VirtualizationAdmin.com Monthly Newsletter of January 2009 Sponsored by: UniPrint

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. Windows 2008 R2 Beta Offers New Virtualization Improvements

Thank you for reading issue #8 of our VirtualizationAdmin.com newsletter! Last month (last year actually) we offered our 2008 Virtualization Year in Review & What to expect in 2009.

This month, some of those expectations for 2009 are already starting to take place with the introduction of Windows 2008 R2 and its new virtualization improvements.

What does Windows 2008 R2 Beta offer you?

Client and Server Virtualization Enhancements

• Live Migration through Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) as part of Failover Clustering. This allows the same Hyper-V hosts to access the same shared LUNs and failover the guest VMs in the event that a Hyper-V host goes down.
• Improved Hyper-V management console features, Powershell command line, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) enhancements to make management of Hyper-V servers easier.
• Increased performance for virtual machines and lower power consumption of Hyper-V servers.
• Improved virtual networking performance using TCP offload and jumbo frames.

Presentation Virtualization / VDI Enhancements

• Improved end user experience with a new version of Remote Desktop providing multimedia redirection, Windows 7 Interaction, multi-monitor support, DirectX, and audio input with recording.
• Improved RemoteApp and Desktop Management offers a single administrative infrastructure for VDI, single signon, and RemoteApp web access.
• Improved RemoteApp and Desktop Deployment offer PowerShell flexibility, Microsoft Installer (MSI) compatibility, and remote desktop gateway features.

These are just the virtualization features of Windows 2008 R2 Beta, to learn about all the new features being offered (there are a lot more) and to download a copy of the beta for yourself, visit the official Windows 2008 R2 Beta website.

These Windows 2008 R2 virtualization enhancements are exciting and fulfillment of one of my 2009 virtualization predications, made last month!

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

• Determining Guest OS Placement (Part 2)
• Installing and Configuring Windows Server Backup for Hyper-V
• Server Virtualization Assessment using Microsoft Assessment and Planning 3.1 Toolkit (Part 2)
• How to access the VMware ESXi hidden console
• Product Review: eG?s Virtual Monitor
  

4. KB Articles of the Month

• VMware KB: VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 U3 I/O failure on SAN LUN(s) and LUN queue is blocked indefinitely
• VMware KB: A failure occurs when you power on a virtual machine on a Window Server 2008 host
• VMware KB: Free space from an extent added to a VMFS3 datastore is not seen on the other ESX Server hosts
• VMware KB: Sample Configuration - ESX connecting to physical switch via VLAN access mode. External Switch VLAN Tagging (EST Mode) (1004127)
  
• Microsoft KB: SCSI disks are disconnected in the child partition of Hyper-V
• Microsoft KB: You receive a "0x0000007E" Stop error on Windows Server 2008-based computers that host Hyper-V virtual machines when you use the Hyper-V writer to back up 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

What is the best way to stay up to date with real-time Virtualization news? The answer is Twitter, my friends.

The popularity of Twitter has soared and trust me, there are a ton of virtualization Pros and Admins on there, Tweeting any "hot off the press" virtualization stories that you will want to know about. Here are some of the Virtualization related "Tweeples" (Twitter People as they are called), that you should follow:

• TechGenix http://twitter.com/TechGenix - for articles from VirtualizationAdmin.com, WindowsNetworking.com and others
• John Troyer http://twitter.com/jtroyer - for news related to the VMware Communities
• And me, David Davis http://twitter.com/davidmdavis - for anything I feel is cool and new related to virtualization

But do not stop there, find the link to a list of hundreds of virtualization Twitter links at my blog post - Socialize about Virtualization and get the Latest Virtualization News by using Twitter!

6. Helpful Links

• VMworld Europe 2009 - in Cannes, France, February 24-26, 2009
• VMware's Planet V12n Virtualization Blog Aggregator
• 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

How do I access the VMware ESXi Hidden Console and why would I want to?

Answer

With VMware ESXi, the service console (based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux) has been removed. This was done so that ESXi would be smaller, faster, require fewer patches, and be more secure. However, there is still a very tiny Linux-like console that you can access in ESXi. I should point out that accessing this console is only supported by VMware if you are doing it under their direction (not mine).

To access the hidden VMware ESXi console, go to the console of your ESXi server, press Alt-F1, type unsupported (which won't appear on the screen). This will activate tech support mode. Now, enter your ESXi root password when prompted.

You will be placed at a Linux-like console with limited functionality. Still, you can use this to enable things like SSH so that you can actually SSH to the ESXi server, directly, without going through the server console.

For more information and step by step instructions, with graphics, read my article How to Access the VMware ESXi Hidden Console.

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