Entries from Eric Sloof

Members of this group have gained the in-depth skills and industry-recognized certification on VMware technology. The VMware Certified Professional Program is designed for everyone who wants to demonstrate their expertise in virtual infrastructure and increase his potential for career advancement. If you are a VCP you can join this group.

Alan Renouf has just released version 3 of his Virtualization EcoShell PowerPack and it contains some great new features. In its short existence Alan’s PowerPack has already been downloaded over 2500 times. During the Dutch VMUG last Friday, I’ve presented a session which will give you a good insight into working with the Virtualization EcoShell and Alan’s PowerPack. Just to show you how easy it is to upgrade to the newest version, I’ve created a little Jing movie.

Continue reading "How to upgrade Alan Renouf’s Virtualization..." »

I’ve discovered a real cool German start-up and did a little interview with the director Andreas Wilke about their new automation appliance.
 
The ptecs automation appliance is not a product. It’s a collection of our best practices how we automate the daily needed tasks inside a VMware environment in the form of a VMware appliance. We are using the perl vSphere SDK Toolkit and developed two integrated modules:

• ptecs VMware AutoInstall: Fully automated pxe installation of esx hosts with network and software configuration. 
• ptecs VMware Toolkit: LifeCycle Management, Snapshot Management, Datastore Management and automated Management for Virtual Machines.
• Seamless integration of both modules inside the VMware vSphere Client as Plug-in.

We are able to automate all tasks the VMware SDK API delivers. Our main target is to reduce the daily workload of VMware administrators with automation of these tasks inside a VMware environment. In future we want to migrate the perl tasks to Orchestrator. At this time we want to implement a ESXi automated installation, a Health Check and a chargeback module.

Andreas has also posted some real cool videos at YouTube which gives you an insight at the paap virtual appliance. More information can be found on the ptecs website: http://www.ptecs.de next year.

   

I’m running a VMware vSphere 4 Install Configure and Manage training course this week and just have deployed the new VMware vCenter CapacityIQ 1.0.1 OVF template onto one of the student's vCenter/ESX Servers.  The installation process is straight forward. Don’t try to log on with the root account, use the ciqadmin account instead.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-capacityiq/

Last Monday I did an Ace 2.6 Proof Of Concept at one of my clients. I didn’t pay much attention to the Pocket ACE feature but after digging in a bit deeper, I’ve discovered it’s really cool. One of the most exciting new features in ACE is the handy “Pocket ACE” feature, which gives you the ability to use your ACE virtual machines directly on portable media such as removable hard drives and USB thumb drives.

Using Pocket ACE is fast and simple, thanks to the helpful Pocket ACE Package wizard. Simply select the virtual machine template you want to use, enter a password to protect the virtual machine against unauthorized access, and click OK to deploy your new Pocket ACE package.You can learn more about using Pocket ACE with an online video tutorial.

Right after my Virtualization EcoShell presentation at the Dutch VMUG event last Friday, Scott Herold has interviewed me for a change :-) Normally it’s the other way around. The interview was recorded by NGN’s Community Master, Melle Gloerich.

Melle: I did some more interviews that day (Bouke Groenescheij, Gabrie van Zanten, Ruben Spruijt, Joep Piscaer and another one with Eric separately). I'll put a new one online every week.

http://www.ngn.nl/ngn/n61320-beta/interview-vmware-powershell-experts/?waxtrapp=gmqygiBsHyoOtvOXEgIjI

Jon C. Hall VMware's Technical Certification Developer reports:

VCP4 Welcome Kits will begin shipping Monday, December 14th! As I have posted previously, these kits were delayed due to a rebranding effort that changed the look of both the VCP logo and the Certificates themselves. The reprinting of these materials took much longer than expected, so my apologies to everyone that has had to endure the long wait.

The kits should take approximately 10 days to arrive, a bit shorter in some US locations, a bit longer in some International locations.

Congratulations to all you VCP4s!

December 31, 2009: This is the last day that VCP3s can become VCP4s by simply passing the VCP4 test. 

Remember that if you fail a VCP exam, you're required to wait 7 days before taking the test again. Therefore, it’s a good idea to take the test soon, in case you fail the first attempt.

January 1, 2010: On this date, anyone who wants to become a VCP4 must not only pass the VCP4 test, but must also take an authorized vSphere 4 class.

Most people will need to take “vSphere 4: Install, Configure, Manage”, or “vSphere 4: Fast Track”, or “vSphere 4: Troubleshooting”. VCP3s have a fourth class option : “vSphere 4: What’s New”.

January 1, 2010: VMware will begin offering the VCP4 test in Japanese.

March 31, 2010: VMware will discontinue offering the VCP3 test, and no new VCP3 certifications will be granted.

Jon C. Hall from VMware:

Some of you may have already seen this posted or blogged about, but to make it official  , VMware will be extending the availability of the VCP3 exam until March 31st, 2010. We have many customers still using the VI3 platform and as a result, we continue to offer classes. In light of this, we want to make the exam available a bit longer.

Please note that this does NOT change the deadline for the fast track path to obtain VCP4. If you are a VCP3 or are working on obtaining your VCP3 and want to avoid taking any additional classes to move to VCP4, be sure to obtain your VCP4 certification before 12/31!

The Cisco Nexus 1000V provides a distributed, layer 2 virtual switch that extends across many virtualized hosts. The Cisco Nexus 1000V manages a Datacenter defined by the vCenter Server. Each server in the Datacenter is represented as a linecard in Cisco Nexus 1000V and can be managed as if it were a line card in a physical Cisco switch.

Cisco Nexus 1000V consists of the following two components:

Virtual Supervisor Module (VSM), which contains the Cisco CLI, configuration, and high-level features

Virtual Ethernet Module (VEM), which acts as a Line Card and runs in each virtualized server to handle packet forwarding and other localized functions.

The following software features are new in this release:

• GUI Set Up Following Software Installation
• Layer 3 Control
• Virtual Service Domain
• iSCSI Multipath
• XML API
• DHCP Snooping
• Dynamic ARP Inspection
• IP Source Guard
• MAC Pinning
• Static Pinning

This document describes the features, limitations, and caveats for the Cisco Nexus 1000V Release 4.0(4)SV1(2) software.

Next week I’m having an appointment with a client who wants to implement VMware ACE 2.6 and VMware with Workstation 7.0. Since those two products are fairly new, there isn’t much training material available at this moment so I’ve compiled a VMware’s ACE 2.6 Management Server Quick Start Guide. The information in this guide is taken from VMware’s ACE Documentation website which can be found at: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/ace_pubs.html

I’ve included some additional screenshots which were captured in my lab. The VMware’s ACE 2.6 Quick Start Guide can be downloaded here.

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/uploads/VMware_Ace.pdf

Continue reading "VMware’s ACE 2.6 Quick Start Guide" »