VMTN Blog

Hi everyone,

I am one of the VMware vSphere product marketing managers at VMware and wanted to give you a summary of all the upcoming content related to the vSphere launch. We have developed resources for all audiences and technical levels to help you understand what is VMware vSphere, how does it work, and how to upgrade to it from VI3 or deploy it for the first time. 

Here is a quick summary of vSphere resources. More details are provided below the table.

WEBSITE:

Visit the VMware vSphere web page to learn more about the features and benefits of VMware vSphere based on your company size.  You will find datasheets, demos, and solution briefs on the vSphere product pages.

WEBCASTS / PODCASTS:

We have developed 3 webcast series:

• On-demand webcasts are pre-recorded and cover what’s new in vSphere while providing technical deep dives into vSphere features.
• Live Technical Webcasts feature live technical deep dives into various vSphere components.
• Live Overview Webcasts expand on the business value of vSphere for enterprises and SMBs.

We also have a series of podcasts for those of you who would like to learn about vSphere on the go! The podcasts will cover vSphere editions and provide technical deep dives into the new features.

UPGRADE AND EVALUATION CENTERS:

We have launched VMware vSphere Upgrade Center, a site that contains all the information you need to upgrade from VI3 to vSphere 4. The site will point you to upgrade preparation checklists, access to vSphere upgrade communities, vSphere entitlement paths for VI customers with active subscription contracts, and details on the new and improved licensing mechanism. We will add more resources to this page including upgrade best practices when vSphere becomes Generally Available.  I highly recommend that you bookmark this page if you are an existing VI customer.

[coming soon] We are creating a vSphere Evaluation Center packed with demos and technical documentation to provide a guided evaluation experience for both new and existing customers. The site will go live when vSphere becomes generally available.

QUICKSTART SERIES:

Note: This resource is NOT designed for existing VI customers

One last resource I want to point out to New Customers is the VMware vSphere QuickStart Series. This is a new FREE course that will be taught live over the web in four 2-hour modules. It is designed to teach VMware vSphere and VMware ESXi evaluators how to do a basic installation, configuration and management of either ESXi or vSphere. The course primarily consists of live product demonstrations to ensure new users gain practical experience that can be leveraged to do a basic vSphere POC or small deployment. If you are already familiar with VMware Infrastructure (VI3), you should not attend this class unless you want an 8 hour review of what you already know. 

Here is a short outline of the series:

Registration is open today and space is very limited. Visit the vSphere QuickStart landing page to view course details and register!

At VMworld 2008, we announced a number of name changes to our product lines. In broad strokes, Virtual Center becomes VMware vCenter and a brand for our management and automation products; and the product line for the enterprise desktop and our vClient Initiative become VMware View. Today we revamped the website to reflect these new names.

VMware vCenter
Brand name for all infrastructure and application management products from VMware

VMware VirtualCenter  → VMware vCenter Server
The central management product for VMware Infrastructure

VMware Lifecycle Manager → VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager
Workflow automation product for creation, deployment and decommissioning of virtual machines

VMware Converter → VMware vCenter Converter (for the version integrated into vCenter)
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone (for the separately downloadable version); comes in two flavors: Enterprise and Starter
Physical to virtual (P2V) conversion product

VMware Lab Manager → VMware vCenter Lab Manager
Automation product for application development environments

VMware Stage Manager → VMware vCenter Stage Manager
Automation product for application staging and deployment environments

VMware Update Manager → VMware vCenter Update Manager
Host and virtual machine patch management product integrated with vCenter Server

VMware Site Recovery Manager → VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
Disaster recovery orchestration product

VirtualCenter Foundation → vCenter Server Foundation
Node limited version of vCenter Server

VMFS → VMware vStorage VMFS
VMware’s cluster file system

VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure → VMware View
VMware’s integrated desktop virtualization solution that delivers enterprise-class control and manageability

Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM) → VMware View Manager
Enterprise class server which manages connections from end points to virtual desktops or hosted desktops while helping rapidly provision desktops

VMware Administrator Interface → VMware View Administrator
Administrator Interface for View Manager

VDM Agent → VMware View Manager Agent
Agent for View Manager to talk to the virtual desktop

VDM Web Access → VMware View Portal
Access to virtual desktops through web browser

VDM Client for Windows → VMware View Client for Windows
Client used to install on Win 32 PC or Win XP embedded thin client to connect to View Manager for virtual desktop access

VDM Client for Linux → VMware View Client for Linux
Client used to install on Linux thin clients to connect to View Manager for virtual desktop access

Only the current versions change their names -- older versions keep the older names, so you won't have to do that translation in your head. It's hopefully not too confusing, and it sets us up for more logical naming going forward. Behind such seemingly simple changes go a lot of work, so congrats to the team for pulling it off.

Richard Garsthagen, evangelist extraordinaire, giving the VMware overview at Microsoft TechEd EMEA. It's a good short overview that gets past the "my hypervisor is better than yours" argument to talk about the entire suite of infrastructure and management software that we offer. Also, make sure you watch to the very end. Richard can be very, very sneaky.

(click for the video)

Richard is also coordinating the bloggers (and many other things) at VMworld Europe 2009. If you have a blog and are going to be in Cannes this February, drop me a line (jtroyer @ vmware).

Check out our new ads, appearing in a business publication near you.

I usually try to weave the commerce a bit more seamlessly into the technical info and virtualization news that we traffic in here. But we just launched two special offers that I wanted to let people know about. In the future, I'll try to keep this kind of stuff over in the right sidebar.

• Through December 24, 2008, you can save 15 percent off the list price of VMware Site Recovery Manager when you purchase Site Recovery Manager with VMware Infrastructure Enterprise. Learn more.
• Save up to $5,100 on the VMware Infrastructure Acceleration Kits. Get enterprise-class virtualization with business continuity capabilities along with centralize management and credits for training or professional services. Learn More.

We've been holding a great series of day-long seminars all over the world this year called the VMware Virtualization Forums. (Most of the US ones have finished for the year, but they are still going on worldwide.) They are a great way of getting up to speed on VMware and the virtualization ecosystem, talk to existing customers, and meet your peers. Some have called them "mini-VMworlds," and I've seen very positive feedback on the value you get -- we try hard not to make it just a sales pitch.

Richard Garsthagen, who blogs over at run-virtual.com, gave the VMware overview at the Swedish Virtualization Forum entitled "VMware Vision and Future Direction". Even if you've been following along since the beginning, it's a good review of where we are now and how to explain virtualization to someone who may still think it's too complicated or too overhyped or just about server consolidation. It also talks about the forward-looking technologies we talked about at VMworld, if you want a second look.

I've been here for a few years now, and I tend to fall back on explaining virtualization from the basis of the technology stack.  What I liked about this presentation is that instead of that standard explanation, it talks about how people have used virtualization to get to virtual infrastructure very quickly and goes from there. Recommended, even for us old-timers.

You may be hearing a lot of sound and fury coming from some of VMware's competitors these days. Now VMware is better known for having products and technologies that "just work" than making overblown marketing claims. So instead of more sound bites, we just launched a new section of our website called Why Choose VMware. It goes through in great detail the reasons why over 120,000 customers have chosen to work with us to provide their virtual infrastructure.

Link: Why Choose VMware for your Virtual Infrastructure - VMware.

Q: Which Vendor Meets All Your Requirements for a Complete, Robust, Proven Virtual Infrastructure?

A: Only VMware.

 

1. Is built on a robust, proven foundation
2. Delivers a platform for shared IT services
3. Provides a complete solution for virtualization management
4. Supports your entire IT infrastructure
5. Is proven across tens of thousands of customer deployments.

As you’ll see, it quickly becomes clear that only VMware delivers on all of these important requirements. And best of all, VMware delivers while providing low total-cost-of-ownership (TCO).

Link: VMware: The Console: Follow-up from Paul Maritz.

As many of you already know, on August 12, 2008, we experienced a code issue with the updated versions of ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 (Update 2).  The issue triggered a premature expiration of the product license, causing a range of possible problems including the inability to power-on virtual machines on affected hosts.

At that time, I wrote that we would do everything in our power to ensure this type of incident is never repeated.  Since then, we have initiated a major examination and evaluation of our product release and quality assurance processes.  This effort has yielded a number of areas for improvement, and we have already begun making needed changes. 

Paul will be hosting a Q&A session at VMworld after his keynote on Tuesday, both of which will be webcast. (And I understand that Paul will also be taking a few questions via Twitter, but I'm not sure of the mechanism yet.)

Link: VMware: The Console: VMware is in SVVP.

The August 19 announcements from Microsoft are good news for VMware customers.  VMware is now part of the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program Program (SVVP), and is happy to work with Microsoft to deliver better support to our many mutual customers.  Under SVVP, customers running Windows and Microsoft applications on the VMware ESX hypervisor will receive the support they need from Microsoft, in addition to the support they have enjoyed fromVMware. VMware customers can continue to leverage the full flexibility and benefits of using Virtual Infrastructure.  VMware is working with Microsoft to certify ESX in the near future.

Here are a few posts found recently on Planet VMware -- blogging here at VMware seems to be accelerating!

VMware Fusion 1.1.2 Launches: Enhanced MacBook Air, Time Machine Support. Adds Simplified Chinese Localization. from Team Fusion

The VMware Fusion team would like to announce the general availability of VMware Fusion 1.1.2, a free update for all VMware Fusion users.  You can download this newest version here.

VMware Fusion 1.1.2 now provides better support for the MacBook Air, enables Time Machine backup of virtual machines, adds support for Windows XP SP3 Boot Camp partitions, and is now available in Simplified Chinese.

VMware Earnings and the Value for Partners from Mike DiPetrillo

Today (April 22) VMware announced 1st quarter earnings. The company did quite well and surpassed analyst expectations. Overall the company did $438 million in revenue for the quarter. What really gets me excited about this is the opportunity for the 14,000 partners out there selling VMware solutions. Every day I go to customers with partners or go to partner sites to do training. Whenever I'm with a partner they always want to know what's in it for them. Why should they be selling VMware when they're also Citrix and Microsoft partners and both of those companies have virtualization solutions. Here's my take....

Using the VMware Visual Studio plugin from Workstation Zealot

Last year for Workstation 6.0, one of the features we added was a plugin for Visual Studio 2005 that allows developers to debug a project (native and managed C/C++, C#, or Visual Basic) inside of a Windows virtual machine (specifically Windows 98, Windows 2000, and later). All of you Windows developers know how much of a pain it is to support multiple versions of Windows, but this tool is designed to make that process much, much easier.  The Visual Studio Integrated Debugger (VSID in short) plugin utilizes Visual Studio remote debugging technology to allow you to debug a project inside of a VM as if you were debugging on your host computer with the click of one button.

New and Updated VMware Security Advisories for ESX and VC from VMware Security Blog

Recently ESX and VirtualCenter (VC) patches were released which - among others - fix several security issues. These issues are detailed in a new advisory, VMSA-2008-0007, and in the updated advisories VMSA-2008-0002.1, 0003.1, 0004.1, 0006.1. Please take some time out of your busy schedule to review your deployments and update where appropriate.

You can manage VMware Server with PowerShell too. from VI Powershell Blog

Blogger John Tuffin has made an entry about his experiments managing VMware Server 2.0 Beta with PowerShell. To summarize, you can manage VMware Server with PowerShell, in much the same way you manage VMware ESX.

Free Downloadable Version of VMware Server 1.0 Training Now Available from VMware PhD

The downloadable version of the VMware Server 1.0 training currently posted on the VMware eLearning YouTube and Blip.TV channels is now available!