I got a couple of questions around what I have been up to lately as some noticed there was a slight decrease in volume from a blogging perspective on yellow-bricks. (from 4 articles per week to 2-3 article per week) Well I have been reading up on my new role but on top of that also started blogging for the ESXi Chronicles blog (add it to your RSS reader) and created a VMware Storage centric twitter account. (Follow me if you want to keep up to date on VMware storage initiatives!) The things that I’ve worked on the last couple of weeks:
- VMware ESXi: Planning, implementation and security
The week before VMware Partner Exchange I decided that it was time to start brushing up my ESXi knowledge. I usually dig up all the manuals and presentations I can find and start from there. This time I took a different approach however, I bought a book. The book is titled “VMware ESXi: Planning, Implementation, and Security” and is authored by a true VMTN Community hero, Dave Mishchenko. - Scripted install with ESXi
Now you can kick off the automated install of your ESXi server. But wait, you probably want to see what script I used? That is what I figured, here is the script I wrote to automatically install and configure the ESXi host, it is just a simple script that I used and tested in my lab with the main purpose of showing what is possible with ESXi today. The configuration of the server will run after the first boot. I have added several “comment lines” to explain what I am doing and why. - Adopting ESXi, now is the time!
Within the virtualization community we have been seeing more and more people adopting ESXi. Not only adopting it but also actively evangelizing the use of ESXi over ESX classic. The main argument being of course the reduction in operational effort involved with maintaining the platform. Last week two excellent articles were published. The first article was by Bob Plankers of LoneSysAdmin.net fame. Bob wrote an excellent article countering all often heard complaints about ESXi.
I also wrote my first KB article which discusses the impact of CPU/Memory limits with help from someone from the the GSS team. You would expect that a KB article describing the impact already existed but surprisingly enough it did not. Hence the reason I felt an official statement could prevent some of the issues we see in the field on a daily basis.
Of course that’s not it, I am working on multiple other projects which I cannot discuss yet unfortunately and participated in the VCDX Defenses at PEX. One of the things I can reveal though is that Frank and I are make plans for a volume 2 of the HA/DRS Tech Deepdive and that the sales is still going strong, thanks everyone for your help/support! (No, there will not be an e-book unfortunately, the amount of time/reformatting required did not fit our current schedule.) Keep those reviews and pictures coming though.
Mr. X says
OK, I cry Uncle. What’s the RSS feed for the ESXi chronicles? If I add http://blogs.vmware.com/esxi/ to my Google Reader feed, I am getting the main VMware RSS feed, which is not what I want.
John Troyer says
There are two feeds listed in the head of the page, and because of a technical, um, limitation (ok, bug) with how the template is set up, you’re just seeing the first. The real feed is at http://blogs.vmware.com/esxi/rss.xml
Mr. X says
John,
Thanks for the link. It works for me.
Russell says
When you make volume 2; can you make sure it can be digitally released? A lot of us have stopped buying paperback technical books since they’re out of date in 12-18 months anyway.
Duncan Epping says
No I can’t make sure it will be. It will depend on a couple of things and one of them being the amount of time we can dedicate to this project and the other being if we can find a publisher to help with some of the obstacles we faced.
As we are doing (currently) all the formatting etc ourselves there is an insane amount of work involved with turning it into an e-book.
Yuri de Jager says
Just some nitpicking, but the title of your post is grammatically incorrect. Correct would be “What have you been up to?”
Duncan Epping says
Thanks 😐