Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

News

VMworld, just be there!

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Usually 1.5 month before VMworld all the “VMworld, why you should attend” posts start appearing. My title says it all, Just be there! But if you are still not sure why, here are a bunch of arguments you can use to convince yourself and your manager…

As most of you know Rick Scherer, Scott Lowe, Chad Sakac, Tom Howarth and myself will be hosting the Ask the Experts Panel Session(TA2259). This session will be a round-table alike session. You get the chance to ask questions regarding virtualization and designing virtual infrastructures or as we like to call it these days (internal) clouds. If you’ve got a question you can already ask them here, you can even provide us  diagrams if you feel that would help better understanding your environment!

Now of course this is not the only reason why you should attend VMworld 2009 in San Francisco. Besides the fact that San Francisco is one of the coolest cities in the US these are the reasons why I think you should visit VMworld 2009 in no particular order:

  • VMworld Party. Do I even need to explain this? The reputation this party has says enough. It’s more than worth it. Not only the VMworld party also companies like Veeam, Vizioncore etc will organize parties which are excellent to meet people! And what about the Warm Up Party? Be there!
  • VMware Technology Exchange Developer Day
    Something different for a change, a whole day based on developing tools, scripts etc! Make sure you attend this extra day it will be worth it!
  • Networking. No better place to do networking than VMworld. I’ve met so many great people at VMworld, heck I even had job interviews at VMworld. (Don’t tell your manager this :-))
  • Knowledge. The amount of info to be gathered at VMworld is just insane. I know the sessions will be available online but this will not give you the chance to discuss your experiences and ask your questions(Genius Booth, visit it!). Isn’t it awesome that all the top virtualization experts are walking around and you can actually walk up to them and ask them that one thing you always wanted to know!?! I highly recommend the following sessions:
    • BC1500 – Lee Dilworth – vCenter Site Recovery Manager “Up and Running” – Best Practices & Avoiding the Pitfalls
    • BC3197 – Marc Sevigny – High Availability – Internals and Best Practices
    • TA1394 – Mostafa Khalil – vSphere 4.0 Advanced Storage Log Analysis
    • TA2525 – Srinivas Neginhal – vShpere 4 Networking Deep Dive
    • TA2627 – Kit Colbert – Understanding “Host” and “Guest” Memory Usage and Other Memory Management Concepts
    • TA2963 – Krishna Raj Raja – esxtop for advanced users
    • TA4341 – Boon Seong Ang – Virtual Network Performance
    • TA2942 – Bhavjit Walha – Performance Best Practices
    • TA2650 – Hal Rottenberg/Luc Dekens – Take PowerCLI to the Next Level
    • TA2647 – Chad Sakac – Best Practices to Increase Availability and Throughput for the Future of VMware
    • VM2241 – Carter Shanklin/Scott Herold – Managing vSphere with VMware PowerCLI

Drop your manager an email and ask for his approval and start booking! Don’t forget to visit the VMTN/Community Booth. Most of the bloggers, including myself, can be found there. Come by and say hi!

vSphere suite

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A whole new set of products have been released today. Besides Lab Manager 4.0 VMware also released Chargeback 1.0 and Appspeed 1.0. Cloud talk is hot these days, if we are talking about tools which enable cloud computing we are most definitely talking about these “new” products. Take a look at the Lab Manager page and notice that “lab manager” in the bottom diagram is already floating around in a cloud!

VMware vCenter Chargeback 1.0 | release notes

Get accurate cost measurement, analysis and reporting with VMware vCenter Chargeback, part of the VMware family of management products. Create cost transparency and accountability so business owners and IT can understand the actual cost of the virtual infrastructure required to support business services.

VMware vCenter Appspeed 1.0 | release notes

Guarantee performance SLAs to the business and perform “Assured Migrations” as you measure performance both before and after virtualizing an application.  VMware vCenter AppSpeed inspects traffic flowing over the vSwitch, discovers and maps the environment, monitors performance against SLAs and enables root cause analysis.

VMware vCenter Lab Manager 4.0 | release notes

Provide on-demand access and automated management of the internal cloud for dev/test with VMware vCenter Lab Manager. Application owners, development, QA, and training teams can deploy, capture and share multi-tier application environments in seconds while IT remains in administrative control. Lab Manager saves time, simplifies administration of fast changing environments and enables project teams to get to market faster.

Google Chrome OS

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People have been speculating about it for a while. Just when everyone thought it would not happen anymore Google announced the Chrome OS.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

Don’t know about you guys but I think this sounds awesome and as a serious threat for Microsoft. Google has been taking over the world in a rapid pace and if this is being picked up who knows what happens… let the games begin!

VMware offers upgrade path to Virtual Iron customers

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I tweeted it yesterday and several bloggers already picked up. I wasn’t able to blog it cause I was at a customer site but still want to make sure the word is out. If you are a Virtual Iron customer and don’t want to get stuck on a dead end road this might be the perfect opportunity to make a U-Turn and head in the right direction!

Source: VMware Offers Safe Passage to Virtual Iron Customers
VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced that it is offering existing Virtual Iron customers an easy way to migrate their Virtual Iron deployments to VMware vSphere™ 4, the industry’s leading virtualization platform. In light of news reports that Oracle will discontinue development of existing Virtual Iron products, the VMware offer gives companies a cost-effective way to upgrade to VMware vSphere™ 4, and provides customers a clear virtualization roadmap that will help meet their needs as their business grows.

The VMware offer gives Virtual Iron end customers who have a current license and support contract compelling savings on VMware vSphere™ 4 and VMware vCenter™ Server. More specifically, eligible Virtual Iron end customers receive aggressive discounts off the list price on the below products and services:

  • VMware vSphere 4 Advanced Edition, VMware vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus Edition, VMware vCenter Server Foundation and VMware vCenter Server Standard
  • Support and subscription (SnS) on VMware vSphere 4 Advanced Edition, VMware vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus Edition, VMware vCenter Server Foundation and VMware vCenter Server Standard

Proof of a current Virtual Iron license and support contract will be required to qualify for the VMware offer. Promotional pricing is limited to the number of Virtual Iron licenses supported by a current support agreement. The offer is valid through September 30, 2009.

VMware vSphere 4 delivers Virtual Iron customers the unparalleled efficiency and performance required to run critical applications in large scale environments, uncompromised control over application security and service levels, and unmatched flexibility of hardware, OS, application architecture and on-premise vs. off-premise application hosting.

VMware vSphere 4 also delivers “Always On IT” for small and midsized businesses (SMBs) and remote and branch office (ROBO) IT environments. With VMware vSphere 4, smaller IT environments can achieve zero-downtime application availability, enterprise-class data protection, disaster recovery and simplified management at an affordable price point.

Existing Virtual Iron customers can learn more about how to migrate now to VMware vSphere 4 by visiting www.vmware.com/go/safepassage or by contacting VMware at SafePassage@vmware.com.

New Sponsor: Train Signal

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Yellow-Bricks.com is proud to announce a brand new sponsor; Train Signal!

Train Signal is the leading provider of computer training software for IT Professionals covering Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA and VMware.

Now I could write an article praising Train Signal but there’s no point. I don’t need to convince you guys Train Signal should. David Davis(one of Train Signal’s instructors) recently posted an 18 minute introduction on his blog(vmwarevideos.com) to the upcoming VMware vSphere video training course. Check it out: