VirtualizationAdmin.com Monthly Newsletter of June 2009 Sponsored by: 2X Software

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. What have we learned about Virtualization in one year?

Thank you for reading issue #13 of our VirtualizationAdmin.com newsletter! This month, the VirtualizationAdmin.com Newsletter and Site are celebrating their 1st year anniversary! Looking back at newsletters published over the last year, it is truly amazing how far the world of virtualization has come. For example, approximately a year ago Hyper-V was released and VMware replaced their CIO, Diane Greene, with Paul Maritz. This accompanied by last month's release of VMware's vSphere in "vSphere goes LIVE and the Bandwagon Follows".

So, what have we learnt about Virtualization in the last year? Here is my top 3 list!

1. VMware thinks that they need to act more like Microsoft to beat Microsoft
   Face it, VMware's main competition is Microsoft and VMware is not being complacent. VMware has shown that they are willing to pull out all the stops to win. For example...
   • Hire a CEO from Microsoft - As I mentioned above, this time last year, VMware's board fired long time CEO, Diane Green, and hired an ex-Microsoft Vice President and executive committee board member - Paul Maritz. Since then, Paul has led the company to the creation of the next revision of the virtualization platform - vSphere - through the acquisition of a number of companies who will help them strengthen their overall "package". What better person to lead a head to head battle than someone who was one of the five people that led the competition?
   • Keep options open to restrict competitors if needed - Recently, there has been a great Internet stir about some new VMworld Restrictions written in the VMworld terms & conditions that restrict competitors from attending the conference (see Brian Madden's post about this). VMware quickly re-stated that all competitors are welcome at VMworld but yet, they still seem to hold the power to throw out competitors if they get too rambunctious at their conference!
2. VMware partners are now competitors - to continue on with point 1B above, the term ?competitor? is becoming fuzzier for VMware. With VMware expanding its product offerings and moving into the space once occupied by competitors, suddenly those who were once partners are now competitors. For example, look at what happened to Veeam recently. They announced that they would extend support for the Veeam backup product to users who use the free VMware ESXi. VMware quickly rebutted by asking them to drop that support. Why? Because VMware wants those who use ESXi to buy the commercial version of ESX/ESXi in the form of vSphere and to use their new Backup/Recovery program - VMware Data Recovery (see the story; VMware clampdown on free ESXi may prompt defection to Hyper-V). This is happening time and time again as VMware continues to expand their product breadth and compete with their partners.
   
3. Enterprise grade virtualization is not free (but SMB virtualization can be) - over the last year, Microsoft has released the free / standalone version of Hyper-V and VMware has released ESXi for free. I would consider both of these to be good SMB virtualization solutions (depending on the number of servers, VMs and features required). But, in comparison to a free solution, you will still pay what amounts to a small fortune for the various levels of the vSphere suite. Certainly this is a smart business decision on VMware's part, but time will tell if they will have to lower their prices as the competition releases more features at even lower price points.

With the release of VMware ESX4 and vSphere at the end of May, I am excited to see what the next year will hold for Virtualization Admins like you and I. Let the wild ride continue!

Note to my readers: 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

• High-Availability Options with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
  
• Disaster Recovery for Hyper-V (Part 1)
  
• How to Use Hyper-V Snapshot Revert, Apply, and Delete Options
  
• VIDEO: How to install Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008
  
• Acronis True Image Server for Windows - Voted VirtualizationAdmin.com Readers? Choice Award Winner - Backup & Recovery
  
• How can the free vWire OpsCheck help with your VMotion Configuration?
  
• VIDEO: How to Install Windows Vista as your Guest OS in Hyper-V
  
  

4. KB Articles of the Month

• Host Power Management Causes Problems with Guest Timekeeping (Windows Hosts) (1227)
  
• VMware ESX and ESXi Comparison (1006543)
  
• VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 U3 I/O failure on SAN LUN(s) and LUN queue is blocked indefinitely (1008130)
  
• Considerations when hosting Active Directory domain controller in virtual hosting environments
  
• Guest operating systems that are supported on a Hyper-V virtual machine
  
• Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments
  

5. Virtualization Admin Tip of the Month

It is common to have more than one vCenter server at companies that have multiple geographic nodes, or have more than 100 ESX hosts or 1000 VMs. When that happens, it is a real pain to manage the virtual infrastructure because you have to manage each vCenter server as a whole different environment. There is no information or configuration sharing.

With the new vSphere vCenter, there is a new feature called Linked Mode. With Linked Mode, you can manage up to 300 ESX physical servers and 3000 VMs. Still, you have multiple vCenter servers but you are able to manage them all with one single vSphere Client connection.

I am really excited about this all new feature that will certainly tremendously improve the scalability of vCenter. Here are some articles and a video covering vSphere Linked Mode:

• VMGuy: vCenter Server Linked Mode
• VMware Communities Linked Mode Discussion
• VMware Linked Mode Best Practices
• You can watch a video that demonstrates vSphere vCenter Linked mode in this YouTube video

6. Helpful Links

• VMworld 2009 - August 31 - Sept 3 - San Francisco, CA
• VMware's Planet V12n Virtualization Blog Aggregator
• VMwareVideos.com - videos only related to VMware
• VMware Free Virtualization Webcasts
• Petri IT Knowledgebase - Virtualization Articles
• 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

With the release of VMware's new vSphere 4, is there a new vSphere certification?

Answer

While there is no brand new certification, there is a new version of the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) that is based on vSphere 4 / ESX4. As you can imagine, the name of this version of the VCP is the "VCP4", of course, based on vSphere 4.

The release date for the VCP4 exam is August 1, 2009.

Just like the current version of the VCP, you must first take a VMware Education class to achieve VCP status.

If you are currently a VCP3, like me, you will have until December 31, 2009 to take the new VCP4 exam and pass it, to achieve your VCP4 certification (wow, that is not very long!)

In conjuction with this, VMware is also offering new Education classes covering VMware vSphere 4. Specifically, the class that most VCP candidates take is VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage.

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