Virtualization

New vSphere feature allows ESX as a VM – in ESX

One of the biggest obstacles to testing VMware vSphere 4.0 is the equipment footprint. ESX 4 (the hypervisor for vSphere) makes getting started with base functionality quite accessible. ESX itself can be run as a virtual machine (VM) on ESX. Similar to how VMware Workstation permits

Will VMware give away VMotion and HA for free?

Enhanced alarm reporting in VMware vCenter Server 4.0

The alarm settings in VMware vCenter Server 4.0 have been vastly improved in comparison to what's available in VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3). The new alarms let you configure many custom alarm triggers and corresponding actions. VI3 alarms are very limited; you can only configure host...

The cycles of VMware communities forums: Search is your friend

Being a long-time user of the VMware Communities forums, I can definitely see that the questions posted in the forums tend to cycle and repeat themselves by newer users. This week the topics focus on Active Directory and clustering. Other weeks it is performance, VCB or configuration...

Memory usage in vCenter Server 4.0

If you are using vCenter Server and plan on upgrading to vSphere you should be aware that vCenter Server 4.0 uses much more memory than vCenter Server 2.5 does. According to the official documentation for both 2.5 and 4.0, the system requirements are very similar:

• 2.0 GHz or...

VMware vSphere licensing commentary and FUD

VMware's new approach to licensing has brought on quite a bit of commentary in the virtualization community. People are discussing it on Twitter, in other blogs and over the phone. It's being discussed in podcasts and whenever virtualization administrators get together. There are several talking...

Pointers for using thin-provisioned disks

Thin-provisioned disks, or thin disks, have been getting a lot of exposure as a new feature in vSphere, but they can already be used in VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3). If not properly managed, however, you can overcommit disk space to the point where you can run out of Virtual Machine File System...

Using an iPhone to fix an ESX server while on vacation

As you may or may not know, I was recently on a 'sort of' vacation in Austin, TX., meaning I was still working on my latest book, VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX...

New vCenter Server features in vSphere

Although vSphere's vCenter Server offers many useful new features, there are three small ones in particular that were sorely needed in VMware Infrastructure 3 that I'm glad to see in this release. The first deals with the problem of too much data in the vCenter Server database. The majority of...

Licensing details from the vSphere launch event

Yesterday's much-anticipated vSphere launch  went off without any technical difficulties, and was exactly what VMware needed to do to build hype and excitement for vSphere. Many. however, were disappointed to find out that vSphere was not actually released, but it's not far off. It is officially...