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VCDX5 upgrade path

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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.

Current VCDX4 holders in good standing will be able to upgrade their certification to VCDX5 by successfully passing the VMware Certified Advanced Professional 5- Datacenter Design (VDCD510) exam. The VCAP5-DCD exam release date will be announced in May. Release of the VCAP5-DCD final exam blueprint will occur at that time.

VCDX4-holders in good standing who have completed the VCAP5-DCD Beta Exam and achieved a passing score have satisfied the requirements for VCDX5 and are thus certified.

No info yet about the full path, but probably will be the same of the VCDX4… for this reason will probably be announce only then the VCAP5-DCA beta will be finished (actually has not yet started).

vCertification ,

Convert virtual disk format – VMDK to VHD

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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.

There are several tools to make this V2V operation:

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Microsoft, VMware, vStorage

Convert virtual disk format – VHD to VMDK

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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.

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Microsoft, VMware, vStorage

VMware View 5.1 announce

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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 ).

There are several interesting news in this new release, and actually seems that not all are yet listed (maybe some feature in the beta will be not released yet).

But more interesting is the new set of products designed to be used with View:

  • VMware vCenter™ Operations for VMware View: Cloud Infrastructure Insight – To be offered as a new add-on to VMware View, VMware vCenter Operations for VMware View will enable administrators to have broad insight into desktop performance, quickly pinpoint and troubleshoot issues, optimize resource utilization, and proactively address potential issues in real time.
  • VMware Horizon Application Manager™: Your Personal Cloud Broker –To be offered as an on-premise virtual appliance, VMware Horizon Application Manager™ 1.5 is a centralized policy and entitlement engine that will broker user access to applications, virtual desktops and data resources. Integrating the application virtualization capabilities of VMware ThinApp®, the VMware Horizon Application Catalog will benefit both IT and end users by consolidating diverse application types into a single, unified catalog. In addition, the VMware Horizon Workspace delivers a simple, seamless end-user experience when accessing work resources across private and public clouds on whatever device a user chooses. Additional information can be found in the VMware Horizon Application Manager media backgrounder.
  • VMware Project Octopus: Your Personal Data Cloud –Available later this quarter as a beta for qualified customer trials, VMware Project Octopus will enable IT organizations to provide employees with an easy and secure way to share data and collaborate with anyone from any device. Deployed on-premise or accessed via a VMware service provider, VMware Project Octopus will provide the ability for IT administrators to govern usage and set policies for data access and sharing within their organization or with external contributors. Additional information can be found in the VMware Project Octopus media backgrounder.
  • VMware Personal Cloud Applications: Share More, Send Less – Composed of VMware Zimbra® and VMware Socialcast®, VMware cloud applications connect employees to the knowledge, ideas, and resources they need to work smarter. As part of today’s announcement, VMware Zimbra 7.2 will support Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) for government deployments requiring encryption. Additional information can be found on the VMware Zimbra 7.2 data sheet.

For more information see:

VMware ,

Windows 8 installation options

30 April 2012
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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).

Virtual Machine

Common solution, but that may limit some functions. As already written, for ESXi you need the 5.0 U1 version or a 5.0 version with some patches. For Workstation the 8 version could be fine. It’s a “clean” solution for your system and for test more systems, but is not the best solution for performance.

USB (aka Windows To Go)

This is a new option in Windows 8 (but to be honest is really similar at the procedure to install Hyper-V Server on a USB or flash support). It’s a “clean” solution and also quite portable (but system in-dependency is not guarantee after the first boot). You can use a USB stick (or flash card) or an hard disk. But at least 16 GB (or 20 GB in the 64 bit editio) are needed… so an USB hard disk could be better (also for performance aspects). The procedure is not so simple (and actually is not integrated with the installation procedure).

For more infomation see:

VHD

This option it’s quite strange (and was introduced with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2). It’s an installation on a virtual disk but it runs in the physical environment (so with native performance and native hardware). It’s quite interesting because you do not need new partitions or un-allocated space, just a free space (40 GB could be fine) to build your system disk in a VHD file (you can create it before, for Windows 7) or during the installation. Again this option is not available during the standard installation process, but it’s quite simple (and you do not need other tools). The bootloader will be modified for the new entry, because you will have a dual boot environment.

For more infomation see:

Source

ISO

The simplest option, but you need to burn it to a DVD, unless you are using boot from LAN o or virtual environment or some hardware management tools).

VHD

For Windows Server 8 (Windows Server 2012) you can download a VHD file to run it on a Hyper-V enviroment without the need to install.

USB

You your system does not have a DVD reader, you can start the installation from a USB device (hard disk or USB stick or flash).

For more infomation see:

GUI or Core?

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Microsoft ,

ESXi – How does the dual bank work?

23 April 2012
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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).

The actual system image is located on the first 250 MB partition, formatted with plain old FAT16 filesystem, but using a special pseudo-filesystem on it (see VisorFS: A Special-purpose File System for Efficient Handling of System Images). The image itself, s.v00, is a 124 MB compressed file, which is decompressed on boot and contains the hypervisor operating system. Note that the compressed image is larger in 5.0 than in 4.1, (where the image was 70 MB), but still a very small disk foot print with about 124 MB in 5.0.

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Highlights, VMware

ESXi – More on partitions

20 April 2012
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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.

But for a installation on small disks or on a USB keys/flash card more considerations are needed about ESXi partitions, expecially for the missing scratch partition.

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VMware
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