VMware Blogs

Workstation Zealot: Google Chrome OS running on VMware Workstation!!!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:22:47 +0000

The Google Chrome OS source was released by Google yesterday and the rockstars at gdgt.com have compiled it and released a VMware virtual machine to make it easy for VMware Workstation and VMware Player users to give it a try. You can get a copy of the VM by registering on their site:

http://discuss.gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/general/Download-Chrome-OS-VMWare-image/

After downloading the virtual machin and have uncompressed:

Create a new "custom" virtual machine and use the defaults with the following exceptions

Choose "I will install the OS later."
Select "Other" and "Other Linux Kernal 2.6" for the guest operating system (you can bet that we will be adding Google Chrome OS to the list soon)...
Add memory - I set my VM to use 1 GB (randomly chosen).
Use Bridged Networking.
On the Select a Disk screen, select "use an existing virtual disk and browse for the .vmdk that you downloaded and decompressed.
I chose NOT to convert the disk format to the newest format.

After completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard and starting the VM, you should see the following screen.

The username and password needed to login to Chrome OS / Chromium OS is your Google account!

Have fun!

Note: We have had reports of failures to login from behind a proxy server. The error that is displayed is "Network not connected and offline login fail"

Obviously, VMware Tools are not yet available, so you can expect the mouse to be a little jumpy, but it is useable!

Uptime: VMware Data Recovery and File Level Restore

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:48:37 +0000

Today we released an updated version of VMware Data Recovery (VDR) – we have been working hard on this release for the past few months and we think it moves the needle significantly forward. Get more information about the updated VDR release here.

So, what are the highlights of this updated release of VDR?

Support for backing up Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 virtual machines (requires upgrading to vSphere 4.0 Update 1)
Customization of the VDR parameters such as how frequent integrity check and reclaim operations run, maximum concurrent backups allowed and disabling any file level restore operations.
The VDR virtual appliance is now a HW7 virtual machine and runs 64-bit CentOS 5.2 as the guest OS.

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However, the most obvious change is the addition of a new File Level Restore (FLR) client for Windows virtual machines – this is the fully supported version of the FLR client to allow granular restore of individual files. This new functionality complements the full virtual machine restore capability that has been available since VDR 1.0.

Let's do a quick walk through of the new FLR client. I installed the FLR client directly on the desktop of one of my Windows virtual machines and have accessed it via a console connection. Double clicking on the FLR client icon will launch it.

The first thing you will need to do is to log in to the VDR appliance. By default, you log in via standard mode and the VDR appliance will display only the restore points that match the universally unique identifier (UUID) for the virtual machine that the FLR is being executed from. You can also login via advanced mode, whereby all restore points for all protected virtual machines will be presented by the VDR appliance.

Beyond the number of restore points presented, the operation of the FLR client is identical in either mode. The use case for the standard mode is for individual users to perform self serve restores while the advanced mode is typically used by vSphere administrators to restore batches of files to different virtual machines.

Once logged in to the VDR appliance, you are presented with the various restore points. Highlighting a restore point and selecting Mount will mount the point in time copy of the virtual machine’s disk(s).

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VDR will mount the restore point as a read only directory – note the directory with the identical date and time stamp below.

Once the restore point is mounted, you can open up the directory, browse to the file that needs to be restored and drag/drop the file to another location. Note that multiple restore points can be concurrently mounted.

Once the restore operation is complete, close out the FLR client and the restore points will be automatically dismounted.

vSphere PowerCLI Blog: PowerCLI 4.0 U1 is out!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:18:32 +0000

Tonight we released PowerCLI 4.0 U1. This release contains more than 60 new cmdlets as well as greatly improved performance, a new feature to make it easy to manage multiple ESX or vCenter servers from a single window and much, much more. We’ve also put our cmdlet reference online. Watch this space over the next few days for demo videos but in the meantime don’t forget to download and give it a try.

VMware vSphere Blog: vShield Zones - Get those blog entries in!

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:30:26 +0000

You have 2 days until our deadline. Get those entries in for your chance at $100.

VMware Communities Blog: User Experience Status

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:42:21 +0000

Work is currently underway to make some improvements and fixes to the user experience on VMware Communities following the recently launched new site design. Most of these improvements are in response to requests made at Communities Website Feedback, and based on those requests, we've prioritized the following list (highest priority first):

Errors when editing documents: Can no longer edit documents?
Display avatars on threads:
1. Avatars (status level, vExpert, moderator, VMware employee) will display in threads; currently they display only on community pages
Display helpful / correct answers in threads: Cannot tell what replies are marked correct or helpful.
1. Answers marked helpful / correct will display in the threads; currently they only display on community pages
IE6 errors on "All Communities" dropdowns: in IE 6 "all communities" dropdown is not clickable
Make new private messages easier to find: Notification of PMs
1. The username menu title will be bold when the user has unread private messages.
Wider view area for threads: Please make the thread posting area wider!
1. We are working on some JavaScript so that you can expand the thread view to cover the right column. This gives 30% more area to view threads while allowing us to keep the fixed width, which allows us to provide more consistency for the site across browsers and display sizes.
Truncated names: Shortened logins on forum
1. Names will still be truncated on community pages, but they will not be truncated in places where there's plenty of space to show the whole name, e.g. on user profile pages.

In addition to this, we are also working on bringing back the "My Communities" dropdown. This requires a bit more work than the other improvements above, so we will work on it after we have completed the bulk of the above list.

I'll update here as we deploy the fixes.

Thanks, Robert

vSphere PowerCLI Blog: “Project Onyx” is here.

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:14:12 +0000

A few months ago we announced a very exciting new application we call “Project Onyx”. To put it simply, Project Onyx is a script recorder for vSphere Client. Since then my inbox has been flooded with requests from all over the world from people wanting to try Onyx. At long last we’ve released our first public alpha.

Here’s a video that shows a quick demo of using the alpha build. You can also go straight to the download.

There are two things to note when you’re using Onyx. First, the code Onyx generates makes heavy use of direct API calls rather than PowerCLI cmdlets. So even if you use Onyx to power on a VM, instead of using the Start-VM cmdlet it will use the API’s PoweronMultiVM_Task. To put it another way Onyx is best for automating things that can’t be automated using native PowerCLI cmdlets.

Second, you will need to edit scripts that Onyx produces in order to turn them into reusable code. The code Onyx produces today includes a lot of parameters that are very specific to the object you select and have to be refactored or removed. I’ll expand on this subject in later posts. Still Onyx makes it a lot easier than poring through API documentation.

VROOM!: Performance Study of VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:48:55 +0000

vStorage Thin Provisioning, a key component of VMware vSphere™, is a technology that redefines storage provisioning by allocating space on demand to the virtual disks. We recently published a paper that gives the details of this feature and discusses experiments conducted to study the performance of thin-provisioned disks in a VMware vSphere™ environment.

The data we have collected reveals

Both thin and thick disks perform similarly on various workloads.
Thin provisioned disks show similar performance trends as thick disks do when scaled across different hosts.
External fragmentation has negligible impact on the performance of thin provisioned disks.
There is insignificant performance impact on existing thick disks if thin provisioning is implemented on a shared array.

The above graph shows that the performance of a thin provisioned disk matches the performance of a thick disk. For more details on the environment of these tests and the experiments conducted we invite you to read the full whitepaper at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_thinprov_perf.pdf.

VMware Knowledge Base Blog: Understanding Snapshots in VMware ESX

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:46:32 +0000

One aspect of virtual machines that often leads to confusion is the snapshot. What is a snapshot? How do snapshots work? What products use the snapshot feature? What files are involved in snapshots?

These questions and more are all discussed in the new Knowledgebase article: Understanding virtual machine snapshots in VMware ESX. This is a fairly big topic so many links are provided to other relevant information.

VMware Knowledge Base Weekly Digest: New articles published for week ending 11/15009

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:53:54 +0000

VMware Fusion
Creating a custom virtual machine in Fusion (1013810)
Date Published: 11/11/2009
VMware vCenter Orchestrator
vCenter Orchestrator fails to install when Terminal Server is running (1015658)
Date Published: 11/13/2009
VMware vCenter Update Manager
Cannot scan ESX hosts after using Update Manager to upgrade to ESX 4.0 (1014760)
Date Published: 11/10/2009

VMTN Blog: Top 5 Planet V12n blog posts week 46

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:23:43 +0000

It was a normal week again. No exciting announcements just business as usual. Luckily there are always bloggers who publish articles with refreshing views, new technical details or old technical details overhauled. It wasn't difficult to pick this weeks top-5, each article I selected stands out for a specific reason, read them and you know what I mean:

Frank Denneman - NFS and IP-HASH loadbalancing
The result of this calculation is 1 (one) The VMkernel chooses the second uplink because it has the same binary representation of the Hash. Hereby balancing outbound NFS traffic across the two uplinks. Using IP-Hash to load-balance is a excellent choice, but you do need to fulfill certain technical requirements to get it supported by VMware and plan your IP-address scheme accordingly to get the most out of this load-balancing Policy.
Steve Chambers - The end is nigh for Protocol Passionistas
In the IT world you meet professionals (small p) who have grasped hold of technologies and defend them like their (professional) life depended on it. You don’t have to look far for this in virtualization with VDI desktop protocols (ICA vs. RDP vs. PCoIP etc) or storage protocols (NFS vs. iSCSI vs. FC). Just walk around any data center with one of these professionals and ask them “Why did you choose ” and it’s like you are asking why they chose their wife, like there’s some kind of inferred criticism, like questions and inquisitiveness are bad. Why is this? When the defensive attitude is related to protocols, I negatively refer to these professionals as Protocol Passionistas.
Jason Boche - Tame Electrical and Heating Costs with CPU Power Management
A casual Twitter tweet about my power savings through the use of VMware Distributed Power Management (DPM) found its way to VMware Senior Product Manager for DPM, Ulana Legedza, and Andrei Dorofeev. Ulana was interested in learning more about my situation. I explained how VMware DPM had evaluated workloads between two clustered vSphere hosts in my home lab, and proceeded to shut down one of the hosts for most of the month of October, saving me more than $50 on my energy bill. Ulana and Andrei took the conversation to the next level and asked me if I was using vSphere’s Advanced CPU Power Management feature (See vSphere Resource Management Guide page 22). I was not, in fact I was unaware of its existence. Power Management is a new feature in ESX(i)4 available to processors supporting Enhanced Intel SpeedStep or Enhanced AMD PowerNow! power management technologies.
Maish Saidel-Keesing - Patching your ESXi Host – Without vCenter
VMware Update Manager is the Enterprise tool for Patching your ESX Hosts and for some also the tool used to patch your Windows / Linux Guests as well. This is all fine and dandy, but what is you do not have all of your ESXi hosts connected to your vCenter? Why would you so that – you may ask? Well in my environment, we have several labs that are running their Environment on a ESXi Whitebox,with the free ESXi License.
Simon Long - Testing Network throughput between VMware ESX Hosts
Have you ever wanted to check your Network throughput between your ESX Hosts? or even between VM’s? Well I needed to do this, and I couldn’t find any straight forward how-to’s. Having been pointed in the direction of a simple application called IPerf by Simon Gallagher I opted to use the Windows version. I’m not great with Linux, and as this is an open source application, documentation is a little hard to come by. So for me, this post is also to remind me how on IPerf works should i need to use it again.

VMware vSphere Blog: Tell Me More About vShield Zones

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:31:47 +0000

VMware vShield Zones, a new security service for vSphere, ensures strict compliance with security policies and industry regulations for user data as customers adopt cloud computing with virtual environments for increased efficiency and flexibility. Previously, compliance required diverting network traffic to external physical appliances resulting in disconnected ‘islands’ of infrastructure. With VMware vShield Zones, customers can now create logical zones in the virtual datacenter that span all of the shared physical resources, and each zone represents a distinct level of trust and confidentiality. This allows businesses to comply with corporate security policies and regulations on data privacy while still running applications efficiently on shared computing resource pools.

Traditional security products, such as firewall appliances, require that all network activity pass through a handful of fixed physical locations in order to be monitored. Virtualized applications, in contrast can be migrated between physical hosts for higher resource efficiency and improved uptime. Therefore, companies virtualizing security sensitive applications faced the choice of either leveraging virtualization capabilities such as live migration for optimal load balancing and availability, or enforcing strict security compliance. To solve that dilemma, most customers ended up dividing their virtual environments into smaller, less efficient clusters for areas such as their Internet-facing demilitarized zones (DMZ’s) or consumer credit data processing systems subject to Payment Card Industry regulations. VMware vShield Zones enables customers to create security zones within enterprises or in multi-tenant cloud infrastructures, where security policies are enforced even as virtual machines dynamically migrate between hardware devices. Deployed as a virtual appliance and integrated into vCenter Server, vShield Zones makes it easy to centrally manage and enforce compliance with security policies across large pools of servers and virtual machines. Built-in auditing capabilities make compliance straightforward and verifiable.

As an example, today you send network traffic to an external Network IDS/IPS box which becomes a chokepoint. With this feature all that traffic can be handled internal to the virtual infrastructure. Similarly, there is also the capability for packet/protocol monitoring to be on the alert for SQL insertion or other data oriented attacks. By combining multiple layers of the security “onion” within the virtual infrastructure you can more easily pass security and compliance audits will eliminating much of the costs associated with these activities.

Learn more about vShield Zoners at http://www.vmware.com/products/vshield-zones/overview.html

The Console: Where Did the “Boxes” Go?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:50:27 +0000

Posted by Rick Jackson
Chief Marketing Officer

At VMworld 2009 this past September, we rolled out an updated VMware logo as a predecessor to our overall re-branding efforts. The obvious change that most people saw and commented on was the absence of the “bug” – that part of the logo that is not our company name. I.e., “Where did the boxes go?”

The original VMware logo that contained the boxes, formally referred to as the rings, first appeared in 1999, and symbolized multiple virtual machines. It was simple, and yet incredibly descriptive. The concept of isolated, multiple machines running in a single environment has had an obvious impact on the landscape of IT.

Now, as we look at our current offerings based on vSphere, and our vision of delivering the infrastructure for unrestrained cloud computing, the image we are portraying to the market has evolved. In fact, our message embodies the notion of freeing IT from the constraints of physical resources. Our vision talks to a common infrastructure fabric that spans IT, from the desktop, thru the datacenter, and to the cloud. In short, our message and our vision transcend the idea of boundaries, and extend beyond the box. What was both a useful and familiar logo element for our first decade at VMware, now compromises the underlying tone of our message. In fact, every branding firm we engaged with during this process recommended this change, based purely on how we described VMware and what we do.

We also decided that the use of a bug with our logo was not necessary. We believe that VMware, our valued and respected company name, stands on its own. Making a change of this nature is something that deserves considerable contemplation and consideration. But in the end, we felt it was the right thing to do. It is a recognition of the evolving value that VMware continues to bring to the market. And it is now up to us to illustrate the transformative value that VMware represents, in everything we do. I.e., manage our brand.

VMware vSphere Blog: Winner of Cycle 4 on Thin Provisioning!

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:17:56 +0000

Congratulations to Scott Sauer. He is the winner of our fourth cycle of the vSphere blog contest.

His entry is shown below and can also be found at:

http://www.virtualinsanity.com/index.php/2009/10/12/get-thin-provisioning-working-for-you-in-vsphere/

Get Thin Provisioning working for you in vSphere

October 12th, 2009 | Author: Scott Sauer

Goto comments Leave a comment

Going Thin and not looking back.

Yes, I am slowly losing my hair like
many other aging men out there, but
it wouldn’t be virtual insanity if I were
blogging about my personal male
pattern baldness issues. With the latest release of
VMware vSphere comes a lot of new features and functionality that can be leveraged to make our lives easier. One of these features, that I personally have been looking forward to for a while, is Thin Provisioning. If you aren’t familiar with this technology, jump over to

Gestalt IT for a great explanation of what it is and how it works.

One of the exciting promises of thin provisioning, is getting more “bang for your buck” out of the expensive enterprise storage you have been investing in for your ESX environment. But, as Bret Michael’s once said, “Every rose has its thorn” and there are some things to look out for and considerations to make, before implementing thin disk technologies.

Efficiencies are great if they work right and don’t over

complicate the environment.

Do your homework and make sure you understand the characteristics of the virtual machine that you are considering migrating into a thin disk configuration. The last thing you want to do is convert every VM to thin disk, and four months down the road all of your data stores are filling up and you’re scrambling for a storage CAPEX. Some people are of the opinion to do thin provisioning either on the host side (VMware) or on the storage array side, but not both. Take a gander at Chad Sakac’s blog that discusses thin on thin and some thoughts around each of these approaches. I’m not going to go into all of the pluses and minuses of thin provisioning but rather focus on how to make it work for you.

Coffee Talk

So now that we have some of the basics out of the way, I wanted to share my thoughts on thin provisioning. Like many organizations, we get requests from our customers that err on the side of caution. They want to plan for the worse case and ensure that their project and/or application isn’t setup for failure. I don’t blame them really, I do it myself all the time when I make coffee at home. I always end up making more coffee than I typically drink, just in case I might need that extra charge. The best way to do that is pad it, request more than what you might really need, just in case something comes up down the road. Virtual machine disk storage in some cases fits this same profile. If my coffee maker granted me access to hot coffee on demand, I would stop making extra coffee. Thin disks can give your end users that capacity on demand so you can gain control of the padding effect that typically takes place in most corporate organizations.

Take it back…

So now you have done your research, you’re starting to get a feel for what this thin stuff is and how it might play out in your shop. It’s go time. If you’re a smaller VMware customer, you probably already have an idea of what are good target disks to convert. If you’re a larger environment, it might be a little more difficult to gauge where the bloated pigs are hiding.

I worked at GE for a couple of years and was exposed to some of the Six Sigma methodologies they preach as well as practice. Sounds boring, right? Not really. You can really leverage DMAIC for a lot of IT related problems/issues/projects. You don’t have to take it to the extreme, use the framework to help guide you on your quest:

DMAIC

The DMAIC project methodology has five phases:

Define high-level project goals and the current process.

Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.

Analyze the data to verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what the relationships are and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.

Improve or optimize the process based upon data analysis using techniques like Design of experiments.

Control to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, move on to production, set up control mechanisms and continuously monitor the process.

We have already defined our project goals and what we are trying to accomplish. We need a good “Measure” tool to really find where we might benefit from thin provisioning. Powershell is a great tool that most VMware administrators use, or have at least heard of. So this was the first place I turned to for assistance.

Alan Renouf of “Virtu-AL” http://www.virtu-al.net/ gave me a hand in writing the powershell script needed. (Thanks again, Alan!). Alan already had a one liner script to produce a list of vm’s, their disks assigned, and how much data each disk was consuming. I needed the ability to see this data outside a powershell window and be able to analyze it in a better format. We have a decent-sized VMware environment and exporting this out to a .csv for analysis is extremely helpful. Here is the script!

************************************************************************

# Set the Filename for the exported data
$Filename = "C:\VMDisks.csv"

Connect-VIServer MYVIServer

$AllVMs = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine
$SortedVMs = $AllVMs | Select *, @{N="NumDisks";E={@($_.Guest.Disk.Length)}} | Sort NumDisks -Descending

$VMDisks = @()
ForEach ($VM in $SortedVMs){
$Details = New-object PSObject
$Details | Add-Member -Name Name -Value $VM.name -Membertype NoteProperty
$DiskNum = 0
Foreach ($disk in $VM.Guest.Disk){
$Details | Add-Member -Name "Disk$($DiskNum)path" -MemberType NoteProperty -Value $Disk.DiskPath
$Details | Add-Member -Name "Disk$($DiskNum)Capacity(MB)" -MemberType NoteProperty -Value ([math]::Round($disk.Capacity/ 1MB))
$Details | Add-Member -Name "Disk$($DiskNum)FreeSpace(MB)" -MemberType NoteProperty -Value ([math]::Round($disk.FreeSpace / 1MB))
$DiskNum++
}
$VMDisks += $Details
Remove-Variable Details
}
$VMDisks | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation $Filename

***********************************************************************

So now that you have this great spreadsheet, you can do all sorts of crazy sorting and reporting, within Excel. Take some time on phase 3, “Analyze” what you’re seeing. Talk to your VM stakeholders to see how things might be changing from their perspective. Try to plan for the surprises and position yourself accordingly.

Next is the “Improve” phase of DMAIC (see it’s easy!). This is the part where you actually do the work. It’s time to start leveraging the storage VMotion API’s, and reclaim some of that unused disk.

Select the target VM in the VC client.
Right click on the VM and select the option “Migrate”.
Select the option “Change Datastore”.
Select the destination, or click advanced if you are targeting one particular disk.
Select “Thin provisioned format”.
Select Finish.

Rinse and Repeat for the rest of that spreadsheet you have worked so hard on.

The last phase of DMAIC is “Control”. This is one of the most important pieces to thin provisioning in my opinion. At the minimum you need to setup Virtual Center alerts to monitor when your datastores are approaching critical levels. You can’t implement thin disks in your vSphere environment and walk away. The smart people over at VMware have given us the ability to monitor datastore disk space usage and over-allocation with the latest release of Virtual Center. Setup your monitors so you are e-mailed when some of these thin disks begin to grow and you need to take some action.

Eric Gray of VMware takes this to the next level, check out his blog post on utilizing powershell to prevent datastore emergencies. My personal approach to this concept is to setup a “hotspare” datastore for your environment. A good practice to implement here would be to try reclaiming enough storage from your migrations to thin disks to free-up a “hot spare datastore”. Implementing an automated recovery solution like Eric’s will help you sleep easier at night. Worried about what might happen if your script doesn’t work or you do hit the perfect storm and end up with a full VMFS volume? Intelligence has been built into vSphere to automatically pause the virtual machines, impressive. Check out Eric’s video:

Wrapping it all up

Thin disk provisioning is a great feature that you should consider leveraging in your environment. With some forward thinking and best practices you can achieve higher ROI for your ESX storage. VMware vSphere offers the ability for you to migrate from thick to think with no downtime, so you can begin reclaiming storage on the fly. Keep it simple, start out with a high level analysis of your infrastructure. Identify the candidates that are a good fit and worth focusing on. Setup your alerts on the datastores as soon as you migrate your first virtual machine so you are protecting yourself from problems down the road. Consider taking automated actions if your datastores are reaching critical thresholds.

I hope you found this article helpful, good luck!

Scott Sauer

VMware ThinApp Blog: ThinApp Side-by-Side Updating Video

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:43:39 +0000

Here's a quick and (somewhat) dirty video of the ThinApp Side-by-Side Updating feature used for updating deployed ThinApp packaged apps - typically ones deployed to or accessed from LAN Workstations, View Desktops, or even Terminal Servers. This feature enables updating of the packaged applications - even while they are in use.

NOTE: Click the FULL SCREEN option to view a larger, more detailed image.

VMware Support Alerts: Planned Maintenance on November 15

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:28:08 +0000

VMware will be performing a system upgrade to several VMware Web applications on November 15, 2009. Maintenance will begin at 5:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) and end at approximately 9:00 a.m. PST.

While this upgrade is in progress, you will be unable to:

Access or manage your VMware account
Submit support requests online
Download, purchase or register VMware products Manage VMware product licenses.

If you need to file a support request while the upgrade is in progress, call VMware Technical Support for assistance.

We appreciate your patience during this maintenance period. These system upgrades are part of our commitment to continued service improvements and will help VMware better serve your needs.

VMware Knowledge Base Blog: vCenter Client in Windows 7

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:46:10 +0000

Ever Since Windows 7 has come out we've been seeing a lot of customer interest in running the vSphere Client on it. The same goes for Windows 2008 R2. The trouble is, Microsoft changed the .Net loading mechanism in these releases, breaking our vSphere Client.

We have just posted a Knowledgebase article which outlines how to deal with this change and make the client work.

One caveat: watch for the warning that one of the workarounds is not officially supported.

Read: Cannot launch vSphere Client after installing in Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 (1011329).

The Console: Brand – Holistic and Consistent

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:47:37 +0000

Posted by Rick Jackson
Chief Marketing Officer

VMware has now passed the decade mark, and created what is arguably one of the most important brands in software. In this case, I am simply referring to the name of our company as the brand. It is incredible how well recognized we are amongst our primary target buyer – the IT audience.

As we look forward to what we want to accomplish in the next decade, we decided that it was time to pump up the whole essence of the VMware brand. And in this case, I am referring to the brand identity – the collection of attributes and image that our overall brand experience delivers to our target audiences. Without going into the science of brand, of which there is plenty of expert and scientific research, I’d like to reflect one simple, country boy view. (For the record, I was born in Nashville, Tennessee, thus the “country boy” reference. Having spent most of my life in CA, I may or may not be entitled to this reference!)

Our approach to brand is holistic, encompassing the image, voice and tone of VMware, all wrapped around a set of core messages that set up our value proposition. Thus our starting point was one of energy… “Energize the business through IT, while saving energy – financial, human, and the earth’s.” (See my blog on “Energize and Save – Standing Out in a Crowd”.)

Before

With that core message defined, we needed the other elements – image and tone – to reflect that message. Consistency is key. It all has to re-enforce what we want to get across, and not compromise the essence of who we are, and how we best present ourselves. This is why we are excited to bring an updated look, tone, and message to market in a cohesive package.

The first thing you’ll notice is that our color palette is considerably more vibrant. We specifically chose a wide range of cool to warm colors in tones that complement each other, in order to give us the flexibility to be creative in our execution. But the differentiating image that manifests itself throughout our creative execution is the use of the color prisms. A simple idea manifested through our creative execution – VMware solutions simplify the underlying complexity. For example, in some of our treatments you’ll see a reveal – a corner of a piece pealed back to show the underlying complexity illustrated as a grid of color prisms. In other words, the surface is simple and clear, but the underlying infrastructure is complex and diverse.

After

As part of our comprehensive brand redesign, we have also updated our logo. I will talk about this in more depth in my next post.

Brighter, bolder, more energetic. That was the goal of the image redesign. With our rapid growth and expansion, it has been difficult in the past to manage a consistent brand. But now we are entering a stage of our company lifecycle where increasing the depth of relationship with our customers, partners, and broader ecosystem is critical to our ongoing success. Where maintaining leadership visibility across multiple audiences will keep us in a position of strength. This evolution dictates that we become more aware and protective of our complete brand, and thus the perception of VMware everywhere.

VMware ThinApp Blog: ThinApp 101; Differences between the Isolation Modes

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:15:08 +0000

Since understanding what the Isolation Modes will do to your package and the differences between them is essentials to be successful with ThinApp I put together a whiteboard video. I hope you find it useful.

VMware vSphere Blog: Change to vSphere Blog Contest Schedule

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:50:00 +0000

Cycle 6 of the contest (starting 11/30 and ending 12/11) will now focus on the Nexus 1000V product for use with vSphere rather than ESXi.

VMware vSphere Blog: The Start of Cycle 5 - vShield Zones

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:36:21 +0000

This week starts the 5th cycle of our vSphere Blog Contest. Over the next two weeks we will be highlighting VMware vShield Zones (http://www.vmware.com/products/vshield-zones/). vShield Zones simplifies application security by enforcing corporate security policies at the application level in a shared environment, while still maintaining trust and network segmentation of users and sensitive data.

Get those blog entries going and enter by next Friday (11/20) for your chance to win!

VMware ThinApp Blog: ThinApp 4.0.4 is released!

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:44:47 +0000

Please make sure you download our latest release. More information: http://www.vmware.com/support/thinapp4/doc/releasenotes_thinapp404.html

The Console: Energize and Save – Standing Out in a Crowd

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:07:03 +0000

Posted by Rick Jackson
Chief Marketing Officer

When a company grows as rapidly as VMware has, you know there is real value being delivered to customers. One of the challenges we faced at VMware was how best to articulate our core value proposition, when there were just so many great things to talk about. This was a classic exercise in defining the Point That Matters, the core reason why your customers buy from you. (The Point That Matters is a phrase I borrow from Zoom Marketing, our trusted partner during this process.)

This exercise was a combination of examining our own internal view of our value proposition, compared to an external view shared by our customers, partners, and industry analysts, all of which were quite familiar with VMware and its solutions. Through this exercise, we heard some not so surprising things, but with a few twists that really made us think about our positioning.

For example, most people immediately think of cost savings as the primary benefit of virtualization. While cost savings is definitely a factor in driving organizations to initiate a virtualization journey, it was not the pinnacle of value that was obtained. In fact, those customers that had pursued more aggressive virtualization adoption were most excited by the achievement of flexibility within their IT environments, leading to significantly reduced management time, and dramatic improvements in their responsiveness to business. In short, they were achieving IT agility, and in turn helping fuel business agility.

When asked to rank statements related to our value proposition, both customers and prospects believed that the core value proposition was around the duality of achieving a dynamic, and flexible IT environment, while at the same time reducing costs. This was something they believed to be unique to VMware. Most importantly, they believed that this was the correct order as well – flexibility over cost savings. Frankly, we knew this was a benefit, but have traditionally always led with our cost savings message.

The other important thing we heard is how achieving flexibility and agility within IT really does put IT in a position to better serve the business – to respond to change and opportunity that can fuel growth. In essence, they were better positioned to be a strategic partner to the business.

The problem now was how to articulate a core set of messages around this point that matters, that doesn’t sound like every other IT vendor. Take a quick browse around some websites, and you’ll find a common theme – everyone seems to promise dynamic, flexible, adaptive, on-demand, solutions for IT. Hmmm.

One of the things that stood out to Zoom Marketing during this process was how energetic VMware’s employees, customers and partners were. During interviews that should typically last 30 minutes, our ecosystem wanted to keep on talking, typically an hour or more. There was true excitement about the value they were seeing, and in the promise of VMware’s vision for bridging existing IT environments into the era of cloud computing. This gave us an idea, a way to encapsulate the value proposition of our solutions, with the value that an agile IT environment provides to the business:

Energize the business through IT, while saving energy – financial, human and the earth’s.

The whole point of IT is to fuel the business. So the whole point of achieving a more dynamic and flexible IT infrastructure is to be more adept at fueling that business, or as we like to say, energizing the business. But the duality of our core value proposition cannot be ignored. Our customers talk about real savings, in 3 categories:

Optimizing Financial Energy – doing more with less. Significant capex savings. Greater efficiencies in server, storage and networking. Saving financial resources to apply to the needs of the business.
Shifting Human Energy – shift from serving hardware, to serving the business. Dramatic reduction in manual tasks, and management time. Simplified operations, supplemented with automation.
Saving Earth’s Energy – using less, and using it more wisely. Doing their part to reduce energy consumption and their respective carbon footprint.

The words are ours, the sentiment belongs to our customers. What a great opportunity to learn from them, and be in a position to echo their sentiment.

VMware Knowledge Base Weekly Digest: New articles published for week ending 11/08/2009

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:12:14 +0000

VMTN Blog: Top 5 Planet V12n blog posts week 45

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:24:37 +0000

It was an exciting week this week. For some the VCE announcement was not a real surprise for many it seemed to be. Like always some were skeptical and others were enthusiastic about this new initiative. The first post on this Top 5 covers every single aspect, keep in mind that Chad is an EMC employee. I can also recommend the articles by Chuck Hollis on this topic but as he is not part of PlanetV12n he did not make the top 5:

Chad Sakac - VCE Coverage: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4, Post 5, Post 6
Let’s focus on the “Vblock” management layer. To restate the challenge – the goal is to have a thing that makes utility-like management of a Vblock (or more importantly a series of them), including server + LAN/SAN network (UCS manager does this well for one UCS system) + storage itself. As with all things in the VMware, Cisco, EMC consortium, we know customers need choice – and any one element is replaceable. The value proposition is that the things we build are so tightly focused, so tightly integrated, that if you are looking at something like this – the integration value is so high it’s nearly irresistible.
Alan Renouf - Virtu-Al VESI & PowerGUI PowerPack & vCheck v3
I have been teasing people on twitter for a week or so now and have just uploaded my PowerPack to the PowerGUI site, you can download it here. This is a first attempt at providing most of my scripts in one PowerPack and adding to the already great management that VESI and PowerGUI give you.
Andre Leibovic - Your Organization’s Desktop Virtualization Project – Part 1 & Part 2
I would anticipate that when your CAPEX is calculated for the next 5 years after the adoption of desktop virtualization your CIO and CEO will not be very impressed only with the numbers, especially if you have incorporated acquisition of Thin Clients to your CAPEX. If you are looking for a justification to adopt desktop virtualization you should focus on your OPEX and cost savings coming from Lower Operating Cost/TCO, Power and Cooling Energy Savings and increased seat utilization, when applicable.
Mike Laverick - Virtual Compute Environment - VMware, Cisco and EMC Coalition
So here’s my attempt. It seems the case that whether you like or not - we are creeping steadily away from a best-of-breeds approach to building out datacenters. Everyone yaks endless about the commoditization of IT - and it’s happening right before our eyes. Each of the major OEMs - HP, IBM, Dell have been for sometime junking their valued partner relationships in effort to seal their customers into a one-stop solution. Of course, IBM are probably the company that’s most famous/notorious for this approach. In recent years, HP have been steadily improving their HP ProCurve stuff to the degree that they no longer feel the need to promote/resell Cisco switching gear. To me the VCE announcement amounts to 4th OEM provider coming along to this party. So in short while you will be able to CHOOSE which OEM to shackle yourself too. This choice will be limited to the “Gang of Four”.
Duncan Epping - How to avoid HA slot sizing issues with reservations
When you select a specific percentage that percentage of the total amount of resources will stay unused for HA purposes. First of all VMware HA will add up all available resources to see how much it has available. Then VMware HA will calculate how much resources are currently consumed by adding up all reservations of both memory and cpu for powered on virtual machines. For those machine that do not have a reservation a default of 256Mhz will be used for CPU and a default of 0MB+memory overhead will be used for Memory.

VMware Support Alerts: Planned Service Interruptions to VMware Web Applications

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:59:29 +0000

VMware will be performing system upgrades to several VMware Web applications during select periods November 6^th to November 8^th. Applications are expected to be unavailable during the following times:

Friday, November 6^th, from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM Pacific Time
Saturday, November 7^th, from 6:00 AM to 8:30 AM Pacific Time
Sunday, November 8^th, from 5:00 AM to 12:00 PM Noon Pacific Time

If you need to file a service request or require other account assistance during this period, please call VMware Support at 877-486-9273 (or use one of our international phone numbers).

VMware Knowledge Base Blog: ESX 4.0, ESXi 4.0, and vCenter 4.0 Licensing Video KB

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:15:25 +0000

Licensing is by far, the most misunderstood, confusing, and sometimes frustrating part of vSphere and vCenter, and generates a ton of calls into support. And we've noticed. Today the Knowledgebase Team released another video KB: Licensing ESX 4.0, ESXi 4.0, and vCenter 4.0 We anticipate this KB will become a heavy-hitter before long.

If you are:

Unable to remove ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0 from Evaluation Mode
Unable to upload the license file for vSphere
Unable to connect vSphere 4 to vCenter Server
Unable to activate vSphere

…proceed directly to Licensing ESX 4.0, ESXi 4.0, and vCenter 4.0 (1010839). The KB guides you through steps to add, assign, and remove the licenses of ESX 4.0, ESXi 4.0, and vCenter 4.0, in video form with accompanying detailed test instructions.

You are welcome to leave your Star rating and/or feedback in any KB including this one. Enjoy!!

VMware vApp Developer Blog: Virtual Hardware in OVF - Part 1

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:18:26 +0000

In the blog post Inside the OVF Package, we talked about the structure of an OVF package, including the different sections (XML elements). One of the more important sections is the one describing the virtual hardware configuration for a VM. The operating system and applications installed in a virtual machine (commonly referred to as just the guest) are highly depended on the virtual hardware that is provided by the deployed virtualization platform. For example, if the hypervisor is exposing the virtual disks through an IDE controller to a guest that is expecting to use a SCSI controller, it is likely that the software will not boot or even worse it might even misbehave. A key objective of the OVF format is to ensure robust and well-behaved deployments. This is achieved by the OVF package author describe the requirements to the virtual hardware in the OVF descriptor, and the OVF deployment can check whether it can fullfill those requirements at deployment time.

In this first blog entry, we will introduce the hardware description model along with a simple examples. This is probably all that you need to know for most daily use. We will follow up with another post with some more examples, and finally with a post with some more advanced examples using deployment-time configurations and multiple hardware profiles.

Ok, lets, get started.

The OVF specification version 1.0 defines a VirtualHardwareSection. This is based on the ResourceAllocationSettingData (RASD) elements from the DMTF CIM standard. For users not familiar with the CIM model this may appear slightly complex at first, but there are many advantages to leveraging an already existing standard, and as we will see once you get used to it, it is pretty straight forward.

The 'System' Element:

We start with the System element found as <System> in the OVF descriptor. The System element is optional but is generally used to specify the “virtual hardware family type”. For VMware products we use the form ‘vmx-X’ where X is VMware's virtual hardware version number. The import process will convert the virtual hardware to use this version number. Several hardware versions may be defined by using space as a delimiter e.g. “vmx-04 vmx-07”. The list of hardware versions are unordered, meaning that the import process is free to pick a hardware version satisfying the remaining of the hardware requirements. VMware products will always pick the recommended hardware version of the host if multiple acceptable versions exists.

The remaining fields are not necessary for import but required by the CIM standard. A system element could look like:

<vssd:ElementName>Virtual Hardware Family</vssd:ElementName>

<vssd:InstanceID>0</vssd:InstanceID>

<vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>MyVm</vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>

<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-07 vmx-4 myHardwareVersion someOtherHardwareVersion</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

</System>

The following table show which hardware versions are supported on various VMware platforms.

Hardware Family	Supported by (and later versions of the same products)
vmx-04	WS 5.0, Fusion 1.1, Server 1.0, ESX 3.0
vmx-06	WS 6.0, Fusion 1.1, Server 1.0
vmx-07	WS 6.5, Fusion 2.0, Server 2.0, ESX 4.0

The 'item' Elements

Virtual hardware is modeled as a set of devices, such as ethernet card or disk controllers, memory. Each of those devices are described by an element. The DMTF RASD specifies a set of fields that can be set. We only a subset of those fields in an OVF descriptor. The fields in a RASD must be ordered alphabetically. The following table lists the RASD fields that are used:

ElementName	Required field that contains a display-friendly message about the content of the RASD
Description	Human-readable description
InstanceID	Required field that contains unique ID within this <VirtualHardwareSection>
ResourceType	Required field that indicates the kind of resource
ResourceSubType	A vendor-specific identifier for specific devices
VirtualQuantity	Specifies the amount (used for memory and CPU)
AllocationUnits	Specifies the unit of resource (used for memory and CPU)
Reservation	Specifies resource allocation policy (CPU and memory)
Limit	Specifies resource allocation policy (CPU and memory)
Weight	Specifies resource allocation policy (CPU and memory)
Address	Typically used as the unit number of a controller
Parent	Instance ID of parent controller (for devices on a controller)
AddressOnParent	Used to specify the order for devices on a controller
AutomaticAllocation	Used to specify whether a device should be connected on power-on (e.g., for a CDROM)
Connection	Reference to a network for an ethernet adaptor
HostResource	Reference to a virtual disk for a disk drive

The minimum Item element looks like this:

<Item>

<rasd:ElementName>SomeName</rasd:ElementName>

<rasd:InstanceID>1</rasd:InstanceID>

<rasd:ResourceType>0</rasd:ResourceType>

</Item>

ElementName is a general description of the Item element. InstanceID is a unique identifier for the Item element and is used to refer to other hardware elements. The ResourceType describes the type of hardware. The resource types used in OVF are described in CIM_ResourceAllocationSettingData.mof, which describes the mapping from the ResourceType number to hardware element type. For instance, ResourceType=2 maps to “Processor” (CPU) and ResourceType=10 maps to “Ethernet Adapter”. See the following table for the typical used ResourceTypes:

Kind	ResourceType
Other	0
Processor	3
Memory	4
IDE Controller	5
SCSI Controller	6
Ethernet Adapter	10
Floppy Drive	14
CD/DVD Drive	15/16
Disk Drive	17
USB Controller	23

For some ResourceTypes it is necessary to define a more specific subtype. ResourceSubType is vendor specific, meaning that VMware supports one set of subtypes while other vendors may support other types. ResourceSubType with ResourceType=0 (Other) is also used to define Virtual Hardware that is not described in the CIM schema, for instance a soundcard. The complete list of ResourceTypes with supported ResourceSubTypes for VMware products is shown below:

Kind	ResourceType	ResourceSubType	Other Fields
Other	0	vmware.soundcard.sb16, vmware.soundcard.ensoniq1371, vmware.pcicontroller,vmware.ps2controller, vmware.siocontroller, vmware.keyboard, vmware.pointingdevice	Depend on hardware type
Processor	3		AllocationUnit, VirtualQuantity, Reservation, Limit, Weight
Memory	4		AllocationUnit, VirtualQuantity, Reservation, Limit, Weight
IDE Controller	5		Address
SCSI Controller	6	lsilogic, buslogic, lsilogicsas, virtualscsi	Address
Ethernet Adapter	10	E1000, PCNet32, VmxNet, VmxNet2, VmxNet3	AddressOnParent, AutomaticAllocation, Connection
Floppy Drive	14		AddressOnParent, AutomaticAllocation
CD/DVD Drive	15		Parent, AddressOnParent, AutomaticAllocation
Disk Drive	17		Parent, AddressOnParent, HostResource
USB Controller	23

Example

We will now look at a sample OVF descriptor that describe a small VM, that are using a single CPU, 512 MB of memory and the use of a disk on a SCSI controller. In this example we will look at the virtual hardware description and will disregard the the other metadata information present in the OVF descriptor. We will look at each of the Item elements in the virtual hardware section and explain what they do and how they reference each other.

The System element specifies that this hardware description is designed for vmx-07 or vmx-04:

<Info>Virtual hardware requirements</Info>

<vssd:ElementName>Virtual Hardware Family</vssd:ElementName>

<vssd:InstanceID>0</vssd:InstanceID>

<vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>My Small VM</vssd:VirtualSystemIdentifier>

<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-07 vmx-04</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

</System>

If we look at the two first Item elements we first see a definition of how many CPUs we want the VM to have. The amount is in the VirtualQuantity element and for this VM we want 1 CPU. In AllocationUnits we are using the Programmatic Units as defined in http://www.dmtf.org/standards/published_documents/DSP0004_2.5.0.pdf. The next Item element we are defining the amount of memory.

<Item>

<rasd:AllocationUnits>hertz * 10^6</rasd:AllocationUnits>

<rasd:Description>Number of Virtual CPUs</rasd:Description>

<rasd:ElementName>1 virtual CPU(s)</rasd:ElementName>

<rasd:InstanceID>1</rasd:InstanceID>

<rasd:ResourceType>3</rasd:ResourceType>

<rasd:VirtualQuantity>1</rasd:VirtualQuantity>

</Item>

<Item>

<rasd:AllocationUnits>byte * 2^20</rasd:AllocationUnits>

<rasd:Description>Memory Size</rasd:Description>

<rasd:ElementName>512MB of memory</rasd:ElementName>

<rasd:InstanceID>2</rasd:InstanceID>

<rasd:ResourceType>4</rasd:ResourceType>

<rasd:VirtualQuantity>512</rasd:VirtualQuantity>

</Item>

We now define a SCSI controller of subtype ‘lsilogic’ and with an InstanceID=3. We will later use the InstanceID to bind a disk to this controller. As can be seen we have not defined a PCI controller to bind the SCSI controller to. For VMware products PCI controller is a default device so there it is optional to add it as an Item element. The next two Item elements are defining IDE controllers.

<Item>

<rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>

<rasd:Description>SCSI Controller</rasd:Description>

<rasd:ElementName>SCSI Controller 0</rasd:ElementName>

<rasd:InstanceID>3</rasd:InstanceID>

<rasd:ResourceSubType>lsilogic</rasd:ResourceSubType>

<rasd:ResourceType>6</rasd:ResourceType>

</Item>

<Item>

<rasd:Address>1</rasd:Address>

<rasd:Description>IDE Controller</rasd:Description>

<rasd:ElementName>IDE 1</rasd:ElementName>

<rasd:InstanceID>4</rasd:InstanceID>

<rasd:ResourceType>5</rasd:ResourceType>

</Item>

<Item>

<rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>

<rasd:Description>IDE Controller</rasd:Description>

<rasd:ElementName>IDE 0</rasd:ElementName>

<rasd:InstanceID>5</rasd:InstanceID>

<rasd:ResourceType>5</rasd:ResourceType>

</Item>

We now want to add a CDROM drive to one of the IDE controllers. If we look at the Parent element we can see we want to bind it to a device with InstanceID=5. If we look for an Item element with InstanceID=5 we can see that this is IDE 0. We use AddressOnParent to tell where on the IDE controller we want to place the CDROM. If no AddressOnParent element is specified devices are attached to their “parent” in the order they are found in the OVF. Here we see that the AddressOnParent=0, so we set it to device 0 on the IDE controller. On the Item element we are defining a ovf:required=”false” this tells the import process that if we are unable to add this hardware device the import process is allowed to continue.

<rasd:AddressOnParent>0</rasd:AddressOnParent>

<rasd:AutomaticAllocation>false</rasd:AutomaticAllocation>

<rasd:ElementName>CD/DVD Drive 1</rasd:ElementName>

<rasd:InstanceID>7</rasd:InstanceID>

<rasd:Parent>5</rasd:Parent>

<rasd:ResourceType>15</rasd:ResourceType>

</Item>

The last item element found in this VirtualHardwareSection is a disk. If we look at the Parent element we can see that we must attach this device to a controller. By looking for InstanceID we can see that this disk's parent is the SCSI controller. Again we specify the AddressOnParent=0 to tell that we want this disk to first on the controller. The HostResource tells what disk defined in the DiskSection we want to use. 'ovf:/disk/vmdisk1' points to an 'ovf:diskId' attribute in the Disk section element. This will tell import process basic information about the disk like capacity and disk format.

<Item>

<rasd:AddressOnParent>0</rasd:AddressOnParent>

<rasd:ElementName>Hard Disk 1</rasd:ElementName>

<rasd:HostResource>ovf:/disk/vmdisk1</rasd:HostResource>

<rasd:InstanceID>9</rasd:InstanceID>

<rasd:Parent>3</rasd:Parent>

<rasd:ResourceType>17</rasd:ResourceType>

</Item>

We have now defined a small working VM with a SCSI controller, a virtual disk, and a CDROM if supported. Click to download the complete OVF descriptor.

In the next part of this blog post on virtual hardware we will describe more detailed examples of how to create virtual hardware sections.

VMware ThinApp Blog: AppSync Explained...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:14:46 +0000

Since we get a number of questions on how to use AppSync as well as how it can be utilized, specifically around ThinApp packaged applications such as Office or Adobe CS which are not a single executable like Firefox, Opera, or Adobe Reader, we figured it best to create a video to review how AppSync works, show how to use AppSync in general, show how to use AppSync with packaged apps having separate data container files and/or multiple entry point EXEs, and discuss what is required when needing to have clients download just the differentials vs. the whole updated ThinApp packaged app (i.e. slow links, remote/home users/etc.).

NOTE: Click the FULL SCREEN option to view a larger, more detailed image.

VMware Developer Center Blog: Portland VMUG Slides and Links - vSphere APIs for Performance Monitoring

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:01:47 +0000

Folks,

We had a great time at the Portland VMUG - the people are friendly and the weather was great.

Links for folks that are interested in using PowerShell, or Perl to pull performance data.

PowerShell, Perl Sample Code Perfomance Sample Code

PowerCLI Community: http://vmware.com/go/powercli

Addition Performance Information http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9840

VMware Developer Center Blog: VMware Coffee Talk - vCenter ChargeBack Audio, Slides

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:19:39 +0000

Folks,

Thanks for attending yesterdays Coffee Talk

Slides

Download MP3 Chargeback Recording

Download Coffee Talk - vCenter Chargeback API - 2009.11.04 Download Code Samples - vCenter Chargeback APIs - 2009.11.04

VMware vSphere Blog: vStorage Thin Provisioning Blog Entries

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:09:25 +0000

Thanks for your blog entries so far on vStorage Thin Provisioning. For those of you yet to post, you have until 11:59 this Friday to get your entry in for this cycle. Below are our entries to date (nice work folks!):

1. Rich Bramley

http://vmetc.com/2009/11/03/provision-a-thin-provisioned-standby-lun-for-vsphere-thin-provisioning/
Rich brings together a few posts on the topic and relays a number of the key areas of focus for this features (using this in conjunction with storage layer thin provisioning, use cases, etc.).

2.Dwayne Lessner

http://www.itbloodpressure.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52:living-thin-in-a-fat-world&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=50
Dwayne discusses how to get started and then weighs the pros and cons of the feature.

3. Vaughn Stewart (Entry 1)

http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/2009/10/vce-101-thin-provisioning-part-1-the-basics.html
Vaughn's two part entry (see below) lays out the basics and then gets into the tie with Network Appliance hardware. A must read for users that have VMware running on Network Appliance gear.

4. Vaughn Stewart (Entry 2)

http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/2009/10/vce-101-thin-provisioning-part-2-going-beyond.html

5. Scott Sauer

http://bit.ly/88EQg
Scott uses a coffee analogy to discuss Thin Provisioning and layers in a further discussion using principles from Six Sigma.

Don't miss your chance at our $100 prize!

The Console: VMware, HP’s Converged Infrastructure, and the Private Cloud

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:01:06 +0000

Posted by Steve Herrod
Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of R&D

This week HP introduced their Converged Infrastructure Architecture, which is appropriately described as “a blueprint for chief information officers to create elasticity in their technology environments.” This blueprint unlocks currently siloed datacenter resources (including compute, storage and network components) and, with the help of virtualization, integrates them into a pool of very fluid resources that can be smartly and safely allocated to the applications running on top.

Put another way, HP has unveiled a template that helps customers easily build what many are now calling a “private cloud.” The general idea of a private cloud is to bring many of the good traits associated with today’s public cloud vendors (e.g. elasticity, efficiency, self-service, and usage-based resource charges) to a company-owned and operated datacenter—where IT is often more comfortable with their ability to meet performance, availability, and compliance requirements.

VMware vSphere™ was explicitly designed for building the private cloud, and HP BladeSystem Matrix’s out-of-box experience and well-integrated management will help customers more quickly and more easily realize the full capabilities of VMware vSphere. What’s more, even as customers reap the benefits of their private cloud, they’re also laying the foundation to leveraging public cloud resources. Virtual machines are well-encapsulated and largely location independent. Working with HP, we can offer tools and a complete portfolio of services that help customers continue to maintain the control and security they have in their datacenters as they begin to leverage resources in the public cloud. The resulting “hybrid” cloud is depicted below.

Infrastructure and application management in this new world is incredibly important, too, and HP’s capabilities integrate quite well with VMware vCenter™ to push the envelope on this front. I particularly like the integration work HP has done to bring their Insight software capabilities into VMware vCenter. You have to register to see it, but there’s a great demonstration of this at minute 62 of the VMworld 2009 general session.

I’ll stop here in the interest of keeping this blog short, but I did just want to highlight again the excitement I have over holistic solutions built for the fully virtualized datacenter that help enable the promise of the private cloud. If you would like to see and hear a lot more about VMware and HP’s Converged Infrastructure, be sure to also check out the video from Bogomil Balkansky, VMware’s VP of Server Product Marketing.

Virtualization for SAP Solutions: Discuss "SAP on VMware" at SAP Community Network

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:36:59 +0000

If you are a user of SAP Community Network, then you might have already seen the new forum about "SAP on VMware" which is live since Oct 21. The forum creates a platform for customers where answers to minor technical questions can be adressed or discussions about best practices, configurations, etc. can take place. You can find the forum right here:

http://forums.sdn.sap.com/forum.jspa?forumID=471

VMware Communities Blog: Scheduled Site Maintenance at Various Times from November 6 - 8, 2009

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:04:43 +0000

Friday, November 6, 2009 from 6:00 PM – 12:00 Midnight PST
Saturday, November 7, 2009 from 6:00 AM – 8:30 AM PST
Sunday, November 8, 2009 from 5:00 AM – 9:00 AM PST

During the above times, VMware Communities will be up; however, unauthenticated users will not be able to log into the site. If you wish to contribute to Communities during this outage period, I recommend you log in prior to this timeframe to make sure you have the proper access rights. Otherwise, the Communities pages will appear in "Guest" mode (i.e. read-only) until you can sign in once again.

In addition, VMware Communities will be offline and unavailable at the following time:

Sunday, November 8, 2009 from 7:30 PM – 9 PM PST

During the above time, no VMware Communities services will be available, and site visitors will see a site maintenance message.

Thank you for your patience. Regards, Robert

Workstation Zealot: Free VMware Workstation 7 Fundamentals Course

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:08:48 +0000

With the tremendous number of new Workstation 7 customers, I am very excited to announce the availability of a free introductory, self-paced online course. The course is designed for people who are new VMware Workstation and it will quickly walk you through the steps for installing VMware Workstation, creating virtual machines, installing tools, configuring networks, and much more. To access the course, you will be prompted to create a VMware myLearn account if you do not already have one.

Start the course now!

Course Outline:

VMware Workstation 7 Overview
• How does it work?
• New features
• Workstation use cases

Getting Started with Workstation
• Install Workstation
• Navigate through Workstation window
• Create a Virtual Machine
• Install VMware Tools
• Configure Networking

Working with Workstation
• Using USB devices
• File Sharing
• Record/Replay a VM
• Snapshots
• Add a Hard Drive
• Unity

Download a free 30 day trial of VMware Workstation 7 today.

VMware Knowledge Base Blog: Two Fusion KBs to take note of

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:00:42 +0000

All VMware Fusion users take note, two new KB articles we just posted today deal with two common problem customers are currently experiencing with upgrades from Windows XP to Windows 7, as well as the creation of new VMs using media. This is generating a spike in calls to our call center. If other customers are running into these problems, there's a good chance you are too.

If you are experiencing this:

You cannot install Windows on a newly created virtual machine.
A PXE boot screen displays during the creation of a new virtual machine.
A newly created virtual machine does not recognize Windows installation media when booting
then proceed to this KB: Cannot install Windows on a newly created virtual machine (1015406)

On the other hand, if you are experiencing these symptoms:

Unable to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7.
Errors during or after upgrade process from Windows XP to Windows 7
then proceed directly to: Upgrading a VMware Fusion virtual machine from Windows XP to Windows 7 (1015396)

VMware Networking Blog: Formation of VCE coalition

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:40:27 +0000

The Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition was announced this morning. This is a coalition between Cisco and EMC, together with VMware to accelerate customers’ ability to increase business agility.

Apart from bringing a single point of contact for design, service, and support, the coalition introduces the notion of the “Vblock Infrastructure Packages.” These are ready-to-go infrastructure packages that are fully tested, integrated and validated.

You can find more information (presentations, papers, videos, etc) at:

As always, Chad Sakac from EMC also has a lot to say over on his Virtual Geek blog.

Virtualization for SAP Solutions: VMware Virtualizes Datacenter Infrastructure for SAP Managed Services: More Than 8000 Virtual Machines with VMware Software as Its Primary Platform

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:24:31 +0000

Today, VMware announced in a press release that SAP Managed Services, SAP AG's internal IT infrastructure provider, has deployed the VMware platform pervasively across its IT environment as the main virtualization platform for agile and adaptable implementations of SAP solutions.

This announcement follows a keynote that Dr. Krips (Sr. VP at SAP Managed Services) previously delivered at VMworld Cannes, and various presentations on this topic by Markus Winter (Head of Strategic Projects, SAP Managed Services) at VMworld conferences. SAP Managed Services developed a very comprehensive framework utilizing more than 8000 virtual machines with VMware software as its primary platform with the purpose of providing virtualized infrastructure solutions to internal SAP teams and customers.

Read the press release in full!

VMware vSphere Blog: Let's See Those vStorage Thin Provisioning Entries!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:50:36 +0000

Let's start week 2 of Thin Provisioning off with a bang!

Did you know the new Thin Provisioning feature is available with all vSphere 4.0 editions (standard, advanced, enterprise, and enterprise plus)?

See what our engineers have to say about Thin Provisioning.

VMware Knowledge Base Blog: Top 20 articles for October 2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:43:51 +0000

Here is our monthly update of the Top 20 KB articles for the month of October, based on use by customers.

VMware Knowledge Base Weekly Digest: New articles published for week ending 11/01/2009

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:27:06 +0000

VMTN Blog: Top 5 Planet V12n blog posts week 44

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:20:16 +0000

This was probably one of the toughest Top-5's to write as I had the week off this week. I basically had to catch-up with a whole week of Planet V12n. One of the most annoying things about it is that half of the blogs on PlanetV12n enabled "content summary only". Yes I know you will have a couple of extra visits, but isn't blogging about getting people to read your content instead of being "numbers"(visits) focused? Now that I got that off my chest lets move on to what this article is about. It's about the 5 top articles this week:

Vaugn Stewart - VCE-101 Thin Provisioning Part 1 – The Basics & VCE-101 Thin Provisioning Part 2 – Going Beyond
Like the thick format, thin VMDKs are not formatted at the time of deployment. This also means that data that needs to be written must pause while the blocks required to store the data are formatted. The formatting operation only occurs on demand at anytime an area of the virtual disk, which has never been written to, is required to store data.
Chad Sakac - Solid State Disk will change the storage world…
But surely, if you were looking for performance, you wouldn’t use the SATA disk, right? You would probably use a 15K RPM FC disk. Those cost about $1000. They do about 200 random write IOPs. So, you would need 20 of them to do what that $115 SSD could do. That’s 0.2 IOps per dollar – or 170x more expensive than the SSD on a IOps/$ basis. Oh, you think SAS 15K drives are a better deal? They are – than FC disks. A 15K SAS disk on Pricewatch costs about $210, and they also do about 200 IOps. that’s 0.95 IOps per dollar – or 37x more expense than the SSD on a IOps/$ basis.
Luc Dekens - dvSwitch scripting – Part 4 – NIC teaming
The double Service Consoles and vmKernel connection might look confusing at first. But when you select one these connections, the vSphere client will show you to which uplink a specific connection is going. To increase the availability of the dvSwitch, I will show how to add two pNics and how to activate and configure NIC Teaming. When I created the dvSwitch I configured it for two uplink ports (per host). Since I’m adding two pNics, I will first have to change the maximum number of dvUplink ports.
Gabrie van Zanten - Design tips for VMware vSphere 4
Recently at the Belgium VMUG I gave a presentation in which I covered some design tips for VMware vSphere 4. I talked about some business decisions that, how boring they may seem, are crucial for your design. I covered some security requirements you should check with the security department of the organisation and of course advised good capacity planning which also is very important for your design. What the average geek found most interesting where topics like: “What size of ESX host will you buy?”, “How to run vCenter in a VM”, “VMFS best practises”, “Understanding queue depth and lun size” and more….
Simon Gallagher - iSCSI LUN is very slow/no longer visible from vSphere host
Due to too many SCSI reservation conflicts, so hopefully it wasn’t looking like corruption but a locked-out disk – a quick Google turned up this KB article – which reminded me that SATA disks can only do so much :) Multiple reboots of hosts and the OpenFiler hadn’t cleared this situation – so I had to use vmkfstools to reset the locks and get my LUN back, these are the steps I took.. You need to find the disk ID to pass to the vmkfstools –L targetreset command, to do this from the command line look under /vmfs/devices/disks

VMware Support Alerts: Planned Maintenance On November 1

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:10:06 +0000

VMware will be performing a system upgrade to several VMware Web applications on November 1, 2009. Maintenance will begin at 5:00 A.M. Pacific Time (PDT) and end at approximately 12:00 P.M. (noon) PDT.

While this upgrade is in progress, you will be unable to:

Access or manage your VMware account
Submit support requests online
Download, purchase or register VMware products Manage VMware product licenses.

If you need to file a support request while the upgrade is in progress, call VMware Technical Support for assistance.

We appreciate your patience during this maintenance period. These system upgrades are part of our commitment to continued service improvements and will help VMware better serve your needs.

VMware ThinApp Blog: How to maintain a ThinApp package

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:02:16 +0000

Just wanted to share some tips on how to apply updates to a ThinApped package.

There is three ways of applying updates to a ThinApp project.
1. If you just have a couple of updated files then you simply copy them into the project and rebuild.
2. If the application have a built in mechanism for downloading and applying updates (Mozilla Firefox has for example Help – Check for Updates) then you simply run this feature from within the ThinApped application and all updates will be applied to the sandbox (I recommend WriteCopy as the default isolation mode just to be sure everything is sandboxed). Then you run sbmerge to update the project and then rebuild.
3. If the update is a separate downloaded file you need to run this update within the virtual environment of the package. The simplest way to accomplish this is using a CMD entrypoint (just enable it in the package.ini if you do not have it and rebuild) and launch the downloaded update file from within the cmd. All updates end up in the sandbox (default isolation mode should be WriteCopy) and with sbmerge you update the project and then run build.bat.

Running sbmerge:
1. Open a cmd prompt.
2. Place yourself in the project folder (C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\captures\ApplicationName)
3. Run sbmerge, “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\sbmerge.exe” Print this will show all changes that will be applied to your project. “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\sbmerge.exe” Apply will do the actual update to your project. Since there is no reverting sbmerge you should keep a backup of the original projectfolder. The sandbox should be in the default location on this machine. The sandbox will be deleted after the update.

Workstation Zealot: Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10) on Workstation 7

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:26:17 +0000

Although, the generally available release is not officially supported.... it appears to be running reasonably well!!!! Easy Install recognized the .iso and VMware Tools were installed seamlessly. I saw two CD/DVD drives show up in VM Settings immediately after installation, but it was corrected after a reboot, and "fit to guest" isn't automatically applying... but otherwise it is very usable...

We would really appreciate it if you would please post any issues you find in the Workstation forums.

Team Fusion: Macworld: First Look at VMware Fusion 3

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:19:26 +0000

Rob Griffiths at Macworld recently posted a first look at VMware Fusion 3. It covers a great many of the new and exciting features in VMware Fusion 3 and is a great overall introduction to the new release.

One of the great things Rob covers are the overall improvements in 3D graphics in VMware Fusion, especially for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users. He was able to play Flight Simulator X in a virtual machine on the Mac for the first time with VMware Fusion 3 and Windows 7 and this was on a 2008 iMac with ATI Radeon 2600 while running a full screen screen capture of the game with ScreenFlow at the same time. Check out the video below:

The First Look of VMware Fusion 3 also covers some of the great details on why Unity is much better in VMware Fusion 3, other user interface improvements, and a lot of the other small touches that make VMware Fusion 3 better than ever.

Here are Rob’s closing thoughts on his First Look at VMware Fusion

Overall, I’ve been impressed with VMware Fusion 3’s performance during my time with it. Creating new virtual machines was simple, performance was good even on a mid-range iMac, and the ability to use Aero effects and run 3D games in the virtual machine was impressive. The new Virtual Machine Library screen eases the management of multiple virtual machines, and the built-in update tool will make it easy to keep up to date with future releases.

I highly recommend getting over to Macworld and checking out their First Look on VMware Fusion 3 for more details.

VMware Communities Blog: Profile Image + Avatar Drawing Winner!

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:53:11 +0000

Yes, we have a winner for the Profile Image + Avatar Drawing!! And the winner is....

(drum roll)

TristanT

Congratulations, Tristan! I am now sending you a US$50 iTunes gift card that you can redeem for $50 of goodies from www.itunes.com. Enjoy!

A big thank you to the 140 people who have uploaded both a profile image and an avatar (and were in the drawing), as well as the additional 300+ people who have one or the other but not both (and therefore didn't qualify for the drawing -- but I thank you anyway!). I encourage every VMware Communities member to upload at least one image, so that people can learn a bit more about you.

And thanks to the Web site http://www.random.org for generating a true random number -- no pseudo-random numbers used here -- for the drawing.

Regards, Robert (see Upload a Profile Image + Avatar, and Win! for drawing details)

VMware vSphere Blog: The 3 Major Benefits of vStorage Thin Provisioning

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:57:03 +0000

Increase Storage Utilization

Eliminate the need to dedicate full capacity upfront while still providing application users with the capacity they need for future growth. VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning lets you subscribe more capacity to virtual machines than they actually have, eliminating the waste of resources and space caused by unused over-allocated storage. With VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning storage administrators can increase their storage utilization by letting them dedicate more storage than the actual capacity.

Enhance Application Uptime for Improved Business Continuity

Eliminate application downtime by simplifying storage provisioning. Managing storage allocations to support dynamic environments can be a time-consuming process that requires extensive coordination between application owners, virtual machine owners and storage administrators, often resulting in downtime for critical applications.

Furthermore, delay during the process of storage allocation at any layer, storage to application can result in prolonged application downtime. By eliminating the need to periodically provision more capacity, VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning eliminates application downtime.

Simplify Storage Capacity Management

Let your application users proactively manage storage capacity transparent to the storage administrators and eliminate the manual processes requiring careful planning and coordination by IT management, storage administrators, system administrators, and application administrators. In addition, VMware vSphere provides a single management point to set alarms and alerts required to safely thin provision storage to virtual machines.

Get a single unified tool for multiple storage or non-intelligent storage to thinly provision and eliminate the need to provisioning storage frequently. vStorage Thin Provisioning is a powerful storage enabling technology which streamlines capacity management for the storage and server teams.

Workstation Zealot: Getting smart cards to work with replay debugging

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:18:10 +0000

After moving from working on Workstation to working on the Windows View Client, I try to use Workstation’s Visual Studio plugin as much as I can when debugging the View Client. Being able to use the remote debugging integration to debug in my VMs is really helpful, but replay debugging takes the cake as the single most helpful feature that Workstation offers me. I seriously cannot say enough about its power in changing a bug from nearly impossible to fixable in the course of an hour or two.

The most recent example was in the upcoming smart card removal policy feature for the Windows View Client. Due to the nature of this feature, if a smart card removal policy was also configured on the Windows machine, we were both triggering at exactly the same time. Most of the time this would be fine; Windows would lock and the View Client would disconnect from the View Connection Server and show the Connect dialog. But occasionally (anywhere from 10-30% of the time) I would see weird behavior where the dialog was arbitrarily moved to the upper-left corner of the screen and resized to be 100 pixels taller!

As I figured out quickly, debugging using the traditional methods was not an option. Either I would not see the issue or if I spent too much time in breakpoints I would lose my connection to the View Connection Server. I could feel replay debugging calling me because it fit so perfectly; I could run the program in the VM and make sure I would reproduce the issue, then attach a debugger and spend however much time I needed to figure it out. Features like Reverse Run to Cursor and Reverse Continue would make debugging faster as well.

I was all ready to start up on it when I remembered that VMware’s record/replay technology doesn’t support USB devices. Whether you connect your smart card exclusively to the virtual machine or connect it in shared mode, it is still exposed to the virtual machine as a USB device. If you start a recording in Workstation, this USB device is immediately disconnected.

The workaround that I figured out was simply to start a recording in a VM then RDP into the VM and use RDP’s built-in smart card redirection to connect the smart card to the VM while recording. Then in the RDP session, I would run the View Client and reproduce the bug, close the View Client, then stop the recording. This works because RDP doesn’t actually connect the smart card to the virtual machine as a USB device (seriously, check Device Manager!). Instead it performs API redirection from the server (in this case the VM) to the client (in this case the host machine) and this certainly still works when recording execution in Workstation.

The only downside of this approach is that when you are replaying execution, you won’t be able to see the contents of the console, as seen below. So this approach is best for uncomplicated debugging sessions where you generally remember the procession of commands executed in the application. The reason why you can’t see the console is that when you RDP into a machine, the console session is locked and RDP creates a new session to protect your privacy. When you replay this recording, there is no actual network traffic (it is just simulated) so there is no way to reattach an RDP client to it. You are only left viewing the locked console session, but the program still is executing in the virtual machine.

This is the only view you get into the VM when replaying, but the app is running and the smart card activity really is being replayed!

Once I figured out how to get smart cards working with replay debugging, isolating and fixing the bug was extremely easy. As a parting shot, I want to commend the improvements made in replay debugging for Workstation 7.0. As an internal dogfooder, I am often one of VMware’s harshest critics. But when testing replay debugging this time, I was taken aback at the speed improvements and optimizations when doing normal replay sessions and especially when doing reverse operations. These folks have worked so hard on the product and it really shows.

As a summary, here are the steps to create a recording of your app with smart cards:

Start your VM and find the IP address.
Start recording execution in Workstation by selecting VM > Replay > Record.
RDP into your VM, making sure to enable smart card redirection in the Local Resources tab by clicking More…
Run your app in the RDP session, reproducing your bug.
Close your app, disconnect your RDP session, and stop your recording.

Team Fusion: Addressing the Overwhelming Demand for VMware Fusion 3 Free 30 Day Trial Available

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:22:20 +0000

IMPORTANT NOTE: These issues mentioned in this blog post have already been resolved and they were addressed on Wednesday October 28th. See Improved VMware Fusion Portal Now Open for Business for more details.

------

First off, I want to thank our users for the flood of excitement for VMware Fusion 3. Because we’ve seen even more demand than anticipated, the VMware Fusion upgrade portal is having problems keeping up with the demand!

While we have already transacted thousands of upgrades today and many people are able to get the product, I apologize immensely to those of you who are anxious to get the product immediately and are running into issues.

I want to reassure you that we are working on this urgently and expect to be back in action soon.

In the mean time, I want to get you up and running with VMware Fusion 3 while we resolve the issues many of you are encountering.

Click here to download the VMware Fusion 3 software
Use the following 30 trial license key to get you up and running: JN28P-7UJ8M-H8K33-0202P-9EPH4

I hope this helps you get up and running while we get our VMware Fusion upgrade portal back in order.

If you have questions about your upgrade, subscription, or technology guarantee, please see our original post, here.

Stay tuned to the Team Fusion blog and Twitter feed for the latest updates.

Thanks for your patience and ongoing support.

Pat Lee

Director, Personal Desktop Products

VMware

VMware Knowledge Base Blog: We're Listening

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:26:18 +0000

VMware Fusion® 3 launched just two days ago and we're starting to hear some comments in social media circles. There are tons of accolades and we appreciate everyone saying how much they love the new release!

As with any product however there might be an annoyance here or there that we didn't think about. Here's an example Tweet we heard this morning:

Don't like how VMWare Fusion 3 adds a menu bar item that I can't get rid of

That was enough for the Knowledgebase Team to spring into action to publish a new KB on how to turn this menu bar item off. Some people want the control of whether they want to see this icon or not, and we did put this option into the product. It's just not obvious how to change this setting.

Presenting KB article: Modifying the VMware Fusion 3 menu bar item

We went one step further and also created related KB: Understanding Unity and the Windows System Tray in Fusion 3 (1015362) in case there is any confusion about that change to the product too.

Hopefully these two KB articles will help many of you get Fusion setup just the way you want it, so you can get down to really using it. We are committed to monitoring social networks for customer feedback about our products, and responding. We benefit directly from your reactions to our products – so please keep up the chatter!

@vmwareKB
@VMwareCares

Workstation Zealot: Improved VMware Workstation Upgrade Portal Now Open For Business

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:30:05 +0000

Yesterday, I let you know that that we had hit some snags in getting VMware Workstation 7 into your hands.

I want to apologize again for the poor experience many of you had trying to purchase VMware Workstation 7 or a VMware Workstation 7 upgrade yesterday. Bottom line, we saw even more demand than anticipated and the VMware upgrade portal had problems keeping up with the demand!

The VMware team has been working around the clock to troubleshoot and address the issues you encountered yesterday. We made a number of key changes to resolve the problems around purchasing and upgrading to VMware Workstation 7 and the upgrade portal has been improved to resolve the key issues.

Improved Upgrade Portal Open for Business

Upgrades from VMware Workstation 5 or VMware Workstation 6 to VMware Workstation 7 cost $99 and they are available today from the VMware Online Store.

For qualified students and teachers, VMware Workstation 7 Academic Upgrades are priced at $59 and they are available from the VMware Academic Store

Addressing Questions and Fixing the Remaining Issues

I bought VMware Workstation 7 from the VMware Online Store and was promised a free upgrade…

In the meantime, please download the VMware Workstation 7 trial to get up and running today. Once you receive your VMware Workstation 7 free upgrade fulfillment e-mail, you will just need to retrieve your final VMware Workstation 7 license and enter it into your already installed VMware Workstation 7 software.

What if I bought VMware Workstation 6 from a VMware reseller or distributor in October, how do I get my free downloadable upgrade?

If you bought VMware Workstation 6 from a VMware reseller or distributor in October, you need to go to the VMware Workstation Technology Guarantee website, fill out the online form and mail in or fax your proof of purchase of VMware Workstation 6. Free downloadable VMware Workstation 7 upgrades will take up two weeks to deliver after receiving a valid proof of purchase.

I purchased an upgrade but did not receive an e-mail with my VMware Workstation 7 serial number…

Go to the VMware License Portal to retrieve your VMware Workstation 7 serial number.

1. Log into the VMware License Portal with your VMware account to retrieve your VMware Workstation 7 serial number/activation key.

2. If you are already running a trial of VMware Workstation 7, you can enter your activation key/serial number by choosing (Help->Enter Serial Number) from the VMware Workstation menu bar.

3. Otherwise, Download VMware Workstation 7. Install VMware Workstation 7 and enter your new license key during installation and you're all set.

I purchased an upgrade but my e-mail didn’t include a VMware Workstation 7 serial number…

We have fixed this issue for most customers that hit this problem and you can go to the VMware License Portal to retrieve your VMware Workstation 7serial number.

1. Log into the VMware License Portal with your VMware account to retrieve your VMware Workstation 7 serial number/activation key.

2. If you are already running a trial of VMware Workstation 7, you can enter your activation key/serial number by choosing (Help->Enter Serial Number) from the VMware Workstation menu bar.

3. Otherwise, Download VMware Workstation 7. Install VMware Workstation 7and enter your new license key during installation and you're all set.

We have about 100 more customers left with this problem and we expect to finish those fixes by mid day tomorrow. If you are one of these customers, you should be able to retrieve your VMware Workstation 7 upgrade license from the VMware License Portal tomorrow afternoon.

My business bought VMware Workstation 7 with (Silver / Gold / Platinum) Support, when do I get the upgrade?

If you have an active support contract, you will receive a free downloadable VMware Workstation 7 upgrade for your covered licenses. Your VMware account has been updated with your new VMware Workstation 7 licenses and e-mail notifications will be sent out by Friday evening to retrieve your VMware Workstation 7 licenses.

You can retrieve your VMware Workstation 7 licenses from the VMware License Portal.

1. Log into the VMware License Portal with your VMware account to retrieve your VMware Workstation 7 serial number/activation key.

2. If you are already running a trial of VMware Workstation 7, you can enter your activation key/serial number by choosing (Help->Enter Serial Number) from the VMware Workstation menu bar.

3. Otherwise, Download VMware Workstation 7. Install VMware Workstation 7and enter your new license key during installation and you're all set.

Thanks again for your patience and ongoing support

We worked hard to resolve the problems so you can get VMware Workstation 7 now. We are sorry for any issues you may have encountered.

We hope you enjoy VMware Workstation 7 as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Pat Lee

Director, Personal Desktop Products

VMware

Team Fusion: Improved VMware Fusion Upgrade Portal Now Open For Business

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:00:06 +0000

Yesterday, I let you know that that we had hit some snags in getting VMware Fusion 3 into your hands.

I want to apologize again for the poor experience many of you had trying to purchase VMware Fusion 3 or a VMware Fusion 3 upgrade yesterday. Bottom line, we saw even more demand than anticipated and the VMware upgrade portal had problems keeping up with the demand!

The VMware team has been working around the clock to troubleshoot and address the issues you encountered yesterday. We made a number of key changes to resolve the problems around purchasing and upgrading to VMware Fusion 3 and the upgrade portal has been improved to resolve the key issues.

Improved Upgrade Portal Open for Business

VMware Fusion 3 Upgrades and VMware Fusion 3 Academic Upgrades Available for Purchase

Upgrades from previous versions of VMware Fusion to VMware Fusion 3 cost only $39.99 and they are available today from the VMware Online Store.

For qualified students and teachers, VMware Fusion 3 Academic Upgrades are priced at $19.99 and they are available from the VMware Academic Store.

Addressing Questions and Fixing The Remaining Issues

I bought VMware Fusion 2 from the VMware Online Store and was promised a free upgrade…

I sincerely apologize for the delay in getting you your free upgrades in time for the launch. We planned to deliver your free upgrades yesterday, but we encountered some problems that delayed this temporarily. We are resolving the issues and it is currently our plan to send out e-mail notifications with free upgrade fulfillment information by the end of the week.

In the meantime, please download the VMware Fusion 3 trial to get up and running today. Once you receive your VMware Fusion 3 free upgrade fulfillment e-mail, you will just need to retrieve your final VMware Fusion 3 license and enter it into your already installed VMware Fusion 3 software.

What if I bought VMware Fusion 2 at a retailer or other online store in October, how do I get my free downloadable upgrade?

If you bought VMware Fusion 2 from a retail or other online store, you need to go to the VMware Fusion Technology Guarantee website, fill out the online form, and mail in or fax your proof of purchase of VMware Fusion 2. Free downloadable VMware Fusion 3 upgrades will take up two weeks to deliver after receiving a valid proof of purchase.

In the meantime, please download the VMware Fusion 3 trial to get up and running today. Once you receive your VMware Fusion 3 free upgrade fulfillment e-mail, you will just need to retrieve your final VMware Fusion 3 license and enter it into your already installed VMware Fusion 3 software.

I purchased an upgrade but did not receive an e-mail with my VMware Fusion 3 serial number…

Go to the VMware License Portal to retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 serial number.

Log into the VMware License Portal with your VMware account to retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 serial number/activation key.
If you are already running a trial of VMware Fusion 3, you can enter your activation key/serial number by choosing “License” from the “VMware Fusion” menu in VMware Fusion 3.
Otherwise, Download VMware Fusion 3. Install VMware Fusion 3 and enter your new license key during installation and you're all set.

I purchased an upgrade but my e-mail didn’t include a VMware Fusion 3 serial number…

We have fixed this issue for most customers that hit this problem and you can go to the VMware License Portal to retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 serial number.

Log into the VMware License Portal with your VMware account to retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 serial number/activation key.
If you are already running a trial of VMware Fusion 3, you can enter your activation key/serial number by choosing “License” from the “VMware Fusion” menu in VMware Fusion 3.
Otherwise, Download VMware Fusion 3. Install VMware Fusion 3 and enter your new license key during installation and you're all set.

We have about 100 more customers left with this problem and we expect to finish those fixes by mid day tomorrow. If you are one of these customers, you should be able to retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 upgrade license from the VMware License Portal tomorrow afternoon.

What if I bought VMware Fusion 2 with the 12-month Subscription option?

If you have an active subscription only contract (purchased 12 months ago or less), you receive a free downloadable VMware Fusion 3 upgrade. Your VMware accounts have been updated with your new VMware Fusion 3 license and e-mail notifications are being sent out this evening.

You can retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 licenses from the VMware License Portal.

Log into the VMware License Portal with your VMware account to retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 serial number/activation key.
If you are already running a trial of VMware Fusion 3, you can enter your activation key/serial number by choosing “License” from the “VMware Fusion” menu in VMware Fusion 3.
Otherwise, Download VMware Fusion 3. Install VMware Fusion 3 and enter your new license key during installation and you're all set.

My business bought VMware Fusion 2 with the Site Support, when do I get the upgrade?

If you have an active Site Support contract (purchased 12 months ago or less), you receive a free downloadable VMware Fusion 3 upgrade for your covered licenses. Your VMware account has been updated with your new VMware Fusion 3 licenses and e-mail notifications are being sent out this evening to retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 licenses.

You can retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 licenses from the VMware License Portal.

Log into the VMware License Portal with your VMware account to retrieve your VMware Fusion 3 serial number/activation key.
If you are already running a trial of VMware Fusion 3, you can enter your activation key/serial number by choosing “License” from the “VMware Fusion” menu in VMware Fusion 3.
Otherwise, Download VMware Fusion 3. Install VMware Fusion 3 and enter your new license key during installation and you're all set.

Thanks again for your patience and ongoing support

We worked hard to resolve the problems so you can get VMware Fusion 3 now. We are sorry for any issues you may have encountered.

We hope you enjoy VMware Fusion 3 as much as we enjoyed creating it!

Pat Lee

Director, Personal Desktop Products

VMware

vSphere PowerCLI Blog: San Diego VMUG October 2009 Recap

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:06:05 +0000

If you didn’t manage to make it to the San Diego VMUG you missed a pretty good show. Darin Pendergraft from Quest was there showing off EcoShell and I had cooked up a couple of demos of my own.

One of the more popular topics was a script I wrote to determine LUN latencies and the VMs that are writing to particular LUNs. One of the trickiest challenges when adopting virtualization is the effective use and partitioning of shared resources. Technologies like VMware DRS address exactly this challenge, but it’s safe to say that we’re still nearer the beginning than the end when it comes to automatic resource allocation and leveling.

On the other hand, PowerCLI and the vSphere API give you all the tools you need to monitor your environment, allowing you to proactively move or reallocate VMs away from storage hotspots. In particular I showed off a couple of scripts that tell you what your LUN read and write latencies are, as well as listing all VMs on a given LUN. The best part, the scripts are extremely simple, requiring less than 25 lines of code for both of these things! Don’t believe me? See for yourself:

You can easily adapt Get-VMHostLunLatency to run periodically (say, every night) to tell you if you’re experiencing any storage slowness. If you are you can easily follow that up with Get-LunVM to identify VMs that should be split off to separate LUNs. PowerCLI makes it all really simple.

Note that if you want to run Get-VMHostLunLatency against vCenter you will need to have your stats level set to 2 or higher.

As for the stuff I presented at the VMUG, I’ve posted my slides to slideshare:

San Diego VMUG Oct 2009

View more presentations from vmwarecarter.

And you can also download all the scripts I used here:

VMware vSphere Blog: Using Storage VMotion to Leverage Thin Provisioning

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:30:50 +0000

One piece that may not be all that clear for VMware users is that Storage VMotion (now available as a feature within our GUI and not just in the command line with vSphere 4.0) allows for an easy transition from previously thick provisioned virtual disks to new thin provisioning virtual disks. So, any user that upgrades to vSphere can now use this function to save up to 50% in terms of storage allocated in a virtual disk. Another product of this technology is the move to a thin provisioned virtual disk will also defrag the disk.

VMware Knowledge Base Blog: VMware Fusion 3.0 / VMware Workstation 7

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:03:00 +0000

On October 27th VMware launched VMware Fusion® 3 as well as Workstation 7. Unfortunately, our servers were not up to the task of dealing with the demand. Not only that, customers were not able to retrieve their serial keys or access the Licensing site. It was like a perfect storm was brewing.

While our IT Teams scurried to resolve the issues, the Knowledge Base Team too responded by creating an up-to-the-minute live document:

Alert: Licensing and upgrading VMware Fusion 3.0 / VMware Workstation 7

This KB article is still being updated as new information becomes available. If you have been affected by this, please read the KB. If you know how to spread the word to your friends and colleagues, please do so.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

UPDATE: Please read the Fusion Team's Response here…

Uptime: SRM 4.0 and Windows 2008 Support

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:49:30 +0000

Hello Uptime Readers,

We have seen a lot of questions lately relating to SRM support for Windows 2008 and there seems to be a lot of confusion out there so it seemed like a good time to maybe write a short blog to try and clear things up.

When you are working with or implementing SRM 4.0 and are asking questions or looking for information on operating system support the first thing you need to understand that will hopefully make things simpler is in what function will the operating system be used, there are two choices really:

It will be the operating system we use to install the SRM server (or SRM client plug-in) in to

It will be the operating system we use in the virtual machines we want to protect with SRM

Let’s take each in turn.

SRM Server

When deploying SRM you need two SRM servers, one at each site. The SRM server will in nearly all cases be deployed into a virtual machine itself but this virtual machine is not classed as a protected virtual machine as its role is simply to run the SRM server at that site and it will not normally be placed on replicated storage as there is no need to replicate an SRM server as the other site also runs an SRM server.

More frequently customers are now wanting to deploy SRM into Windows 2008 virtual machines. Before you do this you should review the SRM Compatibility Matrix.

Specifically review the section “SRM server operating System Compatibility” in this section you will need to be aware that although both Windows 2008 x86 and x64 are listed you should review the table carefully and understand that at time of writing the following statements are true:

If you want to use Windows 2008 to host your SRM Server note it is currently ONLY supported on the x86 (32bit) editions of Windows 2008 running SP1 (support for R2 editions will be reviewed on an ongoing basis). UPDATE: SP2 x86 support is now available!

If you want to use Windows 2008 to run your vSphere client and therefore install the SRM vSphere client plug-in note this is supported on the x86 and the x64 editions of Windows 2008 running SP1 (support for SP2 and R2 editions will be reviewed on an ongoing basis)

Protected Virtual Machines

Now that we have covered the SRM server what about the virtual machines you actually want SRM to protect, those virtual machines running your production workloads and applications that are sitting on your replicated storage.

As with the SRM server if you review the SRM Compatibility Matrix you will find the following section:

If you are looking for clarification for Windows 2008 support (though you could use this example for any GuestOS) you need to understand what each of the above paragraphs is telling you. First I think we could improve the clarity here and this is something we will review internally for the next documentation update. If we start with “Guest Operating System Support” the statement is “SRM 4.0 supports all guest operating systems supported by vCenter 4.0”.

What does this actually mean? From the SRM perspective what this is actually telling you is that SRM can “protect” any guest operating system that is a supported guest operating system on the vSphere 4.0 platform. You can review the full list of supported guest operating systems for vSphere here by setting:

Product Name = ESX

Product Release version = ESX 4.0

OS Use = Guest OS

OS Family = Windows

OS Name = Windows Server 2008

All of the guest operating systems produced in that list could be protected by SRM 4.0 with one additional consideration, do you want to customize the GuestOS (for example network changes using SRM’s ip customizer tool) during recovery? If the answer to that question is NO then any of the Windows 2008 operating systems listed on the HCL page you have just generated could be protected by SRM 4.0.

If you DO wish to customize the protected guest operating system during recovery using SRM 4.0's built in image customization capability (if you know how vCenter VM image customization works then you already understand this technique) then notice in the SRM 4.0 compatibility matrix picture above there is a second paragraph that refers to guest operating system customization support.

Although the section indicates that all of the same guest operating systems can be customized there are some versions of Windows 2008 that are not currently supported by SRM 4.0 for guest customization.

Currently SRM customization support for Windows 2008 does NOT include ANY R2 versions. Windows 2008 R2 is a new release of windows and is considered by many to be the server release of Windows 7. This is really the source of the supportability differences between a Windows 2008 SP1/SP2 edition and an R2 edition.

Customization support for the R2 releases of Windows 2008 will be reviewed as part of our ongoing SRM update program.

hope this helps,

Lee Dilworth

Workstation Zealot: Addressing the Overwhelming Demand for VMware Workstation 7 – Free 30 Day Trial Available

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:04:43 +0000

First off, I want to thank everyone for the flood of excitement for VMware Workstation 7. Because we’ve seen even more demand than anticipated, the VMware Workstation upgrade portal is having significant problems keeping up with the demand!

I want to reassure you that we are working on this urgently and expect to be back in action soon.

In the mean time, I want to get you up and running with VMware Workstation 7 while we resolve the issues many of you are encountering.

Click here to download the VMware Workstation 7 software for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows or 32-bit Linux or 64-bit Linux (Please right click and do a “save as” to download the file).
Use the following 30 day trial license key to get you up and running: M142T-1034J-M8280-0KA8H-A49PC

I hope this helps you get up and running while we get our VMware Workstation upgrade portal back in order.

Stay tuned to the Workstation Zealot blog and Twitter feed for the latest updates.

Thanks for your patience and ongoing support.

Pat Lee

Director, Personal Desktop Products

VMware

VMware vSphere Blog: Want to be a vSphere beta participant?

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:02:46 +0000

We are looking for beta participants to test out some new vSphere features currently in development. Interested? If so, contact your VMware account team for further details.

VMware vSphere Blog: Winning Post from Cycle 3 - Data Recovery

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:45:01 +0000

Below is the winning entry from Antone Heyward. His original post and accompanying graphics can be found at: http://thehyperadvisor.com/?p=540

Test driving VMware Data Recovery (vDR)
Friday, October 16, 2009By Antone Heyward
One of the most important things next to virtualizing all those physical servers is backing them up and restoring them. This of course is not a great feat with virtualization since basically the servers are now a group of files. There are and have been for some time full featured backup/restore products out there in the market but Vmware has released their virtual appliance “Vmware Data Recovery” currently at version 1.0.2 with vSphere4 Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus. I was actually impressed at how functional and the ease of setup with the product at version 1.x.

Download the appliance and vdrfilerestore.exe from Vmware.

Import the product into vCenter.

***Note: Make sure that the bios has the correct time. I ended up with backups in the future because the time was wrong.

***Note: I also updated the virtual hardware to version 7.

***Note: Since the appliance is CentOS5, I changed the guest OS to RHEL5, and resize the appliance to my needs (cpu/mem).

Install the VDR plugin.

Once this is done you will see the new feature button added to the vCenter Home area under “Solutions and Applications “. Click in this area and you will have to add the vDR appliance either using the name or dns name. ***Note: DNS resolution and network connectivity is key. I had a few issues like (error- 3948) which prevented me from doing backups which were all resolved by fixing the network. Make sure that the vDR appliance can communicate with your ESX hosts. The look and feel is no different with your objects on the left and information on the right. At first I thought it was too plan being used to using CA Arcserve.
So before setting up a backup job you’ll need to setup a destination location. This location is were your backups are store in a dedupped and none recognizable format. So don’t expect to see *.vmdk files in plain sight to do restores. The datastore can be either a local volume (vmdk) or NFS location and you can add them as needed. I tested with both the local volume and a windows share with successful results. The network share was slower than the local volume for backups and restores. When backing up to the local volume unless you have a dedicated datestore you have to take into account the added i/o which could affect other vm guests when backups are running.***Note: I haven’t tested this yet but there is no reason you could not replicate the dedup destination to a remote site for disaster recovery purposes since the destination location used by vDR is recognized by the vDR appliance. Your then giving an option to import the information to the new vDR appliance for restore purposes.

Setting up a backup job was simple. You can select the entire environment to backup or just one vm guest then add the destination, backup window, and retention policy. The jobs can be edited later plus you can also right a vm guest and add it to a new or current job plus remove it from a job.

The simple breakdown or process of what happens when a backup is performed is that the vm guest has a snapshot created, the vDR appliance reconfigures itself and attachs the vmdk that it’s going to backup to it’s virtual hardware, the vDR dedups the data and saves it to the destination you choose, then the vmdk is removed from the vDR, and lastly removes the snapshot.

Restores are pretty easy as well. You can either right click the vm guest or use the Restore tab. A good to have feature is that the option for a “Restore Rehearsal” can be performed. This allows you to restore the entire vm guest with the option to rename and reconfigure in vCenter without downtime of the original just to make sure the restore process would really work. You can select the restore point from the gui from different points in time all the back to your retention limits.

There is also the ability to restore at the file level. At this time it is experimental. I have seen post were others have had issues but it works well for me. You have to run the “vdrfilerestore.exe” in a command prompt which the correct switches “vdrfilerestore.exe -a <vdr server>” from the vm guest that you want to do a file level restore from. You are prompted to select the restore point, then it mounts the restore to a drive letter in the OS of the vm guest. Then you basically browse the drive and copy what you need. Once you are done, the drive can be unmounted from the command prompt. See this in actionhere.

I’d like to see the ability to mount a restore point from vCenter to any vm guest i choose to do a file level restore. Sometimes data is not needed to be restored to its origin. I’d also like to see more reporting information around how much deduplication is saving me or the % of deduplication per job and historically. And the addition of Alerts so that I could either send emails or run a script when a job fails would also be nice. Overall though, I think Vmware has done a good job with this virtual appliance in version 1.x.