vInfrastructure Blog

Dell PowerEdge R720

amauro — Tue, 15 May 2012 07:00:37 +0000

The PowerEdge™ R720 server is one of the 12G models of Dell server’s portfolio. By working for a Dell’s partner I’ve got the opportunity to test one and those are my consideration.

Basic principles of backup policies

amauro — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:11:21 +0000

Today a new traing video has been added in the Backup Academy web site: “Basic principles of backup policies” by me

In this lesson I will explain what is a backup policy and also give some information about the flow and the process to design a backup plan. Then I will detail some aspects of a backup policy, like What, Where and How.

DatacenterDynamics Converged

amauro — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:00:05 +0000

DatacenterDynamics Converged recognises the need for cross-disciplinary cooperation in the data centre. From site selection and construction to outsourcing strategy and regulation through to how best to deliver the infrastructure for your mission-critical infrastructure – DatacenterDynamics Converged reflects the interaction of the following three elements for optimum data centre operation and management.

VCAP5-DCA study guides

amauro — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:48:18 +0000

Actually the exam is not yet avaialable. But some people (with the approval of VMware) have already publish the current beta exam blueprint with some study notes and some interesting information:

VCP5-DT study guides

amauro — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:00:42 +0000

I’ve written about my experience with the VCP5-DT exam but I’ve not started (and neither planned) to realize a blueprint with study notes like the one about VCP5.

But actually there are some recent works that could cover this exam:

Building a vSphere 5 lab

amauro — Tue, 08 May 2012 07:00:55 +0000

For people that need to make practice for the VCAP-DCA exam (and the beta of VCAP5-DCA will start soon) a good lab environment is mandatory. But it could also be useful for other reasons, like demo environment.

Read more on Building a vSphere 5 lab…

VCDX5 upgrade path

amauro — Fri, 04 May 2012 23:00:42 +0000

Although is not yet on the official certification page, there was a post in the VMware Community with the official path for VCDX5 upgrade: VMware Certification Announces Upgrade Path from VCDX4 to VCDX5.

Convert virtual disk format – VMDK to VHD

amauro — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:00:09 +0000

In the previous post we have discuss on how convert from VHD (used for example in Microsoft Hyper-V) to VMDK format (used in VMware products). Now let’s see how to convert from the other side.

Convert virtual disk format – VHD to VMDK

amauro — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:00:31 +0000

As you probably already know a VM is incapsulated with a set of files that define VM properties and objects. Some of those files are the virtual disks files and each vendor use its own format: VMware use the VMDK and Microsoft & Citrix use the VHD format. Note that there could be more sub-types (for example for the VMDK files, but we will explain in future posts). To convert between different format you can use some kind of converter to perform a virtual to virtual (V2V) task.

VMware View 5.1 announce

amauro — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:01:07 +0000

VMware, Inc. today unveiled VMware View™ 5.1 and an updated portfolio of end-user computing solutions designed to empower a more agile, productive and connected enterprise (the product is expected to be available in Q2 2012 ).

Read more on VMware View 5.1 announce…

May IT events

amauro — Tue, 01 May 2012 05:00:59 +0000

Interesting European IT events:

Secure Cloud 2012 – Frankfurt Am Main (May, 9-10)
Open Storage Summit EMEA 2012 – Amsterdam (May, 22-24)
E2EVC2012 - Vienna (May, 25-27 )

Windows 8 installation options

amauro — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:38:56 +0000

If you want to “play” with Windows 8 Consumer Preview or “Windows Server 8″ Beta, then there are several installation options.

Destinations

Hard disk

This the common solution, but mean the needs of a blank partition, or space to build a new partition, or the possibility to erase your disk. If you choose a dual boot configuration, of course, the bootloader must be modified to add the new entry. Physical installation permit to test most of the features and can give better performance (for example you cannot realize how fast is the boot procedure in an installation on a virtual machine).

(Italiano) Microsoft Virtualization & Private Cloud Conference 2012

amauro — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:10:58 +0000

OpenStorage Summit EMEA 2012

amauro — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:00:57 +0000

I’ve really proud to been invited by Nexenta to attend at the OpenStorage Summit EMEA 2012, a meeting hosted by Nexenta but open to the OpenStorage industry participating in panels, case studies and technical vendor presentations.

ESXi – How does the dual bank work?

amauro — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:30:24 +0000

As written in the previous posts, in the ESXi installation there are two copy of the system image located in two different partitions (see Partitions layout of system disk and More on partitions posts).

VCP5-DT Transcript

amauro — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:00:23 +0000

Some hours ago I have received an e-mail from VMware Technical Certification Team to my VCP5-DT certification in my official transcript::

The VMware education transcripts will now include your VMware technical certifications.

ESXi – More on partitions

amauro — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:00:22 +0000

In a previous post I’ve described the partitions used by a ESXi installation (see ESXi – Partitions layout of system disk).

Partitions are formatted with a FAT16 filesystem, but the ESXi files are stored into the banks partitions with a specific system that consist in some compressed archives containing the required files or more archives (as also described in the yesterday’s post about the reset of the root password). More details on the filesystem used is on the first number of the VMware Technical Journal, in the paper: VisorFS: A Special-purpose File System for Efficient Handling of System Images.

Read more on ESXi – More on partitions…

ESXi – How to reset the root password

amauro — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:00:35 +0000

Reset the root password with ESX 3.x was quite simple, just because the service console was a partition writable a live CD… With ESX 4.x it was a little more complicated (the service console was basically a vmdk).

Greater number is always better? For Intel maybe no

amauro — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:30:59 +0000

As most people know, Intel adopt a Tick Tock model for processors development: a tick advances manufacturing technology, a tock delivers new microarchitecture. Usually this mean that a tick means processors with more frequency speed (sometimes also more cores and/or more cache) and a tock means usually new features (but not necessary more frequency speed and/or more cache/cores).

New certifications from Microsoft

amauro — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:00:37 +0000

Microsoft has recently made some changed in certifications and also has introduced new paths, like the new MCSE: Private Cloud certification. The path has the following requirements:

become a MCSA: Windows Server 2008