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Monitor VM snapshots in VMware vSphere

29 August 2015 Andrea Mauro

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VMware snapshots are widely used for different purpose, but the main reason why they exist in vSphere is to help backup programs: using VADP a backup can start a VM snapshot in order to have a frozen file, copy it (or copy only the changed block with CBT and virtual hardware 7 or greater) and then release the snapshot.

Other usage are to have a just in point rollback during patches or big changes, but a recommended practice is to release the snapshot as soon as possible.

Large snapshots or broken or invalid snapshots are common issues in VMware virtual environments. And monitor the snapshots size it’s a must!

VMware ESXi, Monitor

Avoid snapshot issues with opvizor Snapwatcher

27 August 2015 Andrea Mauro

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Starting from this year, opvizor has two main products: opvizor Health analyzer (the historical SaaS product) and now also opvizor Snapwatcher.

Snapwatcher is a free product to help VMware administrators detect broken snapshots lurking in their virtual environments. The product has start as a free beta on Feb 25th 2015 and was created to address the broken or invalid snapshots issues in VMware virtual environments. The problem with these snapshots are that a single snapshot’s Delta-file is able to grow to the same size of the original file. And does not only mean a space issue, but also a potential performance issues and more snapshots are growing, more time will be needed to “delete” them (VMware use the term “delete all” with the mean of consolidate the snapshots to the current state).

Broken snapshots are a common problem and affect 81% of all VMware vSphere environments.

vProducts Monitor

Workstation 12 is now splitted in two different editions

26 August 2015 Andrea Mauro

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In July 2015 the VMware Workstation team announced the public access to the VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2015 that has now officially becomed VMware Workstation 12.

There are a lot of news related to this new version, but one is about the two different editions: Workstation Pro and Workstation Player (formerly known as Player Pro). This split partially match the same on Fusion where there are two different editions.

VMware, vProducts Outdated

Seagate is going to acquire Dot Hill

25 August 2015 Andrea Mauro

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Seagate and Dot Hill Systems have announced a definitive agreement where Seagate will acquire Dot Hill to increase their storage portfolio. Seagate has a long storage history especially in hard disks: they’ve developed the first 5.25-inch hard disk drive in 1980 (the 5-megabyte ST-506), on 2006 Seagate acquired Maxtor, on 2011 acquired the Samsung‘s HDD business.

But they have also a storage experience: in 2014 Seagate acquired Xyratex a storage systems company, used in most storage enclousure. The same year it acquired LSI’s Flash Enterprise PCIe flash and SSD controller products, and its engineering capabilities. And X-IO it’s all started in 1999 with Seagate Technologies with the idea of build a new zero touch design storage: Seagate invested over $100 million in this project, but on 2007 this technology was acquired by Xiotech (in 2007) and Intellinget Storage Element (ISE) has began is life on 2008.

vStorage Outdated

New features of Windows Server 2016 TP3

24 August 2015 Andrea Mauro

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After the Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 2 now it’s the turn of a new build: Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 and also System Center 2016 Technical Preview 3 (confirming that there is a common and unified product strategy).

There are some interesting news in Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 Technical Preview 3:

Microsoft Windows

Tintri announces their new VM-aware All-Flash storage platform

21 August 2015 Andrea Mauro

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Tintri, a producer of VM-aware storage (VAS) for virtualization and cloud environments, has announced the release of the Tintri VMstore^TM T5000 All-Flash series. The VMstore T5000 joins the T800 Hybrid-Flash series to create a portfolio of VM-aware storage platforms that offer enterprises and service providers their choice of storage, hypervisor and packaging to best meet their needs. Powered by the same Tintri OS and real time VM-level analytics, the new products will enable customers to easily optimize virtualized workloads across the T5000 and T800 systems.

vProducts, vStorage none

Kaminario announce K2 arrays with interesting price

20 August 2015 Andrea Mauro

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Kaminario is a company with an interesting enterprise-class all-flash array (AFA) storage solution, that deliver unparalleled cost efficiency, with an really interesting price per GB. The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices in Yoqneam, Israel, Silicon Valley and New York City, and backed by Sequoia, Pitango, Globespan, Tenaya, Silicon Valley Bank and others.

Now they are announcing the K2 v5.5 (generally available in Q3 2015) all-flash primary storage array that cuts the cost from $2/GB, from v5 introduced in May 2014, to less than $1/GB! With this price AFA storage could be for almost everybody.

But it’s not only a cost aspect: they product have interesting technologies.

vProducts, vStorage Flash

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Monitor VM snapshots in VMware vSphere

Avoid snapshot issues with opvizor Snapwatcher

Workstation 12 is now splitted in two different editions

Seagate is going to acquire Dot Hill

New features of Windows Server 2016 TP3

Tintri announces their new VM-aware All-Flash storage platform

Kaminario announce K2 arrays with interesting price

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