VMware vSphere

vCloud Express, VMworld booth babes, and vSphere 4.1?

SAN FRANCISCO — Attending VMworld is like going to college (and no, I’m not referring to the many parties, although those are certainly present as well). While 15,000 people may go to the same school, one person can have a completely different experience than another. I thought I’d recap my experience with day one, which involved attending the opening keynote, chatting with other bloggers and journalists about the new technologies, and judging the best of VMworld awards. One of the most interesting parts of my day, however, was the keynote — and not because of what was said in the keynote, but because of the Twitter commentary going on during the keynote. Continued »

Should you upgrade to VMware vSphere 4?

Since I am an independent consultant and VMware Communities Guru, I have recently been asked many questions about whether or not to upgrade to VMware vSphere 4. My answers depends on the following items:

• The hardware involved. VMware vSphere has certain hardware requriements, if your target hosts do not support these minimal requirements, then they are not good candidates for running VMware vSphere. The basic requirements are:

- 64 Bit CPU support. This does mean that some EMT64 machines will work. However they may not be on the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guides.

- Intel-VT or AMD-V support. This pretty much goes without saying; it is impossible to use VMware vSphere if these features are not enabled within the BIOS.

- No eXecute (NX) or eXecute Disable (XD) support within the BIOS. In some cases you are required to enable this bit to allow VMware vSphere to run.

• Continued »