Converting a virtual machine to ESXi Server

Now with ESXi being free, a lot of people find themselves using it. One of the things people want to be doing is converting their existing servers and importing them into their new ESXi server.

Another thing you can do is take any existing virtual machines you might have setup under VMware Workstation and import those in as well. The question I’ve received is how do you do this? When you start up VMware converter there is no option for ESXi.

Well never fear, the answer is quite simple really. Just use the option for ESX. This will allow it to P2V or convert your existing virtual machines from VMware Workstation into your ESXi server without any issues.

-RP

Portable 2.5″ Pocket Hard Drives

Hi folks, I just wanted to speak briefly about portable hard drives. I always carry my 16 GB USB key on me for use while I’m consulting, but even that isn’t big enough for some of the tasks I need it for.

In those cases where I need a larger drive I rather use the new 2.5″ pocket hard drives that are available. These are essentially laptop hard drives in an external enclosure that run off of USB 2.0 power. No need for an external power adapter.

Why are these drives handy? Well you see, most cheap laptops come with very small hard drives and this is a cheap way to expand your storage capacity. I use my external drive to hold all my test virtual machines which take up quite a bit of space. You can also easily attach the drive to your laptop by using double-sided velcro to stick the drive to the laptop. This way you have a nice portable solution!

I recently bought a 500GB SimpleTech 2.5″ drive from Best Buy and it works great. It also has a second USB connection you can use to plug it in to the laptop so you can increase the amount of power that feeds the drive. This allows you to see the drive on laptops where just plugging in one of the USB  connectors doesn’t seem to work.

-RP

BlackBerry Storm Sells out on First Day

Hi folks, so rumour has it that the new BlackBerry Storm sold extremely well on it’s first day. In cell phone stores all across the USA the Storm was sold out. In some places stores sold out of the Storm in less than an hour.

I hope Apple picks it’s head up and takes note of this. This means that for the first time the iPhone has a real threat on the horizon. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the Storm is the iPhone killer or anything like that as people including myself have been saying previously. But it is going to force Apple to make sure that their product is as perfect as can be.

Like I always say, competition in any segment is always good for the consumer. Whether it’s virtualization or smart phones!

 There’s a great review of the BlackBerry Storm here.

 -RP

Bell Canada and Google at each other’s throats regarding Net Neutrality

Bell Canada as you may know is currently in a heated battle with consumers regarding Internet throttling. This obviously has Net Neutrality proponents up in arms. Bell is insisting on still throttling it’s customers Internet use such as with Bit Torrent but consumers are demanding that this practice be stopped.

Recently the CRTC deemed that Bell wasn’t breaking any laws and is allowing Bell to continue this practice. Google has sent a message to Bell regarding this, to quote Google ”From consumer, competition and innovation perspectives, throttling applications that consumers choose is inconsistent with a content and application-neutral internet, and a violation of Canadian telecommunications law, which forbids unfair discrimination and undue or unreasonable preferences and requires that regulation be technologically and competitively neutral.”

Bell didn’t like what Google had to say and said this “The commission should see these claims for what they really are: the use of policy rhetoric devoid of substance in order to promote vested business interests. Indeed, the opposite of these claims is clearly the case; necessity is the mother of invention.”.

This made me laugh. Bell of all people saying that “the use of policy rhetoric devoid of substance in order to promote vested business interests”. It’s like the pot calling the kettle black. Yeesh.

-RP

Traditional servers vs Virtualized ones…

Hi folks, this is going to be a bit of a rant….. You see lately I’ve been running into more and more people who refuse to embrace virtualization. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the people with real legitimate reasons not to virtualize. I’m talking about the people who have servers that scream “virtualize me!” and they still haven’t done it yet.

You see in this day and age with the plethora of virtualization options out there and the very stable product offerings from VMware (come on, they’ve been out for years!), there really is no good reason not to go out and virtualize unless you have very specific hardware requirements that mandates that you cannot use VMware.

However, for the majority of people out there they can easily virtualize most of, if not their entire server environment. I find myself scratching my head as to why these people do not want to virtualize. For example for all of you out there with Windows file servers, Exchange servers, print servers, SQL servers, terminal servers, Citrix servers, BES servers and domain controllers – why haven’ t you virtualized yet? I and countless others in the industry have virtualized these servers with no problems whatsoever. What are you waiting for?

So why haven’t these people virtualized yet? I can only surmise one thing. They’re scared. They’re scared of what’s new and are afraid to have to learn a new piece of software. They’re afraid they’ll lose control of their data center and have to hire external consultants to manage things if they haven’t used virtualization themselves before.

Well fear not any longer. Download the free copies of the various different virtualization products out there and give them a whirl. Use this as an opportunity to learn and embrace virtualization. Because if you are afraid to learn new things and are afraid of change, what the heck are you doing working in the IT field!?!?

VMware snapshots, live it, love it, learn it!

Hi folks, here’s a standard feature of VMware that a lot of people take for granted that I thought would bear mentioning. Snapshots!

So you have an application or patch you want to install and you don’t know what effect it will have on your server. What do you do? Take a snapshot! With VMware you have the ability to take a snapshot of your OS at that point in time and then make whatever changes you desire. After your changes are made you can check to see if everything is working. If there are issues you can just select the snapshot and revert back to where you were before.

I find it quite surprising how many people actually have VMware and forget to use this feature as if they’ve forgotten it’s even existed! Snapshotting can be your best friend when doing upgrades, don’t forget it!

-RP

Deduplication, a great way to store stuff.

Hi folks, long time no talk, I’m sitting here enjoying my vacation and it’s time to catch up on some blogging as it’s almost over.

So who here has heard of deduplication? Deduplication is essentially a form of single instance storage. What it allows for is the ability to store lots of data without replicating the similar pieces of data over and over again while it’s storing it. Instead there are just pointers to the duplicate pieces of data so what happens is you end up with greatly enhanced storage capacity.

The storage ratio goes along to the tune of 20 to 1 on average for most deduplication solutions out there and as large as 50 to 1 in best cas scenarios. A few companies can provide you with this solution such as HP or even Data Domain. If you haven’t had a chance to read about it, check it out!

 -RP

Cisco Nexus 1000V switch announced for VMware!

As you may have already heard, not to long ago Cisco announced the Cisco Nexus 1000V switch for use with VMware. This is a virtual switch that leverages VMware’s technology but uses the power of Cisco networking. Why is this good?

Well if you are already using Cisco networking gear in your entire or most of  your network this is just a natural fit. If this virtual switch (it’s not a physical switch) supports all of the Cisco features you know and love it’s just another reason to go the VMware route for virtualization instead of Hyper-V.

You might think you will just wait until Cisco releases something similar for Microsoft’s Hyper-V. Think again! Cisco now owns even more shares in VMware as they once again have purchased some more stock in the company as you can read here.

In my opinion,  the growing relationship between these two companies can only mean good news for the world of networking.

-RP

BlackBerry Enterprise Server Mobile Voice System (BES MVS)

Hi folks, so here’s a nice new product from the folks at RIM. BlackBerry Enterprise Server Mobile Voice System, or BES MVS for short. It’s an add-on that you purchase to implement in your BES environment and what it gives you is the ability to leverage your VOIP system for use with your BlackBerry devices. Some of the features you can leverage?

• Call someone from your BlackBerry as if you are calling from your office phone
• Someone can call you at one “reach me anywhere number” and your office phone, and BlackBerry cell phone will ring at the same time
• Make long distance calls from your BlackBerry as if you were making them from your office VOIP system

Some of these features are available in other software systems out there, but for those of us that are already leveraging RIM’s solutions, this is a perfect tie in.  You can read more about it here. BlackBerry is using the technology acquired from their acquistion of Ascendant back in 2006 to provide us with this service.

 You will require BES version 4.1.4 in order to use MVS.

-RP

VMware Update 3 is out! Vizioncore will be releasing VRanger support for ESXi 3.5 soon!

Hi folks, VMware Update 3 is now out and it addresses quite a few outstanding issues. You can read about the resolved issues in the release notes here. With VMware Update 3 out now once again you should pay heed to proper patch procedures as I always recommend. Please apply the patch in a test lab environment and watch how it affects things.

After you have spent the time patching and testing in the lab you will eventually have an opportunity to deploy this to your production environment. Don’t deploy it to every single server, just deploy it to one ESX host, see how thtat goes and then start to deploying it to other ESX hosts. This way you have something to fail back to if something goes wrong. You can download the update here.

In other news, Vizioncore will be releasing a version of VRanger that supports backing up of virtual machines in ESXi 3.5 in the first quarter of 2009! This  is great news as currently there isn’t an easy way to do this. Right now the easiest way to back up an entire virtual machine while it’s running live is to be running the paid for versions of VMware as opposed to the free ESXi 3.5. With the release of VRanger for ESXi 3.5 next year this is going to make ESXi 3.5 an even more appealing solution to the budget concious IT administrator looking to dip their toe into the waters of virtualization.

-RP