VirtualizationAdmin.com Monthly Newsletter of December 2008 Sponsored by: Acronis

Welcome to the VirtualizationAdmin.com newsletter by David Davis, VCP, CCIE. Each month we will bring you interesting and helpful information on the world of Virtualization. We want to know what all *you* are interested in hearing about. Please send your suggestions for future newsletter content to: ddavis@VirtualizationAdmin.com

1. 2008 Virtualization Year in Review & What to expect in 2009

Thank you for reading issue #7 of our VirtualizationAdmin.com newsletter! Last month we covered how VMware Fault Tolerance (FT) and vLockstep (both features of the next version of VMware ESX and the VI Suite) will change virtualization high-availability.

This month, we will review what happened in virtualization in 2008 and what we have to look forward to in the virtualization world in 2009.

2008 was an exciting year in Virtualization. Here are some of the major VMware and Microsoft virtualization events:

• VMware Releases Server 2.0
• VMware Releases Workstation 6.5 and ACE 2.5
• VMware Released ESX Server 3.5
• VMware Licensing timebomb brings down clusters of VMware ESX Servers when applying Update 2
• VMware Releases ESX Server Update 3
• VMware Releases makes ESXi a FREE hypervisor
• Microsoft begins distributing Hyper-V
• Microsoft Releases Hyper-V Standalone Edition, also offering a completely free hypervisor
• Microsoft Releases System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
• VMworld 2008 hosted over 14,000 attendees and over 200 exhibitors

Wow, what an amazing year for the world of virtualization! How can that be topped in 2009? Here are my 2009 predictions:

• VMware will release ESX Server & Virtual Infrastructure Suite version 4.0 (or whatever it is called) and their VDC-OS framework. This will significantly enhance the offering and provide many new APIs and frameworks for 3rd party companies to develop more applications.
• Microsoft will release R2 of Hyper-V with Live Migration features, similar to VMotion.
• Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and VMware Server usage will drop significantly in favor of Hyper-V and ESXi.
• VMware's vCloud services and Microsoft’s Azure Cloud-Computing models will be put into production, by end of year, at a handful of well known companies.

What are your predictions? To comment, please visit my 2009 Virtualization Predictions post of my blog or just email me!

Besides reading our newsletter, I encourage you to stay up to date on the latest in Virtualization news by subscribing to the VirtualizationAdmin.com RSS Feed so make sure you have the VirtualizationAdmin.com RSS feeds configured in your RSS reader.

As always, if you have Virtualization questions, ideas for articles, or issues to cover in the newsletter, please feel free to write to me at ddavis@VirtualizationAdmin.com

Thank you,
David Davis, VCP, CCIE

2. Train Signal VMware ESX Server Video Training

3. VirtualizationAdmin.com Articles of Interest

• An Introduction to OS Virtualization (Part 2)
  
• Product Review: eG's Virtual Monitor
  
• Determining Guest OS Placement (Part 1)
  
• Controlling Processor Resources in Hyper-V Guests
  
• VIDEO: Running VMware ESX 3.5 inside VMware Workstation 6.5 on your Desktop PC (VIDEO)
  

4. KB Articles of the Month

• VMware KB: Sample Configuration - ESX connecting to physical switch via VLAN access mode. External Switch VLAN Tagging (EST Mode) (1004127)
  
• VMware KB: How do I change a forgotten root password on my ESX Server Host?
  
• VMware KB: ESX and ESXi Server Comparison
  
• Microsoft KB: Windows Server system software that is not supported in a Hyper-V virtual machine environment
  
• Microsoft KB: The NLB host does not converge as expected on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtual machines
  
• Microsoft KB: When you try to enable, disable, or update Hyper-V technology, the process stops responding
  

5. Virtualization Admin Tip of the Month

Spend some time analyzing your current IT Infrastructure applications and whether or not they support virtualization. Examples of applications might be backup software, network monitoring software, performance monitoring tools, and ITIL software. Most of this "virtualization support" is the ability of these infrastructure applications to know the relationships between the hosts and the guests. I recommend any application that goes to VMware vCenter or Hyper-V System Center Virtual Machine Manager directly. Also, look at applications that can give you the complete view of your infrastructure, including the virtual hosts, guest, storage, and network. One such application is eG's VM Monitor (reviewed this month on our site). For larger infrastructures, performance applications that use SNMP and go directly to ESX hosts are not going to give you the scalability and visibility that you need.

6. Helpful Links

• VMworld Europe 2009 - Pre-registration
• VMware's Planet V12n Virtualization Blog Aggregator
• Orion NMP Virtualization Edition free trial
• VMwareVideos.com - videos only related to VMware
• VMware Free Virtualization Webcasts
• Petri IT Knowledgebase - Virtualization Articles
• VM Monitor free performance monitor for VMware ESX
• Virtual PC Guy's Weblog covering Hyper-V Virtualization
• Scott Lowe's Virtualization, Storage, and Server Blog
• Microsoft Virtualization Team Blog
  

7. Ask David Davis

Question

What are my free options for assessing the security of my virtual infrastructure and, more specifically, VMware ESX Server?

Answer

While I still maintain that VMware ESX is very secure "out of the box", as a VMware ESX and Virtualization Admin, you should be familiar, first, with the VMware Infrastructure Security Hardening Guide. Next, you should try out one or more of these free security and compliance validation applications:

• Tripwire ConfigCheck
• ConfigureSoft Compliance Checker
• Catbird Compliance Enforcer

Each of these will help you assess your virtual host security and remediate any vulnerability by hardening your server.

Got a question for David Davis? Send it to ddavis@VirtualizationAdmin.com