Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Archives for January 2009

Multi Protocol Storage Provisioning with COMSTAR

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I was just reading up on the enormous amount of articles I had waiting in Google Reader. I try to keep up to date as much as possible but sometimes there’s just not enough time. I just noticed an excellent article of Mike La Spina on COMSTAR. COMSTAR is part of OpenSolaris and on the OpenSolaris website it described as follows:

COMSTAR is a software framework that enables you to turn any OpenSolaris host into a SCSI target that can be accessed over the network by initiator hosts. COMSTAR breaks down the huge task of handling a SCSI target subsystem into independent functional modules. These modules are then glued together by the SCSI Target Mode Framework (STMF).

Mike wrote a really extensive article on how-to setup COMSTAR. I must admit it looks promising, and it’s open source… freely available! Also be sure to check out these pages on the OpenSolaris section of SUN’s website.

VMworld Europe 2009, here I come…

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I finally received the confirmation I was really waiting for “VMworld Europe 2009: You are approved to attend“. It seems that I will be helping out at the SRM Lab. Check this “hands on lab” promotion video by the way. For those that attended the labs during VMworld Europe 2008, it’s not the same format as last year, the format has been changed completely to self-paced labs. Schedule your own lab sessions so you don’t miss out on the Deep Dive sessions, which I personally recommend. Some will really make your brain hurt! That’s the way we like it,

Windows 7 on a Mac!

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Most people will agree that Apple products have certain kind of coolness. Most people will also agree that VMware Fusion has a certain kind of coolness, especially the Unity feature. Combine this coolness with the Windows 7 beta and you’ve got one hell of a combo.

I can imagine you don’t want to spent a lot of time on figuring out how to install Windows 7 within a Fusion VM, lucky you…. Team Fusion wrote an extensive blog article on how to install Windows 7 within a VM, and not only text and screenshots but also a video. Team Fusion is definitely one of the most active bloggers Team within VMware, keep up the excellent work guys! Now, check out the full article, even if you don’t own a Mac! And while you’re there Digg It!

Windows 7 on a Mac

No excuse anymore…

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There’s no excuse anymore to wait with getting your VMworld Europe tickets. VMworld Europe just announced the first bunch of of sessions! Be sure to check it out here and pick up your ticket now so you don’t miss out on the good stuff!

FastSCP vs WinSCP

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The last couple of days I’ve read a whole bunch of tweets and blogs on Veeam’s FastSCP. Everyone highly praises FastSCP because it is really really fast compared to WinSCP. I’ve been testing it myself in the past and indeed it is. With the release of 3.0 Beta that probably hasn’t changed a bit.

Keep in mind though that FastSCP is faster than WinSCP because FastSCP doesn’t encrypt the data that is being copied. WinSCP does encrypt the data and I consider WinSCP to be more secure than FastSCP. FastSCP does use an SSH control channel though. An SSH control channel can best be described as a secure channel which is used to pass user/password/port information. In addition to the ports used for SSH other ports need to be opened up for FastSCP to work, which increases the attack surface of the ESX host. Some of you might have security policies in place, this might be the time to start reading it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m telling you not to use FastSCP cause it’s a wonderful tool, but it might not be what you are looking for. If you do require an encrypted file transfer WinSCP would be the way to go. WinSCP even gives you the option to pick between the different encryption types. In other words, think before you use…