update to VMware Update Manager. For more information, see the VMware Update Manager 1.0 Update 4 for VirtualCenter 2.5 Release Notes.
• The Performance Overview plug-in.

Two builds of VMware Infrastructure Management Installer are available for download.

• VMware-VIMSetup-2.5.0-U4-English.iso or VMware-VIMSetup-2.5.0-U4-English.zip – These files include an English-only version of the VI Client, which runs in English regardless of the language of the Windows system. Use this installer to install a VI Client that will run in English on Chinese, German or Japanese versions of the Windows operating system.
• VMware-VIMSetup-2.5.0-U4-localized.iso or VMware-VIMSetup-2.5.0-U4-localized.zip – These files include a localized installer that installs all files needed to run in English, Chinese, German, or Japanese. The VI Client used at runtime will correspond to the locale of the current Windows operating system if the locale is Chinese, German or Japanese. On Windows operating systems set to locales other than Chinese, German, or Japanese, the English version of the VI Client will be used.

I am assuming it is also recommended that you upgrade all instances of the Read the rest of this entry »

Duncan over at Yellow-Bricks.com just a posted about a technology preview of the new VMware vCenter 2.5 for Linux available for beta testing. The virtual appliance can be downloaded from the VMTN forums in both .zip and .ovf format.

This early edition is for beta testing only, and VMware strongly suggests not to use this edition in a production environment. There is also a vCenter on Linux install guide .pdf available for download.

I’m looking forward to my current download completing so I can explore vCenter on Linux. I will not be able to post anything immediately as verbiage from the download page clearly states this technical preview is “highly confidential”.

Hopefully this is the start of some exciting new product announcements and features to coincide with the opening day of VMworld Europe 2009 tomorrow!

Some of the new automation and life cycle management technology for both XenServer and Hyper-V announced today by Citrix will be provided by an integration of VMLogix LabManager and StageManager products with Citrix Essentials. This partner feature integration follows a similar strategy used by Citrix in the past with Marathon Technologies to provide High Availability for guests on XenServer hosts. VMLogix LabManager and StageManager are very similar in name to VMware VI 3.5 Enterprise products that provide basically the same automation and management features.

In the official announcement today, VMLogix explains: Read the rest of this entry »