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Monthly Archives: January 2007

VMware HA: You’re soaking in it!

How well does VMware HA work?

Link: blog.scottlowe.org » Blog Archive » VMware HA in Action.

It works so well, in fact, that you may not even notice it working. …

I had been out for a few days working on-site with customers, and when
I came back into the lab this morning everything seemed fine.  It
wasn’t until later in the day, when I finally launched the Virtual
Infrastructure (VI) Client and connected to VirtualCenter,
that I realized one of my ESX hosts had crashed.  VMware HA had stepped
in and automatically restarted all the VMs on the second host, and the
other engineers who were there when the failure happened said they
didn’t even notice the failover.  Had I not logged in to the VI Client,
I wouldn’t have even known that I had a host failure.  It was that
seamless.

Fusion video from the Macworld floor

Link: Macworld 2007 Show Floor Showoff: VMware – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).

Virtualization is the new black in the Mac market these days. I got a chance to talk with Pat who is the product manager of VMware for the Mac (aka Fusion).
VMware is the granddaddy of virtualization, and a ‘big deal’ in that
space. Pat gives us an overview of what VMware is trying to do with
Fusion and a glimpse at their software philosophy.

Also on YouTube:

Running a physical Windows partition as a virtual machine

Using VMware Workstation or Player, you can run a virtual machine off a raw disk partition, i.e., not using a vmdk file. Today on Digg we find:


Running a Windows Partition in VMware from
Imran Naza (mirror)

I have my system partitioned into two: one part of the hard drive hosts
a Windows XP partition, and the other runs Gentoo Linux. About a month ago,
I was just about tired of having to reboot to switch between the two, so
I decided to set up a VM for Windows.

There was, however, a snag to this: I wanted to use the existing Windows
installation, because I’d tuned it up and installed the software I always
use. I expressly didn’t want a virtual disk image duplicating my Windows
drive, since I didn’t have the space for that. So, that was the task:
running the Windows partition in a VM.

See also:  Running VMWare on a Physical Partition from Scott Bronson (mirror)

VMware documentation: Configuring a Dual-Boot Computer for Use with a Virtual Machine.

Many users install VMware Workstation on a dual-boot or multiple-boot
computer so they can run one or more of the existing operating systems
in a virtual machine. If you are doing this, you may want to use the
existing installation of an operating system rather than reinstall it
in a virtual machine.

To support such installations, VMware
Workstation makes it possible for you to use a physical IDE disk or
partition, also known as a physical disk, inside a virtual machine.

Note: VMware Workstation supports booting from physical disk
partitions only on IDE drives. Booting guest operating systems from
physical SCSI drives is not supported. For a discussion of the issues
on a Linux host, see Configuring Dual- or Multiple-Boot SCSI Systems to Run with VMware Workstation on a Linux Host.

And, as always, the experts hang out at the VMTN Workstation Forum if you run into trouble. (Search for ‘raw’ in that Forum)

VMware admins make more

   

   

   

   

VMware $73,000

system administrator $62,000

IT $48,000

data center $34,000

View Larger Salary Graph

Average VMware salaries for job postings nationwide are 115% higher
than average data center salaries for job postings nationwide. (source: Indeed.com)

Exchange 2007 users are switching to VMware

Link: Exchange 2007 facing integration issues with other Microsoft software – Network World.

In a nutshell, Exchange 2007 can’t run on Microsoft’s most current virtualization software, Exchange’s management tools won’t run on the just released Vista desktop operating system and the 64-bit messaging server is not compatible with Microsoft’s forthcoming 64-bit server operating system called Longhorn. …

Ironically, users can run Exchange 2007 on the VMWare platform, which does support 64-bit guest systems, and some users are
                        making the switch.

VMware likes to compete by making better products. Case in point.

Using VI3 advanced features? Tell the world!

If you use VMware Infrastructure 3 in production, we’d like to hear about it, especially if you are using advanced features such as DRS, HA, Consolidated Backup, resource pools, or clusters. We are looking for quotes about your experience so far: how these features have helped your business and turned you into a hero at work with a big fat raise.*

This is a quick and easy way to tell us and the world about how you use this cutting-edge technology. Just email me at jtroyer@vmware and I’ll put you in touch with the right people. If you’re interested in being a formal reference, please also consider joining our Core Customer Program, but I’d still love to hear from you!

*We’ll really only use your comments about the benefits of VMware Infrastructure,  but I always like to hear about the career-advancing benefits of a VI3 deployment.

A full deck of 52 interesting virtual appliances

Link: :: TechBlog :: » Blog Archive » VMTN Virtual Appliances – the 52 that looked interesting to me.

Recently, i got sucked into the VMware Technology Network (VMTN) site – again – and browsing through the many virtual appliances available for download, i managed to compile a list of 52 of my favorites.

The List of 52 Appliances (in no particular order)

  1. The Web Developer Appliance
  2. FreeNAC
  3. SmoothWall
  4. SSL-Explorer 0.2.9_04 for VMWare
  5. sipX
  6. …

Spanning the globe: more remaindered links

If you’re not watching Planet V12n, you’re missing out. It may seem like a firehose, but it’s really is the best of the web on virtualization, both the industry and best practices in the field. Often we won’t cover the same topics here on VMTN Blog because I assume you are also checking Planet V12n. It has a news feed if you are so inclined, so no excuses.

Some highlights from this week from the practical tips category:

And since we’re in the practical category, here’s some of my more practical Remaindered Links from the last two weeks:

Free VMware Server in action

Link: software.gurock.com » Free VMware Server in action.

After using our new server(s) for some time now, I can say that the performance is much better than we actually hoped for. We can start a build on our virtual build machine and everything else like our email and Subversion servers are as fast as normal. And the 4GB RAM gives us enough capacity for more servers and development/tests machines in the future. The actual performance and required hardware obviously depends on the actual number of users you have and our two users are probably not very representative.

But based on my observations and tests, I suspect that such a server should easily handle all the common services like Subversion, E-Mail, File Server, Active Directory and web based applications for up to 10 users or more and therefore makes it a very economical solution for small ISVs. And besides the space and cost savings such virtual servers provide, it becomes ridiculous easy to backup entire servers just by copying or burning the virtual machine files.

[via Tarry]