VM /ETC

Archive for June, 2009

This post provides a summary of some of the known vSphere training options available now. Starting with a free series of online training sessions and ending with the official VMware courses needed for VCP certification (Yes, the VMware courses are still the only option if you want VCP status), vSphere training is available for all budgets.

Free VMware vSphere 4 QuickStart Series

For those that need some generic how to knowledge transfer and don’t have extra room in the budget for vSphere training, the vSphere QuickStart Series is a great introductory training option.

Although the first session, VMware vSphere 4 QuickStart Series Part 1: Install and Configure ESXi, was delivered yesterday (6.15.09), there are 3 remaining classes in the series.

• VMware vSphere 4 QuickStart Series Part 2: VM Management with VMware vCenter Server – June 22nd 2009 09:00 AM PDT
• VMware vSphere 4 QuickStart Series Part 3: Cluster Setup, Availability and Load Balancing – June 29th 2009 09:00 AM PDT
• VMware vSphere 4 QuickStart Series Part 4: Monitoring, Availability, Back Up and Next Steps – July 6th 2009 09:00 AM PDT

Register for the remaining vSphere 4 QuickStart sessions here.

I sat in on Part 1 yesterday and I was impressed. The VMware instructor delivered a mix of presentation slides with live demos. The emphasis was definitely on informing about what it takes to stand up an ESXi server for use in your data center and covered the ESXi installation, virtual switch creation and network configuration, adding shared storage, and then creating a virtual machine.

For those that missed Part 1, we were told it was recorded would be available around 48 hrs from the end of the class.

VMware vSphere VCP4 Training
According to Scott Vessey’s VMware Training and Certification Blog, the first vSphere Install Configure Manage courses are being delivered this month (June). Vessey’s post vSphere Courses are Here! explains:

Read the rest of this entry »

Eric Siebert is asking the community to vote for their favorite Top 5 VMware Blogs. From the post Here’s your chance to pick the top VMware blogs:

“I have a hard time picking the top blogs from the many great ones that are out there. I initially started with a top 10 and recently expanded it to the top 20 as more and more blogs have started. In this post I outline my blog selection criteria for the top 20 and it’s no easy task for me to pick them and rate them in order. Well here’s the chance for you to pick the top 5 of my top 20 blog list using this new survey form that I created. You can pick from the current top 20 which you can see on my vLaunchpad,or choose other and add one that is not on the list. The survey will be open for 2 weeks, afterwords I’ll announce the results and update my vLaunchpad accordingly.”

Siebert’s list has evolved to the unofficial, official rankings over time. So show your love for VM /ETC by voting.

Take the survey here.

After VMware P2V (physical to virtual) migrations and VMTools installs the resulting new virtual network adapters of the virtual machines (VMs) often have to be manually reconfigured because the TCP/IP settings of the source servers were not preserved. I was reading comments on a post by Scott Lowe about the process for switching vSphere VMs to use the new paravirtualized network driver (VMXNET3) as well as a new paravirtualized SCSI driver (PVSCSI) when I found the following helpful use of netsh to export and later import back TCP/IP configs explained:

From a comment by Dave O. on Scott Lowe’s post vSphere Virtual Machine Upgrade Process

“To dump the IP config using netsh from a command line:

netsh interface ip dump > c:\ipconfig.txt

Since Windows will most likely see the new NIC as “Local Area Connection 2″ (or something similar) you have to modify the above text file and change the NIC name to match the new NIC’s name. Or change the new NIC’s name on the host to match what’s in the file above. Either way works. “

Here’s a screen shot of the output of the command on my desktop. Read the rest of this entry »

Hyper9′s David Marshall officially announced the General Availability release of Virtualization Mobile Manager (VMM) recently

“Hyper9 Unleashes Virtualization Mobile Manager

Industry’s First Heterogeneous Hypervisor Mobile Management Tool Includes Up to Five VMs for Free and Special Introductory Pricing of $199

Austin, TX (June 9, 2009) – Hyper9, Inc. (www.hyper9.com), the leading provider of virtualization management solutions, released today a browser-based management and monitoring tool that allows Virtualization administrators to control their virtual infrastructures from a mobile device.

The Virtualization Mobile Manager (VMM), which was created by Andrew Kutz, a well-known developer in the VMware community, has been in beta for the last month, where hundreds of virtualization administrators have used the product in the field and provided positive feedback to Hyper9.

During the beta period, VMM demonstrated its ability to work with VMware Server 2, VMware Infrastructure 3, VMware vSphere 4, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer 5. The application will also work with almost any mobile device, including the Apple iPhone, Blackberry, Google Android and Windows Mobile Devices.”

Read the entire announcement at the link above.

A special thanks goes out to the VM /ETC readers that participated in the Beta. Marshall sent me an email expressing appreciation on behalf of all the folks at Hyper9, and I want to relay the same sentiment as well.

For an overview of VMM’s installation and required Tomcat configuration with screen shots check out my post Hyper9 VMM Installation: Tomcat Configuration Notes.

This post is a mix of the official Virtualization Mobile Manager (VMM )instructions found at Hyper9.com and my notes and screen shots of the configurations necessary to get the Tomcat application configured on Windows 2003 Standard with SP2. I’ve seen a few emails and comments from others who have found the VMM configuration process challenging, so I kept track of my install for future reference and hopefully to serve as some assistance to others.

At the end of this post I discuss my attempts to configure a virtual host in Tomcat in order to connect with VMM on my Blackberry from the Internet. Read the rest of this entry »

Alex Barrett’s SearchServerVirtualization.com VMware clampdown on free ESXi may prompt defection to Hyper-V article presents VMware’s reasons for making a request to Veeam to stop supporting Veeam Backup with the free ESXi versions. Quoting the interview from Barrett’s story:

“We provide certain APIs [application programming interfaces] and methods particular to the virtualization environment,” said Patrick Lin, the vice president of product management for VMware’s server business unit. By offering access to the hypervisor via a preferred set of APIs, “our intent is to provide a level playing field in the basis of backup,” he said.

But Veeam did not use VMware-approved methods to develop its product, said Parag Patel, VMware’s vice president of alliances. “We’re not exactly sure what they did, but it didn’t seem sound,” Patel said. “For us it’s a question of what’s built and how it’s built. … To be perfectly honest, we didn’t want to be associated with it because it wasn’t satisfactory.”

Perhaps more to the point, Veeam Backup is inconsistent with VMware’s vision of free ESXi deployments. “It’s meant to be a starter … walk before you run,” Patel said. “It’s not supposed to be for complex software environments.” With free ESXi, “you shouldn’t need a whole lot of other tools to make it work.” If you do, you are free to upgrade.

On the other hand, Barrett’s interview also helps confirm the idea that VMware does not wish
Read the rest of this entry »

In the official press release today Veeam Software Offers New Essentials Bundle, Acceleration Kits for VMware vSphere 4 Veeam mentions a new policy removing support for the use of Veeam Backup with the free version of ESXi.

“At the same time, Veeam introduced a new policy with respect to support for the free edition of VMware ESXi. “As a longtime Premier Technology Alliance Partner and supporter of VMware’s product strategy, Veeam Software takes great pride in creating innovative software products that enhance the customer value of VMware ESX, ESXi, and ESXi Free,” said Ratmir Timashev, Veeam president and CEO. “One such example is support for the free edition of VMware ESXi in Veeam Backup and Replication.

“Recently, VMware requested that Veeam discontinue support for ESXi Free in Veeam Backup and Replication in order to comply with VMware’s updated licensing policy,” Timashev continued. “In light of VMware’s request, and our close technical partnership, Veeam Backup and Replication will no longer support ESXi Free. We will still continue to offer support for ESXi Free to existing Veeam customers who purchased Backup & Replication prior to version 3.1.””

Be sure to read those two paragraphs again.

Veeam, a company that seems to have found a successful niche marketing to SMBs and remote branch office VMware deployments, has been asked to remove support of the use of one it’s popular products with free ESXi. Possibly shedding some additional light on this mystery, the press announcement mentions respect for VMware’s product strategy and Veeam’s long time status as a technology partner. There is no mention of Veeam pulling free ESXi support of the popular FastSCP file management tool.

Without any inside information about the VMware ESXi roadmap and strategy, here is a quick review of ESXi’s public timeline: Read the rest of this entry »