Sep
4
VMworld 2011 – My Take
Filed Under Uncategorized, vCenter, Virtualization, VMware, VMware View, VMware Workstation, VMworld | Leave a Comment
My VMworld 2011 points
Now that VMworld 2011 is over, I wanted to share my experience of this year’s virtualization main event.
There were a couple of key points I wanted to make sure I got out of the conference. First, I wanted to get a further technical understanding in some areas I did not have alot of exposure to such as vCloud Director, vCenter Operations, and vCenter Chargeback. Second, I wanted to get a better understanding of how VMware is innovating around the application layer and the technologies associated with that area such as the vFabric product family. …And on one other note, I was very excited and impressed about the VMware AppBlast announcement. I can’t wait to dive in and peel back the layers on this technology to better understand it!
These areas were important to me because I believe it is going to be imperative for the many VMware Engineers out there to have an understanding of the Management & Automation capabilities and the Application layer technologies. The hypervisor is the foundation layer but it is going to be the layers higher in the stack that are beginning to really drive Cloud technology and innovation. This is apparent in VMware’s announcements and offerings. I’ll save further discussion on this topic for another blog post.
Social Scene
VMworld is an opportunity not just to attend sessions and labs but to meet people and become active in the virtualization community.
I had a great time meeting some of the key contributors in the VMware community. Although I met many in VMworld 2009, there seemed to be so many more two years later. In fact, several people I was hoping to bump into became just impossible with the enormity of the conference and busy schedules.
One nice thing is that the awesome VMUnderground party, Veeam party, CXI and others helped in meeting new people and seeing twitter friends etc.
Outside of attending sessions and gaining knowledge, I think this is what VMworld is about..the virtualization community.
The VMworld party was super crowded and The Killers were AWESOME!!
I didn’t attend the after pool party. Rather, I went and enjoyed a nice steak and wine at Delmonico Steakhouse to cap the evening. I just couldn’t bring myself to be herded to the pool area with 20,000 other people. BUT it would have been awesome to see @jtroyer take that dive into the pool! 
Last thoughts
This was my second VMworld (2009 was first) and it seems to get better every year. There are definitely some pain points with a large attendance of 20,000. Overall I thought VMware and the Venetian did a great job. The logistics behind this must have been incredible.
I really enjoyed the opportunity to attend VMworld this year. Once again, I want to thank Greg Stuart and sponsors for the opportunity to win the trip!
I hope to be a bigger contributor to the community and give back some to so many others that give so much in this community.
I’ll see everyone in San Francisco next year!
Jul
18
Configure HP P4000 (LeftHand) and VMware For Replication
Filed Under HP, LeftHand, vCenter, Virtualization, VMware | Leave a Comment
Here is a quick take on setting up HP P4000 (LeftHand) Remote Copy replication between sites. I created 3 videos via jing to show the process. The limit is 5 minutes per video. So, I had to be a bit quicker than I would have liked in talking through the process.
The videos show:
1. Remote Copy Setup
2. Failover of volumes and VMware changes needed
3. Failback of volumes and VMware changes needed
Example: HP P4000 Replication Setup
Jan
31
XenDesktop and vCenter 4 Integration
Filed Under Citrix, Provisioning Server, vCenter, Virtualization, XenDesktop | Leave a Comment
I was performing a XenDesktop POC where the hypervisor was ESX 4 and vCenter 4. For those that do not know, XenDesktop is hypervisor agnostic and can be ran on ESX, Hyper-V, and XenServer.
During the XenDesktop Setup wizard, I could not get the XenDesktop Delivery Controller and Provisioning Server to communicate with vCenter.
I was getting the following –> Error : “The hosting infrastructure could not be reached at the specified address”
After digging, I found a handy post by Trond Eirik Haavarstein on this specific issue. Thanks Trond!!! This was very helpful.
Here is the link, and I have included the helpful article below:
http://www.xenappblog.com/2009/citrix-xendesktop-3-0-fp1-poc-hosted-on-vmware-esx-3-5/
I am working on a new Citrix XenDesktop Proof of Concept (POC) hosted on VMware ESX. During the setup I discovered some error messages I would like to share with you.
Error : “The hosting infrastructure could not be reached at the specified address”
Solution :
- Create a host file entry that resolves vmare to the IP address of your VirtualCenter Server. Do this on the Desktop Delivery Controller (DDC) and the Provisioning Services Server (PVS).
- Import the certificate from the Virtual Center Server (%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\SSL\rui.crt) into the trusted root authority for Computer Account – Local Computer (used the Certificate MMC to accomplish this). Do this on the DDC and PVS.
Use https://vmware/sdk in the XenDesktop Setup Wizard.
Aug
16
High Availability for vCenter
Filed Under vCenter | 2 Comments
vCenter is such an important part of the virtual infrastructure. I thought I’d outline a way to provide high availability to vCenter so that readers have a better idea on how to implement HA for their vCenter environment.
There are several solutions today that facilitate high availability and recovery for vCenter with little to no downtime.
Recently, VMware released the vCenter Heartbeat product to ensure vCenter HA. This product is licensed from the NeverFail Group.
In additon, Double-Take and CA XoSoft are solutions that can help. This demonstration uses CA XoSoft as the solution to provide HA for vCenter. I chose this simply because I already have some familiarity with the product. Other solutions will provided similar capability and should be considered as well. This demonstration was done with vCenter 2.5 but would also work with 4.0.
Enjoy!
To see a full screen HD version click on the expand button in the video.
