Tag:

virtualization

WMworld and the week ahead

by Philip Sellers August 27, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

August is quickly drawing to a close and the last day of the month kicks off the first day of VMworld in San Francisco. The past week has been really busy as I prepare for my trip and try and bring my co-workers up-to-date with what is going on and things that might come up while I’m away.

I’m very excited to be attending VMworld again this year and I’m looking forward to soaking up just as much as possible from the conference. I plan on blogging about some of the sessions and topics I encounter. Last year’s conference in Las Vegas was great and I think my company greatly benefited from the information I was able to get and bring back. We had information months in advance about the then upcoming vSphere version and its capabilities. For anyone who is seriously invested in ESX, its well worth the money to attend.

One thing we’ve been seriously looking at is virtual host management software — something in addition to Virtual Center and something to alert us of what is going on inside of our ESX hosts. In a pipe dream, we’d love a product that is also cross platform, since we’ve added XenServer to our mix this year. We’re looking for software that can do some level of network monitoring and notification about traffic from ESX hosts, that allows us to alert on a wider variety of problems in the ESX environment, but also something to help us answer questions when the arise.

I hope to spend some time in the vendor expo area looking at what solutions are available. We have seen demos and installed evaluations from several companies, but I think we are down to two options – Hyper9 or vFoglight from Vizioncore. Those are two very different products, but each has its own strengths. Ideally, I think both would fit into our environment quite well and both would be useful, but I doubt we get to buy both. Neither fits that bill, but it sounds like both are moving in that direction in the future.

The week after VMworld, a rumored Apple event may happen. Unfortunately, the event is scheduled for 9/9/09, after I leave San Fran – darn it. AppleInsider is rumoring the event will be iPod related – including adding point-and-shoot camera capabilites to the iPod lines. iTunes 9 is also expected to be announced with some social networking tie-in’s. Years past, as AppleInsider reports, the event has been held at the Yerba Buena Center – and that is just a couple blocks from the hotel in the city – oh well…

So, its an exciting week for me coming up. I’m looking forward to the trip and to VMworld.

August 27, 2009 1 comment

Virtualization

Myrtle Beach VMUG meeting tomorrow

by Philip Sellers August 5, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

Just a quick post as a reminder for anyone in the Myrtle Beach, SC, area – we have an inaugural VMware Users Group meeting tomorrow at Barefoot Resort starting at noon. If you need additional information or need to register, please go to the VMware website and register. Vizioncore is sponsoring the meeting and Chris Walker, a systems engineer for the company, will be doing a presentation about their product line and offerings. VMware’s Brad Desilets will be doing a presentation about vSphere including new offerings in the product and some best practices. A Wilmington, NC, area company, VisionAIR, will be presenting a case study about their experience virtualizing on ESX. The meeting is from noon until 2pm tomorrow and looks to have some great information, some time to network and a free meal… Hope to see you there.

August 5, 2009 1 comment

Datacenter Storage Virtualization

Selecting my VMworld schedule

by Philip Sellers August 4, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

VMworld opened session registration for attendees earlier this week. For anyone who hasn’t attended, you use the VMworld website to register for sessions ahead of time and specifically register for the instructor led labs offered during the conference.

There are lots of great sessions and many of the ones I’m interested in are scheduled at the same time. That always seems to be the case, regardless of which conference I attend. But in particular, this year’s VMworld promises to be a great source for information. I’m impressed by the amount of sessions specific to hardware platforms, industries and specific interests. Plus there are a lot of general information sessions about what’s new in vSphere and its features.

In planning for the trip, I’m specifically looking for information about the vSphere Data Recovery functionality and Fault Tolerent VM’s in vSphere. I’m also looking at sessions for security – always a topic that my company is interested in.

Below is my schedule, as of today. Its a constantly changing target, though. I’m looking really forward to the trip later this month.

August 4, 2009 0 comments

Virtualization

VMworld 2009 is coming up soon

by Philip Sellers July 20, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

Its a little over a month prior to VMworld 2009 in San Francisco. I recieved my approvals from work and I’ll be attending again this year and I’m anticipating a great conference with lots of great material to bring back. I am patiently waiting for my notification that we can begin registering for sessions and labs. I’m hoping to get some hands on labs with vSphere so that I can see what we are missing at work.

As I’m planning for the trip, I was making a list of things that I’m interested to see or get more information about. So I’ve come up with a list:

vCenter AppSpeed – the demo we saw last year at VMworld looked really promising, so I’m interested to see how it works and acts in a real environment.
vCenter Data Recovery – Data Recovery may have a real fit within our environment. Backups and recovery are a pain point for us today. VCB is a particular issue as our buy-in for virtualization has increased dramatically. Data Recovery looks promising for our environment, but will require us to move to vSphere, a move we have yet to plan.
Security appliances – With the advent of the vSafe API’s, I’m interested to see what security vendors will have to show us during the event. I’m sure many are saving product announcements and demonstrations for the wide audience during the week, but so far there have been relatively few vendors to bring products to market around this technology.
Third party virtual switches – I’d love to see a HP Procurve virtual switch (giving us the ability to have mirror ports and such like our physical Procurves).

July 20, 2009 0 comments

Datacenter Storage Virtualization

I passed the VCP310 test, I guess I’m a VCP…

by Philip Sellers June 18, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

Yesterday morning, I took the VCP310 test at my local PearsonVue testing center and I passed. I have to say, the test was still extremely tough even with all the studying that I had done. I knew from attempt #1 that I needed to study system requirements and the configuration maximums document and so I spent a lot of time with those two pieces of documentation – and that helped. There were quite a few questions on my exam that I was sure of, which boosted confidence.

But this was a very different test than the one that I took when I was in Las Vegas last fall. In the fall, the test centered around and focused on a lot of storage related questions. And iSCSI was likely my downfall and the cause for me failing attempt #1. We don’t use iSCSI in our environment – we’re a Fiber Channel shop and so that is what I know best. I also don’t do any NFS, but knew there’d be some questions on that, also. Even though I passed this go round, I felt like I did better on the last test (yeah, I know that doesn’t make sense – but subjective versus objective scoring, I guess).

Some things tripped me up this go round that I wasn’t expecting. I apparently didn’t read everything I should have in the 3.5 documentation and had not noticed that VMware introduced a new method of multi-pathing for fiber channel, so not sure I got the questions about Round Robin multipathing correct. Then there was the issue of traffic shaping. Ok, let me admit, I’m not doing traffic shaping with my ESX. Perhaps I should – my test obviously thought I should have been as there felt like there were 10 questions on the topic.

I guess I realize that I should be paying more attention to my resource pools, especially now that my environment has grown. I believe I got those questions correct, but I didn’t feel like I knew the answers – it took some thinking.

I am still waiting for the official word on my certification from VMware. I have my unofficial results from PearsonVue printed and on my desk to keep me company until that email arrives. There is a nice note that says that if I have completed all the requirements for VCP on VI3, I’ll get a notice within 30 days.

June 18, 2009 0 comments

Virtualization

Studying for VMware VCP certification

by Philip Sellers June 13, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

I’ve been spending my day in a vacation rental unit on site where my wife is selling art today. Her art show happened to fall on the weekend before I take my VPC certficiation exam, and I’m feeling very underprepared. I’ve been studying for most of the afternoon since her show started and I’ve just attempted to take the Mock exam on the VMware website. Its giving errors when I complete the exam. Even thought I haven’t “passed” the exam, its telling me that there is a duplicate test and that I’m not able to submit my answers. Funny thing is that I haven’t gotten 100% – the passing grade – on the test. So, oh well, so much for scoring my progress. Well, I’d better get back to studying. My exam is on Wednesday morning. I should have results immediately after taking the test. Cross fingers for good news.

June 13, 2009 0 comments

Virtualization

Quest for certification: VCP

by Philip Sellers May 28, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve taken the VCP test and didn’t pass. (ok, not sure how many rungs I’ve just fallen on your ladder… I’m sure a few). So let me rationalize make excuses explain. I took the test last year at VMworld without studying much prior. And, I hadn’t had any hand-on experience with ESX 3.5, which was a major problem on my part. So, there’s my case. If it counts, I was just two questions from passing.

Attempt number two – I’m determined to be different this time. I’ll be retaking the test for certification on June 15 – next month – giving me a month to go over all my study materials. I am taking the 3.5 certification exam. Yes, I’m aware vSphere has arrived. That’s exactly why I’m taking this test. One, I need to take it because that’s where my experience lies and two, I need to take it while its still available.

So, any tips, sources, or suggestions for study materials and resources would be greatly appreciated. I am armed with Mike Laverik’s Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 book, my 3.0 courseware and a few study outlines from VMware.

May 28, 2009 0 comments

Virtualization

Scott Lowe’s Mastering Virtual Infrastructure book coming soon

by Philip Sellers April 30, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

I had the priviledge of meeting Scott Lowe this past year at VMworld. Scott’s wife Crystal arranged trips and adventures around Las Vegas for the wives whose husbands were attending the conference. But that’s besides the point – Scott has a new book coming out soon – Mastering Virtual Infrastructure – that is all about the new vSphere software suite. Today, the book has been listed on Amazon.com. The book is still in progress and is hopefully going to be released before VMworld 2009. In the meantime, you can sign up for alerts when the book is available for purchase – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470481382. Congrats Scott! What an awesome accomplishment!

April 30, 2009 0 comments

Virtualization

VMware chairman leaves HP in the cold

by Philip Sellers April 22, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

Let me preface everything below with this – my company is an HP shop. We have other systems (IBM, Sun, Dell, etc.) in our datacenter, but for the gross majority, we are an HP shop. We are also what I’d term as medium sized VMware shop. We have a lot of eggs in both baskets.

Yesterday’s introduction of VMware vSphere was just short of disrespectful to HP, one of VMware’s larger partners. Sure, It’d been a long shot to get the EMC CEO VMware Chairman of the Board to acknowledge his competitor from the stage. Sure, it’d been unexpected for him to give big props to a company he likely hopes withers away. But, if there is one thing that Joe Tucci should understand by now is that he must wear his two hats very carefully.

April 22, 2009 1 comment

Virtualization

vSphere official announcement – licensing & pricing

by Philip Sellers April 21, 2009

written by Philip Sellers

Today, VMware made their official announcement of vSphere, the next generation of virtualization technology in their flagship ESX line. There has been a lot of coverage of vSphere online in the weeks leading up to today’s big announcement. To me, the most interesting information and the most sought after is the answer to one simple question – what will this upgrade cost me as a current VMware customer with an active support agreement.

April 21, 2009 0 comments