As most of you know, in the Netherlands we have a pretty big VM User Group. I don’t think there are any VMUGs out there with so many active members and such a large number of attendees at meetings. This is about to change.

Mr Alan Renouf is one of the initiators of the Online VMware User Group. At this point it’s still unofficial but Alan told me he will be discussing it with VMware to get the needed formal approval to make this official.

I would like to invite everyone to join Alan on the 1st of June 2009. I think this is a great initiative. Let’s make this a success and the world biggest VMUG.

Here are the details:

The Agenda at the moment is as follows:

• Introduction
• Presentation and Demonstration of The Virtualization EcoShell Initiative by Scott Herold
• Virtual Coffee break (bring your own coffee)
• Overview and Demonstration of vSphere new features by a VMware Employee
• Finish and details of next Unofficial Online VMUG

This meeting is being hosted over Microsoft Live meeting, if you have not installed the client it is recommended you do this 15 mins before the meeting.

Video:  Video will be delivered via the Microsoft Live Meeting client.
Audio:  For attendees, audio will be delivered via the Internet using your computer’s speakers. There will not be a call-in number for this meeting.

The meeting will also be recorded for people who are unable to attend.

Meeting Details:

Date: 1st June 2009

Time: 08:00 PM GMT / 03:00 PM EDT

Meeting URL:  https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/winserver_usergroup/join?id=QP5K5Q&role=attend&pw=8%5E-%5CzqX

Meeting ID:  QP5K5Q

Attendee Entry Code:  8^-\zqX

Registration Link:
http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=138358

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.1
Latest Version: 4.0.1 | 2009/05/21 | Build: 161434

What’s New

The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.1 release is an update to Converter Standalone 4.0, and includes the following new features:

• Support for vSphere 4.0 as source and destination targets:
  • Support for configuring target disks as thin provisioned disks
  • Support creation of IDE disks on vSphere 4.0
  • Support for backup products to restore vSphere 4.0 virtual machines backed up using VCB
  • Support for creation of virtual hardware version 7.0 virtual machines on vSphere 4.0. targets as well as migration of hardware version 7.0 virtual machines from Workstation and Server platforms to vSphere 4.0
• Support for importing OVF 1.0 single virtual machine images.
• Support for customization of Windows Server 2008 guests.

When ESX 3.0 was released people were excited about it but it can’t be compared to the buzz that has been created around vSphere. It’s all over the blogosphere, I think every single blog out there published articles  about vSphere weeks even months before it was released . Now the time has finally come, it’s available! Go to the download section of the VMware website to download it.

Equally important is the update documentation section. Be sure to download all the documents and start reading!

Have fun today guys, while we in the Netherlands enjoy our holiday.

You know it will not take long when KB articles start popping up:

vSphere Client overview performance charts might not appear for ESX hosts prior to ESX 4.0 (1010568)        KB Article
vSphere environment that contains hosts running ESX 3.x earlier, some of the overview performance charts do not display data after you install or upgrade to vCenter Server 4.0. In such cases, a No data available message…

How to create default alarms when upgrading to vSphere 4.0 (1010399)        KB Article
Some of the default alarms included with vSphere 4.0 are not created on your system when you upgrade from a previous version. SQL scripts that ensure that the default alarms are added to your system are attached…

And there’s plenty more where that came from…. Just do a search on the KB site with the keyword “vSphere”.

The last couple of weeks I’ve seen all these performance numbers(most not publicly available though)  of vSphere, one even more impressing than the other. I think every one will agree that the latest one is really impressive, 364.00 IOPS is just insane. There’s no load vSphere can’t handle, when correctly sized of course.

But something that even made a bigger impression on me, as a consolidation fanatic, is the following line from the latest performance study:

VMware’s new paravirtualized SCSI adapter (pvSCSI) offered 12% improvement in throughput at 18% less CPU cost compared to LSI virtual adapter

Now this may not sound like much, but when you are running 50 hosts it will make a difference. It will save you on cooling / rack space / power / hardware / maintenance, in other words this will have it’s effect on your ROI and TCO. This is the kind of info that I would love to see more, where did we cut down on “overhead”… Which improvements will make our consolidation numbers go up?!

I just ran into the following issue when I upgraded the customers vCenter Server to 2.5 U4: “”Failed to install the VC agent service” Error Message Appears after VirtualCenter Upgrade”. None of the 3.0.x hosts would connect anymore. Of course the knowledge base provided a simple solution for this known issue. (more…)

I received the following email below and I think it might interest you. It’s a free online cloud computing summit with 10 webcasts varying from OVF to Security to Monetizing. Although not mentioned below one of the people presenting is Edward Haletky of AstroArch Consulting and of course the VMTN Community Forums and podcast.

Here’s the info I received, I’m personally especially interested in the OVF webcast:

Dear Duncan,

I have read your blog “Yellow Bricks” and would like to invite you and your readership to a free online webcast summit on “Cloud Computing,” to be held May 20th. The summit is hosted by BrightTALK™ (www.brighttalk.com), and will include 4 presentations from leading IT experts on topics including:

• “The Open Virtualization Format (OVF): A Building Block for Cloud” — Winston Bumpus, President, DMTF
• “Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing” — Jeff Bardin, Founding Member of Cloud Security Alliance
• “Catalyst Preview: Cloud Computing’s Business Advantage” — Drue Reeves and Anne Thomas Manes, VPs and  Research Directors, Burton Group
• “Monetizing the Cloud” — Ed Sullivan, CEO, Aria Systems

You can review the agenda and register for the Cloud Computing summit at: http://www.brighttalk.com/summit/cloudcomputing2