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Posts Tagged ‘vmware’

This is just a quick note that the previous issue with vSphere customers using NFS storage and CBT has been resolved with a recent patch. More on the previuous problem and the new patch in this KB article:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1031106

The KB was updated 7.26.11

I’ve had the luxury of staying away from the math of the new vSphere 5 licensing. Honestly, I haven’t read the new guide, and I’ve only skimmed through posts that explore the pros and cons of different upgrade costs and future growth impact scenarios from virtualization admins, consultants, and architects of  various size VMware virtual infrastructures. My opinion to date – VMware’s goal is to be a total Cloud solution, and this change in licensing reflects and fosters that plan. If you are able to correctly size you infrastructure, or if you can oversubscribe it so that you can offset the costs, then the hypervisor with the most features, the best performance, and the best partner ecosystem (in terms of available third party products leveraging vSphere APIs) is still a no-brainer. That would be vSphere 5.

Storm Clouds

I’ve also read the virtualization pundits’ predictions year after year. They usually go something like “this year is the year of VDI”, “sixty something percent of all servers can still be virtualized”, and “VMware’s market share will shrink to the advances of Microsoft and Citrix”. Is the record skipping? (does anyone know what a skipping record is anymore?). Personally, I’ve always felt a balanced market of hypervisor vendors would be the most likely prophecy for the datacenter, but VMware has always managed to innovate and stay ahead of the competition. Feature-wise, they continue to do so. But, the recent announcement of licensing changes may have changed things.

Whether right, wrong, misunderstood, reluctant to change, or just emotional, many VMware shops initially viewed the new licensing announcement like dark, thunder clouds approaching. Some reactions were as hot as a flash of lightning. Virtual warning sirens sounded across the community, but after a few days and some damage control from VMware, eventually calmer heads prevailed. But, like in the aftermath of any large storm, people began to build for the future. More so than ever before, public discussion of future plans seem to include a new possibility of alternative vendor virtual datacenters.

An Opening In The Clouds

My hunch is that current VMware shops will  Read the rest of this entry »

Start your Cinco de Mayo 2011 celebration with one of the largest VMUGs in the Southeast US! The 2011 Carolina Summit is at the Charlotte Convention Center (in Charlotte, NC) on Thursday May 5 from 7:30 am until 4:30 pm. If you are a VMware admin or architect within driving distance be sure to plan to attend. You can register here. I’m particularly excited about the 2:30 pm Panel Discussion on the state of cloud computing, but more on that session later in this post.

Everyone will be there!

Why should you attend? Check out the following samples of featured speakers, sessions, and labs:

Panel Discussion on Cloud Computing
(Rich Brambley, Mike Laverick, Jason Nash, Scott Lowe, Mike Dipetrillo)

Pros & Cons of Stretched Cluster Designs
(Scott Lowe, Industry Speaker)

Cloud in the Real World
(Mike Dipetrillo, VMware)

vCloud Director and VMware View
(Varrow Lab)

Automating vSphere with PowerCLI a Primer
(Aaron Miller, VMware)

VMware View Reference Architecture
(Mac Binesh, VMware)

Of course there will be various VMware and sponsor keynotes and presentations mixed throughout the day. Be sure to catch our Veeam Software session at 10:00 am. The event’s full agenda can be reviewed here.

Panel Discussion – The Sequel

I’m once again honored to get the invite to moderate the Carolina Summit’s featured Panel Discussion at 2:30 pm. I’ll be participating in an open and unscripted “state of the union” conversation about real world cloud computing with Mike Dipetrillo, Scott Lowe, Jason Nash, and Mike Laverick. Like last year, I view my role in this session to be like a co host of a live podcast. The entire VMUG audience, however, is real discussion driver. So, bring your questions for this expert panel!

Can’t make it in person?

Train Signal has partnered with the VMUG organizers and will be interviewing speakers and videoing sessions for those that can’t make it. They will also be live streaming the Keynotes at 8:45 am and 12:45 pm (EST). Find out more be checking out this post:  2011 Charlotte VMUG: Coming to You May 5th. Hopefully Train Signal will decide to live stream the Panel Discussion at 2:00pm as well! I assume vExpert David Davis will be in attendance? Help me reach out to him to include the Panel in Train Signal’s coverage!

Other Coverage

For more great coverage of the 2011 Carolina Summit VMUG also check out:

2011 Carolina VMware User Summit Coming Up – Scott Lowe

On the Road Again: Charlotte, North Carolina Summit – Mike Laverick

VMUG Carolina Summit: Be There or Don’t…See if I Care. No Really. Do Be There – Dustin Pike

VMware Regional Summit in Charlotte, NC! – Jason Nash

Let me know if you can make it!

Like everyone else, I have been reviewing the Release Notes for the latest Update 1 release of vSphere 4.1, but I decided to point out specific fixes that will make full image VM backups better for everyone. Note that I work for Veeam Software, but the fixes I am referring to are all VMware resolved issues that surface from time to no matter what backup solution you use. There are numerous other fixes and impovements in the U1 release, but, since most of my world is backup these days, these particular items “popped out” at me.

For a great overview of the entire U1 release check out Rick Vanover’s post vSphere 4.1 update 1 released from his Rickatron Blog and via his Servers and Storage Column/Blog at TechRepublic.

The rest of this post contains cut and pastes from the Release Notes and some commentary about them from me. I want to stress again that these are issues that have now been fixed!

Finally, I’ll point out the one huge VM backup issue (that I can think of right now) that still does not appear to be resolved.

Read the rest of this entry »

What was once just a fun Twitter game (OK, annoying to some) at previous VMware VMworld and Partner Exchange Conferences is now a chance to win real prizes at VMware’s Partner Exchange 2011 (PEX2011) next week in Orlando, FL. Thanks to several vendors and individuals that responded to Kelly Culwell (@kculw) and my last minute requests, if you are an attendee at PEX2011 and play PEX3WORD you can win the following prizes in the following ways:

• EMC Iomega IX2 – awarded to the best #pex3word tweet with a twit pic of Chad Sakac (@sakacc). Chad knows of this requirement to win, but he prefers the twit pic be one where he does not know it is being taken. Chad will help judge the winner. BTW, it doesn’t have to be an actual “twitpic”. Use whatever tweet photo service you want, but just follow the #pex3word game rules.
• VMware Workstation or Fusion -  awarded to the most informative or insightful #pex3word tweet. John Troyer (@jtroyer) has thrown these licenses in the pot for the game, and he will help us decide a winner for this category. Use 3 words to express your thoughts during a keynote, breakout session, lab, or just when you experience a general technological epiphany!
• Train Signal vSphere Troubleshooting DVD – awarded to the best / funniest /entertaining #pex3word conversation. David Davis (@davidmdavis) will help us decide the winner from the many series of #pex3word RTs and linked replies. Be sure to adhere to the rules of 3word tweeting! If you don’t know already, the Train Signal series of video training  is awesome training to have on your shelf or on your iPod/iPad/iPhone or smartphone, and the latest vSphere Troubleshooting DVD dives even deeper into VMware vSphere management.
• VMware vSphere Design by Forbes Guthrie, Scott Lowe, and Maish Saidel-Keesing. – awarded to the most frequent #pex3word tweeter. Scott Lowe (@scott_lowe) has agreed to ship this winner a copy when the books comes out! By frequent tweets we mean relevant and unique. Tweeting “one two three” a million times for example won’t win you anything, but Scott will ultimately help us decide this winner. No bots or scripts either. To be fair, we are only counting number of tweets between Tues and Thurs during the conference for this award. That way, those showing up early for boot camps and meetings do not have an unfair advantage.

Finally, we have several miscellaneous items such as t-shirts, umbrellas, bottle openers, etc. from Veeam and InterWorks for those #pex3word tweeters that don’t win anything above. This is not the booth swag that anyone can get at the conference, but these items were donated specifically for this game.

How to play and General Game Info

Read the rest of this entry »

David Davis has done it again! A new vSphere Troubleshooting video training course from Train Signal has been released. According to Davis, the course took 3 months to create, and it’s full of 30 videos with almost 14 hours of content. Like all Train Signal training, it’s available via streaming online video (iPad compatible) and in the DVD offline format.

Davis explained more about the video training in an email I received:

In this course, I educate viewers on how to troubleshoot vSphere networking, storage, management processes (and much more), from the GUI but especially from the CLI.

The new vSphere Troubleshooting course will be part of an upcoming VCAP-DCA training package so I have covered all topics related to troubleshooting on the DCA blueprint. Even if viewers aren’t interested in the VCAP-DCA certification, I designed the course so that it is an excellent resource to learn how to solve virtual infrastructure trouble.

I was honored that Mike Laverick agreed to be the tech editor for the course.

Go to the vSphere Troubleshooting course product page where you can see the entire course outline.

Check out the following sample videos from the new training, and then be sure to get a full copy for your own library.

Read the rest of this entry »

John Troyer recently rounded up 3/4 of the Infosmack family for episode 122 of his VMTN Communities Roundtable Podcast.

Join Greg Knieriemen, Rick Vanover and I as we reminisce about podcasts past from 2010, and then make some virtualization and cloud predictions for 2011. As always, John’s show is live, so many others join in the fun.

Listen to the episode in the embedded player here, or go to the Talkshoe page to get this great episode.