As the previous post mentioned, in vSphere 5, Guest Operations API functionality that was previously only available via the VIX API has been incorporated into the core vSphere SDKs.

For a cool demo of this functionality, check out William Lam's recent post on his VirtuallyGhetto blog!  William created a Perl-based command-line interface to most of the guest operations functionality.

We've found that most people use the VIX API with vSphere for Guest Operations functionality — things like copying files in out of the guest, and running programs in the guest.

With the launch of vSphere 5, this functionality will now be available in the core vSphere APIs, via the GuestOperationsManager object and associated sub-managers.

The APIs incorporating this functionality will be:

• VMware vSphere Web Services SDK
• VMware vSphere SDK for Perl
• VMware vSphere SDK for Java

Please try them out, and let us know how you like them on the VIX API discussion forum.

The program
for VMworld
Developer Days just got posted, and I’m very excited to be giving a
talk about the VIX API and Guest Operations. 
In addition to a technical deep dive on the VIX API
implementation of guest operations and best practice for using them, we’re
going to give forward-looking details about future directions of the APIs.  Here’s the session abstract:

PPC-15

Guest Operations using VMware VIX APIs and Beyond

Level: Advanced

Have you ever needed to
customize a VM – or 1000 VMs?  Deploy or update software in a Guest
Operating System?  Monitor processes in a VM?  Copy files to or from
a VM?  Guest Operations provide a programming interface for automating or
scripting interactions with the Guest Operating system of a running Virtual
Machine.  This presentation gives an in-depth view on how to use these
operations, covering both the VMware VIX API (www.vmware.com/go/vix) and also
the future API roadmap for extending availability of these operations as part
of the VSphere Web Services APIs.

Speaker: Matt LaMantia

Like last
year, the Technology Exchange is going to be part of VMworld, at the Moscone
Center in SF, August 30 through September 1. 
This year, Developer Days is going to be a 3-day event, which is all
about VMware expanding the content that’s by engineers and for engineers.  I’m also told that there will be chances to
get free software and other goodies, including an iPad give-away.

We're happy to announce that VMware VIX 1.10.1 is now publicly available.  The new version includes support for vSphere 4.1, Workstation 7.1, and Player 3.1. 

You can get it here.  Happy programming! 

We're very excited about today's announcement of vSphere 4.1.  You can read more about it here.

As a reminder — there is currently a beta of the VIX API for vSphere 4.1, available, here.  Look for an announcement soon about the GA version of the VIX API for vSphere 4.1!

Thanks to Cody Bunch over at Professional VMware for posting this one.  In his post "Awesome VMware VIX Training," he writes,

No really, it is seriously awesome. Eric
Sloof from NTPRO.nl has
published a video
that runs you through a little utility he wrote called “vmFilemanager”,
then further shows you how to create such a utility using the free
edition of Visual Basic 2008.

Here's an embedded version of the training:

Lately, we've seen a few questions about redistributing some VIX API code, so I'd like to take a minute to explain how this works.

We want you to be able to use the VIX API to build on VMware's platform, so the EULA does allow you to redistribute the client run-time libraries as part of your own applications.  (See the EULA for the exact terms.)

We recently updated the list of redistributable components to make sure it's complete.  The updated list is part of the VIX API Reference Guide.  

Here's the list of redistibutable code:

Redistributable Code and Sample Code

As noted in the End User License Agreement, the VIX API allows you to
build and distribute your own applications. To facilitate this, the
following files are designated as redistributable for the purpose of
that agreement:

• VixAllProducts.lib and VixAllProductsd.lib
• vix.lib and vix.dll
• vixCOM.dll
• gvmomi.dll
• libvixAllProducts.so
• libvix.so
• libgvmomi.so.0

A new VIX-based app, VMware Guest Console, is now available on VMware Labs. It was developed using VIX.

This is a really cool Windows application, that lets you open multiple VMs simultaneously — then manage their processes, files, snapshots, and so on.  For example, you can open all of your Windows VMs, and copy a BAT file into all them, then run it simultaneously in all of the VMs.  Or, you could find all of the VMs with a specific process running in it, and kill that process.

You can download VMware Guest Console here. 

Here's a demo video:

Congrats to Ravi, Rahul, and Uttam on the public launch of this awesome app.  Of course, we're excited to have a really cool demo for the power of Guest Operations.

It's been a while so I thought I'd dust off the old VIX blog to talk about a new tool out there called PowerWF.

PowerWF has also posted quite a log of screencasts that can help you get a sense of the product. My brief description would be that PowerWF is a workflow builder based on Windows Workflow Foundation and specializing on workflow for virtual environments. The current version gives you more than 200 actions, including Windows Workflow Foundation (which gives you things like flow control for workflows), VIX (which gives you the ability to manage VMs as well as run programs within them), Secure Shell, and others. Here's a little taste of the VIX activities.

For some more info you might want to head over to Eric Sloof's blog or you can visit PowerWF directly. It seems PowerWF will also be adding support for PowerCLI within the next week or two, which should be pretty exciting for all you vSphere admins out there, so stay tuned.