A couple of weeks ago I contacted Rob, the man behind RVTools, and asked him if he could add an export or copy+past functionality to his amazing tool “RVTools”. This amazing tool checks the VMware tools version and gives you the option to update them all at once. Rob updated his tool today:

Version 1.1
Changes: May 10, 2008
You can copy the selected datagrid values with ctrl-c to the clipboard. The header text is automatically included. After this you can paste the clipboard data to your favorite editor.
The login form remembers the names and/or IP addresses of the entered ESX hosts and/or VirtualCenter servers.
You can use a filter to display only the “templates” or “virtual machines”.
Annotations “notes” field is visible in the datagrid.
http://rvtools.deveij.com

Especially the copy and paste option is handy for those who do consultancy like me, thanks Rob for adding this feature and for this excellent tool! Nextup converting it into a VirtualCenter plugin?!?

VMware will be renamed Thinstall to Thinapp. Read it here. Besides this blog a Thinstall employee confirmed this.

Dell announced yesterday that ESXi will cost only $99. (source: virtualization.info) Citrix Xenserver will cost you $299. I’m really curious how HP, IBM and Fujitsu are going to respond to this. And what is Microsoft going to do with this very competitive pricing. Anyway, what ever happens Dell and VMware just woke everybody up and the customers are definitely the one who will benefit!

Gerben just blogged about it, and I blogged about it several times over the last couple of months but as of next month the new certification is available:

source
The VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) on VMware Infrastructure 3 is an advanced certification developed for design architects of VMware enterprise deployments.

There are four core validation components to achieve VCDX.

(1) Must be certified as a VMware Certified Professional (VCP) on VMware Infrastructure 3.

(2) Pass the VMware Enterprise Administration Exam. Includes live labs and tests a higher level of skill set than the exam for VCP on VMware Infrastructure 3.

(3) Pass the VMware Design Exam. This exam focuses on actual design scenarios and contains simulations and situational questions.

(4) Submit, present and defend a successful VMware Infrastructure design and implementation plan.
Blueprint

My colleague Rene Jorissen just posted a config example for a port-channel and trunk configuration for VMware. So for those interested in networking check it out.

Registration is open. So be sure to attend and sign in asap! Early birds(till the 11th of July) pay $1,495, after the 11th the price will be $1,745. VMworld officially kicks off on Monday, September 15 with an evening Welcome Reception in the Solutions Exchange. You can attend hands-on labs during the day on Monday, however all other VMworld activities start on Tuesday, September 16.

VMware just released a whole bunch of patches. Check it:

New patches are available for ESX Server 3.5/3i.

Please follow the instructions on the appropriate patch download page.

VMware ESX Server 3.5 Patch Download Page

ESX350-200804401-BG (Critical): Prevent DHCP from resetting the IP address and netmask when trying to acquire or renew a lease. Change the default multipath policy for all HDS modular storage arrays such as AMS, SMS, WMS, 9500V to “fixed”.

ESX350-200804402-BG (Critical): Prevent the guest from stalling for a long time during snapshot operations. Prevent the ESX Server host from crashing during snapshot consolidation. Prevent the ESX Server host from rebooting while powering on a vSMP virtual machine on a Unisys ES7000/one with eight or fewer logical CPUs. Fix emulation of instructions that access I/O ports. Fix emulation of string instructions on 64-bit guest operating systems.

ESX350-200804403-BG (Critical): Prevent hostd from crashing due to incompatible entries in /etc/vmware/hostd/authorization.xml. Allow spaces in a password while creating and editing local ESX Server users through the VI Client. Set the executable bit for .vmx configuration files. Fix a vmware-vpxa crash caused by invalid UTF-8.

ESX350-200804404-BG (General): Allow Windows virtual machines to boot when DataDigest is enabled in software iSCSI.

ESX350-200804405-BG (General): Include a megaraid2 driver fix for UNISYS platforms.

ESX350-200804406-BG (General): Add support for the Intel PRO/1000 PF Quad Port Server Adapter.

ESX350-200804407-BG (Critical): Add support for the Broadcom HT-1100 SATA/IDE controller. Prevent path thrashing during an Invista all paths down condition.

VMware ESX Server 3i Patch Download Page

ESXe350-200804401-I-BG (Critical): Fix typographic errors in the message strings of storage controller battery status, which is displayed in the VI Client. Include fixes for issues addressed by the following 3.5 patch bundles: ESX350-200804401-BG, ESX350-200804405-BG, ESX350-200804405-BG, ESX350-200804403-BG, and ESX350-200804407-BG.

We expect the next patch release in May 2008

One of my readers just emailed me the following, again thanks for this info which might me useful to any of you guys out there playing with VCB:

Today with the help of VMware Support I solved a strange problem.
With all my Solaris10-32Bit VM’ s I was getting an error, when I tried to backup them via VCB. Creating snapshot of the VM failed with “Creating a quiesced snapshot failed because the (user-supplied) custom pre-freeze script in the virtual machine exited with a non-zero return code”. But there doesn’t exists a pre or post script in all of the VMs.

So as you know, no snapshot means no backup of this VM. I monitored the hostd of the host, where the VM is running. There I saw this messages: ” Could not run custom freeze/thaw operation: Insufficient permissions in guest operating system”.

VMware support told me, that there is a problem within the VMTools in the Solaris VM’s. They know about this problem (I didn’t find anything about this in the internet) and will solve it in a future patch.

For now, the only way is to use the “-Q 0″ switch with the vcbmounter command. This way VCB will ignore any pre or post scripts.

Christoph P.

So in short, -Q 0 disregards any pre or post scripts. Thanks Christoph for contributing to my blog!

Arne blogged about a cool feature of BGInfo yesterday, but his post is in dutch so it’s not on the Planet V12 RSS feed which is  a shame cause it’s definitely usefull info.

In short: BGInfo is a handy little SysInternals tool which sets a desktop wallpaper with pre-defined info like total memory, disk info, ip info etc. With BGInfo it’s also possible to define a specific field with for instance the version information of a file. Arne discovered that it’s possible to point towards the VMware tools executable and display the VMware tools version on your server desktop aka wallpaper.

I guess a picture says more than words:

Can anyone help me out? At several blogs I’ve read that Hyper-V is available with clustering and quick migration for only a fraction of the costs compared to VMware. I was just browsing the internet and stumbled upon the following:

Windows 2008 Enterprise: $3,999 with 25 CALs

The System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise Edition’s price is $1,290.

Comprehensive solution for end-to-end management of physical and virtual server environments that includes the Enterprise Server management licenses for Operations Manager 2007, Configuration Manager 2007, and Data Protection Manager 2007; the license for Virtual Machine Manager 2007; and, rights to manage an unlimited number of operating system environments on a single server.

So Window 2008 Enterprise with Hyper-V $3,999. VMware Enterprise which includes VMotion and HA will cost you $5,750.

System Center Enterprise will cost you $1,290. VMware VirtualCenter will cost you $4,995.

So do you need a System Center Enterprise license for every Hyper-V host you want to manage?