VM /ETC

Archive for the ‘promos’ Category

This is just a quick note to announce that VM /ETC is continuing it’s partnership with Tradepub.com in 2010 in order to provide readers a great selection of free virtualization related whitepapers and magazines.

Also check out the VMETC.com whitepapers page often in the future for a rotating selection of publications that can be be downloaded or subscribed to as appropriate.

The GestaltIT Tech Field Day (TFD) is the gift that keeps on giving! From now until the end of the year (2009), VM /ETC readers can use the promotional code BRAMBLEY when buying a Drobo from Data Robotics and receive a discount.

For those that don’t already know about Drobo storage and the BeyondRaid technology, I posted about the Data Robotics TFD presentation a few weeks ago.

When you are ready to purchase just go to the Data Robotics store. The VM /ETC reader code is good until the end of the year (2009) and offers the following discounts:

Drobo $50 off <> Drobo S $75 off <> DroboPro $150 off <> DroboElite $350 off

Just enter BRAMBLEY in the Promotional Code field when placing your order.

For the record, I have not received any compensation for this post nor will I receive compensation from the use of this code. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Mike Dipetrillo posted about an idea for pushing a Government wide virtualization initiative that was entered in the Citizen Briefing Book being assembled for Barack Obama. It may be too late since the book was being closed at 6 pm on January 19, but I wanted to help get the word out for support both now and in the future, and I am asking all VM /ETC readers to take less than 60 seconds to try to still move it higher on the list by clicking the Vote Up button.

The idea:

“Push a government-wide IT virtualization initiative to reduce the carbon-footprint of our planned digital health records system by 80+%.

Mandate a review of existing federal IT infrastructure to find opportunities for consolidating servers and reducing datacenter energy requirements with a minimum 10 to 1 consolidation ratio.“

Mike’s post is titled Help the US Government Go Green.

According to the Change.gov web site’s Newsroom Blog post Wrapping up the Citizen’s Briefing Book by Dan McSwain: Read the rest of this entry »

Ugh!

Hey, it’s been a week of announcing new virtualization awards so I had to chime in with my own announcement, right? VMware announced the vExpert reward, vinternals.com announced the humerous vIdiot awards, and now I am announcing the UGG (Ugly Green Guru) and UGH (Ugly Green Hero) awards.

Can you think of a better award for stressed out, overloaded, virtually insane virtualization professionals who take the time to help others?! Maybe you’re not a vExpert (and hopefully not a vIdiot!), but everyone should recognise the value of publicly announcing a good “UGH”!

The winners will be announced Quarterly and will get a special t-shirt so they can proudly display their accomplishment.

Here’s the details for determining the winners:

• Take the time to comment on posts here at VM /ETC. Help others, add information and links, answer questions, and keep me straight.
• If you’ve already commented in the past, claim your profile on DISQUS by creating a free account. (More on DISQUS comments later in this post) Otherwise open a new DISQUS account.
• Make sure I add you to my DISQUS Community Friends.
• Keep an eye on the Top Commenters via the PEOPLE tab of the multi widget in the VM /ETC left column.
• Award clout points to other comments. I willl do the same. Participate in the discussions.
• The top commenter wins the UGG Guru award, and the second and third place finishers get the UGH Hero award.
• The fine details of using clout points versus number of comments to determine the winners will be subjective and my call – it really depends how I well I can track my comments.
• I will mail the shirts to the winners.

I am not trying to become the next VMTN Communities or virtualization forum. I have no illusions about that! I just want to recognise and thank those that help make this blog informative and helpful for both myself and all subscribers and readers.

So, what is DISQUS? Why did I switch to it for VM /ETC and why should you sign up? Read the rest of this entry »

updated 01.23.09 – The beta registration period has ended. Thanks to all the readers that signed up!

VM /ETC readers have one last opportunity to get an advanced look at the Hyper9 browser based virtual infrastructure management tool before it is released to the public. According to the Beta newsletter I received, the product launch is scheduled for sometime in February. The newsletter also mentioned additional product functionality, savings for beta testers, and changes to the Hyper9 Community web pages.

Once again I am providing an automated form for interested readers to sign up for a copy. Filling out the form with a valid email address will result in an auto reply containing additional instructions about the program and a link to register. The beta registration form will only be available until midnight January 22.

updated 01.17.08 – I have moved the sign up form to it’s own page. Please click here to fill in the form.

I also discovered that the auto reply was not working properly for all the form entries that have been collected. I manually forwarded all the applicants directly to Hyper9, so if you submitted your information but never received an email reply I have been informed that Hyper9 will now be following up with you.

For more information and screen shots of this awesome VI management tool check out my previous post First look at Hyper9 beta for VM /ETC readers. or check out these additonal Hyper9 links:

• Community
• Hyper9 How-To Videos
• Hyper9.com

free Veeam tool unwrapped

The VMware administrators holiday gift from Veeam has been revealed. As promised, I received an email this morning announcing that a new free version of Veeam Monitor 3.02 is available for download. A description of the tool can be found on the products web page:

“Veeam Monitor is an easy to deploy, framework-independent VMware monitoring solution that was created expressly to help you better manage the health and performance of your VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) environment. Veeam Monitor provides support for troubleshooting and issue resolution, as well as trend reporting and capacity planning – equipping you to proactively manage ESX / ESXi infrastructure system health and performance today and over the long term.”

The product’s Release Notes reveal the limitations of the free version:

Veeam Monitor 3.0.2 features a new free functionality mode which is automatically enabled if you install the product without a license, or if your your license expires. Veeam Monitor Free Edition has the following limitations compared to the full version:

• Performance history lookup is limited to 24 hours
• Number of alarms is limited to ten
• Performance and trend reporting is disabled
• Alarm modeling is disabled
• Guest OS process management functionality is disabled.

Veeam Monitor requires a SQL 2005 database or installs SQL 2005 Express by default. It is my understanding Read the rest of this entry »

what could it be?

The more readers handle the free VMware administrator mystery present from Veeam the more the wrapping paper is getting torn. All that present shaking and examining trying to guess what it could be has been bad for the intended surprise by the folks at Veeam, or has it? Honestly, I have no inside information, and I am just as stumped as the rest. I do have a guess I’ll share, however.

First, to see a full size image of the present with the latest rips in the wrapping go to boche.net’s post Further unwrapping of the free tool from Veeam.

As for my guess on what it could be – well, based on the fact that the latest paper rip reveals some monitoring information and that Veeam recently purchased nworks which is known for it’s system monitoring tools, Read the rest of this entry »