Eric Sloof

VMware Zimbra for Android (VZA) is a native Android collaboration application that allows you to access your email, calendar, contacts, tasks and files from any Android device, specifically smartphones and tablets.

VZA supports any Microsoft ActiveSync compliant email server and also supports the VMware Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS). With ZCS as the backend, VZA offers several additional ZCS-only features such as Briefcase, Saved Searches and many others that are not available in any of the Android email applications in the market today.
Be one of the first one to try, rate and comment - http://labs.vmware.com/flings/vza

Srinivas and his team are very excited to announce that v1.1 is now approved by Apple and is available in the App Store right now.  Be sure to first get updated vCMA so get the latest version of the backend vCMA server (v1.1) that is required for the new client. You can download the latest vCMA appliance at: http://labs.vmware.com/flings/vcma. The biggest "feature" in v1.1 of the client is to support management of ESX and ESXi hosts directly from the iPad without requiring a vCenter server instance. 

The list of features and bug fixes in this release are listed below:

New in version 1.1.0

- Support for connecting directly to a vSphere host (resolves Null Pointer Exception)
- Integrated interface to input vCMA server settings and login credentials
- Enhanced version compatibility checks between vSphere iPad application and vCMA server
- Fix for Null Pointer Exception when rebooting a host while the host was in maintenance mode
- Store password, if requested by the user, in the keychain
- Ability to properly scroll the host list in landscape mode
- Sorted host list (by name and grouped by vendor ID)
- Display center ellipsis for long virtual machine names
- Better performance metrics when connecting directly to a vSphere host
- Show “Unavailable” or “PoweredOff” message when unable to obtain performance data for a selected VM
- Reflect available actions correctly, for a selected VM, when an operation was completed
- Ability to cancel 'revert to snapshot' action

Srinivas and his team are already working on v1.2, which will address some more feature requests.

 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vmware-vsphere-client-for/id417323354?mt=8

The out-of-the-box VDI appliance from VMware and Fusion-io will save you time, money and manpower. VMware and Fusion-io break new ground in simplifying IT with this out-of-the-box, uniform virtual desktop infrastructure.

These VDI appliances allow for a quick and easy assessment of whether VDI is suitable for your company. Configuring a setup is done in three simple steps, giving you an instant view of the required hardware, software and services – and the associated investment. The low initial purchasing costs of the VDI appliance will amaze you: they are comparable to that of a new pc. It will also halve the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the VMware View desktop.

Instant answers

What hardware, software and services do I need to set up a virtual desktop infrastructure? And what are my options? These are questions you will want an answer to, before you will commit to anything. It is, after all, your investment we are talking about. The VMware View and Fusion-io VDI appliances combine the benefits of the latest, standardized VDI technology with those of a fixed price, out-of-the-box solution that is easy to set up.

Advantages

• No surprises – a dependable solution, optimized by VMware and Fusion-io
• An instant view of the required investment
• Quick and short-term implementation
• Performance guarantee by VMware and Fusion-io
• Fixed price

 BrochureVMwareViewFusion-OI2011Engels.pdf

VMware Labs present its latest fling CloudCleaner.


CloudCleaner is a handy tool that helps remove all traces of objects created on host machines by vCloud Director(vCD) like Virtual Machines, resource pools, network pools and networks. Simply put, CloudCleaner restores all your host machines running vCD to a clean state.

Some of the great features are:

• Intelligent authentication handling - if your login credentials fail, you'll be given the chance to re-auth in realtime.
• Fast! Uses up to 2000 simultaneous threads
• Auto-detects developer settings - vCenter IP and credentials.
• Safe - auto-detects inconsistencies and repairs them.
• Secured - validates vCenter server certificates and encrypts user data.

Be one of the first one to try, rate and comment - http://labs.vmware.com/flings/cloudcleaner .

VMware vShield is a suite of security virtual appliances built for VMware vSphere 4.1. It is a critical security component for protecting virtualized datacenters from attacks and misuse. vShield App and vShield Edge are the two products in the suite that address network security. The goal of this document is to provide details on the key security technologies implemented in the vShield App and vShield Edge products that enable administrators to build a multitenant virtualized datacenter environment that is flexible, agile, scalable and secure. The document first discusses the challenges in using physical security to protect virtual infrastructure and then describes in detail the key new technologies in vShield products that address those challenges.

 The Technology Foundations of VMware vShield

VMware vShield Edge, part of the VMware vShield family of virtualization security products, provides perimeter security and network services such as DHCP, NAT, Load balancing, and VPN service. vShield Edge is a virtual firewall appliance that can be provisioned on-demand and its services enabled on the fly to meet the flexibility requirement of cloud deployments. The goal of this document is to help customers understand where and how a vShield Edge firewall can be deployed to secure and isolate tenants/organizations, while providing some reference designs along the way. This document will also help VI administrators and network administrators understand the deployment of security and other network services in virtual datacenters using a vShield Edge firewall.

 vShield Edge Design Guide

VMware vShield App, part of the VMware vShield family of virtualization security products, protects applications in the virtual datacenter from network-based threats. vShield App gives organizations deep visibility into network communications between virtual machines and enables granular policy enforcement with security groups. This document helps VI administrators understand the deployment of security around the virtualized server infrastructure using VMware vShield App product. Two reference designs are provided to help customer understand the security deployment around the virtual infrastructure using vShield App product and advantages.

 vShield App Design Guide

This video shows you an overview of how to use the web interface, virtual datacenters, vApps, virtual machines (VM's) and catalogs.You should also take a look at: Video - How to move your VMs to BlueLock’s vCloud Datacenter

Ericom has released their Ericom AccessNow for VMware View version 1.0 of this first-of-a-kind product. Ericom's pure HTML5 Access to View Virtual Desktops - from any HTML5-compatible web browser including from Chromebooks. Enable users to quickly and easily connect to VMware View desktops directly from within any HTML5-compatible web browser, without requiring Flash, Java or any other software to be installed on the client.

HTML5 technology represents a new frontier in interactive browser-based applications and user experience. Ericom AccessNow for VMware View capitalizes on the advanced features of HTML5 to provide secure, high-performance, web-based access to virtual desktops.

Ericom's high performance HTML5 client is the first VDI solution to provide native support for Chromebooks, Safari, IE - virtually any browser using WebSockets and http protocols. With AccessNow for VMware View, Educational, government, healthcare, financial and other organizations can now empower users with secure, browser-based access to their virtual desktops – running wholly within an HTML5-compatible browser!



Instant access to VMware View virtual desktops possible from any web browser supporting HTML5 - no software installation required on the end-user device. HTML5 technology enables development of rich, highly interactive browser-based applications. Ericom has developed a fully functional, high-performance HTML5 client that enables seamless access to VMware View virtual desktops. Running wholly within the browser, the client runs on devices with an HTML5 compatible browser and requires no additional software installation on the end-user device.

My former colleague and virtualization buddy Ernst Cozijnsen over at Capgemini Outsourcing has done some extensive testing on virtual machine deployments with VAAI enabaled storage. The storage he has used for the deployment tests was an EMC Symmetrix VMAX, Here are his findings:

A while ago a colleague of mine pointed me to a blog post which included a link to an pdf document released by EMC talking about VAAI efficiency with EMC Symmetrix VMAX arrays. The document basically covers 3 new features which have been released in the “Enginuity 5875” firmware for the VMAX also known as the “75 code” in conjunction with vSphere 4.1.

These features are:

- Hardware accelerated Full Copy
- Hardware accelerated Block Zero
- Hardware accelerated locking

Without repeating all the technical details already mentioned in the pdf (which is a must read for all nerds)  we’ve put the pedal to the metal to see if VAAI really makes a difference. To make a good comparison between old and new we have set up 3 (almost) identical THICK templates: W2K8 R2 ent 30GB + 5GB hdd  containing +/- 12GB of actual data. The source and target Datastores are 1T tier2 (VMAX) LUN’s connected via 4 storage paths (Powerpath VE enabled) which are formatted with a 2MB block size.

The 1st template “Ernst-oldtemplate” is virtual hardware  version 4 created on ESX 3.5, with an aligned OS disk and default storage allocation (this template was cloned and freshly installed to mimic template 2 and 3).
The 2nd “Ernst-nonzero” has hardware version 7 created on ESXi4.1, with an aligned OS disk and eagerzeroedthick formatted vmdk’s.       
The 3rd “Ernst-zeroed” has hardware version 7 created on ESXi4.1, with an aligned OS disk and zeroedthick formatted vmdk’s.

To quote EMC from their document: “The improvement in deployment times range from 7 to 18 times faster”.

Deploying the 1st template:



The job completed in +/- 9 minutes. During this time we observed the ESXi host itself via esxtop and as shown below. The SCSI command reads issued, spiked to sometimes 6550 per second meaning all data blocks are read with some form of intelligence.

I’m very busy with preparing my upcoming "Mythbusters Goes Virtual" VMworld session which will go deep into a few specific well known vSphere myths. The myth busting will be done by Mattias Sundling and me. I’ll have the honour to debunk the fact that RDM offers a better performance compared to VMFS. My lab wasn’t equipped with a device that offers RDM storage and VMFS storage but luckily my good friend Duco Jaspars brought my into contact with Iomega’s Benelux country manager Filip Joly.

Filip has offered me a brand new StorCenter px6-300d, this is a high performance business class desktop device, ideal for small-to medium sized businesses and distributed enterprise locations like branch and remote offices, for content sharing and data protection. Powered by EMC storage technology and with up to 18TB of storage capacity, including a diskless option, is easy to setup and manage, and affordable to own. This 2 part video demonstration shows you how to add an iSCSI drive to both the px6 and VMware vSphere.

Adding iSCSI Drives

1. To add an iSCSI drive, click  Add an iSCSI drive on the iSCSI page.
2. If your Iomega StorCenter px6-300d has multiple Storage Pools, select the desired Storage Pool from the drop-down menu.
3. Enter a name for the iSCSI drive. How you name your iSCSI drive will depend on your Iomega StorCenter px6-300d meeting one of the following conditions:

• If the iSCSI/Volume Name field displays by itself, enter a name for both. This field displays when your Iomega StorCenter px6-300d is new, has no existing volumes, and supports multiple volumes.

• If the Name field displays by itself, enter a name for the iSCSI drive. This field displays when your Iomega StorCenter px6-300d is new or being upgraded and has only one volume.

• If the Create a volume or Use an existing volume options display, select:

• Create a volume to create a new volume for your iSCSI drive. This option displays when your Iomega StorCenter px6-300d is new, or if you are upgrading your Iomega StorCenter px6-300d and it has available space in its Storage Pools.

• Use an existing volume to use an existing empty or shared volume. This option displays when you are upgrading your Iomega StorCenter px6-300d, have available space in your Storage Pools, and have already created multiple volumes. To use an existing empty volume, select iSCSI/Volume Name and enter a name for the iSCSI drive and volume. To use an existing shared volume, select Shared Volume, select the existing volume, and enter a name for the iSCSI drive.

4. Enter a size for the iSCSI drive.
5. Click Create to create the iSCSI drive.

The VMworld 2011 Content Catalog US has been released for public viewing, covering VMworld 2011 session and lab titles, abstracts and speaker bios.

Hands-on Labs

HOL01 Building Your Hybrid Cloud
HOL02 Managing Your Hybrid Cloud
HOL03 Reporting on Your Hybrid Cloud
HOL04 Reducing Unplanned Downtime with VMware
HOL05 Datacenter Migration and Disaster Recovery Protection
HOL06 Enhancing Your Network by Optimizing Your Virtual Network Structure and Consolidating Network Management
HOL07 Advanced Configuration and Troubleshooting: Using Virtual Distributed Switches and Network I/O Control
HOL08 Exploring Your Core Email and Collaboration Service Migration Options
HOL09 Improve Troubleshooting and Performance Tuning for Your Virtual Environment
HOL10 Advanced Troubleshooting and Performance Tuning for Your Virtual Environment
HOL11 Paas: Enabling the Scalability of Your Cloud Application Infrastructure
HOL12 Optimizing Data Access for Your Cloud Infrastructure; A New Kind of Infrastructure Requires a New Kind of Database
HOL13 Enable Your Cloud Infrastructure for Mobility, Agility and Flexibility
HOL14 Leverage the Power of Command Line Interface Automation Across Your Evolving Environment
HOL15 Monitor and Dynamically Improve the Performance of Applications in Your Cloud Infrastructure
HOL16 Auto Deploying Your Agile and Stateless Cloud Platform
HOL17 vSphere Features in Action: Enhancements Enabling the SMB Growth Across Their Virtualized Environment
HOL18 vSphere Features in Action: Advanced Solutions to Maximize Your Cloud Infrastructure Investment
HOL19 Building an Agile, Secure and Compliant Mixed Trust Environment
HOL20 Endpoint Security and Compliance Within Your Environment: Detect, Resolve and Monitor
HOL21 Achieving and Maintaining PCI DSS Compliance for Your Secure Environment
HOL22 Enhancing Your Virtual End-user Desktop Environment from Applications to Security
HOL23 Solving Application Management Challenges with Application Virtualization

https://vmworld2011.wingateweb.com/scheduler/public.jsp