by Duncan Epping
If anyone needs an invite, Bluebear gave me 50 again.. So just drop me an email, or leave a comment with your email and I’ll make sure you’ll be able to beta test this new version!
I don’t have any invites left… Sorry, you’ll guys need to help eachother out!
Kodiak 0.0.2 will be out in a few hours! I’m currently preparing my VM’s to check it out! And I will post a couple of screenshots tonight! For those that never heard of Kodiak(by Bluebear) before, read this blog entry, in short it’s a cross platform application with which you will be able to manage multiple hypervisors and management applications! The new features look promising!
Taken from the release notes:
New functionality:
We have added support for configuring existing virtual machines. All the expected functions are available. Configuration for a Virtual Machine is accessible via the configure button attached to a given VM object on the screen (Inspector Panels / Map)Configuration of all standard resources is available, e.g. Memory Size, CPU allocation/shares, virtual disks, virtual NICs, and removable devices.
Usage Notes
- Virtual disks are of the “preallocated/thick” type, support for all disk types will be available in the next release.
- ‘Host-device-backed’ virtual devices (e.g. floppy/cdrom/raw) are not supported, but will be available in a future release.
- ‘Remote-backed’ virtual devices (e.g. floppy/cdrom/ISO images on the client) are not supported, but will be available in a future release.
- VMs must be powered off for configuration. While it is possible to reconfigure a running VM, it may result in a host fault that will cause your changes to be discarded.
- If you make changes to a VM that you don’t want to commit, simply close the configure window and the changes will be discarded, (or hit the discard button).
- Support for VM Creation will be available in the next release.
Known Issues
- Untrusted certificates on windows may cause an authorization dialog to continually appear. The certificate must be added to the local store, please see this page for a work-around.
- License keycodes are case sensitive, please ensure you enter them exactly.
- VirtualCenter is not yet fully supported. While it might work, functionality is not guaranteed to give predictable results. We are currently adapting Kodiak’s back-end data model to more effectively handle VirtualCenter’s data structures.
Kodiak is a cross platform application(Windows, Linux, Mac) with which you can manage your virtual environment. Why would one want to use this instead of the VIC? Well you can run it from your Linux box without having to run a VM. What do you need? Well I tested it with Ubuntu and Windows and you should start with installing Adobe Air. For Windows it’s pretty straighton, but I couldn’t even find a download link for Ubuntu. After a couple of seconds on Google I found this Howto. It gave me a link and provided me with the info needed to install, although chmod and running the executable is pretty straight forward.
After the installation there was still the AIR package left to install that Bluebear provided. So I started Adobe Air, pointed towards the air package and that’s about it. It installed within a few minutes and I was ready to go.
So I wanted to do some extensive testing with Bluebear’s Kodiak and started out with Windows. Well after a couple of minutes all the “certificate” related messages started to irritate me so I quit with the Windows version and went straight on to Ubuntu. Luckily Ubuntu gave me the option to select “Always” when the same certificate message was dropped. (There’s a workaround for the certificate problem by the way, check this article)
So the next screen was sort of an inventory, the ESX host with it’s vSwitch and the VM attached to it. Reminds me a lot of the VMware maps functionality. But the cool thing about the map is that you can drag, drop and rotate in 3D. So as you can see in the screen below there’s a VM running…
So now what, what can we do with Kodiak? Well to be honest, not that much at this moment. Power Off and Power On a VM works fine, but that’s about it for now. I can’t edit any config settings, I can’t do vmotion, I can’t add or remove a VM, I can open a console to the VM but there’s no response or whatsoever. The interface looks cool, but like Carlo said in his article, what will it look like when you’ve got over a dozen VM’s. The arcs around the VM represent the current CPU / MEM resource usage by the way. I opened up a couple more windows and this is what it looked like:
Is this tool worth checking out? I do think so, there’s not much you can do with it at this point but it’s got a nice “look and feel” that seems to be promissing for the future. Let’s hope these guys can incorporate some new functionality a.s.a.p. I think it will be really useful for the SMB’s out there that do not have a VirtualCenter server but do have more than 1 ESX(i) host. And the Linux/Mac users, although with the new VMware Workstation it’s possible to run the VirtualCenter client as a seamless app.
So for the bluebear people reading this, I would like to be able to edit VM config’s for starters and a couple of power on / power off / restart buttons at the top of the console would be handy.
Release notes:
Manual Installation for Windows
Download and install Adobe Air for Windows if you don’t already have it on your computer
Download the Kodiak Air Package
Locate the downloaded Air file and run it, the Air installer should automatically begin
Release Notes
Kodiak Beta 0.0.1 Release Notes:Thanks for downloading Kodiak! Kodiak is beta software, and no functionality is guaranteed, and is all subject to change.
We’ve really only validated functionality on Mac platforms. Our testing on Windows & Linux has been limited, but we haven’t encountered any problems. Your mileage may vary.
We’re completely interested in your feedback.
Here’s a quick idea of Kodiak usage, subject to change.
By default, Kodiak will open to a login screen. Enter your server address, your username/password, and off you go.
Kodiak will come up to a network map display, with a small server tab on the left-hand side of the screen. Double-clicking this tab will expand it into a list where you can view your VMs/Virtual switches/Resource Pools/Datastores, and for VMs, you’ll be able to power a VM on/off, and get to a console.
We added (today) a console dock on the right hand side where you can dock your consoles.
Kodiak’s map (in the background) is completely interactive, and will display resource usage information that’s updated on the fly. Click it, drag it, select it, poke it, launch consoles from it!
To use the map: Left click will select an individual VM. Left click + drag selects a group of VMs/hosts/networks Right Click + drag will pan the map around. Right Click + shift + drag will rotate the map in 3D.
To connect to a new server with kodiak, click the top-level “Connections” button that you see up in the upper-left hand corner, then click the “new” button you see there.
This will bring you to a new login screen. (FYI, Kodiak will keep track of your server names so you don’t have to type them in all the time.) Log in, and Kodiak will return your server into a new tab.
Currently, Kodiak WILL connect to a Virtual Center server, but we cannot guarantee that it will find all available hosts/VMs/resources.
If anyone wants an invite to the beta program than just drop your email here, or send me your email on duncan[@]yellow-bricks.com and I will hook you up. It’s still limited so be quick!
I’m all out. So you guys should help each other… over 60 invites within 24 hours. Bluebear is hot!
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:
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!
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!