Due to cuts and other circumstances I will no longer be blogging at SearchVMware.com’s Virtualization Pro blog. While exploring other blogging opportunities I decided to come right back where I started, this website, vSphere-land.com. So besides my gigantic link collection you’ll be seeing lots of new content here including tips, news, reviews, opinions, top 10 lists and much more. For starters I’ll be doing a series documenting a new project from start to finish that I’m the lead on which is a Lotus Domino virtualization project. So stay tuned for lots of great content coming from this site.
Jan 19 2010
Winners of the TrainSignal DVD vSphere training course
As I previously mentioned two randomly chosen voters in the top blog survey would win a copy of TrainSignal’s vSphere DVD training course. I exported the voting results to Excel and then used a random number generator to pick two row numbers and the winners are:
- mcgivern_jon at emc dot com from Westborough, MA
- brian_alexander at mentor dot com from Longmont, CO
David Davis from TrainSignal will be contacting you, thank you for your participation in the voting!
Jan 17 2010
The top blog full voting results
Here’s a table with the vote totals for all the VMware/virtualization blogs included in the survey, there were a few others that only had 1 or two votes that I didn’t include. Total votes includes any vote a blog received whether it was 1 through 10. Total points is the sum of each vote times it’s appropriate weight for the position (#1 vote = 10 points, #2 vote = 9 points, all the way down to a #10 vote = 1 point).
Position Blog #1 Votes Total Votes Total Points
1 Yellow Bricks 158 525 4191
2 Virtual Geek 111 379 2938
3 Scott Lowe 56 397 2889
4 NTPro.nl 22 349 2062
5 RTFM Education 7 305 1734
6 Virtualization Evangelist 13 286 1482
7 VM/ETC 5 230 1138
8 Gabe's Virtual World 8 233 1096
9 Virtual Storage Guy 58 153 990
10 Virtu-al 18 160 831
11 Virtualization Pro 3 152 744
12 vCritical 15 144 738
13 VMware Tips 5 155 726
14 Frank Denneman 22 112 697
15 The VM Guy 2 148 643
16 Planet VM 4 136 633
17 The SLOG 8 122 614
18 VMGuru.nl 18 112 569
19 Mike D's 2 122 537
20 Hypervizor 8 98 453
21 TechHead 12 81 452
22 vReference 11 90 443
23 Pivot Point 2 82 380
24 Technodrone 3 84 378
25 Chris Wolf 0 87 375
26 By The Bell 1 82 358
27 Ken's Virtual Reality 1 79 347
28 Vinternals 4 80 314
29 Arnim van Lieshout 9 52 304
30 Run Virtual 0 63 287
31 View Yonder 0 56 276
32 ESX Virtualization 1 53 263
33 VMware Info 9 56 261
34 Professional VMware 2 57 243
35 Everyday Virtualization 8 48 231
36 IT 2.0 3 46 212
37 Virtual Future 8 42 209
38 2 VCPs 1 53 207
39 Virtual Kenneth 5 34 200
40 Gerben Blog 1 33 194
41 VM Today 1 41 189
42 The Virtualization Practice 6 38 188
43 Andi Mann 0 40 188
44 SearchServerVirtualization 4 43 187
45 Virtual Insanity 4 40 180
46 Virtual VCP 0 41 179
47 Musings of Rodos 4 35 176
48 Virtualized Reality 9 31 176
49 Beaver's Virtual Dam 2 42 176
50 Jume 1 38 175
51 Rational Survivability 0 40 174
52 Tech Prosaic 3 33 174
53 Vinf.net 2 30 171
54 VMPros.nl 2 47 166
55 Jase's Place 0 37 162
56 Virtual Lifestyle 0 32 160
57 Virtualization Information 1 31 140
58 Virtual Cloud 0 31 133
59 Roger Lund 2 28 123
60 Lone SysAdmin 0 31 115
61 Malaysia VM 2 29 114
62 Daily Hypervisor 0 27 111
63 The HyperAdvisor 0 24 86
64 Going Virtual 0 6 38
65 Knudt Blog 0 8 28
66 LucD.info 0 4 23
Jan 17 2010
And the winners of the top VMware/virtualization blog are…
Well I’m not saying, watch the presentation to find out, I’ll be doing another post later on with the full results as well as some detail on the process I used to sort through the votes and score them to determine the winners. Congratulations to all the winners, there were many newcomers to the top 25 blog roll. I’ll be sending you graphics that you can display on your website to reflect your achievements. The winners of the TrainSignal vSphere DVD training course will be announced in my next post. Click here to see the results presentation in a new window
Jan 13 2010
Last chance to vote for your favorite blog
Voting for the top VMware/virtualization blogs will close this Friday night , 1/15 at 10:00pm MST so if you haven’t voted yet be sure and get your vote in. Over 850 votes have been cast already and the Top 25 blogs will definitely look different than it is right now. The results will be announced on Monday after I spend the weekend going through the data, I’ll be publishing a Powerpoint presentation converted to Flash with the voting details and the winners. So stay tuned…
Jan 08 2010
What I did in 2009
2009 was a very busy year for me so I thought I would recap what I did and wrote during 2009. For starters I wrote a book that was published by Pearson Publishing entitled VMware VI3 Implementation & Administration. Having enjoyed that experience I also started writing a 2nd book on vSphere that will be published in 2010. It seems like I’ve been writing non-stop, besides the books I also write blog posts and tips for at least 6 different Tech Target websites. I am a member of the Server Virtualization Advisory Board for SearchServerVirtualization.com and also write a regular column for SearchVMware.com entitled Virtualization Viewpoints.
I was commissioned by Veeam to write a white paper for them to coincide with their new Veeam 4.0 product launch. I was named as one of the 300 vExperts by VMware in Fed. 2009. I attended VMworld this year as a member of the press and was again a judge for the Best of VMworld awards in the Security category. Besides all that I still find time to maintain this website, sorting through links and collecting and posting them is very time-consuming. Below is a list of some of work of mine that was published in 2009:
- Everything you need to know about vSphere and data storage (SearchStorage.com magazine)
- VMware 2009: Never a dull moment (SearchVMware.com)
- The Mechanics of VMware GO (SearchVMware.com)
- A review of VMware disk-to-disk backup apps: Veeam, Vizioncore, PHD Virtual and VDR (SearchDataBackup.com)
- Virtual-to-physical conversions: Why and how (SearchVMware.com)
- VMware vShield Zones: What it is and how it works (vShield Zones Pt. 1) (SearchVMware.com)
- Installing and configuring vShield Zones (vShield Zones Pt. 2) (SearchVMware.com)
- Quick tips for managing vShield Zones (vShield Zones Pt. 3) (SearchVMware.com)
- Determining the right size for your VMware VMFS data stores (SearchVMware.com)
- Virtualizing may cost more, but the benefits are worth it (SearchVMware.com)
- Choosing a virtual disk type for VMware ESX: Raw, thick and thin disks (SearchVMware.com)
- VMware vSphere: Got 64-bit hardware? (SearchVMware.com)
- Blades vs. rack servers: Basic purchasing principles still apply (Choosing hardware for virtual servers series Pt. 1) (SearchServerVirtualization.com)
- Selecting CPU, processors and memory for virtualized environments (Choosing hardware for virtual servers series Pt. 2) (SearchServerVirtualization.com)
- PowerShell scripting with VMware ESX tutorial: Installing and using the PowerShell tool (PowerShell series Pt. 1) (SearchVMware.com)
- PowerShell scripting for VMware ESX: Using Quest’s PowerGUI PowerPack script editor (PowerShell series Pt. 2) (SearchVMware.com)
- What is Changed Block Tracking in vSphere? (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Does virtualization really reduce administrator headcount and workloads? (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Several ways to explain virtualization to a non-techie person (Virtualization Pro blog)
- What are IP Pools and vApps? (Virtualization Pro blog)
- What is virtualization? (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Removing old hardware after a P2V conversion (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Are you taking advantage of VMware knowledge on the Web? (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Virtualizing Lotus Domino servers: Support concerns (Virtualization Pro blog)
- The process behind judging the Best of VMworld awards (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Using Storage VMotion to keep critical servers up when shared storage is down (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Scheduling virtual CPUs (Virtualization Pro blog)
- More details on VMware’s Fault Tolerance feature (Virtualization Pro blog)
- The key to successfully virtualized Domino servers (Virtualization Pro blog)
- VMware’s hardware compatibility list (Virtualization Pro blog)
- VMware Fault Tolerance: What it is and how it works (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Pointers for using thin-provisioned disks (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Troubleshooting mysterious VM resets (Virtualization Pro blog)
- What it means to be a vExpert (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Virtualizing Lotus Domino servers (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Lord of the virtual rings: Why hardware matters to your VMs (Virtualization Pro blog)
- A brief history of VMware (Virtualization Pro blog)
- Defragmenting virtual machine disk files (Virtualization Pro blog)
Jan 03 2010
Time to vote for your favorite bloggers
Here they are, the current top 20 VMware & virtualization related bloggers:
Can anyone knock Duncan Epping from the top spot? Chad Sakac made a run up to the #3 position in the last vote, can he go any higher? Interesting enough, Scott Lowe in the #2 position now works for Chad Sakac, can Scott stay ahead of his new boss? There are also many new bloggers out there producing some great content who could make the list like Hany Michael, Scott Sauer/Aaron Sweemer, Maish Saidel-Keesing, Scott Drummonds, Frank Denneman and Steve Chambers. Your votes will decide the winners and help decide the Top 25 bloggers. I’ve decided to expand the Top 20 to the Top 25 because there are so many great blogs out there.
So here’s how it works, you pick your top 10 favorite blogs, the survey will be open for two weeks. Once all the votes have been cast I’ll add them up and using weights (#1 vote = 10 points, #2 vote equals 9 points, etc.) and calculate the Top 25 blogs. Because of the cost of the online survey tool I’ve acquired a sponsor to help cover the costs. TrainSignal is the sponsor of this survey and as an added bonus they are giving away two copies of their awesome vSphere DVD training course to two voters who will be randomly selected. to vote you simply number your 10 favorite blogs from 1 to 10 with 1 being your most favorite blog. Your numbers must add up to 55 (1 through 10 added together) and we have controls in place so you can only vote once. The top 10 winners will receive a graphic image with their place number that they can display on their website.
When casting your vote we hope you are fair and use the following guidelines:
- frequency (how often they post)
- quality (how well the posts are)
- length (how long the posts are)
- longevity (how long they have been blogging for)
Please note for added protection this time against duplicate votes I’m now using IP address protection which limits one vote per IP address. While this method is more effective then using cookies it may prevent multiple users in corporate environments that use NAT from casting votes. As a workaround to that situation you can have people vote from a mobile device or home computer instead.
So bloggers, start your engines and let the voting begin, you can go to http://vote.vsphere-land.com or click the below link to cast your vote…
Dec 28 2009
It’s that time again…
Time for you to pick the top VMware & virtualization related blog websites. The last vote was in June 2009 and there have been many great new bloggers since then that are worthy candidates for the top bloggers. Since there are so many top blogs I’ve decided to expand the top 20 blogs to the top 25 blogs and you get to pick the winners. Voting will open on Monday, Jan. 4th and I’m using a better survey tool this time. Because of the cost I’ve gotten a sponsor for the voting, TrainSignal has graciously signed on to sponsor the voting and as an added bonus they they are providing two copies of their awesome vSphere DVD training course that will be awarded to two random voters. The voting will be to pick your top 10 favorite blogs, I will then count and weigh the votes to determine the complete top 25 list. The top 10 blogs will receive a nice graphic that they can display on their website. Stay tuned for details on the voting!
