VMTN Blog

More from Mike Laverick at RTFM Education on the last day of VMworld:
Performance on Citrix:

The actual session turned up no surprises from what we have all gathered from the Forum’s and experience. Single CPU VM’s for MFPS are the way to go; Turning off hyper-threading is still recommended; ESX 3.x offers much better user concurrency than ESX 2.x…. with ALL usual cavats that it depends on your APP and your user activity.

Networking Scenarios & Troubleshooting:

One of the outstanding session of my time here at VMworld. I really couldn’t fault either content or the guy who delivered the stuff. He really knew his stuff - and some more. I will be definitely taking some of this stuff and re-working it into the classes I teach (time permitting)

When you get the chance to download the PDF of this session - make sure you do.

My only gripe - was some of my top questions, this guy wasn’t able to answer. Like clunkiness of the iSCSI setup when you have CHAP authentication; how you can’t reliably and effectively create vmkernel switches with that X in the box to enable VMotion and so on. We were treated to some “pat” answers on that which I just don’t buy.

Troubleshooting Unleashed:

Well, this is my 2nd or 3rd “troubleshooting” style sessions, and unfortunately they are beginning to form a pattern. With very obivious recommendations (such as document, be logical, read log files). This one was a cut above the average session of this type. With a REAL engineer talking about the REAL problems he has faced. Hey, what a novel idea! Troubleshooting based on real experiences (plenty of irony intended!) ... So in short - for future reference. More examples. More war-stories. Keep it snappy…

VMotion between Apples & Oranges:

This was a very interesting session. It took my already good knowledge about some of the processor compatiablities to a new level. I would strongly urge those who were unable to attend this years VMworld to review the PDF of PPT when you have time. ...

[Y]ou will be glad to know that I have taken the decision to try and galvanise some of the Forum members who have been intelligentally experimenting with this feature. Because of the hardware involved this can’t be a one-man-rtfm-effort. It’s going to take a community response. If VMware won’t or can’t give us all info we need - we’re going to figure out for ourselves.