Is VMworld Europe coming to Denmark in 2010?

My friend and fellow blogger Eric Sloof over at NTPRO.NL posted a quite interesting and good news today. On the last page of the conference guide, that he received for VMworld in US, reveals that VMworld Europe 2010 will be held in Bella Centre, Copenhagen (Denmark)

That is quite interesting and very surprising for me. I live about 30 minutes from the conference center

Read his post here

Eric thanks for blogging about this.

 

Passed the VCDX Design Exam!

It has been a while since I last posted on my blog and I hope that I will get some time to do some more blogging in the future… Just now I had a great news, that I wanted to share with you all

On 4th of April, I headed to London to participate in the VCDX Beta Design Exam and a couple of hours ago I received the results. I passed the exam!

Congratulations. You have successfully passed the VMware Design 3 beta exam. A formal score report will be sent to you via Pearson VUE in August. This was the third of five components that you will need to complete in order to achieve the VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX3) Certification. Your participation in the beta exam and continued patience has been greatly appreciated

Next step is now to work on a design application that has to be sent to VMware. If the application get accepted, then I have to defend the design for a board of 2-3 other VMware Certified Design Experts.

For Europe there will be design defenses held in september and I hope that it will not fall in the week of my vacation.

Happy summer holiday!

Study material for the VCDX Design Exam

I decided to start collecting a list of study materials for the VCDX Design Exam.

Remember that VMware will release a separate training course specific to this exam.

The Design Exam Blueprint is available here: http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/2256/DesignExamBlueprint.pdf

The following links to documents could be useful in the study for the VCDX Design Exam. It’s only suggestions and not a complete list of study material.

ESX Server 3 Configuration Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_3_server_config.pdf

Virtual Machine Backup Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_vm_backup.pdf

VMbook - Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/practical_guide_bcdr_vmb.pdf

Setup for Microsoft Cluster Service
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_mscs.pdf

VMware HA: Concepts and Best Practices
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMwareHA_twp.pdf

SAN System Design and Deployment Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_san_design_deploy.pdf

Good article on SAN based replication:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BRZ/is_6_24/ai_n6145654/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

Disaster Recovery Solutions from VMware
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/07Q2_dr_solution.pdf

Making Your Business Disaster Readywith Virtual Infrastructure
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/disaster_recovery.pdf

Using VMware® ESX Server System and VMware Virtual Infrastructure for Backup, Restoration, and Disaster Recovery
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx_backup_wp.pdf

If you have access to VAC Partner guides on Partnercentral, the following guides would be useful to read:

VMware Business Continuity Jumpstart
VMware Plan and Design
VMware Virtualization Assessment
VMware Operational Readiness Accelerator Kit

Some ITIL experience or studying would probably be helpful as well

Books:

VMware Infrastructure 3 - Advanced Tactical Design Guide and Advanced Operations Guide, by Ron Oglesby, Scott Herold and Mike Laverick 

http://www.amazon.com/VMware-Infrastructure-Advanced-Technical-Operations/dp/0971151083?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213399444&sr=8-1

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Update 06/03-2009:

VI3.Blueprint Directory: http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1382 

VI3.Blueprint Requirements Specification: http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1384

VIOPS: VI3 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Workshop: http://viops.vmware.com/home/message/1989;jsessionid=D7584DF18C1AD92A7416FD814CAF0FE6#1989

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If you have any good links to material for the VCDX Design Exam please feel free to email me and I will update the list.

An ext3 filesystem is remounted read-only by the kernel - problem with certain linux distributions in VMware

Today a collegue of mine experienced problems with a SLES10 after P2V process was done. The VM after a perioed became unstable and the kernel reporting that it was mounted in read-only mode. Hmrf….

Well even he had several Linux guys telling him that it was a VMware issue and after some researching and use of google he found several document about this. In fact this problem is not only related to SLES10 but several linux distributions.

VMware has also published a kb article on this, which can be read here

Another useful link from Novell: Click here

Passed the VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam!

Finally I got my score report from the VCDX Enterprise Administration Exam and I’m happy to announce that I passed it. Also my colleague Nicolai passed the Exam. We waited three weeks for the test results.  And after travelling to Munchen to take the exam it was nice to pass the exam.

I needed over 300 point out of??? (it didn’t say) rumors is 500. My score was 386. Not as high as I would like - but then again - the multiple questions section was pretty hard.

Now off to study for the Design Exam - this will be released next week….

So finally I can get to sleep at the night again

VMware announces: Virtual Datacenter OS (Cloud Computing)

VMware has announced the new big thing in cloud computing called Virtual Datacenter OS. Take a look a look here for information on the VMware website:

http://www.vmware.com/technology/virtual-datacenter-os/

Also Scott Love has commented on this. Check it out here:

http://blog.scottlowe.org/2008/09/15/follow-up-on-the-vdc-os-announcement/

All of these very interesting new features and VMworld has yet to start. Unfortunately I’m not on the scene to follow the new stuff that VMware and others will announce the next couple of days. However I will try to keep updates coming in…

Letter from VMware CEO Paul Maritz

Last night, we became aware of a code issue with the recently released update to ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 (Update 2). 

When the time clock in a server running ESX 3.5 or ESXi 3.5 Update 2 hits 12:00AM on August 12th, 2008, the released code causes the product license to expire.  The problem has also occurred with a recent patch to ESX 3.5 or ESXi 3.5 Update 2.  When an ESX or ESXi 3.5 server thinks its license has expired, the following can happen:

• Virtual machines that are powered off cannot be turned on
• Virtual machines that have been suspended fail to leave suspend mode; and,
• Virtual machines cannot be migrated using VMotion.

The issue was caused by a piece of code that was mistakenly left enabled for the final release of Update 2.  This piece of code was left over from the pre-release versions of Update 2 and was designed to ensure that customers are running on the supported generally available version of Update 2.

In remedying the situation, we’ve already released an express patch for those customers that have installed/upgraded to ESX or ESXi 3.5 Update 2.  Within the next 24 hours, we also expect to issue a full replacement for Update 2, which should be used by customers who want to perform fresh installs of ESX or ESXi. 

I am sure you’re wondering how this could happen.  We failed in two areas:

• Not disabling the code in the final release of Update 2; and
• Not catching it in our quality assurance process. 

We are doing everything in our power to make sure this doesn’t happen again.  VMware prides itself on the quality and reliability of our products, and this incident has prompted a thorough self-examination of how we create and deliver products to our customers.  We have kicked off a comprehensive, in-depth review of our QA and release processes, and will quickly make the needed changes.

I want to apologize for the disruption and difficulty this issue may have caused to our customers and our partners.  Your confidence in VMware is extremely important to us, and we are committed to restoring that confidence fully and quickly.

Thank You,

Paul Maritz
President and CEO
VMware

VMware ESX Hypervisor is Hands-Down Product of Choice for Windows Administrators

The Windows IT Pro editorial team looks at dozens if not hundreds of products every year, and picking one winner out of all those in a particular category is always a challenge. That predicament is further amplified when considering a product for our most prestigious Product of the Year award. VMware ESX Server 3.5—a subset of the VMware Infrastructure 3 bundle—made our decision easy this year. Virtualization has shaken the IT industry to its roots over the past few years, and no product influenced that sea change more than the ESX Server family. In addition to the energy and cost savings that ESX Server 3.5 has generated, it has also helped radically redefine how IT pros manage their infrastructures.

Link to WindowsITPro

Link to VMware

Also if you scrolldown on the WindowsITPro link above another VMware products have been selected as runner up in the Virtualization category:

Thinstall’s name changed to VMware ThinApp in the midst of our judging, but everything that makes this a great application virtualization product has remained the same. If you’re looking for an easy, no-fuss way to virtualize applications, you need look no further than ThinApp.

Did you receive your free license to VMware ESXi yet?

Else its time to do it. Here’s some nice links:

Download VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi Product Info

VMware ESXi Datasheet

VMware ESXi Presentation

VMware ESXi Architecture

VMware ESXi Management

Webinar: VMware ESXi: The Easiest Way to Get Started with Virtualization

VMware ESXi Communities

Now go save some money on power and cooling

VMware release Lab Manager version 3.

VMware has today announced the general availability on VMware Lab Manager version 3. A few interesting new features has been integrated:

• VirtualCenter Awareness
  • Integrates with VirtualCenter to allow for the full benefits of VMware Infrastructure 3.
  • Resource pools managed by Lab Manager can have DRS, VMotion, and HA turned on and Lab Manager virtual machines will be able to take advantage of these capabilities.
  • VirtualCenter will push the Lab Manager agent software onto ESX hosts managed by Lab Manager, eliminating the need to manually install the agent.
  • Easy import of virtual machines from VirtualCenter.

• Enterprise Application Features
  • Ability to create organizations within Lab Manager. Organizations are a method of creating groups of users in Lab Manager with either separate or shared resources (compute, storage) and user objects (configurations, templates, and media).
  • Customizable roles and rights. Lab Manager 3.0 introduces the ability to define custom user roles with varying rights. In this way, an organization can define users with different capabilities and levels of access to resources and objects.
  • Expanded LDAP support. Lab Manager 3.0 supports OpenLDAP for user authentication, in addition to Active Directory. LDAP groups and users are mapped to Lab Manager organizations.
  • More granular sharing. Objects can be shared with specific users, all users in an organization, or across the entire installation.

• Platform Improvements
  • “Gold Master” library configurations. Reference configurations can be labeled as gold masters by users that have the right to do so, distinguishing them from other configurations in the library.
  • Forced deployment modes. User roles can be assigned rights that require or prevent the use of network fencing when deploying Workspace configurations. In addition, you can specify a fencing policy for a configuration or physical network.
  • Directed Deployment. You can deploy virtual machines to specific resource pools. This functionality is helpful for performance testing or situations requiring deployment to hosts with specific hardware, peripherals, or network setups.
  • VMFS Media Store support. A VMFS media store will be set up as the default media store for a new installation.
  • Storage Utility. A storage tool (SSMove) allows you to move virtual machine files between datastores for maintenance purposes.

• Use Case Expansion
  • Multiple NICs, networks, and subnets. Lab Manager 3.0 allows for the definition of multiple physical and virtual networks, each with their own subnet. Virtual machines can have multiple virtual NICs that attach to those networks. In addition, you can set VLAN tags on physical and virtual networks. This greatly expands the number of network topologies that Lab Manager can support.
  • Configuration combining and splitting. In Lab Manager 3.0, you can combine configurations and move virtual machines from one configuration to another.
  • Selective checkout. When you check out a Library configuration, you can select which virtual machines you want to add to a new configuration. In this way, entire test matrices can be stored in a single Library configuration.

Download an evaluation here