VMware - 54

I would like to thank David, Duncan, Jae and Wojtek for all their help regarding the mysterious bug in the VMCDConnected utility. They finally tracked it down to the absence of a CD player in the virtual machine. When such a VM was scanned it resulted in an application errors like “Index was outside the bounds of the array�? and  “Conversion from string to type 'Boolean' is not valid�?. You can find the bug free version under the software menu item of my weblog.

Well they did it.  Mike Laverick, Ron Olgesby and Scott Herold finally have their sample chapters of the upcoming VI3: Advanced Technical Design Guide available for download.  This proves that they aren't sitting around doing absolutely nothing and that they have at least 3 chapters of the whole book done. The book may be downloaded from this site now!

Today Bouke revealed some vvi-world information and created a little teaser. The teaser shows us a guy named Bob who is virtualized. Nothing special you would say, but he lives in the vvi-world. It’s still a great mystery what Bouke Groenescheij over at Jume is going to do with Bob in his vvi-world.

VMware (NYSE: VMW ) today opened for trading on the NYSE under the ticker symbol "VMW".  Diane Greene, President and Chief Executive Officer of VMware, is joined by other co-founders and members of the virtualization leader's executive team as she rings the NYSE's opening bell on August 14, 2007 to celebrate VMware's IPO on the NYSE.

A VMWare cofounder says virtual appliances that run apps alone could threaten operating systems.The virtual appliance model could be a major threat to operating systems from major vendors such as Microsoft Corp., says a cofounder of VMWare Inc. Mendel Rosenblum told an audience at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco last week that a virtual appliance, which bundles a software application with only the operating system code needed to make it run, can then be deployed on a virtualized server regardless of the host operating system. Rosenblum is also chief scientist of virtualization at VMware.

washingtonpost.com

This release of VMware ESX Server offers the following improvements:

• Wyse Multimedia Support can now be installed into compatible guest operating systems using the VMware Tools Installer. Installing Multimedia Support enables supported devices to receive encoded video streams via RDP/ICA. Only Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 guest operating systems are supported when using Wyse Multimedia Support and ESX Server 3.0.2. Please refer to the KB 1001699 for information on installing Wyse Multimedia Support in a supported guest operating system.
• Support for additional backup software from third-party vendors including:
  • CA BrightStor ArcServe 11.5 SP1
  • CommVault Galaxy version 6.1 SP4
  • IBM TSM Storage Agent version 5.3.3
  • Legato NetWorker 7.3.2 Jumbo Update 1
  • Symantec Backup Exec version 11d
  • Veritas NetBackup Exec version 6.0

Continue reading "What's New in the ESX Server 3.0.2 Release" »

Peter van den Bosch over at PQR has created a nice PDF document. The Virtualization capacity sizing and planning solutions feature comparison matrix. This matrix compares the features of the industry’s most popular virtualization sizing and planning products.

Manfred Meier over at ESXGuide has released a new version of the ESX Manager 2.1. The features are :

Virtual Center independent
Keeps track of Virtual Machine Host Registration, Migrations and Status
Manage Virtual Machine Configuration
Display and work in the Virtual Machine Console
Kill Virtual Machine Process (if the VM can't be powered off)
Rename Virtual Disks of registered Virtual Machines
Move Virtual Disks and keep the disk attached to the Virtual Machine
Virtual Machine Registration, Start , Restart , Reset, Power Off, Suspend
Extend Virtual Disks
View-Search-Filter Logfiles on the ESX Host.
Define and save custom SSH commands with Parameter handling
Publish and share custom SSH commands with other ESX Administrators

Veeam Configurator is a Windows application that handles multiple ESX Servers simultaneously. It reports on and allows you to configure the following subsystems:

- Remote root access
- Time synchronization (NTP)
- Patch level (reporting only in this version)

In addition, it allows you to perform diagnostics and run a custom script on multiple ESX Servers (e.g. all servers in a cluster).

When you want to use SftpDrive in combination with your standard back-up software you have to find some way to unlock the flat.vmdk file. Well there is a way and it’s staring you right in the face. The only problem is it isn’t well documented, so it will cost some extra time to figure out how it works. The basis for the unlocking mechanism is the following list of files:

09-03-2007  10:22         827.392 libeay32.dll
09-03-2007  10:22         159.744 ssleay32.dll
09-03-2007  10:29         8.785.920 types.dll
09-03-2007  10:29         1.171.456 vcbSnapshot.exe
09-03-2007  10:29         1.183.744 vcbVmName.exe
09-03-2007  10:29         1.626.112 vmacore.dll
09-03-2007  10:29         1.097.728 vmomi.dll

Continue reading "VMware Consolidated Backup unlocked" »