Well, there’s been a little bit of confusion about what to call this thing. vCenter Hearbeat Service? vCenter Server Heartbeat? vCenter Heartbeat – and of course, from then comes an alphabet soup of acronymns – but as I guess so long as the letter v is lower-case I should be just fine. Right? Anyway, I will be soon be jetting of vMwOrLd soon :p

I’ve written a ton load of stuff about vCHB – about 5K of words – which is way over my allocation with TechTarget, but fortunately my long suffering editor has cut me some slack. So what do we have. Well, a 4-part article with Part1/2 appearing in this months edition of SearchVirtualDataCentre, and the next two parts in September when I get back from VmWoRlD. Part1/2 concern the setup and post-configuration of vCHB, and significance to VMware customers in the round. Parts 3/4 cover my experiences of the product caused by me doing various tests (i.e braking stuff) to see how vCHB copes with an outage.

Here’s Part1 and here’s Part2

Yes. I’m launching a special draw. Heck, it might even be a weekly thing. Here’s how it works. As an exceedingly well-known, influential and modest member of the virtualization community I occasionally get freebies. I mean nothing fancy. I’ve never been offered an IPAD but I would take one if someone offered me it! But I get other stuff – books, DVDs, and so on. To be honest I might never even use them or if I do I might casually glance through them. So my idea is to give them away as prizes on my website.

This weeks competition is to win a copy of the TrainSignal – VMware vSphere Pro Series Vol.2. I have two copies. One for me, and one to give away.?

The draw closes on Friday, 27th August 2010 at 5pm GMT. The winner will be announced shortly after on this website…

How do you enter the draw. There’s two ways. Subscribe to RTFM or  follow me on twitter and send me tweet. You also will need to answer a question correctly set by me. All correct entries will be entered into a special virtual “hat” and the winner will be sent the DVD. I will contact you via email or twitter for your shipping. Simplez!

If you already follow me, then subscribe. If you already subscribe and follow me. Then, er – get another email address and subscribe again???

At some stage I want to add a question process to my subscription page on RTFM – so I can make a competition rather than lucky draw.

What do I get from this. Well, I get to reduce the amount stuff in my office, and also build my list of subscribers/followers – so I can send you all special offers on Viagra, Nigerian money transfers and penis enlargement deals.

Last week the folks over at TechTarget set me a little assignment. Look at how Microsoft can manage VMware via the SCVMM. For those not acquainted with the acronym. That’s System Center Virtual Machine Manager. I’ve always been a bit put of my acronym. SCVMM looks too much like SCUM or roman numerals for my taste!

I’m really loving the way the guys at TechTarget have marked up this week article – normally I get tiddle thumbnails which you can hardly read – but this week they are nice big full size graphics – really make the piece come alive. Just like an RTFM post does! :-p

Read on MacDuff….

I’m pleased to say that copies of my SRM 4.0 Book will be available in the VMworld BookStore. I believe/hope that they will also be carrying copies of my vSphere4 Implementation book too. I will be doing a brief signing event at the book store too. I would recommend if you want a copy that you buy it sooner than Wednesday. All the SRM 1.0 books sold out with the 1st hour of the 1st day last year!

I will be at the store from Wednesday from 4pm to 4.30pm – to do a book signing, taking photographs with my fanbase, and getting an all round ego massage…

This week vendorwag is with Wyse, and the venderwagee is David Angwin.

David is a leading spokesperson on client virtualisation, green IT and emerging cloud-client technologies. With 25 years experience in IT software, hardware and services he is able to speak with authority on client computing choices and their impact. David’s background includes technical and product management, bringing new solutions to market, as well as marketing and business management roles with US and UK-based high-tech companies.

These are the questions I raised with David

Q. What is the difference between a Thin Client & Zero Client

Q. Some of zero clients have advanced functionality such as Wifi and PCoIP support, and this requires 4MB of firmware, which can remotely updated – some say this then makes these device not true “zero client”. How would you respond to that?  Given that there is some software on the Zenith terminal

Q. In our call you said that VDI is good thing, but not if you use PCs to deliver the access method – Can you explain why?

Q. You recently launch Xenith for Citrix HDX. Are there any plans to extend Xenith to work with VMware PCoIP?

Q. Given now have Citrix HDX, VMware PCoIP, and the soon to be released Microsoft RemoteFX, where does that leave the Wyse TCX suite?

Q. What does Wyse mean by the “shared PC” concept?

Q. What does Wyse mean by the Cloud PC?

Q. Recently there was spat between Citrix and VMware surround the “Client Hypervisor” and “local mode” VMs, what’s Wyse position on this development

As ever if you want the MP3 version of the chinwag it’s here – but to be honest it’s much easier to subscribe to the MP3 podcast via iTunes which means the podcast will be download when ever I do them. Alternatively, if you would prefer the videos on your iPAD/iPOD/iPhone – you subscribe to the video version of the Chinwags there (beware they are big!). If you don’t use iTunes, here’s the generic RSS Feed lin

 

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Avid (sic) readers of the RTFM blog will notice how recently its become a portal for me blowing off steam and ranting about various technical woes I have. You see even a vExpert and certified Guru has their challenges. [Incidentally, I really don't believe in those monikers - expert and guru... show me a guru, and I will show him a problem they haven't seen before...:-) ].

Anyway, recently I had a “challenge” (such is the vague euphasisms that “totally ****ing annoying problems go by these days!). It concerned cloning a Windows 7 (and occasionally Windows 2008) machines. The blogpost about that problem is here, and the error I was getting was this one:

Well, I kinda walked away from this problem in disgust. I decide to use Windows XP for my virtual desktop pools to avoid this kind of ******t. Then I had problems with Windows XP! So it turn back to Windows 7 and this problem.

Anyway I think I found the cause. I did another googlewack. Using the search string of sysprep and the entire string from the offending dialog box. I found this in the release notes for Vi3. Incidentally, this should also apply to vSphere4 as strictly speaking its not a VMware issue.

http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/vi3_vc25u4_rel_notes.html

Customization Specification of Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista Guest Operating System Can Only Be Changed Thrice Successively

Consider a virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista. You can clone this virtual machine with customization, and edit the customization specification of the clone to create another virtual machine. However, only three such successive cloning operations can be performed. ?For example, if virtual machine A is cloned to virtual machine B, virtual machine B is cloned to virtual machine C, virtual machine C is cloned to virtual machine D, and the customization specification of the guest operating system is edited for every clone operation, then an operation to clone virtual machine D with customization might fail.

This is might be the cause. He’s how. Let say I have Windows 7 template. I then decide a want a clone of this – so I can install the Beta/RC View 4.5 Agent to the VM. Next I clone this VM to make another copy to install VMware Tools. I’m worried that the pesky SVGA 3D Driver might cause problems with PCoIP for argument sake, and decide having a clone is better than working from endless nested snapshots… Next I clone this VM to make a Parent-VM. And so on. Clones of the clone of the clone – can result in this limit being reached very quickly…

That’s right. Not awards to OEMs, ISV or vendors. But awards for people like you. People like who do a tireless job year-in, year-out for the businesses. Yes, awards for them!

Here’s how it will work. You will submit a project you have been closely involved in. There are 6 categories to be entered.

1. Best virtualisation and server consolidation project
2. Best virtualisation for disaster recovery project
3. Best remote-office/home-office deployment
4. Best private cloud computing project
5. Best desktop virtualisation project
6. Best of show (judges’ choice; optional category based on number of entrants)

And the submissions will be measured by this criteria…

• Overall innovation
  
• Improving system performance
  
• Reducing costs
  
• Improving management capabilities
  
• New use in the marketplace
  
• Improving overall business process/efficiencies

I will be involved in the judging along side other luminaries within the virtualization community…

The deadline for submission is Sept. 17, 2010. Do not submit your project for more than one category. Award winners will be announced during the VMworld Europe 2010 show in Copenhagen, Denmark, Oct. 12-14, 2010. The entry form is over here:

http://searchvirtualdatacentre.techtarget.co.uk/survey/1,290964,sid203,00.html?s=1602155

So that’s just under a month. Enough time to get your submission in, and who know polish up that very long acceptance speech where you thank your Mum, Your Dad, the Dog and the 8086 CPU for all they have done for you…

This Septembers Scottish VMUG Date has been announced… and my pal Alistair Sutherland will be doing the vNews…. The theme of the meeting will be “VMworld 2010 – Looking Back/Looking Forward.”

September 23, 2010
13:00 – 16:45

Location:
Teacher Building
14 St. Enoch Square
Glasgow, G1 4DB

Agenda:
13:00    Registration
13:30    Introduction (Scott Walkingshaw)
13:45    VNews (Alistair Sutherland)
14:00    VMware Speaker
15:00    Coffee/Networking
15:30    VMworld 2010 Customer Presentation (Craig Stewart/Martin Currie)
16:30    Close

If you want to attend you need to toddle over to here:

Normally, the crystal ball isn’t taken down from my shelf and given a polish until the New Year. I’m notorious for not wanting to predict the future, even when its only two weeks away. Yes, things CAN change that rapidly in our industry. Anyway, in attempt to outdo Mystic Meg (she’s a well-know tabloid astrologer in the in UK), I thought I would think about what might see at this years VMworld 2010 at the Moscone Center. I think we will see a different style of show with few industry wonks, and more people from the field presenting this year. There’s a going to be quite a bit déjà vu going on as many presenting will have to do their bullet points twice! YIKES…

Also expect to see…. Read on McDuff…

This weeks chinwag is with Kenny (Kendrick) Coleman. He’s IT pro and a vExpert working in the field of virtualization, and in his spare time – he’s a active blogger. I first came across Kenny via twitter. He’s a bit about Kenny from his blog:

“I’m Kenny Coleman (Kendrick is my full name), 27, and live in Louisville, KY. I started my career off as a windows system engineer after graduating from the University of Kentucky, which lead me wanting to get back into networking and landed me my first certification, CCNA. As as Cisco and systems engineer, it lead me into my new passion of virtualization. I’ve been heavily involved with virtualization for some time now and have both my VCP3 and VCP4 certifications. I’ve been honored by VMware with the vExpert award for my contributions to the VMware community and being a virtualization evangelist. I’m a swiss army knife when it comes to IT and I’m not a one-trick pony. I believe that’s what has made me so successful this far into my career. I love diving into new technologies, trying to be a bourbon connoisseur, halloween, and being around friends.”

Kenny’s blog is here – http://www.kendrickcoleman.com/

and you can follow Kenny on twitter by following him here: http://twitter.com/KendrickColeman

In our chinwag I asked Kenny to pick is top 3 free tools for VMware (from a blogpost which listed 10)… He’s also written some articles about NIC and vSwitch layout – and so asked him to outline the criteria between each type of design… and how 10GbE would change things… finally we chatted about the upcoming VMworld and what he expected from the event…

As ever if you want the MP3 version of the chinwag it’s here – but to be honest it’s much easier to subscribe to the MP3 podcast via iTunes which means the podcast will be download when ever I do them. Alternatively, if you would prefer the videos on your iPAD/iPOD/iPhone – you subscribe to the video version of the Chinwags there (beware they are big!). If you don’t use iTunes, here’s the generic RSS Feed link

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download