Recent Articles

VMware Workstation 7 RC is out there

May 4, 2010 Blogs 1 Comment

I just started my copy of VMware Workstation for some vESX testing, and was greeted by this nice message:

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are using the current beta license key, you will want to enter the following license key in VMware Workstation via the Help -> Enter License Key menu: M148Z-H010J-H8T8C-0JAUK-ADM4C  (expires on July 15, 2010).
Key improvements since the VMware Workstation 7.1 Beta include:
• Graphics Get Faster: Improved performance and better compatibility for both DirectX 9 and OpenGL 3D apps
• OVFTool 2: New version of the OVF Tool to import and export OVF packaged virtual machines and upload to vSphere
• Memory Management:  New UI to handle increased virtual memory capacity
• New Guests: Support for Ubuntu 10.04 and RHEL 5.5 added
• Reported Issues: This release candidate also address many of the issues reported via the forums
See the VMware Workstation release notes for more details.
You should try it for yourself, get it here! Here’s a guide to disable debug mode if you’re bugged by it (like me)… By the way, how cool is it this auto-updater in the new versions of Workstation!

Tunneling a vSphere Client connection over SSH

Mar 22, 2010 Blogs 3 Comments

My website is running on a single ESX machine in a remote datacenter somewhere. Because I am hosting the machine myself, I had to do my own routing and firewalling. I solved it by installing a pfSense virtual machine, hooking it up to both an internal and external vSwitch:

This way, my server is secure: both the Service Console as well as the virtual web server are only accessible through the firewall. I’m running OpenVPN on the pfSense machine, so if I need access to the internal subnet, I fire up OpenVPN. Sometimes, however, I don’t have the OpenVPN software running on the PC I’m working on, so I cannot access the Service Console and/or the web server.

A cool little solution for this is to use SSH tunneling. I connect to a third machine which is accessible through the Internet (runs a SSH daemon) and is able to connect to 10.10.100.2, the Service Console IP address. By configuring PuTTY to do some magic for us, I am able to connect my vSphere Client to my ESX server securely, without publishing my ESX-host to the world.

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Veeam announces SureBackup

Mar 22, 2010 Blogs 1 Comment

Today, Veeam announced SureBackup. It’s an automated framework to do verification of your backups. It ensures reliability of the backup. It enhances the granularity of restoration.

How does it work?

The way Veeam does backups does not change with this introduction. Veeam still does image-level backups of complete Virtual Machines. This is flexible because it is Guest OS and application agnostic, portable and really simple, because it does not use any application integration using agents. This, of course, is also a major downer: it doesn’t integrate well with rare or home-grown apps. Neither does it backup data twice (once for image-level, once for agent based backups).

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Announcing End of Availability for VMware Consolidated Backup

Feb 24, 2010 Blogs 5 Comments

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 7 Comments

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 Leave a comment

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 8 Comments

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 3 Comments

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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Recommended Detailed Material on RDM’s

Jan 24, 2010 Blogs 15 Comments

I’ve been meaning to dig into something technical for a long time as a more than welcome change in daily routine. I’ve been on the hunt for a new house (in Utrecht), have been busy with the VMware Enterprise Solution Provider partnership and did a complete rebuild of my internal Lab Manager environment. Also, I’m beginning my preparations for the VCDX Design Exam (which I’m going to take at the end of February). A couple of months ago, I visited the subject of RDM’s from a different angle (link), but now I wanted to give a more complete report on the matter.

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My Mobile Lab: @Baglab

Jan 23, 2010 Blogs 4 Comments

Besides the two Labs I have at work, I’ve gotten myself a new laptop to use as a lab-inbetween-home-and-work-lab.

Hypervisor Lab @Work

Two Dell PowerEdge T605 (see my previous post)

Lab Manager @Work

We’re running Lab Manager on three Dell PowerEdge 1950′s (16GB RAM, dual core Xeon’s) and a Dell/EMC AX150i with 12×500 GB SATA. Nothing really fancy, but an adequate solutions for our training and testing purposes.

Mobile Lab @Bag

A brand new Dell Latitude E6500

  • Intel Core 2 Duo P9700
  • 8GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM (2x 4GB)
  • 250GB SATA-II HDD 7200RPM
  • 15.4″ Wide Screen WUXGA (1920×1200) 2CCFL
  • Mobile Intel GMA X4500HD
  • Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11 a/g/n 1X2) 1/2 MiniCard with Centrino label
  • US/Int – Internal Qwerty LED Backlight Keyboard
  • 6 Cell 54WHr LI-ION Primary Battery
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (x64, English)
  • 8x DVD+/RW Drive

I’m planning to replace the DVD-drive with an caddy with an Intel 80GB SSD:

I will be replacing the HDD with the SSD, and placing the HDD in the modular bay. The SSD will run my OS, applications and VM’s, as well as an iSCSI Target (to connect vESX VM’s to shared storage). The HDD will be use to place music, pictures, movies and application installation media (like ESX ISO’s).
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