VMTN Blog

The beta release of VMware Studio 2.0 and using it to create vApps was the topic of this week's podcast. Studio 1.0 came out last year; this beta moves the bar significantly. We also got into why you as a VMware admin should care about vApps - without being too hyperbolic I think it's going to be the organizing paradigm that will change how we think of applications -- from a VM level to something much higher-level and more manageable. Going back to Studio, here's the high-level description:

VMware Studio 2.0 helps configure, build, deploy, customize and maintain vApps and virtual appliances. These solution stacks can be deployed on VMware vSphere 4.0 or in the cloud and can be managed from the VMware Studio web console or from VMware vCenter Server. In this webinar, software vendors, application developers and IT administrators will get an overview of vApps and virtual appliances followed by what's new in Studio 2.0. We will walk you through the entire build process by starting with an application created in Eclipse (via the Eclipse plug-in in Studio) and demonstrating how it can be packaged as either a vApp or virtual appliance in OVF format. The process will also reveal various automated tools available, for creating a clean out-of-box experience, such as specifying exact OS requirements, building an update repository, adding custom management services and adding existing VM builds as input.

As always, listen in via the widget to the right, the mp3, or via iTunes.

More links:

• VMware Studio 2.0 beta page
• VMware Studio 2.0 webinar recorded for your on-demand viewing pleasure from our VMware Coffee Talk Series  with more details and slides
• vApp Developers Blog <-- brand new! We'll be covering vApps, OVF, Studio, and topics related to building and using virtual appliances here. They are already off to a great start -- check out the opening post complete with very nice video of the vSphere OVF deployment wizard in action; and the second post talking about working with OVF from the command line.

Non-Studio topics we discussed:

• VMworld Technology Exchange Developer Day: announcement, more details, registration is open
• Virtualization Security Podcast with Special Guests Karen Hepner and Steve Beaver from vWire, Scott Lowe and Chris Wolf.
• Dave Convery: Dear VMware: Pick a Common (SUPPORTED) Virtual Appliance OS... Please...

A few of the podcast attendees have already weighed in with their reactions - mostly about the significance of using vApps in the enterprise. I wasn't kidding when I used the word 'paradigm' above.

Stu from vinternals.com, who is known to tell it like it is, liked it, he really liked it.

Rich Brambley:  VMware Studio 2.0 and OVF Exports: Blurred Products or Outside The Box Thinking? | VM /ETC.

I’ll outline potential Studio / OVF usage that may be “outside of the box” from the VMware software’s intended purpose. Or is it? You tell me.

vCenter / Deploy from template

The ability to export any VM as an OVF from the VI Client by itself, let alone VMware Studio, opens the door for template deployment in environments without vCenter. Build a VM to desired corporate standards and then export a copy of it to a shared network drive where it can be used as a master image for future deployments on any virtual platform that supports OVF.

With VMware Studio build a multiple VM apllication as a vApp. Configure the web server and the database for example, and before adding any data export the combination as an OVF. Deploy the vApp OVF as a master template as needed.

Sure, vCenter offers so much more automation for this process, but what about for deployment between ESX hosts that are not managed by the same vCenter or don’t share the same storage? ...

Daniel Eason: Virtually Insane?: The Virtual Glue.

By deploying turnkey Virtual Appliances with for example a new SAP ERP Landscape on 10-20 Machines in a period of say 2-3 days rather than 2-3 Machines in 10-20 days clearly shows that current long deployment processes are redced and less people need to be involved on a deployment when using Virtual Appliances alongside side orchestration and groupings such as vApp. The problem however with this is you get people protective on roles and the oldage turf war developing so it is not something that can be just implemented straight away. ...

vApps functionality in vSphere enables organisations to reduce even more manual and people process. It enables you to compile the complete application stack and configure all associated components by one single master definition. Tie this in with some VMware orchestration capability where you could say deploy via API the Database components as part of the VM build and provision the relevant Networking components and it is clear the potential is going to be huge.

For the Canadians hiding among us, happy belated Canada Day. For the USians, happy Fourth. For the rest of the world, keep on working and we'll see you next week.

We've been doing this podcast thing for a year, so happy anniversary! Since this was podcast #48, and that doesn't count the podcasts we recorded at VMworld, that means we were here every single week except for one week at American Thanksgiving and two at Christmas, and I think we can all agree that a full year of weekly podcasts lies firmly between crazy and genius, leaning towards crazy. The only way we made this possible on our budget (zero) is to (1) use a free service; (2) have zero preparation and zero post-production (although I try to remember to run the audio files through a little volume leveling); but most importantly (3) get smarter people than myself on the line every week. That last one is the key. From the beginning I wanted to pull together a panel of smart VMware experts for commentary and get them to ask questions to a smart technical guest. That setup, now with an expanded live audience of a few dozen smart chatters and callers every week, has turned this thing into a winner. I want to thank the tireless roundtable panel for making time week after week to call in and my VMware colleagues who have learned to duck into an office when they see me wandering the halls looking for guests.

Stop by every Wednesday at noon Pacific time to join in the fun -- see below for details on next week's podcast on vSphere performance.

This week we were lucky enough to have Chris Gebhardt and Vaughn Stewart from NetApp as our guests, and obviously storage was the topic -- LUN sizing, dedupe, intelligent caching, VMware View, snapshots, SSDs, and more. As always, listen via the widget on the right, the mp3, or via iTunes.

Links:

• The Virtual Storage Guy blog from Vaughn Stewart 
• The Virtualization Effect blog from Chris Gebhardt
• VMware vSphere and the vStorage API from Rick Scherer
• TR3428 - NetApp and VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 Storage (pdf)
• NetApp Rapid Cloning Utility video (YouTube)
• NetApp VMware View Integration video (Vaughn Stewart on YouTube)
• TR3705 - NetApp and VMware VDI Best Practices (pdf)
• NetApp SnapManager for VMware Infrastructure (SMVI) Demo (YouTube)
• NetApp to acquire Data Domain (press release - this dropped as we were finishing up the podcast)

Other things you'll want to listen to:

• Virtual Thoughts (blog | information) New podcast from Edward Haletky (Texiwill) and Tom Howarth. Topic: vSphere Licensing. Tuesday, May 26, 2:30pm EDT / 1930pm BST.
• VMware Communities Roundtable. Scott Drummonds on What's New In vSphere Performance. information. Wednesday, May 27, noon PDT / 3pm EDT / 2000 BST.
•  Virtualization SQL on VMware with Confidence: What You Should Know and How to Get Started (with Rick Scherer from VMwareTips.com; link takes you to free NetApp webinar registration) Thursday, May 28, 11am PDT  / 2pm Eastern / 1900 BST.
• Online Virtualization Forum from VMware. June 9 & 10, 8am-1pm PDT / 11am-4pm EDT / 1600-2100 BST
• The Hypervisor Huddle #1 "an audiocast for IT pros in the know" from the SearchVMware.com crew. Topic: vSphere Licensing,  Hyper-V R2, and Oracle-Sun. (monthly, pre-recorded)
• Virtualization Security Roundtable Podcast. Every other Thursday 11:30am PDT / 2:30pm EDT / 1930 BST
• You do know about VMware's Webcasts on Demand, right? Look for the ones labeled "Technical Track" for the good stuff.

The talk was lively in this week's podcast. It was an open topic week and we covered a lot of ground. The highlights were a discussion of performance monitoring featuring Thomas Bryant and Doug Hazelman as well a call from Scott Lowe and Steve Beaver from the Virtualization Congress. As always, listen in via the widget to the right, the mp3, or via iTunes.

Next week, May 13, join special guest Paul Manning for a discussion of What's New in VMware vSphere 4: Storage. We meet every Wednesday at noon Pacific.

Upcoming events:

• May 7 Virtualization Security Roundtable Podcast on VMsafe  
• May 8 What's new with vSphere Web Services SDK Deep Dive The first monthly VMware Coffee Talk Live Webinars is in two parts: part one was this mornng but you can still catch part two on Friday. Recordings are available after the life webcast.
• May 14 UK VMUG London
• May 18 First unofficial online VMUG - topics in VESI & vSphere - Alan Renouf
• May 19 VMUG Madison Wisconsin - note, this will be webcast! 

New books:

• Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell by Hal Rottenberg
• VMware vSphereTM and Virtual Infrastructure Security by Edward Haletky
• VMware VI3 Implementation & Administration (Kindle version) by Eric Siebert

Links for your linky pleasure:

• The Blue Ocean of Performance Monitoring by Thomas Bryant
• VMware vSphere and the vStorage API by Rick Scherer
• So, what does vStorage really mean? by Chad Sakac
• Thin on Thin? Where should you do Thin Provisioning – vSphere 4.0 or Array-Level? by Chad Sakac
• Hoffacino  - this explains so much about what goes on here: @Beaker
• The Marriage of Figaro: Complexity and Insecurity of the Cloud aka The Frogs Who Desired a King Chris Hoff's Virtualization Congress presentation as liveblogged by Scott Lowe
• Virtualization Congress
• Will we be forced to pay more? Part 1 & Part 2 by Maish Saidel-Keening (expect a bit more context and commentary from VMware on this topic soon)
• Hyper-V Live Migration for free, tough cookie for VMware by Gabrie van Zanten
• Video on Hyper-V Crashes by Scott Drummonds

Have a great week!

This was a big week! We launched VMware vSphere, so there was little else we could discuss on this week's VMware Community Roundtable Podcast. On the first half, we covered licensing, and then on the second half we covered technology topics, with a special focus on vSphere networking. As usual, listen via the widget on the right, the mp3, or via iTunes

Links

• vSphere overview
• vSphere Launch Event webcast
• vSphere Upgrade Center (this will answer most of your questions)
• vSphere Upgrade Community (this is where you can ask any remaining questions)

• VMware Launches vSphere and Time to upgrade (with video) Mike DiPetrillo
• VMware announces vSphere 4 Cloud OS (Greg Lato)
• vSphere Linkage (Duncan Epping)
• vSphere Links (Eric Siebert)
• vSphere pricing (pdf)
• vSphere Essentials Datasheet (pdf)

• VMware Networking Blog
• iSCSI multipathing with esxcli (Duncan Epping)
• What's New in vSphere 4 Networking (pdf)
• What's New in vSphere 4 Storage (pdf)
• Sneak Peek at vShere 4 I/O Goodness and World Records (Chad Sakac)
• The Great vSwitch Debate: Part 6 (Ken Cline)
• Simplify Network Administration with vNetwork Enhancements in VMware vSphere 4 (May 4 Webcast)
• VMware vSphere Health Check Script

For next week's podcast (always Wednesday at noon PDT / 3pm EDT) we'll discuss the white paper Storage Considerations for VMware View with the author, Fred Schimscheimer.  Your homework assignment is to read the paper and come wtih questions.

Last week our topic on the VMware Communities Roundtable podcast was SQL Server and best practices for running it on your virtual infrastructure. This was a good one. Our guest was Hemant Gaidhani, author of this recent white paper on Microsoft SQL Server and VMware Virtual Infrastructure. At the risk of oversimplifying, Hemant's messages were; follow Microsoft's best practice guidelines for SQL Server and you probably won't ever run into issues. If you do, take a look at your storage design. As always, listen via the widget on the right, the mp3, or via iTunes.

Our next podcast topic is All Things Mobile, including vCenter Mobile Access and the VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform. Our guest is Srinivas Krishnamurti. Join us this Wednesday, April 8, at noon PDT / 3pm EDT / 7pm GMT. Podcast information.

Links discussed on this podcast:

• Virtualizing SQL Server (resource center with white papers and customer stories on vmware.com)
• Microsoft SQL Server and VMware Virtual Infrastructure (white paper from Hemant Gaidhani)
• SQL Server Performance Problems Not Due To VMware (blog post from Scott Drummonds)
• Best Practices for SQL Server (community doc from Scott Drummonds)
• Benchmarking Microsoft SQL Server Using VMware ESX Server 3.5 (white paper)
• SQL Server - Best Practices (resource center on microsoft.com)
• ESXTOP and disk latency (section 4.2.2)
• Microsoft Unlocks SQL Server 2005 license for virtualization (blog post virtualization.info) and the press release from Microsoft
• Mirroring and Clustering ((from Database Mirroring and Failover Clustering, MSDN))
• Combining Log Shipping and Database Mirroring. (from Database Mirroring and Failover Clustering, MSDN)
• Scalable Storage Performance (VMware white paper)

Our topic last week was VMworld 2009, and specifically the VMworld 2009 Call for Papers that was recently announced, with more detail on how the process works and what kinds of proposals are most likely to be accepted. As always, listen via the widget to the right, the mp3, or on iTunes.

We also found out a few tidbits, such as

• The open room of self-paced labs that were so popular at VMworld Europe will also be appearing at VMworld 2009 in Moscone Center.
• For the instructor-led labs, the limit of two per person will remain. Note that these labs will be open Monday (normally Partner/Virtualization 101 day), so that might be a good time to get into your lab of choice. (If you don't get into the labs you want, I also recommend trying to get on wait lists on the last day,  Thursday, when the show has slowed a bit and people have started to leave.) The instructor-led labs have been pushed out to the Marriott across the street, which will hopefully free up a bit of room for people in the main hall.)

And we talked about some random links at the end: ESX Overclocking (note the purported release date) and Twitter Plug-in for VI Client.

We'll be back again, as we always are every week, this Wednesday (which is probably today for most of you reading this) at noon PDT / 3pm EDT / 7pm GMT. Note that the US is already on summer time, while the rest of the world has not changed yet, so don't be surprised! Come on over to VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast page on TalkShoe and click through to listen and chat. This week we have an "Open Topic" Roundtable where we talk about the virtualizaton news and blog posts that have caught our attention during the week - I have no idea what we'll talk about, so you'll just have to come on by and see what happens!

[thanks to Duncan for note taking this week.]

It was an open topic week, and as usual, we covered a lot of ground. At this point, many of us are hanging out on Twitter and talking during the week, so getting together to record the podcast is a lot of fun. I highly recommend stopping by the live podcast and chat for the full experience.

As much as we're having fun, I think this week we packed a full day's seminar into an hour. If you are a VMware admin and the links below look interesting, give us a listen. Use the widget to the right, the mp3, or iTunes.

Links you can use, as expertly compiled by VMware's own Duncan Epping from Yellow Bricks. Thanks, Duncan!

VMworld Europe is being held in Cannes, February 24-26.

• It's not too late to register, and the content catalog is now up.
• This year we are having, as in past years, a VMTN Experts session, but this year it's more of a meet & greet & ask than a formal panel. More from Eric Sloof and Tom Howarth.
• VMworld Sessions, which should I attend? from VMware's Duncan Epping
• VMworld Europe 2009 - What will be revealed??? 21 days and counting... from EMC's Chad Sakac

vExperts vs vIdiots

• The vExpert public application/nomination deadline is Feb 6!
• Are you a vExpert? Original announcement and clarification.
• For every vExpert, there must be a vIdiot

VMware View Open Client

• press release: VMware Announces First Open Source Virtual Desktop Client, Enabling Partners to Optimize Devices for VMware View and Provide Low-Cost Desktop Solutions
• VMware View Open Client at Google Code
• the Open Client is not the vCenter Client. We've announced both the vCenter Server and Client will be available on Linux. Session at VMworld Europe.
• Several people have experimented with the existing VMware Infrastructure Client running on Linux using Wine (but it's not really working)

VMware Infrastructure Management Assistant

• VMware Infrastructure Management Assistant overview
• How VMware Infrastructure Management Assistant bridges the ESXi management gap from David Davis
• VIMA and ESX Password Complexity (please secure your VIMA just like you would secure your Service Console.)
• New VMware Healthcheck Script from William Lam, reported by Duncan Epping
  
• Run esxtop from VIMA from Sven Huisman
  
• Two options for installing VIMA from David Davis
• VMotioning your Service Console?! from Duncan Epping
  

VMware RSS feeds, email subscriptions and the compatibility guide

• VMware RSS subscription portal
• Planet V12n (feed) and Planet VMware (feed)
• new! VMware Knowledgebase Blog
• VMware Knowledgebase Weekly Digest
• VMware HCL - Search the Hardware Compatibility Guide

VMotion compatability

• VMware CPU Host Info utility
• CPU Identification Utility

Restoring VMFS volumes when VCB/Windows did an automount

• VCB: I forgot all about "automount disable" what now? from Duncan Epping
• How to recover your VMFS partition, a pdf from the VMware Communities

FC storage attached during upgrade/installation?

• Removehba script 
• Upgrading from ESX 3.01 to 3.5U3

Eric Siebert's book and rough cuts preview

• VMware VI3 Implementation and Administration from Eric Siebert - Rough Cuts Preview from O'Reilly Safari Online
  

Run ESX within Workstation or Player

• Eric Siebert's list of resources for ESX in a VM
• xtravirt's ESX white papers, including installing ESX in Workstation 6 and ESX in Player (the Player white paper is hot off the presses!)
• VMware Virtual Infrastructure Test Environment from Dell TechCenter
• ESX in a Box with Shared Storage but... from Duncan Epping
• ESX Tools Project from Ulli Hankeln / continuum

SRM Failback

• Failback? Absolutely! Absolutely! from our new(ish) Uptime Blog
  

VMware client side hypervisor - we announced our vClient initiative at VMworld 2008. If you weren't there, you can get the details from these webcasts.

• Sneak peek: 2009 Datacenter Management Roadmap (webcast)
  
• Sneak peek: 2009 Desktop Management Roadmap (webcast)
• A deeper look at VMware's upcoming bare-metal client hypervisor from Brian Madden
  

NFL runs on VMware

• Atlanta Falcons, can I help you with your new IBM and VMware Infrastructure?
• The tech that makes the Superbowl super

Here's last week's podcast, #33, where we talked about the new VI Toolkit (for Windows) (aka PowerShell Toolkit) version 1.5 launch, high-throughput iSCSI and other goodness.

Join us today, Wednesday, February 4, at noon PST / 3pm EDT / 8pm GMT for another open topic roundtable. The communities panel will be there, and we take questions from listeners and live call-ins. I suspect we'll cover the VMware View Open Client launch and other technical topics. More info on the podcast.

[show notes and links for #33 coming later today. #34 sometime after that.]

Last week we repeated our topic, Virtualizing Exchange and other enterprise messaging applications. Our guests, VMware's Dave Korsunsky and Jon Dybik, returned. A good time was had by all. As always, listen via the widget on the right, by downloading the mp3 directly, or by going through iTunes. (Every week, you can download the raw audio recording immediately, and then later I put it through Levelator, which makes it much more listenable and gives a constant volume from all the callers. So if you're blowing out your eardrums on your iPod with our surprise volume changes, try downloading again.)

Join us today in 3 hours or so (noon PST / 3pm EST / 8pm GMT / 7am Sydney EDT) for an Open Topic Roundtable. Come by, join the chat, or call in. More info here. Some topics we may cover:

• VI Toolkit (for Windows) aka PowerShell Toolkit version 1.5 released
• Multi-vendor post on high-throughput iSCSI
• From the email inbox: How many ESX Servers do you have to install before automation is really worth it? (Prediction: the answer will be 1.)

We focused on Microsoft Exchange last week, so other than our main page for things Exchangey:

• Deploying Exchange on a Dynamic Platform aka Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange.

all I've got for you today is our brand spankin' new section on the VMware Communities. Drop by and ask your questions there! Dave, Jon, and our other enterprise application experts are standing by.

• Virtualizing Exchange,  Domino, and RIM Community

We had some technical difficulties with our podcast provier this week, so we held a short roundtable session. By the time we got on the air, I'd let our guests go for the day, but one, Jon Dybik, did stick around, so we got to talk about virtualizating Microsoft Exchange for a bit anyway.

Still, we did decide to reschedule for next week. #32 Roundtable will be next week, Jan 21, at noon PST, and the topic will be, once again, Virtualizing Exchange (and Domino and BlackBerry).  More info here. For this week, listen via the widget on your right or the mp3.  Links for our short podcast this week:

Microsoft virtualization licensing

• Microsoft Licensing FAQs
• Windows Server Virtualization Calculators
• Server Virtualisation Part 1 - Server Operating System Licensing - Windows 2008 with/without Hyper V from Microsoft's Emma Healy
• Hey Dad - Microsoft Virtual Machine Licensing Policies (fun video explanation)
• Chris Wolf on licensing: Interpreting Microsoft’s Revised Virtualization Licensing Policy

Edward Haletky's Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast - go NOW (Thursday @ 11:00 am PST / 2:30 pm EST)

Virtualizing Exchange

• Everything you need is right here on this page: Deploy Exchange on a Dynamic Platform.
• Skip right to the Resources tab if you must.
• This white paper is getting good reviews: Deploying Exchange Server 2007 on VMware Infrastructure: A VMware Internal Case Study