Virtualization Pro » VMworld 2008

VMworld sessions now on sale

Eric Siebert — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:18:02 +0000

Looks like VMware has finally made all the sessions available to non-attendees via an annual subscription program. I inquired about this at VMworld this year and was told that this year they would be offering a subscription program for all the sessions that non-attendees could purchase. Well it’s been several months and they have finally released it; hopefully next year they offer this at an earlier date.

The subscription includes access to all of the VMworld 2008 sessions and also the upcoming VMworld 2009 Europe sessions when they are released. The cost for this is $699 US dollars which includes access to the flash audio/presentations, MP3 recordings of the sessions, PDF downloads of the sessions and lab materials and also demo videos and scripts from the labs. As an added bonus you also get a VMworld.com t-shirt, VMworld 2008 shoulder bag, notebook/pen, water bottle and a deck of cards.

To purchase a subscription simply go to VMworld’s website and create an account (if you do not already have one) and then click the Purchase button. Once you have access you can begin to enjoy the huge amount of information that the sessions and labs provide. This is a small price to pay for the amount of information you will get out of it and in my opinion is better and cheaper then any training class that you could take. If you do purchase a subscription be sure and check out the VMTN Communities Experts session which includes myself and other well-known experts answering questions from the session attendees.

Open letter to VMware: Suggestions for 2009

Eric Siebert — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:06:10 +0000

Dear VMware:

1. Please slow down a bit. Produce a quality bug-free product and not try to rush out new versions, features and functionality until they are ready. Stop with the experimental features and only put them in the finished product unless they are ready and you are going to fully support them. I know it’s almost impossible to produce 100% bug-free code, especially as your product code grows larger and larger in size, but please catch the major ones that can cause outages for your customers. If you can’t slow down, at least hire more QA personnel and do more public Betas so your customers can help you with this. You can’t afford another mishap like Microsoft is currently experiencing with their Zune music players.

2. On the release of VI4 (or vSphere as you now call it): This should be an exciting upgrade and further distance you from your competitors, but please don’t release it before it’s fully done, polished and tested. I can wait an extra month or two if necessary.

3. Please, no more product name changes. Enough is enough with the name changes! You’re just confusing your customers and complicating things. Instead, get your marketing department to do more to attract new customers, keep your current ones and fight all the HyperV vs. ESX misinformation that Microsoft releases. Also please leave ESX named ESX, I know your marketing department is probably itching to change it so something like vHypervisor but resist and leave it as ESX. (For those who don’t know ESX stands for Elastic Sky X which was the name used in the development of the original version.)

4. More competitive pricing. You have lots of competition now and the hypervisor is becoming commoditized. Giving away ESXi for free was a good start. Why not give ESX away for free also and sell all the advanced features as add-ons? You also have plenty of automation and management products that you can sell to complement it. Also, please reduce the price of Workstation. It’s too expensive for many. You’d probably sell a lot more if you reduced the price so it was close to the price of Fusion.

5. On VMworld presentations: Please go back to releasing these to non-attendees after the show ends as you did in previous years. Not everyone can afford to go to it and the information in the sessions would be valuable to both your current and potential customers. It’s to your benefit to educate your customers and provide as much information to them as possible. At the very least, allow people to purchase a subscription to the sessions so they can access them right away after the show ends.

6. Relax the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification requirements. I shouldn’t have to take a class to become a VCP, if I have the knowledge and experience to pass the VCP exam that should be enough. Many qualified people can’t afford to take a class just so they can take the test.

Well VMware, I hope 2009 is a very good year for you, I look forward to the release of vSphere and any other great things that you will deliver to us in the upcoming year.

Best,

A VMware aficionado

Booth attractions at VMworld…and one that “backfired”

Eric Siebert — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:40:33 +0000

There were many vendors at the VMworld Solutions Exchange trying to sell their products and services to attendees. Some of the vendors took some unusual approaches to try and attract people to their booths; Veeam had a magic show with a magician doing card tricks, Quest software used some hugely muscled bodybuilders in tank tops and shorts to go along with their “Does your VDI need a boost” theme, Wyse had a little tiny car to complement their thin computing, Datacor had a “pimp my storage” theme going and Acronis had a lifeboat theme going. Many other vendor booths were manned by pretty girls (booth babes) in an effort to attract the predominately male crowd to them (the NEC booth stuck out in my mind).

Falconstor’s attempt at attracting interest backfires…literally

And then you had Falconstor who gave away orange t-shirts to everyone who signed up for a drawing to win a Segway on the last day of the show. When it came time for the drawing the company representatives kept stressing that you had to be wearing your orange t-shirt that they gave away in order to be eligible to win the Segway. They had a large crowd of people in orange t-shirts in front of their booth all hoping to be the lucky winner. Well when they drew the name of the winner low and behold he wasn’t wearing his orange t-shirt. Now you would think that after they kept telling everyone they must be wearing their t-shirt to win that they would simply draw another name. The crowd immediately reacted to this by booing and demanding they draw another name as the winner tried to quickly put his orange shirt on. Instead they made a rather unpopular decision to give the person the Segway anyway. The crowd reacted to this by stripping off their orange t-shirts and throwing them at the Falconstor booth. The air was filled with flying orange t-shirts as they started piling up on the vendor booth as show in this video. Unfortunately for Falconstor their good intentions to reward someone with a Segway had the reverse effect of angering dozens of potential customers.

Chosing the best new technologies of VMworld 2008 – Vizioncore vOptimizer Pro and Cisco Nexus 1000v

David Davis — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:22:15 +0000

I had the honor of being a VMworld 2008 judge for the best new products competition. Specifically, I was a judge of the “best new technologies” category. My fellow judge, Mike Laverick (www.rtfm-ed.co.uk) and I chose the Cisco Nexus 1000v and Vizioncore’s vOptimizer as the best new products. In this article, I will explain the process and why we decided upon these products.

What is the “Best of VMworld” competition?

The Best of VMworld is a product competition put on at VMworld each year. In this competition, IT pros serve as judges to select the best products in seven categories. This year, there were 13 judges who came from a variety of backgrounds, spread across the different categories. You can read more about the categories and results at the Best of VMworld 2008 webpage. Additionally, you can see a video of the Best of VMworld awards ceremony.

What is the New Technologies category?

I requested to be a judge for the new technologies category because I wanted to have a chance to see what new products were on the horizon. The New Technologies category is made up of products that are not currently out but are coming out in the next few months. The most challenging thing about the new technologies category was that any type of hardware or software could be entered. That meant that we were comparing network software against disk hardware, for example. Because of this and because there were over 30 products entered in the new technologies category, I found this category very challenging to judge.

How did the judging process work?

As this was my first year serving as a judge, I found the whole process very interesting. I worked with my fellow judge, Mike Laverick (www.rtfm-ed.co.uk), to evaluate the 30+ entries in the new technologies category. We had to compare so many different technologies that didn’t match up “apples to apples”. Once we got to VMworld in Las Vegas, we spent a full eight-hour day visiting the companies that had entered to learn about their products. Some companies had new hardware, new software, or updated software products. We looked for a number of things from these companies when we went to learn about their product:

What does the new technology do?
How do you install it?
How do you use its main feature?
Is the product truly new or is it just an existing product that had a virtualization twist added?
What benefits will the new technology offer IT Pros?
How dramatically will this new technology affect virtualization admins?

After getting the answers to these questions, we were able to narrow our list down to just a handful of new technologies. From there, we chose just two:

Why did I choose Cisco and Vizioncore as the best new technologies of VMworld 2008?

I think that, once you learn about these products, you will understand why we chose these products as the best new technologies, related to VMware. First, let me cover the Cisco Nexus 1000v. Here is what this switch does and what makes it unique:

It is a software switch that integrates / installs with VMware ESX Server.
It uses the new distributed virtual switch (dvswitch) feature of the next version of ESX Server
It recognizes all physical Ethernet ports on all ESX host systems and allows you to manage them as a single switch
It has a Cisco IOS interface, just like hardware switches do
Now, with the Cisco virtual switch, network administrators can administer the virtual network, just as they do the physical network.

In my opinion, not only will the virtual switch provide technical benefits, it will provide more ideal delegation of network and virtual server management. In other words, with this new virtual switch, network administrators can manage the virtual network and virtual server administrators can manage the virtual servers. By doing this, many of the finger pointing issues related to virtualization can be eliminated.

The Cisco Nexus 1000v is expected to be available at the same time that the next VMware ESX Server / Virtual Infrastructure Suite is released. (Q1 2009)

Next, let’s cover the Vizioncore’s new vOptimizer Pro. Here is what vOptimizer Pro does and what makes it unique:

It analyzes all VMware virtual disks and the operating systems inside those virtual disks, determining the amount of free space available.
Based on settings that you configure, it can resize both the VMDK (virtual disk) and the operating system disk inside to reduce or enlarge their size.
You can assign a dollar value to the per GB cost of your SAN disk space and, based on the amount of disk space that vOptimizer Pro is able to save you, reports will be generated showing the cost savings of using vOptimizer
This optimization process can be scheduled to run each day, week, or month and, at that time, the virtual disks will either be increased or decreased as the amount of utilization inside the guest OS is either increased or decreased.

As most virtual disks and operating system partitions inside virtual disks are oversized when created, there is a huge potential for storage savings when the first optimization is run. In fact, what made vOptimizer such a valuable tool, and worthy of being called the “best new technology” of VMworld, was that it performed a task that was easy to understand, it could concretely tell you how much money it saved you, and that it had the potential to pay for itself after the first time it was run.

Vizioncore’s vOptimizer Pro is expected to be released during Q4 2008.

Conclusion

The judging of the VMworld best new technologies was exciting and educational. There are so many new products coming out related to virtualization and all the different types of virtualization continue to evolve. From this article, I hope that you understand the thorough process that we go through, as VMworld best products judges to choose only the best products for TechTarget and SearchServerVirtualization.com. Also, from this article, it should be evident why the Cisco Nexus 1000v and Vizioncore’s vOptimizer Pro were selected – because they both change the way we use virtualization and both are revolutionary, in their own way.

I want to thank my fellow judge, Mike Laverick of www.rtfm-ed.co.uk for his expertise and for working with me to judge this competition.

David Davis (CCIE #9369, VCP, CWNA, MCSE, CISSP, Linux+, CEH) has been in the IT industry for 15 years. Currently, he manages a group of systems/network administrators for a privately owned retail company and authors IT-related material in his spare time. He has written hundreds of articles, eight practice tests, and six video courses -including the Train Signal VMware ESX Video training series. His personal website is www.VMwareVideos.com

Looking for VMworld 2008 information?

Eric Siebert — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:52:26 +0000

Most of the VMworld 2008 slides are currently available to attendees by going to the Schedule Builder on the VMworld website, logging in with your VMworld username/password and then clicking on the Session Catalog link on the left. If you look at all the sessions that are listed you will see a column called Session Files that you can click on to open up the link to the PDF file for the session.

VMware should be posting both the audio and slides later this week once they receive the hard drive containing them back from the vendor that recorded the audio and then put it together with the slides in Flash video format. Talking with Eric Nielsen at VMworld he mentioned that VMware would be selling a subscription to non-attendees so they could gain access to all the great presentations. I haven’t seen any official word from VMware on this yet; they are probably waiting until after the presentations have all been posted to the VMworld website to announce it.

Also now that VMworld 2008 is over, all of the slides from VMworld 2007 have been released for free for everyone to review. Previously only attendees could view them except for the dozen or so that VMware released for free each month. Even though they are a year old they still contain a lot of great, still relevant information.

Besides the VMworld presentations, there is a lot of good online coverage of the show in the form of audio, video, photos, blog postings and news articles. I’ve put together a pretty extensive list of all the links that are grouped by category on my website. Included in the links is Tech Target’s extensive coverage which you can check out here.

Will the new VMware “v-products” change VMware as we know it?

Eric Siebert — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:38:02 +0000

There were many new product announcements made at VMworld, many of which were probably confusing. So many new “v-products” were introduced and it initially seems like the ESX infrastructure we know today will soon be completely different. So what does this mean to the average ESX system administrator today? Is everything going to drastically change… will we have to re-learn ESX?

In the short term, it will most likely be business as usual. ESX Update 3 is rumored to be released soon which will keep us busy updating our servers for a while. Beyond that we have ESX 4.0 to look forward to which promises to be a major upgrade with many exciting new features such as a new look and feel, distributed vSwitches, Fault Tolerance, Host Profiles, Storage vMotion GUI and much more.

In the long term, VMware will be leading us towards their Virtual Data Center OS vision. The migration itself, however, will be a work in progress. VMware will not be releasing it all at once and it is not really an actual product but a name for a complete framework of components and services. Some of these components are just some of the new features that have already been mentioned wrapped in new fancy V-words. For example one of the pieces of the VDC-OS is Infrastructure vServices which has several components under it:

vCompute – a V-word for the optimal usage of all server resources which includes many of the technologies that ESX uses today. Adding to this in 2009 and presumably in ESX 4.0 is Paravirtualized storage and their new VMDirect technology which will allow VM’s to directly access host hardware.

vNetwork – a V-word for their set of networking technologies that will help optimize I/O and provide better integrated networking. Today this is basically just their current network I/O optimization that they already do. To build on this in 2009 and presumably in ESX 4.0 is the Distributed vSwitch, Network vMotion and 3rd party vSwitches like the Cisco Nexus 1000 that was announced.

vStorage – a V-word for maximizing storage utilization and efficiency. Today this includes their VMFS technology. Expanding on this in 2009 and presumably in ESX 4.0 is Thin Provisioning (yes you can do this today but not easily unless you use NFS storage), Linked Clones (another feature that exists today in Workstation) and new storage APIs to enable array software to manage individual VMs.

Additionally there are other new features coming that are positioned under the Application vServices pillar, these features include vCenter (new name for VirtualCenter) Data Recovery, VMsafe integrated products, VM’s with 8-way vSMP and up to 256GB of RAM and hot plug virtual hardware.

I know I was initially pretty confused after hearing Paul Maritz’s keynote session, but afterwards I took some time to read through the details on everything that was announced and realized that it wasn’t as complicated as I initially thought. So don’t let the new V-words overwhelm you, they are basically just marketing terms that most systems administrators will not even need to know. All that will matter to us are the many exciting new features that are coming soon.

The release date of ESX 4.0 has not yet been announced, although it is currently in a private beta. My guess is around Feb-March 2009. I do know one thing for sure though, I’m definitely excited about all these new features and I can’t wait until VMware releases them.

My VMworld Journal: Days 3-5 (Tuesday – Thursday) – So much to do, so little time

Eric Siebert — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:56:34 +0000

I’m a little late in posting this as I had so much to do and see and it seemed like very little time to do it in (plus limited Internet connectivity). For me, Tuesday started with the judging for TechTarget’s Best of VMworld awards. I was judging the security category and was looking forward to finding out more about the great security products that had been nominated.

I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon visiting the nominees and spending time learning about their products. When judging, we are looking for products that are innovative and stand out against competing products so I asked plenty of questions to each vendor to get a good understanding of their product.

Some notable products I saw in the security category included Altor Networks Virtual Network Security Analyzer, Catbird’s V-Security and the one that really stood out to me was Reflex Security’s Virtual Security Center. Once we were done meeting the vendors we all met up in a conference room to talk about each category and pick the winner for each and the two runner-up finalists. After we reviewed each category we had to choose a single Best of Show winner amongst all the category winners which ended up being the product I had picked as the winner from the security category; Reflex Security.

After the judging was over it was off to a dinner hosted by the folks from Hyper9 where we had a great meal and received copies of the recently released book, VMware ESX Essentials in the Data Center by David Marshall, Steve Beaver and Jase McCarty.

Wednesday was the day of the panel session (PO1861 – VMTN Community Experts Live) that I was speaking at along with other VMTN community notables which included Ken Cline, Tom Howarth, Steve Beaver, Edward Haletky and Thomas Bryant. Our session was at 11:30 am, I arrived around 11:15 am and met up with the other panel speakers and prepared for the session to begin.

Our session was in a question and answer format, audience members could ask questions and we would do our best to provide answers. I’m pleased to report that we were able to provide answers to every question that was asked including one that the VMware Genuis Bar could not answer. Afterwards we picked up a box lunch and went over to the Communities and Blogger lounge with John Troyer from VMware to do a live recording of our weekly podcast along with Tom Howarth, Edward Haletky and Jason Boche. This week we talked about our thoughts and experiences at VMworld. Next it was off to the Best of VMworld award presentation, you can read more about all the winners and finalists here. After that I was scheduled to do a few video interviews with TechTarget; one on security and the other on I/O virtualization which will be published on SearchVMware.com.

Finally it was off to the races, as in the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the big VMworld party. I was able to get in early thanks to Jason Boche who had one of the limited pit passes that provided early admittance to the party. We hopped on the bus and headed over to the track, once we arrived our first stop was to the cars that they had waiting in Pit Row that would take you for a 90-mph ride around the race track. The cars were a variety of new model production cars from a variety of manufacturers. Our car was an Infinity. Riding around the track was a lot of fun, not as fun as driving a Nascar car but enjoyable none the less. Next stop was to wait in the long line to get our picture taken with Indy car driver Danica Patrick. Afterwards it was off to try some of the numerous food choices that were provided and to check out the entertainment.

There were lots of neon glow tubes being passed out to everyone which party goers promptly took advantage of to do all sorts of wacky things with. A few people tried to see how many they could wear on themselves which provided some good entertainment, many others used them to pelt the DJ drummer with which seemed to greatly annoy him (a note to VMworld party planners, you might want to re-think providing neon glow tubes to people in the future). I took a lot of pictures of the party which I will be posting on my website in a few days.

Thursday

Thursday was the final day, I spent the morning checking out vendors in the Solutions Expo and saying goodbye to everyone I had met. I can truly say that I had a thoroughly enjoyable time and wish it could have lasted longer. There was just an overwhelming amount of things to see and do, it was so busy I hardly had any time to gamble in the casino. Finally meeting in person all the people I deal with electronically was the highlight of the show to me. I had many great experiences and learned a great deal from the show. Now it’s time to try and catch up, there was a lot of online coverage of the show that I want to review and to also try and digest everything that VMworld had to offer.

My VMworld Journal: Monday – Waiting for the big show

Eric Siebert — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:51:08 +0000

Monday was kind of a lazy day for many as it is geared towards partners who get exclusive briefings from VMware on strategies, technologies and road-maps. I can now navigate around the Venetian hotel with some confidence as I have started to figure out how everything is laid out. There are also many labs that attendees can sign up for on Monday, which provide hands-on experience in a variety of areas (i.e. performance, security) and are a great way for users to learn while actually using the product.

The Welcome Reception in the Solutions Expo opened at 5:30 for all attendees to meet with the two hundred-plus vendors who are at VMworld to show off their products and services. My first stop was the VMTN community lounge where I finally met John Troyer from VMware in person. John manages the Planet V12n and Planet VMware blog aggregator sites which are central feeds for all the great virtualization websites. I also had the chance to meet many of my fellow blogger and community members like Andrew Kutz, Bob Plankers, Richard Brambley, Eric Sloof and Rick Vanover.

I took a few laps around the Solutions Expo taking in the many vendors. My main objective for the night was to find and meet in person some of the many people I deal with electronically, like the folks from TechTarget. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I’ll be spending a lot of time in the Solutions Expo as I am one of the judges for TechTarget’s Best of VMworld awards. I stopped by to visit the folks from Hyper9 to see how their product was evolving since the last time I met them about 6 weeks ago. They’ve added some impressive features to the product like the ability to do a visual comparison of a virtual machine over a period of time. This technique is similar to how a text comparison application like Beyond Compare takes two files and lists all the differences between them. They are scheduled to release a public Beta of the product soon and are still on track to release it before the end of the year.

After the Welcome Reception is was off to the v-Bar (an appropriate name) in the Venetian for an informal VMTN communities party to socialize with some of the many users that frequent the VMTN forums. I spoke with John Troyer about the 3.5 Upgrade 2 SNAFU with the time-bomb code. He mentioned that VMware was making big changes to ensure that it would not happen again, including not using time-bomb code in future Beta releases. I also talked with Eric (who works with John in the communities and is very involved with the VMworld.com website). I asked about the availability of the recorded sessions from VMworld, and Eric responded that they would hopefully be released to attendees a week or two after the show ends. He also said they were still looking to sell subscriptions to the recorded sessions to non-attendees that would grant access to both the VMworld USA and VMworld Europe sessions. He wasn’t sure what the plan was to release the sessions for free to the general public. They may repeat what they did last year by releasing them at the rate of a dozen or so a month.

Tomorrow promises to be a busy day, walking the Solutions Expo, judging products for the Best of VMworld awards. I’m judging the Security category and am looking forward to checking some of the great security products that have been nominated. Also the general session keynote from Paul Maritz is tomorrow morning, which should be interesting.

Are offline desktops really that necessary?

Akutz — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:44:34 +0000

I am sure by now that I am getting a reputation as a downer or naysayer at this VMworld, but as one of my colleagues pointed out, we look around and wonder how many of these products and features we see are simply solutions searching for problems. That said, I look at something like VMware View, a new product in their vClient initiative, designed to help offer offline desktop images, and I wonder, why?

Jan Stafford and I were discussing that fact that if we do not have access to the Internet we really can not do that much in the way of our jobs. She is a journalist and I am a programmer. She uses the ‘Net for research, and I use it for avoiding my job by way of YouTube . VMware View is not the only product that promotes offline desktop use, take a look at any of the VDI solutions and four out of five of them will tout their ability to download the virtual desktop to your laptop for when you are out of the office. What does having your familiar environment provide you with, however, when you are no longer connected to the Internet?

There are three prevailing thoughts on the matter that I would like to discuss:

Offline desktops are a cure for network latency
Users demand a familiar environment
Offline desktops provide better application management

Curing Network Latency
The argument is that sometimes you do have an Internet connection, but it is not strong enough to access a remote desktop, so having an offline desktop will provide you with your familiar environment without the need for the fat pipe. An offline desktop, however, is not necessary to the result, as we shall see in a minute.

Familiar Environment
Users only think they need a familiar environment because they have never experienced any alternatives. What users really need is a way to access their information when they want to, how they want to, and in a secure fashion. I think offline virtual desktops are a little overkill for that (there are exceptions, for example, Windows on a Mac for a Visual Studio developer).

Better Application Management
No, no, no. Offline desktop images do not provide better application management. At that point I have to maintain an entire OS image to maintain a set of applications. Application virtualization software such as VMware’s ThinApp or InstallFree provide application management.

A Simpler Solution
As I said, offline desktops are a way to provide a way for users to access the information they want and how they want it, and in a secure fashion. Ultimately though I think that this is using an atom bomb to control the Alaskan wolf population when a single governor in a helicopter with a high powered rifle will do. I kid, I kid. But offline desktops are overkill. To me the solution is much simpler — synchronizing files and settings. Although Apple’s MobileMe has not had the best launch in the history of services, it certainly has the right intentions. I use it and it successfully keeps my files and preferences in sync across many computers. I don’t need the overhead of a local hypervisor to run my virtual image, I can access my files when I need to, how I need to, and securely. And perhaps most importantly I am not beholden to an OC-12 line. It’s a win-win.

Offline desktops… They’re a great idea, and they have their purpose. I just think people are using a wind tunnel to dry off their hair after a really long shower.