July 2008 archive

Top 10 News and Information websites that VMware administrators must visit

  1. Virtualization.info – This popular website covers the entire virtualization industry and is a great source for all the latest news. Alessandro often reports major news scoops before anyone else and is the place to go to find out all the news, speculation and rumors in the industry.
  2. Tech Target’s SearchVMware.com – Tech Target’s website that was launched to focus solely on VMware related topics. This website has many great feature articles, tips, white papers, news, webcasts and other information.
  3. Tech Target’s SearchServerVirtualization.com – Another Tech Target website that covers all virtualization products. This website has many great feature articles, tips, white papers, news, webcasts and other information.
  4. Virtualization Sys-con – A great source for news, blogs, interviews, webcasts and white papers for the entire virtualization industry.
  5. Virtual Strategy Magazine – This online magazine has many great feature articles, podcasts, columns, news and many other resources that provide some great information on all virtualization products.
  6. Dabcc – Another great source for virtualization news, articles, columns, podcasts and blogs. This website is updated quite frequently each day with many new articles and posts.
  7. Virtualization.com – This website is a good resource for all the latest news in the virtualization industry. It also features many good interviews and articles on virtualization.
  8. Virtualization Admin – A new website that was recently launched that is geared towards virtualization administrators. This website features many great tips, articles and blog posts from many contributor’s including David Davis and has a lot of great technical information.
  9. Virtualization Review – This website has a lot of great content on virtualization including columns, tips, news, feature articles and blogs from Keith Ward and Tom Valovic.
  10. VM Blog – David Marshall’s website that covers all the latest virtualization news in the industry. Another website that is updated quite frequently each day with many new items.
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Top 10 things you must read when making a Business Case for implementing VMware

  1. Getting the Green Light for Your Virtual Infrastructure – A VMworld 2007 presentation from VMware on the benefits of virtualization as well as the financial and commerical aspects. Covers virtualization strategies, communication methods and the development of business plans and cost models. Will also show you how to make the strongest case for virtual infrastructure so you can get the green light to begin your deployment.
  2. Making Business Sense of Virtualization – A VMworld 2007 presentation from Deloitte that covers the business benefits and impact of virtualization. Also covers business drivers and justifcation as well as several case studies.
  3. Reducing Server Total Cost of Ownership with VMware Virtualization Software – A white paper from VMware that examines how VMware virtualization software reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) in server envi¬ronments and provides almost immediate return on investment (ROI).
  4. Accelerate your ESX Deployment and Developing your Virtualization Strategy and Deployment Plan – Two white papers from Glasshouse, the first both illustrates the benefits of moving quickly to build your VMware ESX-centric infrastructure, and suggests a framework that will help you to accelerate your deployments. The second one outlines the process that GlassHouse uses with their clients in developing a “virtualization strategy,” and how they further assisted them in developing a plan to “get there.”
  5. Innovative Uses and Benefits of using VMware Virtualization – A VMworld 2007 presentation from Adaptis that shares a real life success story on using VMware virtualization at Adaptis, including what theye did right and what they could have done better. Also provides solid, convincing ammunition for the ROI of virtualization and discusses how they have reduced implementation costs.
  6. Breaking Down Barriers to VMware Technology Adoption – A VMworld 2007 presentation from VMware that addresses the common barriers to VMware technology adoption, along with proven ways to manage them or avoid them. Looking closely at the common barriers that exist in an organization will help you balance deployment efforts and speed time-to-value.
  7. Building the Virtualized Enterprise with VMware Infrastructure – A white paper from VMware that clarifies how adopting VMware infrastructure – the combination of server, storage and networking virtualization technologies – as a fundamental IT strategy helps organizations to reduce infrastructure costs, respond faster to business needs and increase the consistency and predictability of operations.
  8. Dispelling Virtualization Myths – A VMworld 2007 presentation from VMware that addresses myths regarding virtualization so that you can make an educated decision, fully embrace the technology, and start reaping its benefits. The myths covered will include topics such as production use cases for virtualization in today’s data centers, virtualization architectures, and key questions that organizations have about virtualization offerings from different vendors.
  9. Reducing Data Center Energy Costs with Virtualization – A white paper from VMware that discusses how virtualization technology can result in greatly reduced data center energy costs. Also covers how to calculate energy costs and potential savings by using virtualization in the data center.
  10. Critical Success Factors of Virtual Infrastructure Adoption – A VMworld 2007 presentation from VMware that provides critical success factors for the adoption of Virtual Infrastructure based on VMware Professional Services Organization experience, and identifies key factors required for technology adoption beyond the technical constraints.
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Top 10 things you must read about Memory in VI3

  1. The Role of Memory in ESX Server 3 – A white paper from VMware that explains some of the unique memory concepts that are used in VI3 including memory balloons, overcommitment, sharing and swapping.
  2. Memory Provisioning Recommendations for VI3 – A white paper from Kingston that defines the planning process for determining the appropriate amount of memory for a VI3 deployment, dispels some common misconceptions, and describes the consequences of sub-optimal sizing.
  3. Understanding Host and Guest memory usage – A VMworld 2007 presentation from VMware that helps clear up some of the mysteries on host and guest memory usage in VI3.
  4. Server Memory Power Consumption & Capacity Planning – A VMworld 2007 presentation from Kingston on memory technologies and how to select memory with regard to power consumption and performance.
  5. RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff – A technical article that explains some aspects of the Virtual Memory implementation in Windows 2000, XP, 2003 Server etc. It helps explain the relationship between RAM (Random Access Memory), Address Spaces, Virtual Memory and pagefile in Windows systems.
  6. Memory resource management in VMware ESX Server – A very detailed technical paper by a VMware engineer that explains memory management in ESX server and also how the advanced memory features that are used by ESX work.
  7. Memory Shares/Limits/Reservations – A VMTN forums thread that discusses various scenarios on using memory shares, limits and reservations.
  8. Understanding memory usage in Windows 2000 – A Microsoft Technet article that explains how Windows 2000 uses memory and how to track memory usage to see how much you really need.
  9. Understanding the Impact of RAM on Overall System Performance – A article that talks about why memory plays such a huge role in a computer’s overall performance.
  10. Memory Optimization – A VMTN forums thread that covers some advanced memory topics with participation from one of the VMware engineers.
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