Archive for February, 2010

Announcing End of Availability for VMware Consolidated Backup

Feb 24, 2010 Blogs

Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy, this is the best day since I know what VCB is! Finally, it’s being retired!

Dear Valued Customer,

The purpose of this letter is to inform you of our vSphere backup product strategy, ongoing enhancements, and end of availability plans for VMware Consolidated Backup.

VMware Backup Product Strategy
VMware released vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) with the vSphere 4.0 release in May, 2009. VADP is the next generation of VMware’s backup framework. We have also been working with several backup partners to integrate VADP into their solutions to make backup of vSphere Virtual Machines fast, efficient and easy to deploy compared to VCB and other backup solutions. Several of our major backup partners have already released VADP integrated backup products and we expect most of the major backup partners to have VADP integrated backup software by the upcoming feature release of the vSphere platform in 2010.

Future Product Licensing
Given the strong interest and adoption of VADP by our backup eco-system and the benefits offered by VADP compared to VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB), we are announcing the End of Availability for VCB starting with next vSphere feature release in 2010. Starting with the next vSphere platform feature release, VCB will be removed from vSphere platform. VADP integrated backup products (including VMware Data Recovery) will be the recommended option for efficient backup and restoration of vSphere Virtual Machines. This will allow us to focus new value added feature development on VADP instead of two backup frameworks (VCB and VADP). You can find more information about the use of vStorage APIs for Data Protection in our Developer Community. For information on the availability of VADP integrated release of your backup product please contact your backup vendor.

End of Availability
With the release of the next vSphere platform, we will continue to provide the binaries for VCB, but they will not be compatible with the next platform release. We will continue to provide support for VCB on the current vSphere platform per the VMware support policy.

If you need assistance in the migration from VMware Consolidated Backup to the vStorage APIs for Data Protection, please contact your local reseller or storage backup vendor.

Best regards,
VMware Product Management

VMware VCDX Design Exam Preparation Resources

Feb 22, 2010 Blogs

I’ve been preparing for the Design exam portion of VCDX for the last couple of days. Tomorrow is D-day for me! Meanwhile, some tweeps asked my what materials I used to prepare. Well, here you go:

Obviously, use the VMware VCDX Community Documents and the VCDX Design Exam Blueprint. I’ve read ‘Mastering vSphere 4′ by Scott Lowe, which is a nice addition on some of the details on vSphere. Only read if you’ve got the time, it weighs in at a hefty 700 pages.

The absolutely most valuable resources for me were:

Also, these were nice to read:

The usual linkage on the blogs show some other useful documents, too:

As I’m a bit rusty on iSCSI, I’ve read up on those as well. Remember that the VCDX Design exam is on VI3.5, not vSphere, so these might not apply!

Specifically, I was also interested in the way Dell/EQL handles iSCSI

Creating templates of nested ESXi in VMware Workstation 7

Feb 15, 2010 Blogs

Digging deeper into templates and linked clones in VMware Workstation, we can create templates of ESX and ESXi. Using the previous post as a basis for the ESX template, it’s relatively simple:

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VMware Workstation 7 and Templates/Linked Clones

Feb 15, 2010 Blogs

In my earlier post, I described how I use my laptop as a mobile server. One of the optimizations I’ve applied is the use of templates and linked clones within VMware Workstation 7. Using templates and linked clones gives you a couple of advantages:

  • Saves you time: no need to install the Guest OS every time you need a clean virtual machine.
  • Saves you disk space: the template takes up the normal amount of disk space, as it contains the complete Guest OS. The linked clone only takes up a relatively small amount of disk space, as it contains only the changed data.

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More on my home lab

Feb 14, 2010 Blogs

My home lab isn’t actually some server that I’ve got lying around. As I’m on the road a lot, I need to have my VMs with me at all times. That’s why I came up with the ‘bag lab’. A laptop mobile enough to carry around with me on a day-to-day basis, but powerful enough to provide me with the resources to build a complete VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager setup (which requires 5x Windows 2003, 2x ESX, 2x NetApp Sim) on the laptop.

As I explained earlier, the machine I’ve chosen is a Dell Latitude E6500. While maxed out specifications-wise, I’ve even added some extra tricks, like the SSD and the tray to accommodate the second hard drive. I’ve used this laptop for a few weeks now, and I’m thoroughly impressed. I’ll try to explain how I’ve organized the OS, applications and various types of data to my liking, as well as experiences with the weight & size while on the road.

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