Category: News

Aug 10 2009

Enough whining about the VMworld band already!

It’s been announced that Foreigner will be the band for the VMworld 2009 party this year and I have seen many negative comments about VMware’s choice. Personally I like the choice, I grew up listening to Foreigner in the 1980’s and there was many a time that I was cruising around in my Camaro with the windows down cranking Juke Box Hero or Hot Blooded on my cassette player. Over 20 years later I still have the lyrics for Juke Box Hero stuck in my head. Foreigner was a big band in their day, they had many hits including  16 top-40 hits and 9 top-10 hits which is pretty damn good achievement for a band.  Here’s a bit of history about Foreigner:

  • Formed in 1976 by English musicians (Mick Jones, Ian McDonald and Dennis Elliott,  American musicians (Al Greenwood and Ed Gagliardi) and an American singer (Lou Gramm). Mick Jones who is the lead guitarist is the sole original band member, Lou Gramm left in 2003 to pursue a solo career.
  • Jason Bonham, the son of late Led Zeppelin drummer, John Bonham played drums for Foreigner from 2004 – 2008.
  • They have released 8 albums, the last one in 1994, and have sold over 50 million albums world-wide, their albums are listed below:
    • 1977 – Foreigner,  #4 on U.S. charts, 5x multi-platinum
    • 1978 – Double Vision, #3 on U.S. charts, 7x multi-platinum
    • 1979 – Head Games, #5 on U.S. charts , 5x multi-platinum
    • 1981 – 4, #1 on U.S. charts, 6x multi-platinum
    • 1984 – Agent Provocateur, #4 on U.S. charts, 3x multi-platinum
    • 1987 – Inside Information, #15 on U.S. charts, platinum
    • 1991 – Unusual Heat
    • 1994 – Mr. Moonlight
  • Their 16 top 40 hits and 9 top 10 hits including the following well-known songs:
    • Cold As Ice
    • Double Vision
    • Head Games
    • Waiting for a Girl Like You
    • Feels Like the First Time
    • Urgent
    • Dirty White Boy
    • Juke Box Hero
    • Long, Long Way From Home
    • Hot Blooded
    • I Want to Know What Love Is (#1 hit)
    • Say You Will

So yes they are an older band who’s last album was released in 1994 and they currently only have one original band member but who cares, they have lots of great songs, they put on a good show and I’m sure they will really rock the VMworld party.  So instead of all the negative comments and whining please show some appreciation that VMware stepped up and chose an original band to play this year instead of a cover band like last year. I know everyone’s musical tastes vary and you definitely can’t please everyone but the VMworld party planners tried to book an original band that they thought would please the majority of attendees and I think they did a good job. Some of you might not be old enough to remember Foreigner so I say give them a try before you criticize them, there is a good chance you’ll like them. And for those that simply don’t like Foreigner, there are alot of other clubs in San Francisco that you can go to that night that might be playing the type of music you enjoy, you can always go check them out instead.

Share This:

Aug 06 2009

VMworld 2009 Links – your source for everything at VMworld

My VMworld 2009 link pages are now online and I am adding new links to them every day, currently most of the links are in the Travel Info and Things to do in SF categories but the other categories will be populated as the conference approaches and during it. Each day of the conference I will be posting all of the links relevant to that day, so if you can’t physically attend VMworld this year you will still be able to virtually attend it through all the links posted here. You can get to the VMworld 2009 links several ways: directly using this URL: vmw09.vsphere-land.com, by clicking the button in the right sidebar or by selecting vLinks from the navigation menu. By the time the show is over I should have hundreds of links posted here so keep checking back.

Share This:

Aug 04 2009

New articles on vShield Zones and VMware Data Recovery

I recently wrote some articles for Tech Target on the two new products that were introduced in vSphere:  vShield Zones and VMware Data Recovery. The VMware Data Recovery article covers what it is, comparisons to 3rd party products and how to install and configure it. The vShield Zones article is a 3-part series that covers what it is, how it works, how to install and configure it and many tips for using it. Special thanks to Carlos Camacho and Serge Maskalik from VMware who helped me work through some issues I had and provided me some great information on their product. vShield Zones will be the subject of the weekly VMTN podcast this week so be sure and listen in for even more information and to ask questions.

VMware Data Recovery article at searchdatabackup.com:

VMware Data Recovery Manager: A guide to installing and using VDR

vShield Zones articles at searchvmware.com:

vShield Zones: What it is and how it works (Pt. 1)
Installing and Configuring vShield Zones (Pt. 2)
Quick tips for managing vShield Zones (Pt. 3)

Share This:

Jul 20 2009

OK so it’s a poem and not a limerick…

Over in the VMworld forums Theron Conrey has a thread going for his big Sunday night VMworld bash and is encouraging people to write a VMworld themed limerick to get an extra raffle ticket to win great prizes. Since I didn’t want to deal with the strict rules that makeup a proper limerick I did a poem instead and included in it some of my good buddies who I enjoyed hanging out with at VMworld last year. So here it is, and be sure and stop over to the VMworld thread to see the limericks and add your own (make sure you follow the strict limerick form!).

At the thirsty bear I hope to meet Jason Boche

Maybe drink a few beers and eat some kolache’s

If I’m lucky I will win a prize

But if not I can talk to Ken Cline and get more wise

Hopefully I don’t come down with a fever

After staying out all night and drinking with Steve Beaver

If Edward Haletky shows up at the party

We’ll all for sure be educating by that security smartie

If you plan on bringing a lady to the event that day

Watch out for Matthew Johnson who will try and steal her away

If Thomas Bryant shows up and starts drinking doubles

Look out San Francisco as there is going to be trouble

Hopefully John Troyer will show up after working in his yard

For he has a VMware corporate credit card

Share This:

Jul 02 2009

And the winners of the VMware top blog are…

I’ve been putting together the top 10 and lately the top 20 VMware blogs based on a few factors but this time around I wanted to poll the user community to see what they thought the  top VMware blogs were. Well the people have spoken, there were about 350 votes cast, a few duplicates (I track voters IP addresses, you know who you are) and the results have been tabulated and the new top 5 is ready to be announced. I weighted the votes with a #1 vote being worth 5 points, #2 vote worth 4 points, #3 vote worth 3 points, #4 vote worth 2 points and a #5 vote worth 1 point. I was going to put together a little slideshow with the results but have been too busy so without further ado here’s the results and your new top 5:

  1. Yellow Bricks – Duncan Epping – 102 first place votes – weighted score of 991
  2. Scott Lowe’s Blog – Scott Lowe – 39 first place votes – weighted score of 707
  3. Virtual Geek – Chad Sakac – 61 first place votes – weighted score of 550
  4. NTPro – Eric Sloof – 12 first place votes – weighted score of 412
  5. RTFM Education – Mike Laverick – 5 first place votes – weighted score of 232

Congratulations to the winners! You guys work hard and produce some fabulous posts and you deserve to be on top. Rounding out the top 10 were the following blogs:

VM/ETC – Rich Brambley – 5 first place votes – weighted score of 196
Virtualization Evangelist – Jason Boche – 4 first place votes – weighted score of 190
Gabe’s Virtual World – Gabe Van Zanten – 5 first place votes – weighted score of 132
Virtualization Pro – Various – 3 first place votes – weighted score of 129
Mike D’s blog – Mike DiPetrillo – 3 first place votes – weighted score of 120

I probably won’t get around to updating the vLaunchpad until next week. I’ll be doing this again in 6 months and next time I’ll be using a better survey tool and you’ll get to choose the whole top 20. There are a great many blogs in the VMware community right now and just because you are not on the top 20 right now doesn’t made you are not worthy, just that you have a lot of competition; but bloggers come and go and it’s sometimes hard to devote time to a blog so keep up the great posts and you are sure to make the list someday.

Share This:

Jun 17 2009

Downloading the vMA and vSphere CLI

I wanted to download the new vSphere virtual Management Assistant (replaced VIMA) and the vSphere CLI (replaced RCLI) to play around with them today and I spent at least 5 minutes trying to find them on VMware’s download site. The previous VI3 versions were available under the VI3 Downloads page on the Drivers & Tools tab but on the vSphere Downloads page the Drivers & Tools tab only has a network driver download listed. Eventually I figured out there were located under the Datacenter Downloads page as a separate product under the VMware SDKs & APIs Downloads page. So if you’re looking for them in the vSphere Downloads page you’re in the wrong spot as VMware has moved them to the their developer download area. You can also easily get to all the vSphere downloads from my vSphere download links page. Additionally you can quickly access all the documentation links from my vSphere documentation links page.

Share This:

Jun 15 2009

Here’s your chance to pick the top VMware blogs

I have a hard time picking the top blogs from the many great ones that are out there. I initially started with a top 10 and recently expanded it to the top 20 as more and more blogs have started. In this post I outline my blog selection criteria for the top 20 and it’s no easy task for me to pick them and rate them in order. Well here’s the chance for you to pick the top 5 of my top 20 blog list using this new survey form that I created. You can pick from the current top 20 which you can see on my vLaunchpad,or choose other and add one that is not on the list. The survey will be open for 2 weeks, afterwords I’ll announce the results and update my vLaunchpad accordingly.  Duncan Epping from http://yellow-bricks.com has been the reigning number #1 for a while now and is a tough one to beat. So head on over to my survey and cast your vote, each position will have a weight assigned with it and they will be added up accordingly for the final results.

Share This:

Jun 09 2009

Is your server hardware capable of running vSphere?

With VI3 you could run on either 32-bit or 64-bit server hardware but vSphere requires 64-bit hardware because the VMkernel and Service Console are now 64-bit. I did a tip a while ago for searchvmware.com that talks about this in detail and shows how you can test your hardware to see if the CPU supports 64-bit and has some of the other CPU features that vSphere needs for certain features. To briefly summarize that tip:

  • Long mode is required to be able to install vSphere, it will not install without it.
  • To be able to run 64-bit VM’s on vSphere either the AMD-V or Intel-VT feature is required. Without it you can still run vSphere but are limited to using 32-bit VM’s.
  • For the Fault Tolerance feature to work you need specific processors that support Lockstep technology, you can read this KB article to find out which ones have this feature.

Here are some links to various information that can help you better understand all this:

Share This: