Eric Sloof

Today I attended the Dutch edition of this year’s Partner Exchange event where VMware was sharing their strategic direction and discussed about how they are already taking customers on the journey to the cloud. The VMware Partner Exchange events provide tailored educational tracks for business owners, sales, technical and marketing professionals within their partner community. I’ve recorded some video footage and took some pictures.

 

Last January the cool people over at FREESCO have released a new version of their highly popular router floppy. This new version (0.4.3) contains some bug fixes and lots of new features. FREESCO was developed in the open source tradition as an alternative to routing products offered by Cisco, 3-Com, Accend, Nortel etc. While all of these companies offer products that are well made, the overhead and overall costs can be expensive. FREESCO is open source, stable, inexpensive, easy to use, extremely versatile and flexible ... and best of all, FREESCO is FREE. FREESCO is based on the Linux operating system. And incorporates many of the features of other Linux distributions into software that fits onto a single 1.44 meg floppy diskette. With FREESCO, you can configure:

 • a simple bridge with up to 10 Ethernet segments
 • a router with up to 10 Ethernet segments
 • a dialup line router
 • a leased line router
 • an Ethernet router
 • a dial-in server with up to 10 modems.
 • a time server
 • a dhcp server
 • a http server
 • a ftp server
 • a dns server
 • a ssh server
 • a print server (requires TCP/IP printing client software)

FREESCO also incorporates firewalling and NAT, which are resident within the Linux kernel, to help protect you and your network. All of these features can be used in conjunction with each other or individually.

FREESCO has an official ext2 package that can be installed directly from the floppy package menu. This is the best and most reliable way to install FREESCO onto a hard drive. The ext2 package does not require any pre-preparation of a hard drive. The ext2 package also is capable of scanning the drive for errors during boot-up to prevent any type of file corruption. Using the ext2 package avoids any hassles associated with needing a DOS/Win9x bootable hard drive or any extra file and disk management tools and using ext2 is the recommended file system.

I’ve installed FREESCO inside a VMware virtual machine on a virtual disk (VMDK) formated as EXT2 and created an OVF and OVA file from it. This way you’re able to setup a virtual router within you vSphere environment very easily.

Virtual Disk: 256 MB Thin
Memory: 256 MB
Network Adaptor 1: DHCP Client on VM Network
Network Adaptor 2: DHCP Server on Internal - 192.168.1.1
Management GUI: http://192.168.1.1:82
Username: Admin Password: vmware
Shell login: Root/vmware

Available for Download at http://www.screencast.com/users/esloof/folders/FREESCO/

StarWind Free iSCSI SAN provides an Enterprise Feature set to Evaluate the Benefits of SAN’s, Virtualization and fast Disk-to-Disk Backup. StarWind has announced the release of Free iSCSI SAN software that allows you to build an iSCSI storage appliance based on the Microsoft Windows operating system, with full snapshot and backup capabilities, which can be optionally upgraded up to StarWind HA (High Availability) for dual node redundancy and off-site data replication.

StarWind provides a free and open architecture to eliminate vendor lock-in when selecting SAN hardware, reducing the need to overpay for disks, controller hardware and software licensing. Total cost savings with StarWind allow desktop virtualization to become a reality since one of the biggest hurdles to virtualizing desktops has been the cost of SAN hardware. Not to mention all the other solutions StarWind is ideal for such as providing shared storage for virtual servers to leverage live migration, physical servers to consolidate direct attached disks, server clusters such as SQL or Exchange or for fast backups to disk.

StarWind Free iSCSI SAN offers a unique set of features, including:

• Host operating systems: any modern Microsoft Windows OS is supported.
• Works with all the leading Hypervisor vendors: VMware, Microsoft, VMware.
• Data De-duplication (fully supported, variable block size). Data Deduplication is a specialized mechanism of data-reduction, reducing storage capacity requirements by eliminating duplicated data within and between files.
  Unlimited storage capacity & Unlimited number of supported concurrent iSCSI connections.
• Full Production use is allowed.
• Support - Free version is covered with a basic support plan (an open public community forum). Support upgrades are available for paid per-incident plans or switching to any commercial version with extended functionality where an annual support plan is included.
• Caching - StarWind has a multi-level cache mechanism implemented. The cache can use gigabytes of RAM and converts it into to extremely fast level 1 write-back or write-through cache, providing superior storage performance over many conventional SANs.
• CDP (Continuous Data Protection) and Snapshots that are completely compatible with VSS (Volume Snapshot Services).
• VTL (Virtual Tape Library) and WAN replication are offered as paid upgrade options.
• iSCSI boot is fully supported with iSCSI boot capable NIC.

“Currently no other vendor is offering free iSCSI SAN software with the same robust feature set as StarWind’s. Such companies as Microsoft, VMware, Citrix offer their hypervisors free of charge and now StarWind Software presents absolutely free iSCSI storage software, with a full set of enterprise features including snapshots to complement the growing need for storage to work with hypervisors or even standalone,” said StarWind's CEO, Artem Berman.

Customers can now test and use iSCSI storage in a production environment without any financial hurdles to evaluate the benefits of SAN’s before investing money into additional storage, support costs and high availability features. The free edition of StarWind iSCSI SAN will further help reduce IT costs, improve data availability and ensure business continuity.

http://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-free

While I was prepping the delivery of an upcoming VMware vCloud: Architecture in the VMware Cloud training course, I was searching for a diagramming tool, which could be used during the laboratory exercises. I was about to step away from Visio, because I didn’t want to be creative with trail licenses and after some searching and testing I stumbled upon Gliffy. The biggest plus of this online diagramming tool, is that students must work in teams and collaborate during the design laboratory workshop, with Gliffy it can be done instantly with anyone. Gliffy comes from the word glyph, a symbol or character that imparts information non-verbally. Gliffy is an online diagramming service that helps users communicate with a combination of shapes, text, and lines. With Gliffy online diagram software, you can easily create professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more. The online diagram editor makes it easier than ever to create great looking drawings.

Easy to Use : Creating diagrams is simple with Gliffy. Just drag-and-drop shapes from an extensive library and point-and-click your way to format, just like in the office software you are familiar with. No expertise needed.

Extensive Shape Library : Access a complete library of shapes, including networking, UML, user interface, process flow, entity-relationship, floor plans, and more. You can even import your own images, like logos and backgrounds, to complement your diagrams.

Full Feature Set : Robust features give you the power and flexibility to create professional-looking diagrams.

• Extensive shape library
• Large drawing area
• Drag and drop ease  
• Shape alignment   
• Auto line connections
• Gradient color fills   
• Convenient publishing capabilities   
• Document manager   
• Revision Control

Publish Easily : With just a click, Gliffy gives you a URL to a read-only version of your diagram, so you can share it with anyone. You can also easily embed your image into your wikis, blogs, and hosted office applications.

Incorporate Diagrams into Other Documents : Enhance your word documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and web pages by adding your diagrams directly into your files. Whether you are using desktop applications or hosted online software, you can save your diagram as a .JPG, .PNG, or .SVG or include a URL to the most current version of the diagram. You can even save your diagrams and open them in illustration programs.

Collaborate Instantly with Anyone : Enter the email addresses of your collaborators and Gliffy will automatically notify them you have invited them to collaborate. They'll receive a URL and temporary password to a free account.

Protect and Track Changes : If you invite others to edit your diagram, don't worry. Gliffy's Revision Control feature automatically keeps a copy every time a document is saved, so you can track changes or revert to an earlier version.

No Compatibility or Access Issues : Gliffy works through your web browser, so Mac and PC users can all work together. And since you access Gliffy via the Web, clients, vendors, and co-workers at different sites can all view and edit the files.

More Reliable than Email : Know that you are all working off the most current version of the document. And you don't have to keep emailing the file back and forth!

http://www.gliffy.com

Update

I’ve received a great comment from Lisa who pointed me at LucidChart. This online diagramming solution has the same features as Gliffy, but on top of that it also supports:

• HTML5 and web standards make LucidChart fast, smooth, and reliable
• Work simultaneously with as many people as you want.
• Access your documents anytime, anywhere, from your PC or Mac (browser independent).
• Import Your Microsoft Visio Documents
  

Now you don’t have to recreate all of your previous documents generated in Visio and you can still enjoy the ease and benefits of working in LucidChart! In addition, you will be able to access your diagrams from anywhere using a web browser, and you can easily share your diagrams with others and collaborate in real-time.

https://www.lucidchart.com/

I’ve created an OVF and OVA version of the highly popular Damn Small Linux distribution. Normally you run this OS which is only 50MBs in disk size from an ISO or pen drive but I’ve seen more and more people experimenting with the vCloud Director and really need some small test VMs. Damn Small Linux is ideal for this purpose although it’s very small, it contains some great tools like a browser and shell access.

(Taken from http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/) DSL was originally developed as an experiment to see how many usable desktop applications can fit inside a 50MB live CD. It was at first just a personal tool/toy. But over time Damn Small Linux grew into a community project with hundreds of development hours put into refinements including a fully automated remote and local application installation system and a very versatile backup and restore system which may be used with any writable media including a hard drive, a floppy drive, or a USB device.

DSL has a nearly complete desktop, and a tiny core of command line tools. All applications are chosen with the best balance of functionality, size and speed. Damn Small also has the ability to act as an SSH/FTP/HTTPD server right off of a live CD. In our quest to save space and have a fully functional desktop they've made many GUI administration tools which are fast yet still easy to use. What does DSL have?

XMMS (MP3, CD Music, and MPEG), FTP client, Dillo web browser, Netrik web browser, FireFox, spreadsheet, Sylpheed email, spellcheck (US English), a word-processor (Ted), three editors (Beaver, Vim, and Nano [Pico clone]), graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint, and xzgv), Xpdf (PDF Viewer), emelFM (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), a web server, calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, Fluxbox and JWM window managers, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, and pcmcia support, some wireless support.

Root password: www.ntpro.nl
DSL user password: www.ntpro.nl
Hardware Version: 7
Disk size: 256 MB Thin
Memory: 256 MB
Network: VM Network (DHCP)

Download location: http://www.screencast.com/users/esloof/folders/DSL or Damn Small Linux OVF

Chad and Wade demonstrate the Iomega StorCenter px6-300d at EMC World during the Chad's World presentation. Chad and Wade launched 100 VMs from the px6-300d. 

VMware has released the vCloud Reference Architecture Kit which can help you with creating Public and Private vCloud implementations.

The Service Definition for Private Cloud describes the creation of a fully virtualized, pooled compute platform for use as an Enterprise Private Cloud, or business-internal organizational cloud computing service, commonly referred to as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). VMware technologies including vSphere, vShield Manager, vCenter Chargeback, and vCloud Director will be used to establish this service.

The result of this service includes secure multi-tenancy for Lines of Business, shared virtualized assets, a self-service user portal, standard catalogues of pre-defined virtual machines & applications with usage metering. Going forward, this service will be enhanced with greater capacity and the preparation for linking with other cloud services either within or beyond the boundaries of the Enterprise.

The vCloud Implementation Example for a Public vCloud Service Provider architecture design document is intended to serve as a reference for architects, and assumes they have familiarity with VMware products, including VMware vSphere, vCenter, and VMware vCloud Director. The vCloud architecture detailed in this document is organized into these sections:

vCloud Definition - Inventory of components that comprise the cloud solution

vSphere Management - vSphere and vCenter components that support running workloads

vSphere Resources - Resources for cloud consumption Design organized by compute, networking, and shared storage, detailed through logical and physical design specifications and considerations

Management and Security - Considerations as they apply to vSphere and VMware vCloud Director Management components

vCloud Logical Design - VMware vCloud Director objects and configuration Relationship of VMware vCloud Director to vSphere objects

Reference Architecture Kit - The vCloud Reference Architecture white papers help existing vSphere users understand what it takes to build a vCloud, both public and private clouds.

• Service Definition for Public Cloud
• Service Definition for Private Cloud
• Architecting a vCloud Whitepaper
• VMware vCloud Implementation Example: Public vCloud Service Provider
• VMware vCloud Implementation Example: Private Enterprise vCloud

While I enjoyed a holiday and was drinking my piña colada cocktail at a sunny beach in the south of France, my virtualization friend Duncan Epping over at Yellow-Bricks.com has snagged away a real cool scoop regarding the release of a new technical paper about VMware vSphere 4.1 Network performance ;-) As Duncan points out is his article it’s real interesting to know that a single virtual machine actually can saturate the bandwidth of a 10Gbps physical network card.

In fact this newly released performance study will show that with using regular TCP/IP sockets, virtual machines on the same host can communicate at rates of 27Bbps. This is a 10 times increase in throughput from ESX 3.5. Even a single virtual machine with multiple virtual NICs running on vSphere can easily saturate the bandwidth of four 10Gbps NICs for a cumulative throughput of more than 35Gbps.

 http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10181

This paper demonstrates that vSphere 4.1 is capable of meeting the performance demands of today's throughput-intensive networking applications. The paper presents the results of experiments that used standard benchmarks to measure the networking performance of different operating systems in various configurations. These experiments examine the performance of VMs by looking at VMs that are communicating with external hosts and are communicating among each other, demonstrate how varying the number of vCPUs and vNICs per VM influences performance, and show how the scalability results of overcommitting the number of physical cores on a system by adding four 1-vCPU VMs for every core.

This year you can have a say in what sessions you would like to see at VMworld 2011. Session Voting is open from May 9 till May 18. You can vote on what sessions you would like to see. I’ve submitted 4 sessions which are available for public voting. Click on the “Thumbs Up” symbol next to the Session ID. You will receive confirmation that your vote has been counted - Thanks in advance :-)

1400 Performance Troubleshooting in the Cloud with vCenter Operations  
1841 vSphere Advanced Performance Troubleshooting with ESXTop  
1844 VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP-DCA) Exam Preparation Tips  
3067 Myth busters Goes Virtual  

http://www.vmworld.com/cfp.jspa

  
Monitoring performance in the cloud requires special skills, there are many factors that influence the performance of a virtual machine running in the cloud. The most important part of solving performance problems is the right interpretation of the observed metrics. Everyone knows that a high CPU Ready value is an indicator of an CPU problem. But how high can or may it be? Is host CPU saturation the only cause of high CPU Ready values? This session will show you how to observe symptoms using vCenter Operations, track down the performance problem, find the root cause, bring the you guidelines for resource allocation settings and interpret the metrics and their best practise values.
 
This session is an Introduction to WaveMaker. WaveMaker is a visual development tool that lets everyone quickly build and deploy great-looking web and cloud applications. With WaveMaker, you can build a complete, 3-tier web application in minutes!

Monitoring performance requires special skills, there are many factors that influence the performance of a virtual machine. The most important part of solving performance problems is the right interpretation of the observed vSphere Client and ESXTop metrics. Everyone knows that a high CPU Ready value is an indicator of an CPU problem. But how high can or may it be? Is host CPU saturation the only cause of high CPU Ready values? This session will show you how to observe symptoms using ESXTop and the vSphere Client, track down the performance problem, find the root cause and interpret the metrics and their best practise values the right way. If you have wondered about best practice values regarding Ready-Time, Storage Latency, Ballooning and swapping, this session will bring you the answers and insight into the technology and components behind these important metrics.

After achieving your VCP certification you might want to take it a step further and go for the VMware Advanced Professional Datacenter Administrator certification. While reading through the blueprint a lot of people feel a bit overwhelmed with the amount of skills you must have. In this session you will learn how to prepare for a successful completion of the VCAP-DCA exam and you will get some tips and tricks which can be useful while taking the exam.

Some things never change, or do they? vSphere is getting new and improved features with every release. These features change the characteristics and performance of the virtual machines. If you are not up to speed, you will probably manage your environment based on old and inaccurate information. The vMythbusters have collected a series of interesting hot topics that we have seen widely discussed in virtualization communities, on blogs and on Twitter. We’ve put these topics to the test in our lab to determine if they are a myth or not.

Cloud Computing with VMware vCloud Director, by John Y. Arrasjid, Ben Lin, Raman Veeramraju, Steve Kaplan, Duncan Epping, and Michael Haines, provides use cases, design considerations, and technology guidance to answer your questions about cloud computing. The primary intended audience is those interested in learning about VMware cloud computing products and solutions, but content on third-party technologies is also included where appropriate.

http://www.sage.org/pubs/24_cloud/

 

Foreword by Paul Maritz Chief Executive Officer, VMware Inc.

In Closing; This book describes the foundation for this form of cloud computing. It is by no means the end of the story. Although we have not yet completely achieved our vision, we have created a solid basis for cloud computing and are working on more innovations. Simplification of IT is a large and formidable problem to solve, but that is our goal. I hope you enjoy reading this book and learning how VMware is taking on this challenge.