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Cloud Computing and VMware vCloud Director 1.5

2012-02-21T22:17:00.000-05:00

Here's a really good video on Cloud Computing and VMware vCloud Director 1.5. Definitely worth viewing.

~Scott March

EMC IT's Journey to The Private Cloud: VDI (VMware View)

2012-01-17T14:02:00.001-05:00

What is the biggest challenge facing Cloud Computing in 2012?

2012-01-17T12:02:00.000-05:00

Someone on Linkedin asked the Cloud Computing Community the following question: In ONE word, what is the biggest challenge facing Cloud Computing / SaaS in 2012? The question created quite a bit of traffic and debate. I thought it might be fun to remove the duplicates and throw the results into a Word Cloud for you to review.

So how do we address the challenges listed above? Are they really challenges or is it fear of the unknown? What are your thoughts?

Original Forum Thread: Linkedin - Cloud Computing, SaaS & Virtualization

~ Scott March

ATM Machines Go Virtual?

2012-01-03T16:35:00.001-05:00

Diebold has developed the "Virtual ATM Machine". Powered by Cisco UCS and Vmware View, this new and innovative use for VDI technology breaks the traditional VDI mold. VDI is no longer limited to the traditional desktop. This new approach will definitely revolutionize the ATM industry and help offer a better and more cost effective model going forward. Some of the realized benefits for converting the ATM to a zero client are easier centralized servicing, better security, and higher availability. Awesome stuff! Will "ATM as a Service" be the new Cloud buzz word? Maybe.

Another great article on the subject:

http://news.diebold.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=5127

~Scott March

Debunking Cloud Security Myths

2011-11-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

Despite the opportunities made available through cloud computing, security concerns still remain the largest inhibitor to adoption. However, the technology and expertise required to build a trusted cloud is actually more feasible than many may imagine. In this blog, we hope to eliminate the misperceptions that potential customers may have regarding cloud security and help them on their journey to adopting the cloud.

Myth #1: The cloud simply cannot be secure.

There are varying levels of vendor capabilities that make for varying levels of security, but cloud environments absolutely can be secure. The enterprise hybrid cloud is a compelling model to debunk this myth, as hybrid cloud models deliver the same common security standards across both public and private environments, without compromising enterprise-class requirements or cost. In this case, it’s not about choosing a generic security level for the cloud, but rather choosing the right security for your organization’s specific cloud deployment.

Myth #2: Cloud security is a new challenge.

In truth, security concerns aren’t new, they are merely an extension of what’s being dealt with in an organization’s physical infrastructure. Protecting the infrastructure and sensitive data have always been top priorities when it comes to security, and security and governance requirements are the same regardless of physical, virtual or cloud components. In fact, because of virtualization technology, the cloud can even be more secure than one’s physical environment, and an investment in virtual security can provided the needed control and visibility for the cloud.

Myth #3: Compliance equals security.

Many enterprises function under the assumption that if they are certified as compliant, their systems are secure and they don’t have to worry about vulnerabilities to attacks. However, compliance actually only attests to the state of security at a specific moment in time, and equating compliance to security can put your business at risk.

So what does this all mean for you? A cloud deployment that defies these myths is built on trust, which cannot be achieved without control and visibility across the cloud infrastructure, identities and information. To learn more about building a trusted cloud and cloud security, download our new whitepaper with CSO. For future updates, be sure to follow @vCloud and @VMwareSP on Twitter.

Another great article from the VMware vCloud team

New vSphere client for iPad released today

2011-10-17T19:32:00.000-04:00

Today at VMworld Europe 2011 Partner Day, VMware released a new version of their vSphere client for the iPad.

New in version 1.2 of the vSphere client for the iPad is:

vMotion. The feature is available via Host & VM action menus. Virtual machines can also be two-finger flicked/dragged from the Host detail view to enter vMotion mode
Ability to email vMotion validation error details to other
View task progress reporting on VM cards
Ability to refresh vCenter host list
Support for ESX 3.5
Support for VMware vSphere 5.0.

~ Scott March

Cloud Computing (in Plain English)

2011-08-20T22:07:00.005-04:00

cloud-distribution.com did a great job on this video. Fun to watch and informative for audiences that don't know what cloud is.

Cisco, EMC, VMware CEOs discuss the Virtual Computing Environment coalition

2011-08-20T21:43:00.002-04:00

I thought it was interesting to see all three CEOs speak about the VCE Coalition.

New vSphere 5 Web Client

2011-08-17T22:30:00.003-04:00

VMware introduced a totally new WebClient in vSphere 5.0. It allows administrators to do many of thier daily tasks from any browser. This is a great addition to the infrastructure, especially for the Linux guys who have been asking for a Linux client for years. It's also an awesome feature for the OS Platform team without VICs installed !

So what does it look like?

More links on the new vSphere 5 Web Client.

Virtualization for Service Providers

The VS Blog

~ Scott March

VMware changes vRAM licensing model after Customers complain

2011-08-04T07:49:00.001-04:00

VMware changes the vRAM licensing model after customers complained.

VMware:

"We are a company built on customer good will, and we take customer feedback to heart. Our primary objective is to do right by our customers. Therefore, we are announcing three changes to the vSphere 5 licensing model that address the three most recurring areas of customer feedback:

Increased vRAM entitlements for all vSphere editions, including the doubling of the entitlements for vSphere Enterprise and Enterprise Plus.
Capped the amount of vRAM we count in any given VM, so that no VM, not even the "monster" 1TB vRAM VM, would cost more than one vSphere Enterprise Plus license.
Adjusted our model to be much more flexible around transient workloads and short-term spikes that are typical in environments such as test & dev. "

Here are the new vRAM entitlements going forward:

vSphere edition                     Previous vRAM entitlement                          New vRAM entitlement

vSphere Enterprise+             48 GB                                                             96 GB

vSphere Enterprise               32 GB                                                             64 GB

vSphere Standard                  24 GB                                                           32 GB

vSphere Essentials+              24 GB                                                            32 GB

vSphere Essentials                 24 GB                                                           32 GB

Free vSphere Hypervisor       8 GB                                                             32 GB²

Customers have also asked about their use of vSphere for VDI. This has already been addressed with the vSphere Desktop edition. The vSphere Desktop edition does not have any vRAM entitlements; it allows customers to purchase vSphere for VDI use case on a per user basis.

So VMware listens to it's customers. What a refreshing thought....

vRAM Licensing White Paper

~ Scott March

VMware announced the release of VMware vSphere 5.0

2011-07-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

The secrets for vSphere 5.0 have finally been made public so all of us with NDAs no longer need to keep the secrets...LOL! VMware vSphere 5.0 is a game changer. So many new features and enhancements.

Here are just a few:

•Convergence. vSphere 5.0 is the first vSphere release built exclusively on the vSphere ESXi 5.0 hypervisor architecture as the host platform.

•VMware vSphere Auto Deploy. VMware vSphere Auto Deploy simplifies the task of managing ESXi installation and upgrade for hundreds of machines.

•New Virtual machine capabilities. 32-way virtual SMP, 1TB virtual machine RAM, Software support for 3D graphics, and more.

•Expanded support for VMware Tools versions. VMware Tools from vSphere 4.x is supported in virtual machines running on vSphere 5.0 hosts.

•Storage DRS. This feature delivers the DRS benefits of resource aggregation, automated initial placement, and bottleneck avoidance to storage.

•Profile-driven storage. This solution allows you to have greater control and insight into characteristics of your storage resources.

•VMFS5. VMFS5 is a new version of vSphere Virtual Machine File System that offers improved scalability and performance, and provides Internationalization support.

•Storage vMotion snapshot support. Allows Storage vMotion of a virtual machine in snapshot mode with associated snapshots.

•vSphere Web Client. A new browser-based user interface that works across Linux and Windows platforms.

•vCenter Server Appliance. A vCenter Server implementation running on a pre-configured Linux-based virtual appliance.

•vSphere High Availability. VMware High Availability has been transformed into a cloud-optimized availability platform.

Here are a few good links to read more:

What's new in vSphere 5.0 - vmware.com

VMware vSphere 5 Delivers All-in-One Virtualization, Storage Package

~ Scott March

Daily PowerCLI SnipIt - List all WWNs for all HBAs on a host

2011-06-07T23:08:00.000-04:00

Get a list of all WWNs for all HBAs in ESX01.domain.com

Connect-VIServer MYVISERVER

$ESXHost = get-vmhost "ESX01.domain.com" | Get-View
$storageSystem = get-view $ESXHost.ConfigManager.StorageSystem
$storageSystem.StorageDeviceInfo.HostbusAdapter | select Device, Model,
PortWorldWideName, NodeWorldWideName

~ Joe San

Understanding how storage design has a big impact on your VDI

2011-06-06T22:05:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading yet another great article from Ruben Spruijt. He takes you down the dark journey of Storage in a VMware VDI environment. Goes over IOPS and most importantly, covers the pitfalls of OVER SIMPLIFYing your storage design. Give it a read.

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/rubenspruijt/archive/2010/05/02/vdi-and-storage-deep-impact.aspx

Thanks Ruben
~ Scott March

Daily PowerCLI SnipIt - Set the Password for the Root User Account

2011-06-06T21:40:00.000-04:00

Set the password for the Root user account on ESX host ESX01

Connect-VIServer ESX01

Set-VMHostAccount -UserAccount Root -Password NewPA$$word

~ Scott March

Daily PowerCLI SnipIt - Set a VM to have 8 CPUs

2011-06-06T21:27:00.003-04:00

Change current number of vCPUs on testvm01 to Eight vCPUs

Connect-VIServer MYVISERVER

Get-VM testvm01 | Set-VM -NumCpu 8

~ Scott March

Connecticut VMUG Event May 19th

2011-05-16T19:17:00.001-04:00

Join your fellow VMware users for this full-day event including in-depth technical sessions, demonstrations and exhibits. This is a great opportunity to meet with your peers to discuss virtualization trends, best practices, and the latest technology!

Attend VMware sessions on:

VMware View – Reference Architecture
Cloud in the Real World
vShield Manager & Security Management
vCenter Operations Enterprise Management
Cloud Foundry
Transitioning to ESXi – Preparing for v5
Demystifying the Secure Private Cloud
Thin App Deep Dive

Last Chance to Register for the Connecticut VMUG User Conference

Visit the Event Details Page for the full agenda. Be sure to share this meeting information with your colleagues.

All members who register will be automatically entered into a drawing for a FREE one-year VMUG Advantage subscription. Don't miss out on this great opportunity!

New Security Hardening Guide Available for vSphere 4.1

2011-05-01T22:05:00.003-04:00

This document is the official release of the vSphere 4.1 Security Hardening Guide. This version is based on feedback collected during the public draft comment period. It was last updated in April 2011.

vSphere '4.1 Security Hardening Guide

~ Scott March

Reclaiming Thin Disk Space with Storage vMotion and SDelete

2011-05-01T21:32:00.000-04:00

I found a great article by a consultant named Ryan Williams. He explains how to reclaim disk space that was previosly written to with storage vMotion and SDelete.

Two things to remember:

You CAN reclaim space from within a VMDK as long as the blocks haven’t been written to by the OS. Storage vMotion will do this If you move the VM and convert it to Thin.

You CANNOT delete file data inside of a VMDK and reclaim the deleted storage resources at the datastore level. Not natively inside of vSphere anyway. The blocks are written to and need to be "zeroed out"

So how do you reclaim the space? Ryan does a great job covering this topic. Rather than repost the article, I'm going to post the link to his article: Reclaiming Thin Disk Space with Storage vMotion and SDelete

Thanks Ryan

~ Scott March

NewSID Destroys Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 VMs

2011-04-06T09:46:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine just sent me and article on how to change the SID on Windows 2008 and Windows 7 machines. Old faithful newsid.exe no longer works. Sysprep is now built in to the Windows OS. Here's the article:

http://www.brajkovic.info/windows-server-2008/windows-server-2008-r2/how-to-change-sid-on-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2-using-sysprep/

Thanks to Scott Aisenstat for sending me the link

~ Scott March

vBeers - Stamford Connecticut

2011-04-03T23:06:00.003-04:00

Come join us at the first Stamford vBeers get together - This is a great opportunity to meet with other virtualization enthusiasts and professionals and enjoy discussing all things virtualization, and in fact anything else that comes up in conversation… It is not a sponsored event and although vendors are most welcome any sales hats must be left at the door.

Stamford vBeers is held on the first Thursday of every month starting at 6pm. The first vBeers will be May 5th at ‘Tiernan's Bar and Restaurant. Tiernans has a great selection of beers along with soft drinks and some really good food. What more could you ask for?

vBeers is open to everyone so whether you are a VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer user/fan or none of the above it really doesn’t matter as “it’s all about the virtualization”.

See You there.

Location: Tiernan's Bar and Restaurant, Stamford CT
Address: 187 Main Street, Stamford, CT 06901
Date: 05/05/2011
Time: 6:00pm

~ Scott March

Hypervisor Shootout - VMware versus Microsoft HyperV and Citrix Xen.

2011-04-02T17:21:00.000-04:00

A company named Taneja Group did an in depth study benchmarking the performance of the three leading hypervisors.. Their main focus was trying to understand which one offered the best virtual machine densities for various types of workloads. Great job! Rather than reposting it, I'm just going to add the link.

Enjoy:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmware-maximize-workload-density-tg.pdf

I big thanks to the engineers at Taneja.....

~ Scott March

Expanding a Disk on a Windows 2003 VM using Diskpart.

2011-04-02T16:58:00.003-04:00

You know its amazing what you can forget when it's 2am, you just worked 18 hours and your brain is absolute mush. That happened to me last night. LOL! Here you go just in case it happens to you.

To use Diskpart.exe, follow these steps:

1. Open a command prompt by going to Start
Run.

2. Enter diskpart in the Open text box, and press [Enter].

3. At the DISKPART prompt, enter list volume.

4. Enter select volume x, where x is the volume number listed that you want to expand.

5. Enter extend, and press [Enter].

That's it. Just go to the Disk Management snap-in to checkout your new volume. It should now take up the rest of the available space on the drive.

The OS Drive isn't as simple. For that you need a utility like GParted. GParted does require a reboot so make sure you have a maintenance window to make the changes.

Tutorial: GParted Tutorial
Download: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

~ Scott

Daily PowerCLI Primer - Set Storage Multipathing Policy to Round Robin

2011-04-01T16:39:00.001-04:00

Here's a quick script to set multipathing policy to Round Robin on an ESX host named esxhost:

Get-VMHost -Name "esxhost.com" | Get-ScsiLun -LunType "disk" | where {$_.MultipathPolicy –ne "RoundRobin"} | Set-ScsiLun -MultipathPolicy "RoundRobin"

~ Manoj Thundil

VDI for the iPad

2011-03-13T22:26:00.002-04:00

VMware View 4.6 now allows for native PCoIP (PC over IP) connections directly from a View client to their virtual desktop without the need for an SSL VPN. This was not previously possible in earlier View versions where only RDP via SSL was possible.

What does this mean?

From an iPad with the View Client, I can access an external facing link to connect via PCoIP to my virtual desktop.

This open's up a whole new market for VMware and tablet devices.

Here's a great article on the subject: http://blogs.vmware.com

~ Scott March

vCenter Database on a Virtual Machine?

2011-02-09T16:09:00.006-05:00

I keep getting asked if we can run the vCenter database on a virtual machine. The quick answer is yes. There are many benefits that the SQL server can take advantage of if it's configured correctly.

Here's are some great articles on the subject:

http://voiceforvirtual.com/2010/11/23/vcdb-in-vm/
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_vcdb_sql2008.pdf
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/perf_vsphere_sql_scalability.pdf

Another good link on SQL Optimization in a Virtual Environment:

http://www.vmworldz.com/search/label/SQL

I'm typing this while attending a VMware training so I apologize for the brevity.

~ Scott March