Category Archives: Virtualization

The Death of the PC

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The head of computer operations for Reed Specialist Recruitment, an employment service with operations on three continents, Whetstone recently upgraded his company’s 6,000 desktop computers. Chief information officers order new Dells or HPs all the time. But the computers Whetstone brought in for his employees aren’t the traditional metal boxes that sit next to desks or under monitors. They are “virtual” computers. Each employee has a keyboard and a screen, but the processors making the calculations and deciding what color goes in each pixel are far away, inside a big computer at Reed’s main data center in London.

via The Death of the PC – Forbes.com.

This is dated (12/28/2009) but interesting nonetheless.   Thin clients never quite die either.  🙂

Cisco plans virtual switch for Hyper-V in Windows Server 8

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Expanding the ability of Cisco networking tools to work with Hyper-V could help Microsoft make its case that its server virtualization software is a viable alternative to VMware. The analyst firm Gartner has praised the Hyper-V technology and said Microsoft has the advantage of providing management tools that are familiar to Windows administrations, but that it has struggled to convert large enterprise customers from VMware to Hyper-V.

via Cisco plans virtual switch for Hyper-V in Windows Server 8.

Researchers create stealth virtual machine that can run alongside insecure VMs

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A team of researchers have devised a way to create an isolated and trusted environment on virtualized servers. Called the “Strongly Isolated Computing Environment” (SICE), the approach makes it possible to run sensitive computing processes alongside less secure workloads on the same physical hardware.

via Researchers create stealth virtual machine that can run alongside insecure VMs.

How to configure OpenFiler iSCSI Storage for use with VMware ESX.

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I wanted to test an Openfiler as a solution forHA and vMotion with ESX Server and vCenter. Using Openfiler is a great way to save some money on expensive SANs and for home lab testing and learning, this choice is just great. I did not have 3 physical boxes (2 for ESX hosts and one for Openfiler) so I opted for a hybrid solution, where I’m actually running one ESX server inside of VMware workstation.

via How to configure OpenFiler iSCSI Storage for use with VMware ESX. | ESX Virtualization.

Citrix drops dependencies on Windows to boost XenServer with v6.0

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“Site Recovery in previous versions was dependent on the StorageLink Gateway component which was a Windows-based separate installation,” Citrix says. “With XenServer 6.0 the StorageLink functionality is delivered as a native part of XenCenter and the Site Recovery functionality is done natively as well.”

This also allows Citrix to support replication on a greater number of storage devices.Similarly, a Windows VM requirement was removed for access to storage features like data replication, de-duplication, snapshots and cloning, while a new workload balancing tool uses a Linux-based virtual appliance “with a smaller footprint [that] replaces the Windows-based virtual appliance and eliminates the Windows licensing dependency,” Citrix said.

via Citrix drops dependencies on Windows to boost XenServer with v6.0.

Here’s an interesting comment on this article:

agrocrag | a day ago | permalink
I don’t know what all the stuff in this article means, but I have to use a thin client at work that is connected to a Citrix-based server, and it is bar none the worst computing experience I have ever had.
And another:
dal20402 | about 17 hours ago | permalink
It’s really OT for this article, but as a user subjected to XenApp, I can confirm that the user experience is horrendous. It’s pretty stable and reliable in our office, but, even running on quite good hardware with few users connected, it’s absolutely dog-slow, and feels like using a computer while suspended in a jar of molasses.If I’m doing any significant amount of work on the weekends, I’ll go into the office rather than trying to use our XenApp system from home. I save more time by not waiting for the system than I use making the commute.

Another interesting tidbit further down in the comments…

Fast forward ten years and now thin client desktops cost more than quad core workstations.

Is this true?

Open Virtualization Alliance signs 200+ members

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The rapid growth in OVA membership is a sign of KVM’s potential in emerging markets and the cloud, where open virtualization is poised to be a key technology that can help reduce costs, increase virtual machine density, and improve performance and scalability. In fact, according to a recent member survey, more than 50 percent of OVA members are focused on cloud computing.

via Open Virtualization Alliance signs 200+ members – TechSpot News.

Xen: How to Convert An Image-Based Guest To An LVM-Based Guest

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This short article explains how you can move/convert a Xen guest that uses disk images to LVM volumes. Virtual machines that use disk images are very slow and heavy on disk IO, therefore it’s often better to use LVM. Also, LVM-based guests are easier to back up (using LVM snapshots).

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

Via Xen: How to Convert An Image-Based Guest To An LVM-Based Guest | HowtoForge – Linux Howtos and Tutorials.

How to clone virtual machines in VMware ESXi

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This is the tricky step. Unlike VMware Server, the Infrastructure Client does not have the File > Open option, allowing you to browse for existing .vmx configuration files and registering them. So it seems you might be stuck.

The answer lies in the datastore. In the destination folder, where you have just created your clone, right-click on the .vmx configuration file. Select Add to Inventory.

via How to clone virtual machines in VMware ESXi.

Update:  This indeed worked.  The problem occurs in that if a .vmx file is copied directly from Workstation, it can contain erroneous info that can cause problems.  In my case eth0 would not pass traffic.  I noticed something wrong by examining the virtual machines on Configuration -> Networking when the esxi box is selected.  I noticed the vm I was having problems with wasn’t listed so I thought to examine the .vmx file.

The copied over .vmx file had ethernet0.vnet=”/dev/vmnet0″ which is a Workstation reference that doesn’t apply to esxi.  By eliminating this and adding ethernet0.networkName = “VM Network” networking worked.

 

VMware Converter: How to Move Physical Machines to VMs with VMware Converter – Part 2

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In our case, we selected physical computer but notice all the different sources you can import virtual machines from. You could import an existing virtual machine, a physical machine that this program is running on, or a remote machine over the network.

via VMware Converter: How to Move Physical Machines to VMs with VMware Converter – Part 2.