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VMware vCenter Converter 4.0

Duncan Epping — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:17:51 +0000

VMware vCenter Converter 4.0 has just been released. Don’t let this name fool you cause Converter is still also available as a stand alone solution for P2V’ing your servers! You can find the release notes here.

So what’s new?

Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Linux (RHEL, SUSE and Ubuntu) as source
Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Windows Server 2008 as source
Hot cloning improvements to clone any incremental changes to physical machine during the P2V conversion process
Support for converting new third-party image formats including Parallels Desktop virtual machines, newer versions of Symantec, Acronis, and StorageCraft
Workflow automation enhancements to include automatic source shutdown, automatic start-up of the destination virtual machine as well as shutting down one or more services at the source and starting up selected services at the destination
Target disk selection and the ability to specify how the volumes are laid out in the new destination virtual machine
Destination virtual machine configuration, including CPU, memory, and disk controller type

I think especially the hot cloning improvement, which copies incremental changes, and the workflow automation are really cool features. These are the kind of enhancements that will make your life a lot easier during migration projects.

"VMware vCenter Converter 4.0" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

vCenter Administrator Portal! (multi VC console)

Duncan Epping — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:59:01 +0000

I’ve been offline for most of the day and when I just switched on my laptop I noticed a new section(including downloads) on the VMTN forums. This section is about a single console multiple vCenter servers. VMware vCenter Administrator Portal (VCAP) is a web-based console that provides a central view into the VMware Infrastructure environment across multiple vCenter Server (VirtualCenter) instances. VCAP is delivered as a virtual appliance based on Linux. If you’re not comfortable with a virtual appliance you can also download the installable version.

This is, besides a linux vCenter client/server, an ofter requested feature. Keep in mind that it’s a preview of what will be available in one of the next versions. You can find a PDF with more detail here:

VirtualCenter Administrator Portal (VCAP) Overview (pdf).

Tech Preview – VirtualCenter Administrator Portal – Installation Guide – 2008 10 13.pdf (87.6 K)

What can you expect at this moment:

Single sign-on to multiple vCenter Servers
Monitor events and alarms across multiple vCenter Servers
Search and track inventory across multiple vCenter Servers
Launch VI Client in context to manage vCenter Servers
Search for virtual machines across multiple vCenter Servers
Launch virtual machine consoles
Utilizes permissions setup in vCenter Servers
Unified view for: vCenter Servers, Datacenters, Clusters, Hosts, Virtual Machines
Access summary view of inventory objects, rolled up across vCenter Servers, for comparison and monitoring purposes

"vCenter Administrator Portal! (multi VC console)" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

Back to business again, patches!!

Duncan Epping — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:31:54 +0000

So it’s back to business again after a couple of crazy days during VMworld. All the blogs can return to their normal “technical” writing.

VMware just released a whole bunch of patches for ESX(i) 3.5, so for you SysAdmins it’s also back to work again. You can find them here.

There’s also a new release for VMware’s Lab Manager available, version 3.0 Patch 1. There’s a KB article about this patch release, read it before you run it.

"Back to business again, patches!!" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

Update on Kodiak

Duncan Epping — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:00:41 +0000

So I blogged about Kodiak a couple of days, and just received some new information. Let’s start of with the facts that weren’t clear in the first blog:

Kodiak is not open-source at this time. (We’re working on that)
We will be releasing an easy to use Open-SDK, and hope to eventually open up the entire code-base.
Kodiak is 100% free for personal use.
All systems purchased from bluebear include an unlimited use, enterprise license (and early code access).

Now, there’s already a discussion going on what “personal use” means.

But much more exciting in my opinion is the rumor that they’re polishing off a new feature – the
ability to manage multiple Virtual Center instances simultaneously and independently (as opposed to only ESX hosts at the moment)!!!

BlueBear will be opening the beta program to new registrants tomorrow, so better be quick! They will also be at VMworld in a few weeks (booth NI 10). And launch their latest product, for the enterprise; Grizzly!
In addition, all VMworld 2008 attendees will be given invites to Kodiak’s private beta!

"Update on Kodiak" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

Linux VirtualCenter client?

Duncan Epping — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:55:50 +0000

Scott already wrote about this one yesterday… A lot of people have been asking for a Linux VirtualCenter client for a long time. I’m sorry this is not the announcement for the official client. But there might be a decent Linux, Mac and Windows client coming up. There’s a beta going around of a product named Kodiak, by a company called Bluebear:

Welcome to the next generation of unified systems management! Kodiak, from BlueBear, enables unprecedented visibility into and control over virtualized infrastructures, regardless of size or composition. As the industry’s only application that’s both hypervisor-agnostic and cross-platform, Kodiak sets a new standard in versatility, pushing virtualization out of the datacenter and catalyzing it’s widespread adoption throughout the information technology landscape. BlueBear believes useful software should be available to anybody who needs it, and at no cost; hence Kodiak’s price, totally free!

In other words, expect a client which can manage ESX, Hyper-V and Xenserver at the same time! Unfortunately there’s not much info available at the moment. I’ve send these guys an email to see if I can get a Beta to test it out! Check this page for a couple screenshots, it already looks promising I must say! So I’m gonna build a Ubuntu workstation and hope I will receive this beta soon and can start testing!

I love the title in the application bar: Kodiak: Ruling your virtual empire. How cool does that sound!

"Linux VirtualCenter client?" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

3i is gone, welcome ESXi

Duncan Epping — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:18:57 +0000

VMware seems to have ditched the product name “3i” and silently introduced “ESXi”. I noticed it when the download page was updated today. But you can also read it on the “product section” of the VMware website. I think this is a better name instead of differentiation in versions, keeping the versions alligned and changing the name makes more sense to me and probably most customers.

Besides this they’ve also ditched the “server” part in VMware ESX Server, for more info check out the blog by John Troyer!

"3i is gone, welcome ESXi" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

Tool: Checking the status of VMware Tools and updating

Duncan Epping — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:30:07 +0000

Rob de Veij created a cool tool for checking the status of VMware Tools and easily upgrading to the latest version of the tools by just selecting the appropriate VM.

RVTools is a small .NET 2.0 application which uses the VI SDK to display the version of the installed VMware tools.It also shows if the tools are upgradeable. The button “Upgrade VMware Tools” starts an UpgradeTools_Task for every selected VM.

Download now

"Tool: Checking the status of VMware Tools and updating" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

Tools Tools Tools

Duncan Epping — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:43:21 +0000

For anyone using the good old Winscp client, it was just updated to 4.0.7. Same goes for mRemote, it has just been updated to version 1.35. Pick it up, and while your at it visit VM4All. Eric keeps track of all VMware related tools!

"Tools Tools Tools" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

Error code 25036 during VirtualCenter installation

Duncan Epping — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:43:17 +0000

During the installation of VirtualCenter the following error code was presented “25036″. With no further message the installation is cut-off. After a close inspection it seemed that there already were a couple of SQL Express 2005 services installed, the software was removed and the services were still there but disabled. I guess for some reason the removal of SQL 2005 Express wasn’t successful. The installation procedure seems to have a hard time overwriting the registry values or changing the old values. This problem can easily be solved by manually deleting that specific service in the registry. (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services)

"Error code 25036 during VirtualCenter installation" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)

New version of ESX 3.5 and patches for 3.0.x

Duncan Epping — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:14:01 +0000

VMware just released a new version of the ESX 3.5 ISO according to their download site. The release notes haven’t been update yet so unfortunately I can’t tell you what’s included, but my guess would be the patches released on the 17th of January.

Latest Released Version: 3.5.0 | 02/20/08 | 64607 | 565 MB

There are no new patches available for 3.5 at the moment, but they did patch 3.0.x and the following is fixed in these patches(8 patches for 3.0.2, over 140MB):

Security Update to the Samba Package

Security Updates to the Python Package

Fix for aacraid SCSI Driver Security Issue

Virtual Machines on the ESX Server host do not power ON automatically

ESX Server host might stop responding when a CD-ROM drive is accessed

iSCSI LUNs in the pass-through mode might cause the ESX Server host to stop responding

Fixes for Remote-Console Black-out, OpenSolaris Boot Delay, Duplicate Packet Issue; Support for Virtual Machines to Share Generic SCSI Devices

Fixes for VMware Tools Installer

By the way I signed in on the patch/updates email and haven’t received anything yet… Did any of you guys receive anything?

"New version of ESX 3.5 and patches for 3.0.x" originally appeared on Yellow-Bricks.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Available now: vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive. (paper | e-book)