A recent announcement from Likewise Software hints that future versions of VMware vSphere may make it easier for companies to manage ESX hosts using Active Directory (AD) credentials. vCenter, which runs on a Windows Server operating system, is commonly added to an AD domain already, but special configurations are necessary to authenticate ESX host access with domain credentials today.
The virtualization community, my employer, and every Virtualization Service Provider I know is neck deep in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Already important because of Windows 7 migrations, the announcements last week from Microsoft and Citrix seemed to have raised the intensity of an existing white hot spotlight on VDI.
The vSphere Enterprise Plus vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) has been heralded as an administrator’s time saver and single point of virtual networking configuration and visibility across many ESX/ESXi 4 hosts. However, the vDS presents some administrative challenges unique from the traditional vNetwork Standard Switch (vSS) that admins are used to. In this post I’ll first cover (with the help of a several others) general VM and vCenter vDS networking issues, but along the way I’ll explore thoughts about designing around a vDS for keeping vCenter as a VM.
For all those that complained just 4 months ago that VMworld 2009 was disappointing because the announcements were few and far between, all I can say is, based on what I watched, experienced, and touched this week at PEX 2010, VMware should grab your attention again soon!
Before the Alliance, Coalition, and Partnership start the Cloud Wars, everybody raise your Guinness and say “Brilliant!”
VMware is purchasing Zimbra, a messaging and collaboration software company, from Yahoo!. Already one of the most popular virtual appliances available for download in VMware’s Virtual Appliance Marketplace, Zimbra will now be optimized for VMware vSphere and probably be offered as a standard service in VMware hosted cloud offerings.
Over a year ago I was given a 4GB iPod Nano as a gift, but I never really used it for more than listening to music. In fact, it eventually came to rest docked in a small “boom box†in my kids’ room. I lost interest in the Nano partly because my Blackberry (with the […]
It has to be the most common question for those implementing a new virtual infrastructure (VI) – “how do we back up our virtual machines?” There are certainly plenty of choices. A company could stay with the (most commonly found in physical environments) system of agent based tape backups, implement VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB), implement […]
Ocarina Networks presented to us during the Day 2 morning session of the GestaltIT Tech Field Day. Their presentation was a deep dive into storage compression and optimization. If you read my Ideas About Presenting To Engineers from earlier this week, then you’ll know what I mean when I say that Ocarina had “black magic” […]
GestaltIT Tech Field Day is over, and the attendees and sponsors have indicated they were extremely pleased with the event. This is not to say that everything went well the whole time. In fact, if you followed along on the social media conversation then you caught some interesting tweets and replies during the brief moments […]
