Archive for December, 2007

I’d look to introduce you to a new edition to my blogroll over on the right-hand sidebar. His name is Mike Dipetrillo. He’s a VMware employee who works within the “Industry Research and Competitive Analysis” team at VMware. Mike has just one post right now – concern VMware Patch Tuesday, which makes for interesting reading… 

Mike Dipetrillo’s Blog

I’ve not yet got my hands really dirty on ESX 3.0.x to ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.0.x to 2.5 upgrades. Although crudely “play” with the process under the Release Candate. Initially, I had a permissions problem with the VirtualCenter upgrade and my SQL 2000 server. There’s been a length forum thread on this which I have been involved with. It’s become clear that if you have a SQL 2000 server additional permissions are required for an upgrade, which were not previously required in previous upgrades from VC 1>2 or the intra-upgrades from say 2.0.0>2.0.1>2.0.2

A KB article from VMware outlines this issue. As far as I know its not an issue for SQL 2005…

Link: ID: 1003346

Well, they have done it. Microsoft has finally released a beta version of Hyper-V (previous code named veridian). Heavily delayed and stipped of enterprize virtualization features – no-one seriously sees this as a geniune threat to people like VMware and Xen. But perhaps worth a look at so you see what it can’t do…

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/14/beta_hyperv_microsoft/

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/audsel.mspx

“VMware announced that SAP AG will provide immediate full support to its solutions in 64-bit Windows- and Linux-based production environments running on VMware ESX Server. Servers from Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, IBM and Sun have achieved hardware platform certification for SAP® solutions running on Windows and Linux with VMware ESX Server, a component of the VMware Infrastructure software suite. VMware Infrastructure supports SAP solutions with both Windows and Linux on industry-standard hardware. SAP and VMware will assist joint customers in cooperative support services and problem resolution, backed by a global technology partnership agreement and dedicated support staffing…”

Read on:

http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/sap_fullsupport.html

Well, I’ve done it again. I’ve been on the Vi3.5 Beta Programme for sometime. I’ve written two guides – one of which is available today – on ESX3i and Vi-3.5. It’s the Vi-3.5 Guide that I am releasing today. It covers all the new features in this release, and also runs through lots of the minor enhancement that collectively amount to a major improvement from the initial Vi3.0.0 release

You can download the guide from this location on RTFM.

You can also download the guide from the vi3book.com. Right now, Scott is doing some updates to vi3book.com. So for the moment you can also get the guide from vmguru.com

http://www.vmguru.com/content/view/37/44/ 

A couple of days ago I was informally asked for my opinon on Vi3.5. You can read the full article here

ESX 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 are now available for download

http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/

VMware have also released an offical press release

http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/esx_35_GA.html

I’ve written a “What’s New & Different” RTFM Guide to Vi3.5 and it will be released shortly. This PDF will tell you all about new features, how to configure them and what they do for you. 

Whilst I was at VMworld 2007 this year there was a session I never got round to attending or watching on the VMworld website. It subject was about the myths of virtualization/VMware. In recent months I’ve seen that as virtualization and VMware’s star has risen, there has been a rise and rise in urban myths and FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).

FUD was a new word in vocab until a couple of months ago. If its new to you – then here’s a quick definition. Companies that sell substandard products often get nervous about a lost of market share when a new kid on the block comes along – and does it better than you – in terms of features, function, performance, scalability, reliability, TCO, and ROI. To combat this unprecendent competition what some companies do is crank up their FUD PR-Machine. Spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about the said competition. This is seen as faster than actually waiting for their own product to improve. You notice I’ve not mentioned any names here.

Anyway, so here’s my list of myths about VMware and Virtualization:

1. You need to know Linux. You need a Linux guy to run it. Answer: Not so. 99% of the admin of Vi3 is done through 32-bit graphical client and server using Windows as the management platform. Installing ESX takes about 9-10 manually, or 3-4 minutes once scripted. In fact the install of ESX is significantly quicker and simplier than Windows. If you can’t install ESX then you should consider an alternative career. Sure, if you want to dabble under the hood of ESX then some command-line knowledge is required. That said 99% of the commands would not be found in Linux either. If you can net stop a service from MS “Command-Prompt” then you shouldn’t worry about the ESX console.
2. Even if this true, there are still more Windows people around than VMware people. Looking at the cost it will always be cheaper to support a MS solution over a VMware solution.
   
   Yes. There are more monkeys out there who know about peanuts, than there are genius who know about quantum mechanics. But should your selection of any product be based on the rationale that that is cheaper to employ an idiot who knows where the reset button is – rather than engineer who actually knows what he’s talking about. So if you want to employ useless people to support useless products then something other than VMware might be an idea. Like any product, niches do drive up cost of licenses, support and consultancy fees. But virtualization is like any party, once everyone is at the party thinking they have a license to print money – the cost of these services will come down. Just like how MSCE or Cisco engineers are now a dime a dozen where once their skills were charged at a premium…
3. My Exchange/SQL/Oracle [insert another application] guy says his applications don’t run in Virtual Machines Answer: Not so. They do run. The question really is will they perform well. There is no blanket NO/YES box to be ticked with any application regardless of whether it is resource intensive or not. Caution is recommended, not blinkers which say “thy shall not virtualize application X”. More often or not the real root of hostility towards virtualizing anything is because it is “new” and “different”.
4. Virtual Machines will always run slower than if they ran on physical machines Answer: Not so. You might actually find they paradoxically run faster. Given your P2V-ing systems of jurassic era hardware on to a brand new physical box – you maybe pleasantly surprised. It all demands on how much resources you choose allocate. That’s you. It’s choice. Rather than ALL applications recieve ALL the hardware whether they need it or not.
5. You VMware people are worse than Apple/Linux people - biased and hate Microsoft.
   
   Answer: Yes and No. I’m not biased but I do hate Microsoft. No seriously, I don’t actually care as long as I keep on making a living up to my retirement – and don’t tend to care too much which technology pays the bills or my sub-prime mortgage. Actually, like many I want to see MS and Xen and/or others come to the market with serious offerings. This will drive up competition which will hopefully make VMware more innovative (than they already are) and more competitive in their pricing. Right now VMware has a big % of the market, but the potentional growth of that market (people who haven’t virtualized yet) is enormous. There is plenty of room to have VMware-Virtualization, MS-Virtualization or Xen-Virtualization side-by-side - and for them all to make heaps of cash. Just like there is more than one vendor of backup software, storage and servers. This will be good for customers.
6. VMware will become like Novel or Lotus

   Answer: Not so. What? You mean VMware might buy a wordprocessor or spreadsheet application – and go head-to-head with MS in the biggest software miscaluculation of the decade? I call this “Fear of the Niche”. The fear (rememeber FUD) goes like this. Niches or “Best of Breeds” always fail and always become incorporated into their competitors products. ERGO. This happened to Novell and will happen with VMware. The problem here is not the idea – but the assumption that it WILL happen. Nobody can predict the future. Not even me. Certainly no company has a god given right to anyones money. To remain at the top of a competitive pile you must not – ignore or take for granted your customers – and you must innovate to survive and constantly review the cost of your product against it precieved value in the customers mind.

   For years people told me as Citrix guy – that Citrix was “dead”. They said this with NT4TSE, MS2000 and MS2003. You know what? They have been saying this about Citrix for nearly 10 years. You know what – it still isn’t true. Perhaps with Win2008 Microsoft have come close to matching might MetaFrame. But look where Citrix are at. They aint’ stood still, and ass-u-me-d that they have a right to customers license renewals. Citrix NOW, is a different company compared to back THEN when really MetaFrame was all they had to offer/sell.

7. Microsoft doesn’t support you running Windows in VMware Virtual Machine
   
   Answer: Not so. Although there are two support documents – they both boil down to the same mumbo-jumbo that tipifies that a “bug” is actually a ”feature”. Basically, we will “try our best” (whatever that means) and when that fails – you can reproduce that problem on hardware… to find the problem is still there, and had nothing to do with the fact it was running in VMware Virtual Machine, MS Virtual Machine or Xen Virtual Machine or Virtual Washing Machine.

   The Microsoft crapola support KB speaks volumes about how they came late to the Virtual Machine party – and how more importantly they still really don’t get it either… If they had any sense they would drop this kind of garbage – embrace virtualization with a passion – and do what they do best – SELL WINDOWS LICENSES!

8. Microsoft will use their ownership of Windows to make it perform faster/reliable than in any other VM

   Answer. Not so. In fact the vast majority of improvements in performances and stability will probably not delivered by a hypervisor. They are going to come from Intel, AMD, Qlogic and Emulex amongst others adding HW assists – to which the hypervisor has awareness. The second problem with this myth is it misunderstands where virtualization is going…. You see the platform war is over. VMware won. It’s called ESX. All the other guys are playing catch-up. Even if they do VMware is not standing still. The future is really not about the best platform for running a VM. That was Virtualization 1.0. The future is ease management, availability and automation. That is the story of virtualization 2.0