VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘free’

Vizioncore, makers of virtualization products such as vRanger, vReplicator, vConverter, vOptimizer, and vCharter Pro, has made available free online training materials for all of it’s products. Via the vZone page on the Vizioncore website, any one has access to professional training course notes, lab excercises, and multimedia presentation recordings.

The Vizioncore vZone training content I have seen so far is on par with any multi day course I have taken in the past (for any company’s product training), and the lab manuals have been extremely valuable as a walk through set up and configuration guide. The content can even serve as a means of evaluating Vizioncore’s excellent offerings (updated 04.24.07 most products have a free trial)  to compliment and enhance you virtual infrastructure administration.

Take advantage of these free training resources at Vizioncore vZone – Training.

Through a new partnership with Tradepub.com, I am excited to announce free industry publication subscriptions are available for VM /ETC readers. I’ve added a “FREE Publications” navigation tab at the top of the site header for quick access. Clicking on this tab will start you with virtualization tagged content, but with over 900 different publications and documents to select from you are bound to find something relevant to your needs!

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions: From the Desktop to the Datacenter is a free E-Book download now available from Microsoft. Authored by Microsoft MVP Mitch Tulloch and the Microsoft Virtualization Team, the 14.4 MB PDF is 400 pages and covers all Microsoft virtualization technologies up to and including Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) and VDI.

Mitch’s mtit.com web site offers the following description of the book’s contents:

“Understanding Microsoft Virtualization  Solutions: From the Desktop to the Datacenter is now available in electronic (e-book)
form as a free download (PDF, 14 MB) from the getVIRTUALnow Launch Event site. The book covers Microsoft’s wide range of virtualization technologies including Microsoft Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, and User State Virtualization using Roaming User Profiles, Folder Redirection, and Offline Files. Download your free copy today!

David Davis recently published The top 10 free VMware tools of 2008 on searchvmware.techtarget.com. I’ve previously blogged about several of the utilities on his list, but David also lists a few that I have not had a chance to explore. I’m listing the 10 tools and their links here for VM /ETC readers, but read David’s post for descriptions of each and some honorable mention selections as well. Also check the end of this post for the previous VM /ETC coverage of these same tools.

David’s Top 10 Free VMware Tools of 2008

1. VMware Infrastructure Management Assistant (VIMA).
2. Storage VMotion plug-in.
3. Solarwinds VM Monitor.
4. Trilead VM Explorer (VMX)
5. TripWire ConfigCheck and ConfigureSoft Compliance Checker.
6. RV Tools.
7. ESX Manager from ESXGuide.
8. SearchMyVM.
9. VMware ESXi Server.
10. Veeam Monitor Free Edition.

Previous VM /ETC Coverage

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Back in December Scott Herold posted on the VMGuru.com web site that free chapters from the popular book “VMware Infrastructure 3: Advanced Technical Design Guide” would be available for download every 2 weeks. Eventually the entire book would also be available as a down loadable .pdf. That’s great news, but as of this writing I could not find any of the chapters on the page of downloads available from the VMGuru.com site.

Scott, Mike, Ron, consider this post a reminder that it’s mid January now (I know you guys have nothing else going on ), and hopefully this gives you some added promotion and excitement about your book. I’m sure a lot of VMware Admins will want personal copies.

Read Scott’s original post  titled Free Chapters Available Starting in January.

“Ron, Mike, and I have decided that starting in 2009, we will be giving out 2 free chapters of the VMware Infrastructure 3: Advanced Technical Design Guide every 2 weeks.  I am still in the process of collecting the source DOC and PDF files from the Publisher, but as of right now we are anticipating the first two chapters to be availabe during the first week of January. “

There are 0 comments on Scott’s post so maybe he thinks no one was listening? Help me show him we are all waiting!

If you can’t wait for the downloads then Read the rest of this entry »

5 Linux-based Virtualization Companies to Watch on Ken Hess’s Linux Blog is a post about the 5 main server virtualization platforms based on Linux. Ken also mentions the only non Linux based hypervisor, Microsoft’s Hyper-V.

“There’s only one company that doesn’t use Linux for its server virtualization platform. Can you guess which one it is? If you guessed Microsoft, you’re correct. Microsoft is a newbie in the virtualization space but wants in and may make significant dents in the already well-established market that is significantly owned by VMware. For Windows-only virtualization, there may be some validity to the switch to Hyper-V.

For the rest of us, who are either too stubborn or too smart to make the shift to Hyper-V, what are our choices? The following is a list of 5 of the main players in Linux-based virtualization.”

Use the link above to read all of Ken’s original post for some brief info about each platform, but I am listing the 6 products and the links to their free versions for quick reference here. Ken does not discuss nor am I including free hosted platforms such as Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware Server. Read the rest of this entry »

health_check.sh script report .html

If you are looking for a free and quick method to document your ESX 3.0.X  and ESX 3.5 server configurations without installing a scripting environment then don’t forget about A. Mikkelsen’s ESX Healthcheck script. An oldie but still a goodie, this script is simply transferred to your ESX 3.5 Console and then just run manually or via a scheduled job. The end result is a .html report that is saved on your ESX host, or if you utilize the optional send_smtp.pl script the report can be mailed to you automatically.

I’m not providing any new information in this post. In fact I am way behind  as Duncan Epping has covered this script on his blog at Yellow-bricks.com. Duncan first posted about the esx healthcheck script in January 2008 and recently mentioned it again in his post about his tools he uses when conducting customer Healthcheck services. The comments thread on Duncan’s January post walk through a year’s worth of feature development and support.

Download your copy of the script at  SourceForge.net: ESX Healthcheck Script

Once downloaded, the .zip file contains several helpful text files along with the script. The rest of this post walks through the install and configure steps and then explains how to run the script when ready. Read the rest of this entry »