VMware responds to their ongoing customer demands for more Linux support. For those of you who have wondered if or when VMware will port their enterprise Virtual Infrastructure products to Linux platforms, well the time for those possibilities has finally arrived.
As the company prepares to unleash a vast array of new technologies with their new virtualization platform, they haven’t overlooked the fact that customers want to see VMware enterprise products running on Linux. As Dr. Steven Herrod, CTO and SVP of R&D of VMware, mentioned last week at VMworld Europe 2009, the step towards addressing this major request is that VMware will soon support the installation of vCenter 2.5 on top of Linux. Beyond this (and the cool part!) is that VMware will also release Appliance versions of vCenter 2.5 which will run on Windows or Linux. The technology preview of the Appliance version of vCenter 2.5 on Linux is now available for download at the beta community site.
Here is a first look at a screenshot of vCenter 2.5 on Linux. It’s real!
Those of you who manage and administer medium, large, or even small VMware environments know that managing VMware’s virtual environments from the GUI requires lots of repetitive tasks, tasks that cuts into precious time that could be spent doing something that you like more than just work.
Whether you want to spend more time with your spouse and kids, boyfriend or girlfriend, or my personal favorite… getting loose with the boys at the local pub (Hell Yeah!!!!), or whatever it is that you might be into, VMware has some really awesome tools that can help you get some of the time back. Well unless you’ve been working really hard or living under a massive rock, you should be aware of the VMware VI Toolkit for Windows. This toolkit is based on Microsoft PowerShell and can do some really awesome things in a VMware environment to help you be more productive and efficient.
Don’t worry you wont have to learn PowerShell from scratch to use it. All you have to learn is how to use the VMware predefined functions that have been developed for the VI Tool Kit. As I listed in a previous post, VMware is currently re-branding their tools and applications so when VMware vSphere is released later this year, look for the new name of the toolkit which is now vSphere PowerCLI.
There are so many things you can do with this tool:
Check virtual machines for VMotion compatibilities
Check active connections to CD-ROM’s, floppies, virtual networks, etc.
Check for virtual machines host locations
Disconnect virtual devices
Retrieve performance information from ESX Servers and Virtual Machines
Perform bulk migrations
This are only a few of the many of the many fucntions that the tool can help you with. I hight recommend visiting the VMTN community site and look at what is available to you. There are always great posts from everyone, specially from Luc (this guy is a VI Toolkit/PowerShell genius, who even won a contest VMware was hosting last year) The toolkit is currently being enhanced and more features are being added to it for the current version of vCenter and ESX Server as well as the upcoming vSphere products. Below you can see some video demos by Carter Shanklin in which he shows how you’re going to get that precious time back when you use the VMware VI Toolkit (vSphere PowerCLI). Enjoy. Carter Shanklin currently has a few more posting that are hosted at vimeo you should definitely check them out.
This just in! The dates and location for VMworld 2009 have been set, so mark it on your calendars. If you didn’t make it to VMworld 2008 in Las Vegas or VMworld 2009 Europe, this is one you don’t want to miss. The event will be from August 31st to September 3rd at The Moscone Center in San Francisco.
I’ve posted a link below to the registration alert site for anyone interested in being alerted when the registrations officially start.
As those of you in the virtualization industry may already know, VMware has been re-branding their industry leading virtualization platform. The name went from a twenty seven character lengh of VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 (VI3) to the sleek, shapely VMware vSphere. Yep!!! they brought sexy back.
I have to say that I didn’t have a problem with the old name, it was cool but, I just love the new one, it’s more encompassing. The word sphere evokes completeness, a full and enclosed entity, a complete solution, which is what customers get when they use VMware as their virtualization platform.
All products under vSphere will now contain the prefix “v”. Below are some examples of the new branding:
vStorage
vNetwork Distributed Switch
vApps
vMA
vShield Zones
vSphere PowerCLI
vSphere CLI
vSphere Client
vCenter
vCenter CapacityIQ
vCenter Data Recovery
vCenter ConfigControl
vCenter Chargeback
vCenter AppSpped
vCenter Stage Manager
vCenter Update Manager
vCenter Converter
vOrchestrator
vCenter Guided Consolidation Service
vCenter Lab Manager
vCenter Site Recovery Manager
and more….
For those of you that haven’t caught up with the new products and feature name changes at VMware, get ready becuase there are lots of name changes coming with the release of VMware vSphere.
