vmwarez.com
           -Where Virtualization is a Reality!

It is no secret that servers can take up a lot of floor space, and power. As a result, they can sometimes seem inconvenient. One way to save space and power is to consolidate servers. Server consolidation is very important in order to ease some of the frustrations of overdue consolidation processes. Server consolidation projects can also be accelerated via automation and virtualization. Platespin server consolidation helps to accelerate consolidation projects, and reduce errors. This is done without actually having to have contact with the physical machines.

Platespin allows managers to measure and evaluate resource utilization in order to speed up capacity planning for consolidation projects. This is accomplished by remotely gathering information about the server. This information can be the server operating system, memory, CPU speed, the network, and memory. Platespin server consolidation works on Windows NT, 2000, and 2003 systems. The system works without the help of agents. Therefore, the need to manually deploy software is eliminated. The risk of missing certain agent dependencies is also eliminated in this case. Platespin is also very simple and lightweight, so it can start to collect data in almost one minute.

Platespin completely automates the physical to virtual migration of data. This allows the servers to be consolidated quickly and with more ease. There is a drag and drop interface that allows the user to convert machines running Windows or Linux into one fully functional virtual machine that is hosted on several types of servers. These servers include VMware GSX Server, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, or simply a Platespin Flexible Image file.

Network configurations, CPU cycles disk space, and memory allocations can all be converted rather quickly. This ease allows users to right-size target servers as the conversion process is occurring. As a direct result, data centers are made able to increase the number of servers that are able to be consolidated. This further optimizes resource utilization rates.

Server consolidation may seem complicated, but the right program can make it quite simple. Platespin automates many processes and allows many different factors to be converted quickly. This means that the total time for consolidating servers is reduced.

By: Jennifer Hanson

Jennifer Hanson recommends you visit http://www.platespin.com/ for more information on server consolidation.

There's a lot of buzz in the industry about VMware's ESX 3 - or Virtual Infrastructure 3... And there's a lot of people currently using ESX 2.x. When I got started with VMware ESX, 2.5.0 was the going version. I was surprised to see how many people were still using versions earlier than 2.5. Even now that is not at all uncommon. People don't want to change - or better yet, fix what isn't broken.

I think this will all change with the release of VI3. There are so many new features like High Availablilty, Distributed Resource Scheduler and Consolidated Backup... The changes from early 2 to 2.5 were just not that exciting. These new features, however, are rocking the industry. So, this begs the question (thanks to an anonomous comment):

We all have our reasons why we use virtualization software regardless of if it is VMware, Parallels, Xen, Open VZ,etc... It saves money, fast server reboots, better uptime, faster deployment, reduced rack space and on and on and on... but there are 3 main functions of virtualization, let the world know why you do it:

We've added a new feature to our site that lets you vote on questions about virtualization.

• How do you use IPCop?


• Do you host Desktops in ESX?


• How long will you wait to upgrade to ESX 3?


• How do you Virtualize?
  VMware? Xen? OpenVZ? SWsoft? Parallels?


• Why do you Virtualize?
  Server consolidation? Development? Testing?


• Linux or Windows Head?
  You know who you are, now tell the rest of us.

If you have a question you think we should add, please let us know! Just leave a comment below.

Enjoy :)

OK, so, regardless of what you use virtualization for - beit server consolidation, testing, developement, whatever... - what brand or flavor of virtualization software do you use?

This one was brought to my attention by an anonymous poster on my ISO Recorder post.

LC ISO Creator is probably the simplest program we're going to find to do this job. Basically, you download the zip file (all 14KB), unzip it, run the exe, pop in your CD, click the "Create ISO" button and wait. Besides being small, this is also a portable app...

Here's a screen shot of what it looks like:

Again, there cannot be an easier way... and from what I understand, it will work with DVDs too. It is, however, limited to working on Windows NT/2000/XP +... it won't work on 9x, but then again, how many virtual heads are still running that?

You can download the zip file here.

The homepage for its author is here. Be sure to check them out. Looks like they have some other pretty nifty freeware there too along with a few paid offerings. It doesn't look like they have a "donate" button, so if you like this app and want to contribute, maybe buy their tennis game?

For a recap of what this is used for... here's a snippit from the ISO Recorder post:

Now, why is this tool important for us virtualizers? How does it fit into the way we work with our virtual infrastructure? It is simple, really. It helps us with creating and editing cd images which are necessary if you use VMware ESX or, they are, at least, very handy if you use any other kind of virtualization software like VMware Workstation or Parallels and so on...

When you are ready to build your first virtual server in ESX, you may find it difficult to run back and forth to the server room just to swap out CDs. This is why we have a /vmimages/ folder on our ESX boxes... to store CD & Floppy images in. But, they problem for some people is how to create them. I started out trying to use my CD burning software to create an image of my Windows 2003 Server disk, but since NER0 saw that the disk was copyrighted, it would not create an ISO, only a NER0-specific .N RG file. The problem? ESX doesn't know what to do with an .NRG file.

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From VMware's website:

Next Generation of Industry-leading Infrastructure Virtualization Software Suite Enables Transformative Cost Savings and Breakthrough Levels of Efficiency, Flexibility and Serviceability to IT Environments of All Sizes

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 5, 2006 -- VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems, today launched VMware Infrastructure 3, the third generation of the industry-leading infrastructure virtualization software suite that empowers enterprises and small businesses alike to optimize and manage their IT environments through virtualization.


The first generation of virtualization for industry-standard systems provided server partitioning through a hypervisor or hosted architecture. The second generation added management, capacity planning, a physical to virtual assistant and other tools for consolidating production servers. The third generation, VMware Infrastructure 3, enables systems infrastructure capabilities for entire farms of servers and storage, independent of the application/operating system workloads and of the underlying hardware.

VMware Infrastructure 3 builds upon the award-winning VMware ESX Server with Virtual SMP and VirtualCenter with VMotion technology used in production at tens of thousands of enterprises worldwide today and incorporates four new groundbreaking products - VMware VMFS, a next generation Distributed File System; VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS); VMware High Availability (HA); and VMware Consolidated Backup. The suite is designed to deliver comprehensive virtualization, management, resource optimization, application availability and operational automation capabilities in an integrated offering.

With VMware Infrastructure 3, VMware is ushering in a new era for data centers where industry-standard infrastructure farms can be managed as a shared utility and dynamically allocated to different business units or projects. New capacity can be added or removed non-disruptively based on business demand. Applications can be migrated automatically to available hardware resources. Hardware failures can be automatically overcome with minimal disruption. Business data can be protected with minimal impact to production SLAs. Applications can be provisioned instantly and recovered at the same or remote locations easily regardless of the operating system and hardware. Customers will be able to transform IT service levels, simplify and automate their infrastructure and deploy virtualization pervasively across their entire environment.

"VMware Infrastructure 3 transforms the role of hardware and software so that the business can truly think in terms of deploying services on a pool of continuously available hardware resources," said Diane Greene, president of VMware. "Instead of server boxes specifically configured for a given operating system and application, there is now a set of applications mapped to a large pool of resources and the constraint of thinking about individual hardware components becomes an old-fashioned concept. We'll look back on it as the difficult way we used to do things."

"We are very excited that VMware is turning the vision of the automated, self-optimizing data center into reality. Using VMware Infrastructure enterprise-wide since January 2005, Enbridge Energy has streamlined its IT infrastructure, saving more than $1 million in hardware costs," said Ed Baldwin, senior network engineer for Enbridge Energy Company, Inc., a leader in energy transportation and a VMware Infrastructure 3 beta customer. "The release of VMware Infrastructure 3 supports our plan to virtualize more applications across the company."

Baldwin continued: "The new products and capabilities in VMware Infrastructure 3 bring even greater efficiency and flexibility to our infrastructure. For example, with VMware DRS our data center can be automated like never before. The new 4-Way Virtual SMP also opens new frontiers for us - now we can create virtual machines for even the most processor and memory intensive applications such as databases, ERP and CRM."

"Société de transport de Montréal provides 1.3 million trips on its system every day. With VMware Infrastructure, Société de transport de Montréal was able to cut costs by 30% and management sleeps better at night knowing that customers will be able to get transportation information, even in the event of a disaster in our data center," said Mike Stefanakis, senior systems engineer at Société de transport de Montréal, an agency that operates buses and the Métro in Canada and a VMware Infrastructure 3 beta customer. "With VMware Infrastructure 3, we can confidently run the most processor-, storage- and memory-intensive applications in virtual machines. DRS will also minimize the need for manual intervention. VMware HA and VMware Consolidated Backup will further facilitate our seamless user experience which is crucial to our company."

"Virtualization is rapidly evolving from being a server consolidation tool to becoming the strategic technology foundation for IT Infrastructure," said Stephen Elliot, research manager at IDC. "While the cost savings are obvious, sophisticated enterprise IT organizations are starting to deliver end-to-end virtual infrastructure that uses standardized management processes and provides a compelling answer to the CIO's need for an agile, efficient and dynamic infrastructure that is radically simple to operate."
VMware Infrastructure 3 Enables Efficiency, Flexibility and Serviceability through Enterprise-scale Management and Service-level Automation

VMware Infrastructure 3 incorporates VirtualCenter, the market-leading management product for virtualized environments for more than three years. VirtualCenter can automate and simplify the operations of a virtualized data center with several new capabilities:

* VirtualCenter is designed to handle three times the number of hosts and virtual machines under management compared to previous releases.
* Topology maps and centralized configuration of ESX Server hosts bring drag-and-drop simplicity to the management of enterprise-wide virtualization environments.
* VMware DRS and VMotion technology dynamically aggregate hardware resources into logical resource pools and are designed to optimally allocate them to applications running in virtual machines. When a virtual machine experiences an increased load, VMware DRS automatically allocates additional resources by redistributing virtual machines among the physical servers.
* VMware HA is designed to eliminate single points of hardware failure by automatically relocating and restarting virtual machines. HA is designed to provide uniform high availability across the entire virtualized IT environment without the cost and complexity of failover solutions tied to either operating systems or specific applications.
* VMware Consolidated Backup simplifies data protection by offloading backup to a centralized server. Offloading backup allows ESX Server to run more virtual machines by reducing its load and enables backup to safely occur even during production hours.
* Rich security controls, comprehensive auditing capabilities and administrative roles enable a secure, auditable operations environment where responsibilities may be delegated among different groups without compromising overall security and compliance.

VMware Infrastructure 3 Enables Transformative Cost Savings through Server, Storage and Network Virtualization

VMware Infrastructure 3 incorporates VMware ESX Server, the industry's most advanced server, storage and network virtualization platform for industry-standard servers. ESX Server extends a proven architecture that has delivered more than seven years of rock-solid virtualization and more than two years of continuous uptime at select customers. New innovative capabilities include:

* Improved levels of performance, scalability and robustness to deliver even greater levels of consolidation and cost-savings. The new version expands virtual machine capacity limits by over 50%, improves performance for targeted workloads and usage scenarios.
* 4-Way Virtual SMP capabilities to enable virtualization of large enterprise applications that can scale to take advantage of 4 virtual CPUs and 16 GB of memory.
* Power management capabilities to increase the power savings associated with virtualization and augment the significant cost savings enjoyed by customers.
* Native support for iSCSI SAN and NAS storage to enable customers to virtualize infrastructure at branch offices and other distributed locations using low cost storage.
* Network virtualization capabilities include expanded support for VLANs as well as network configuration policies and interoperability. Network ports and connections can be consolidated to deliver easier management and cost savings while preserving logical network separation.
* Storage virtualization capabilities that are delivered through VMFS for aggregating storage from heterogeneous storage arrays and dynamically pooling them into virtual volumes that are made available to applications. Direct-attached storage can be cost-effectively consolidated into centrally managed, highly available SAN environments.

VMware Infrastructure 3 Offers Broadest Hardware and Operating System Choice

* VMware Infrastructure 3 is optimized and rigorously tested with more than 200 combinations of servers, storage systems and management software. Customers can deploy virtualization on practically any industry-standard data center hardware.
* VMware Infrastructure 3 is not tied to any operating system, giving customers a bias-free choice of operating system and software applications. VMware Infrastructure 3 is tested and supported to run 28 flavors of Windows, Linux, Netware and Solaris.
* VMware Infrastructure 3 can run virtual machines created in Microsoft Virtual Server and Virtual PC and Symantec LiveState Recovery images.

VMware Infrastructure 3 Packaged and Priced for Adoption Across All Market Segments

The rich capabilities of VMware Infrastructure are packaged into three editions targeted for various IT infrastructure environments:

* VMware Infrastructure Starter is an offering designed for easy adoption in small and medium businesses as well as branch and distributed locations within large companies. VMware Infrastructure Starter includes ESX Server with local or NAS storage and full management capabilities through the included VirtualCenter management agent. VMware Infrastructure Starter list price is $1000 per two processors.
* VMware Infrastructure Standard is designed for virtualizing enterprise workloads. In addition to ESX Server, it includes clustered VMFS for enterprise storage connectivity and consolidation, Virtual SMP and the VirtualCenter management agent. VMware Infrastructure Standard list price is $3750 per two processors.
* VMware Infrastructure Enterprise is designed as the core strategic IT infrastructure for the dynamic data center. It is designed to deliver significant cost savings and dramatic IT simplification through its full set of infrastructure virtualization capabilities. It includes ESX Server, VMFS, Virtual SMP, VirtualCenter Management agent, VMotion technology, DRS, HA and Consolidated Backup. VMware Infrastructure Enterprise list price is $5750 per two processors.

Availability

VMware Infrastructure 3 has been in beta since October, 2005 and has had more than 6,400 active participants. VMware Infrastructure 3 will be available this month.

About VMware, Inc.

VMware, an EMC company (NYSE: EMC), is the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems. The world's largest companies use VMware solutions to simplify their IT, fully leverage their existing computing investments and respond faster to changing business demands. VMware is based in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.vmware.com or call 650-475-5000

Hey everyone, check out my two entries in the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge:

• IPCop Virtual Firewall/Router Appliance
• LiveCD Virtual Appliance

While you're there checking them out, besure to cast your vote & check out all the other awesome entries.

Enjoy :)

Jim

My original release of this VM had a problem with the NIC. This new release takes care of that.

To download it, click here.
For more details on the VM, click here.
For even more details on what this TrixBox / Asterisk@Home stuff is all about, click here.

Enjoy :)

I got one of these in the mail today... thought it was a riot:

You can get them at www.vmwarestore.com with any purchase over $50. They have all kinds of VMware goodies from clothes to office supplies to captain's chairs and beach towels. Everything except for VMware software. I'm not sure if they plan on doing that down the road, but it would make sense to me that they would not maintain two ecommerce sites. Who knows?

Their are two types of people in this IT world. I'm a Windows-Head. That doesn't mean that I don't know or use Linux... it just means that I'm a windows-head. Some people are hardliners and will only go one way. I call that immature. I say use what works best for the need at hand... however, I'm still a windows-head. You know what you are... don't be ashamed to admit it!

UPDATE (6/6/2006): I've released a new version of this VM that should address problems found on the first release with the NIC configuration... Please re-download this if you had problems with the first one.

Andrew has done it again! The guy who has been feeding us nerds with AAH all along has gone and changed the name of our favorite toy. Asterisk@Home is dead. TrixBox is alive! Besides a new name and look, it has a few other features that will make all of us very happy. For one, it is being built such that it can now be updated without having to start all over each time. After that, not much else is important :).

To get right to it, you can download the VM here:

http://dl.vmwarez.com/virtual-machines/vmwarez.com-trixbox1.0a.zip

It is about 550MB. This one has VMware Tools installed (from Workstation 5.5), so it will hopefully run better. I've also installed webmin for us non-linux heads... To recap, this is basically the next version of Asterisk@Home, just with a new name and new features. AAH2.8 was the end of AAH. From now on it is TrixBox.

To access the console, the username is "root" and the pw is "password". To access the web stuff, the username is "maint" and the pw is also "password"

If you have trouble starting it up, read this post for info on what buttons to push along the way... Even though the screen caps are from AAH 2.8b1, it should still work just fine.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments... Suggestions are always welcome. And if you like this stuff (and use it) please do contribute over at trixbox.org. They work very hard on this stuff to make it easy for us to use such awesome technology.