Very imprested with the new software from Vizioncore.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been spending lots of time with both the new version of vRanger & vFoglight, and I have to say that I'm very impressed and so have my customers.
The vFoglight in particular is a big upgrade from the old 5.2 version which was difficult to navigate arround, the new version on the other hand is very intueative to use.
The new version of vRanger is much better than 3.3, but the big thing it needs is the Dedup engine that will not come until the next version 4.3.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

VCP 4 Done and Dusted.

Well that's the VCP 4 Exam out of the way and god it was a tricky one, it seemed to be far more difficult than the VCP 3 Exam, but of course being one one the first to take it can be a handicap as there's no one to talk too about what to expect in the Exam.
All that I can say about the content of the exam is you need to know the lot I had plenty on the Administration of vSphere and fun ally I don't come across much of that.

Spence..   

VCP here I come.

So it's come to that time again after the VCP 2 and 3, along comes the new VCP it's about time that I take it.
I have registered for the VCDX exam but the issue I have is that they never seem to give me enough notice just 2 weeks I not usually enough given how my calender is.

Why is VMWare so much easier than Microsoft

Well I can tell you, the stuff just works and does what you need with ease. Today I have been looking at a DR solution for am existing customer and cloning the VM's and moving the clones to a standalone ESXi server is just so easy.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Exchange 2007 ahhhhh!!!!

So today had another crack at getting Exchange 2007 and ISA 2004 working again and failed yet again, so we are onto the 4th SSL certificate but we have moved forward as it now allows the systems to be accessed from the Internet all be it with the revoked certificate.


-- Posted from my iPhone

So why is Microsoft always so much like hard work.

Today I have been trying to upgrade a system from Windows 2000 with Exchange 2000 to a new server running 2008 and Exchange 2007. You would think that should be quite straightforward but no thanks to some stupid issue with the local policy on the old server the new box would not DCPromo after an afternoon of hitting the box with a stick it finally gave in.
So tomorrow I'm off to install 2007 and transfer the data and shares.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Today I have mostly been getting a vSphere cluster running on my laptop.

So now I have some proper NFR licenses I have had another crack at getting my vSphere cluster running correctly on my laptop. And yes it is running properly I even have a Windows VM running on the cluster that will vMotion between the 2 nodes.
The system is based on HP LeftHand evaluation VSA as the shared storage with 2 ESXi servers connected via iSCSI, both controlled from a vCentre server. The system does not run that fast but at least it's funtional so that I can test things out.


-- Posted from my iPhone

WSUS actually works, who would have guessed.

Yes at long last after fighting with WSUS version 3 SP2 for a couple of days I've got it working and it's not half bad. It does have a few issues not the least being it's so slow to get anything done, it requires a big button to make things happen or of course a hammer to hit it with.
I have managed to find a way to speed it up with the use of the client switches to force the client to talk to the WSUS server.


-- Posted from my iPhone

WSUS a little on the slow side

Today I have been looking at Microsofts WSUS server and I have to say it's not bad but it's a little on the slow side.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Why is everything not as straightforward as VMware.

Today I had a good and bad day, the good being Installing an ESX server into a cluster with a Lefthand VSA, the bad being trying to get OWA to work with Exchange 2007/2003 and ISA 2004.
If you were to look at this you would imagine the latter would be the most straightforward but no increasing the size of a Lefthand San and adding a third node to a VMWare cluster in about an hour while after 5 hours of battling with ISA I gave up (god I Hate Microsoft).


-- Posted from my iPhone

OSX Leopard on VMWare workstation

It's come to that time of year again we're back to playing with getting OSX working as a VM. So in the passed I have managed to get Tiger running on a VM and yes that worked fine after a bit of messing about. I'm now looking at getting Leopard running with the VMware tools from Fusion as they will run on a fusion VM on a Leopard VM.


-- Posted from my iPhone

On the way to the VCP 4

So at long last I have started to make a move to do the next VCP, so yet again VMware are making the early exam takers suffer by making the exam harder then slackaning the exam off.
Today I printed out the vSphere manuals out all 500 pages and I also had to bind them, I just hope that reading that lot will mean a pass.


-- Posted from my iPhone

HP DL185 Storage Server

Well today I had mostly been installing a HP DL185 Storage Server and I have to say what a peice of cake just plug in and off we go. The software is preinstalled, so it took all of 10 minutes while the system confiures itself supply an IP address and that's job done.
Yes I have to say very impressed, but at least the use is interesting the storage wil be offered out via iSCSI to a VM on ESX to allow a large amount of storage to be used without utilizing the storage on an expensive EVA.

More success with vSphere

Over the last couple of days I have been putting in another vSphere solution and yet again another saticfied customer. This was a good one as they had ESXi 3 with local storage, so I have upgrade them to vSphere enterprise with almost no downtime.

Exchange 2007 ahhhhh

Microsoft seem to have broken there email server product, I have been doing an upgrade over the last week or so from 2003 to 2007 SP1 and I have to say the new version is a real bag of spanners everything is so difficult on this version. I had to do something today that on 2003 was so easy (publish OWA with ISA) and good why is everyhing so different and difficult.


-- Posted from my iPhone

So older versions of ESX will not mix

So this week we have discovered that vSphere is not compatable with the older versions of ESX. It only supports version 2.5.5 and we need it to run with 2.5.2, I guess it will run but not supported in my opinion we need to get off the 2.5 platform all together and get to version 3.0.3 at the latest.


-- Posted from my iPhone

So Apple don't get it right every time.

So last week along with many other people upgradeded my iPhone to the new OS version 3.1 as well as iTunes 9. But what I found after the upgrade was that after syncing the iPhone all my music and podcasts all vanished but still taking 5.9 Gb of the storage. What I didn't realise was that at the point of upgrading iTunes I also installed something called the iPhone configuration utility and that seems to be the cause of the issue, well all I can say is that I removed the thing and then the phone seems to be working again.


-- Posted from my iPhone

More on the LeftHand VSA

So today went back to look at the issues I was having with the VSA's and I think that I have found the issue that took down the ESX cluster.
The issues seems to have been caused by the network card used for the management network getting swamped by the iSCSI traffic, so to fix that I Logged onto the console on the ESXi using the support secret way then setting the correct vmk links to use iSCSI protocol. So even though the VSA did not need MPIO setting up the ESX did to allocate the network links correctly.
I still have an issue with the procesor on the VSA's as they will only run with a single vCpu and one of the VSA's with a fast smart controller is running out of gas when cloning a server.

-- Posted from my iPhone

LeftHand VSA's and iSCSI

Well this week I have had the pleasure to be working with both the LeftHand VSA and iSCSI NOT. If there was the correct documentation with respect to installation on vSphere then that would help, but as it turns out iSCSI is not as easy as you would think so.

LeftHand P4000 VSA

Well today I have been implementing a solution with the HP Lefthand VSA and I have to say very impressed. Although I first saw the product over 3 years ago and liked it back then this is the first time I have used it in production.
Will be back there on Monday as I need to test the performance with IO Meter the solution involves 2 VSA's replicating on local storage but being an iSCSI San (very cleaver), so will keep you informed on the performance.

Spence....

What, a difference 6 Months makes.

So from all I can see there has not really been that much of a change in the last 6 months in the VMware camp. I was in Canne in Febuary and they seem to be showing many of the same technologies that we saw then at vmworld at the moment.
Yes they do have some new technology but this seems to all have been bought from elsewhere like the virtual profile software from RPO, I do understand that given the speed at which the industry is moving then partnerships are important but can they not do more themselves.

Spence....

I'm glade I saved my money on a plane flight.

Well VMworld has got under way today and I have to say that I'm glade I didn't make the effort to go. From the blogs I have seen there has been very little to take much not of, as I had thought all about the vClould and a lot of valour ware.

There has been some stuff on PCoIP but not really in any deepth, and nothing so far on the client hypervisor (they need to get a move on with this as Citrix will have there's out before Christmas).

Spence.....

Clouds are getting everywhere

So Amazon have just released there Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) this is of course based on the Xen hypervisor. I really think that the timing of this has been key it will certinally give VMware something to talk about this week at VMworld. I guess that VMware will be talking a lot about there 20% stake in Terramark but I still do not believe that they can take on the rest of the Xen hypervisors in the cloud space, if they had someone like Amazon under there belt then yes but how many people outside the hosting field have heard of Terramark.

VMworld next week.

Well VMworld starts next week so it's going to be interesting to see how many attend, I suspect that numbers will be down considerbly down on last year.

So is XEN coming of age?

So Xen have just released the spec's for version 4.0 and yes there does seem to be some very interesting new features and of course there are far more platforms that we will be able too see this hypervisor than just one....

So are Microsoft working on a Client Hyperviser.

Given that both VMWare and Citrix are working on client hypervisers and MS allready have Hyper-V in the server side then they must be looking at a port.
The only fly in the soup would be the hardware requirements for server would have to be changed quit a bit.
So if they are why should anyone else bother, I would say that they should look at enhancing anything that comes out of Redmond, maybe better graphics support and migration and sync to the daracenter VDI solution.

So I guess the one question is why are Redmond being so secretive about it I was in a meeting with them a month or so ago and they did seem to indicate that they were working on something until I quized them amd they quickly denied it.

Spence.

VMware and Project Redwood

VMware at VMWorld this year are possibly going to make a big thing about project Redwood there Cloud computing solution based around Lab Manager and the vCenter Orchestrator, and yes this on the surface sounds like a great idea.

But my great worry is as I have mentioned before, is this not a push too far yes at present VMware has the best product to run a Cloud on, but how can they continue to just add more cost to the offering given the cost of either of the main competitors are using very cost effective hypervisers (free). Yes I know that there is a greater cost in development on the other hypervisers but as time passes there will be far more tools to enable fast deployment and better management it the cost of the underlying technology that i can't see the big cloud providers running with.

Spence..

IPhone's make the best friends.

For about 6 months now I have had an iPhone and to be honest I really don't see how I could cope without one.
Not sure if it's the apps or the music or even the podcasts, I just don't thing it's superb at any one of theses things but put them all together and you have the best gadget in the world.
Just a quick note about the potential new Apple Tablet, there does seem to be a lot of negative press, but given that I spend most evenings in front of the TV with my iPhone browsing the web then I think that Apple could well be onto a good thing, the only main draw back I see at present is price of it's over £400 then I can't see it flying.

VMwares Data Recovery Manager Applaince

Well if there was no better way to see what I mean about losing focus, has anyone out there had a go with the VMware Data Recovery Manager. It seems to have been an after thought that they had to through in as vSphere is the Datacenter Operating System, it has obviously been taken from some other company and well the thing just does not work well enough to sell.

So OK yes it will back up VM's but what is the point if you can't pass that information to Tape, they include an option to store the data on a CIF's share and that is the bit that's well and truly broken.

Sorry about the rant but VMware made a name for it's self creating code that worked and this just seems to be the thin end of the wedge.

Spence...

VDI in the Real World and PowerFuse

Just this week have been with a customer that running a live XenDesktop solution for one of there branches and I have to say very impressed, I should clarify that statement the XenDesktop was not really the the thing that impressed me it was the User Profile management software they used that did.

A few Years ago back when I specialised in Citrix I remember taking a look at some add on software by a Dutch software house called RES, and at the time not being overly impressed it seemed quite complicated and at the time they had to use there own shell on top of Windows which I didn't much like at the time.

But give the number of different interfaces that we know face where it be XP/Vista/Terminal services/VDI or Windows 7, the idea for a corporate to have a single user interface is quite compelling, then onto of that you add in all the other features that PowerFuse adds like complete user customisation and management, pass through authentication, locally installed application pass through to either VDI or XenApp sessions well the list goes on and on.

Just I have to say that it's one of the most impressive solutions I have seen for a long time.

Spence...

Is VMware going the same way as Novell

Over the last few months I have been thinking more and more how VMware could well be going the same as Novell did back in the 90's.

For thus who do not remember back in the mid 90's Novell went though a stage of buying up some very large names and tried to take on the Evil Empire that was Microsoft, during this time they took there eye off the ball and lost there lead surprising quickly in the directory services game.

I remember going to a Compaq Conference in 1995 in Huston where we had Frankenburg (the CEO of Novell at the time) and Bill Gates (remember him) in the afternoon Novell told us in the morning that there market share and presence was that strong that if they never sold another license then they would still be the dominate PC networking company for the next 10 years. Well that certainly did not come to pass did it.

As a said to start with I'm beginning to see history repeating it self with VMware and Microsoft, at present yes VMware does have a good lead and much better technologies, but this will not last and if they keep alienating there customers by increasing the license costs (Enterprise Plus) then it becomes a much easer move to Hyper-V R2 given that the cost for that is Free.

Hyper-V R2 will give you HA, and Live Migration and given that under most circumstances Customers will be buying Datacenter licenses anyway as they run Windows VM's on the host, this means the most compelling reasons to go virtual, workload protection and mobility are free in much the same way that Directory services became free with Active Directory and we all know how that ended up don't we.

Spence...

This Could Be the Start

So I've taken the plunge and started to blog about the Virtual World.