VMware - 52

SearchServerVirtualization is pleased to announce that their newest site,  SearchVMware.com, will be launching in mid November. This new site offers the Web's best independent resources on managing VMware environments.  You'll get expert advice on implementing VMware-related virtualization technologies for server consolidation, disaster recovery, lab and test, desktop centralization or other production usage. For more information on the upcoming SearchVMware.com and to sign up for VMware-specific newsletters, click here: http://go.techtarget.com/r/2366544/6232044

V-Ployment enables users to configure and rapidly deploy ESX Server builds to a consistent standard, whilst drastically cutting down effort, time and cost when provisioning or building additional servers. How Is V-Ployment Used? V-Ployment simplifies the build and configuration process of VMware's ESX Server (VI3), saving time and effort. It also reduces the skill level required to produce consistent ESX server builds and provides template examples containing over 5 years of VMware awarded best practice. V-Ployment is a fast, consistent and easy-to-use tool that allows you to deploy and configure VMware ESX 3.x servers rapidly in your environment. It is a .NET2 Windows application that processes configuration information from a formatted CSV file (supplied by Repton) and outputs the specified ESX host build scripts into a configured ESX boot image file (.iso).

The location where the Dutch Vmug conference will take place is the Nieuwegein Business Center. On the 7th of December over 300 enthusiastic Vmug members will enjoy a day full of virtualization. For the third year in succession you can attend a lot of really technical sessions. So if you are living near or in the Netherlands, you don’t want to miss out on this event. The agenda is online and when you take a close look at it you will see that Eric Sloof is going to talk about Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. On more reason to attend ;-)

New Release of VMware Infrastructure Helps Enable SMBs to Simplify IT and Achieve Enterprise-class Disaster Recovery, High Availability and Management. VMware, Inc., the virtualization leader, today announced three new VMware Infrastructure product packages tailored for small and medium businesses (SMBs). The new bundles are designed to enable IT administrators and decision makers at SMBs to easily deploy virtual infrastructure and quickly reap its transformative benefits. The bundles are expected to be available later this year.

Simplify management of your virtual infrastructure by automating patches and updates with the new VMware Update Manager. This essential component of VMware Infrastructure makes it easy to manage tracking and patching of ESX Server Hosts, as well as select Windows and Linux virtual machines, giving you the ability to: Secure your data center against vulnerabilities, Reduce risks associated with patching of virtual machines, Reduce or eliminate downtime related to host patching.

Enable live migration of virtual machine disk files across storage arrays with VMware Storage VMotion. Building on the proven value of VMware VMotion, VMware Storage VMotion lets you relocate virtual machine disk files between and across shared storage locations while maintaining continuous service availability and complete transaction integrity. These capabilities make it possible to: Perform proactive non-disruptive storage migrations, Simplify array refreshes/retirements, Eliminate virtual machine storage I/O bottlenecks and Free up valuable storage capacity.

This week I bought myself a FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7170. I threw out my Quattrovox and hooked up my fax, ISDN phones and analog phones to the FRITZ!Box. Normally I don’t read the manual but this time I had to look some things up before I got everything working ;-). From now on all my outside calls are routed over the internet using the sip server over at Voipcheap.com. I don’t have to pay any outside telephone calls to the KPN (the largest Dutch telecom company) anymore. Now I’m talking over the Internet with Voice over IP -- without turning on your PC, and without changing my phone number. And FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN also puts my PCs on the Internet at ADSL speed -- over Ethernet, USB or wireless LAN -- always with firewall protection, and with wireless encryption activated out of the box. When you are going to configure a FRITZ!Box the first thing you should do is put it in expert mode. Don’t forget to create a dialing rule for all the numbers that start with a 0. Happy phoning!

For some reason, it seems that most VMware users shrug NFS off as only being good enough to store ISO files. Many wouldn't dare run production (or in some cases, even development) environments on anything other than FC or iSCSI. Unfortunately, Thomas Bishop feels that many are missing out. You can read the full article at Scale The Mind.

Besides the fact that the performance is a bit slow (Jive is still working on it) the new VMware Technology Network looks great. If you are familiar with VMware Technology Network (VMTN), you will see all of the functions you have come to know, plus a number of new functions like personal blogs for all community members, collaborative wiki documents, wysiwyg editing of discussions and wiki documents, tagging of all content, improved search, and replying to threads via email. These features are meant to increase the benefits you get from participating in the community. You really should take the quick tour.

Just days after the VMworld 2007 event a lot of company’s released new versions on their software. Alessandro Perilli over at virtualization.info made a nice roundup.

VMware Workstation 6.0.1
Dunes VS-O Lifecycle 1.0
OpenVZ for Linux kernel 2.6.22
PlateSpin PowerRecon 3.1
Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite 5.9
CiRBA Data Center Intelligence 4.4
Surgient VMLA 5.3
Parallels Desktop 3.0 Feature Update