Eric Sloof

The Alternative to Citrix – simple, fast and more cost-effective access to Terminal Servers Ericom's PowerTerm WebConnect VMware virtual appliance for Server Based Computing (SBC) and Presentation Virtualization delivers secure, centrally managed access to business applications and desktops running on Windows Terminal Servers-more easily and cost-effectively than ever. As a practical, ready-to-go solution, Ericom's PowerTerm WebConnect virtual appliance enables faster deployments, updates and support - ideal for organizations with remote users and multiple locations. Pre-packaged with PowerTerm WebConnect installed on the Ubuntu Linux 7.10 operating system (running inside a virtual machine) the appliance reduces the cost and complexity of traditional PC management.

Carter Shanklin created a nice video how to create lots of virtual machines at once.



Creating lots of virtual machines at once. from Carter Shanklin on Vimeo.

If you're like me you get bored with clicking through Wizard interfaces after about the 5th time or so. On the other hand scripting is a lot more powerful, but at the same time requires you to learn programming languages and APIs, not exactly a lot of fun. Whenever I'm staring at a 12-step wizard I always wish there was a way I could convert it to a spreadsheet input view that would let me fill in a bunch of them at once and then automatically run through everything for me. That's the motivation for this spreadsheet . Basically it lets you enter an entire table of values, but takes care of all the scripting for you. Using the spreadsheet is very simple, but as always you will need to havei nstalled the VI Toolkit (for Windows) on your computer.

The second annual VMworld Europe conference will be held 24-26 February 2009 at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, Cannes, France. The event will bring face-to-face the industry leaders shaping the future of virtualization, as interest in the field continues to grow in Europe, Middle East and Africa. It will also provide a platform for visitors to interact with the customers, partners and technologists who are shaping both VMware’s expanding ecosystem and the virtualization industry.  Pre-Register Today

Herco van Burg, a Dutch vmug member launched the virtualappliances.eu website where you can find and download the most popular virtual appliances like:

• X-m0n0wall - The most popular firewall appliance in the VMware appliance directory.
• ESX deployment appliance - Dedicated ESX deployer that will deploy dozens of hosts in minutes.
• Hasslefree Download Appliance - Usenet binaries and Torrent download appliance that takes care of everything.
• Ubuntu 7.10 Just Enough OS  -A perfect base to build appliances on!

There’s a blueprint available for the VMware Enterprise Administration Exam. This exam is part of the prerequisites of the VCDX Certification. It includes live labs and tests a higher level of skill set than the exam for VCP on VMware Infrastructure 3. The Enterprise Exam is available this month. Candidates can check their skills and see if they are suited to this exam online via the VMware Certification page. Only those who meet these qualifications will be able to attend the exam.

Play the Community Challenge to test your knowledge of virtualization trivia in several categories. Check back often as contests will be run for the VMworld.com community. The monthly high score wins a VMworld 2008 pass. Test your skills and take the Community Challenge below. Each game consists of 20 questions. Scoring is displayed as you go and overall scores will be kept for the community. The longer you take to answer a question, the fewer points you get — so think fast!

Community Challenge High Scores

High scores for game players for the challenge players, congratulations to those that made this page.

1st. Place:  scholtene May 20, 2008 Game: Computer Acronyms and Slang 1650
2nd. Place:  MeAgain May 20, 2008 General Game 1540
3rd. Place:  MeAgain May 20, 2008 General 1440
4th. Place:  MeAgain May 20, 2008 General Game 1430

VMware is working on a session that will allow monthly challenge winners to participate in a in person challenge at a session in Vegas. They will probably use a team format that will place challenge winners on a team and then compete against each other in a challenge.

I’m delivering an instructor led VMware Sales Professional training again. You can still sign in for next Friday. The VMware Sales Professional (VSP) program is an online, self-paced curriculum that has been broken down into an accreditation for each of VMware’s four main solution areas. The first accreditation can be completed in about 5-7 hours and each subsequent accreditation requires about 1-2 hours. Together, this sales-focused training curriculum:

• Jumpstarts a person’s understanding of how to sell VMware products & solutions
• Reduces the time needed to be effective
• Ensures a consistent message is being evangelized

VMware Introduces Several New Professional Services Offerings for Virtual Desktop Implementations. This offering contains a new suite of professional services that help IT departments implement, manage, and optimize virtual desktops. Using proven best practices based on VMware Infrastructure methodology, customers and partners gain valuable insight on how to increase employee productivity, reduce IT costs, and improve security in their desktop computing environments.

Forbes Guthrie over at vmreference.com has released an update of his vmreference card. There over a dozen corrections, updates, and a few small additions.  He wants to thank  everyone who has emailed him since the last release, particularly Simon Price and Peter Vroomen.

Last night I received an anonymous tip from someone deep inside the VMware Workstation development team. The tip I received was all about running ESX 3.5 inside Workstation 6.5 and the possibility to power on a VM.

Try the latest Workstation 6.5 Beta 1 Refresh and you are in for a surprise...

This afternoon I downloaded the latest build of the Workstation 6.5 Beta and tried to run ESX 3.5 inside it.

Download VMware Workstation 6.5 Beta VMware Workstation 6.5 Beta
Latest Version: Beta | 5/12/08 | Build 91182

I created a standard (other Linux) VM with two CPU's, 1024 Gb mem and a 20 GB SCSI disk. I also added the following tree lines to the VMX file.

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
monitor.virtual_exec = "hardware"
monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "true"

This time running ESX 3.5 inside WS 6.5 worked, no slow booting anymore. The test lab is online again. After installing ESX 3.5 update 1 the following screenshot showed up within minutes.


I contacted Keith Adams, he’s one of the WS 6.5 engineers and asked him if he could confirm that we can use ESX 3.5 in the latest build of VMware Workstation 6.5, he confirmed :

Indeed, we've changed the nomenclature around. It's now:
monitor.virtual_exec="hardware"|"software"|"auto"
(Note: monitor, not monitor_control.)

For all guest os types:
hardware = VT on Intel, SVM on AMD
software = BT for all 32-bit guests, and on BT-capable 64-bit AMD hardware for 64-bit guests as well
auto     = Let us guess what to do (the default).

I also contacted Ulli over at sanbarrow.com, he’s the king of VMX tweaks and he responded directly with :

Hi Eric

use
guestOS = "other"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
monitor.virtual_exec = "hardware"
monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "true"

I'd also recommend to install the ESX itself to IDE and use the LSI-logic disks for VMFS Use 2 virtual CPUs only when you have a quadcore system - otherwise use one CPU

Ulli

There's still an issue with powering on a VM.

*** VMware Workstation internal monitor error ***
vcpu-1:ASSERT vmcore/private/a20_shared.h:67
There is a problem in this version of VMware Workstation.
We rely on your feedback to improve the quality of our product. Please submit a support request that describes the problem at our Web page "http://www.vmware.com/info?id=8". Do not forget to attach the log file (C:\Virtual Machines\ESX 3.5\vmware.log) and the core file(s) (C:\Virtual Machines\ESX 3.5\vmware-core[0-1].gz, C:\Virtual Machines\ESX 3.5\vmware64-core[0-1].gz, C:\Users\Eric Sloof\AppData\Roaming\VMware\vmware-vmx-debug-4064.dmp).
To collect data to submit to VMware support, select Help > About and click "Collect Support Data". You can also run the "vm-support" script in the Workstation folder directly.
We appreciate your feedback,
  -- the VMware Workstation team.