VMware slashes vSphere pricing in half!

Infoworld is reporting today that VMware is getting competitive for the small business market againts Microsoft and Citrix..slashing vSphere Essentials 50% off the $995 price now through July 15, 2010.

More details at the original source article.

NetApp Video: vStorage API futures

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fryVOg7ohAk&feature=player_embedded#

NetApp discusses the APIs planned for the phase one release of VAAI, and what is likely to be delivered in the future phases.

Storage Best Practices for vSphere

I saw this post on NTPRO.NIL and wanted to highlight it here. Storage is so important and critical to your success with a visualization project And now with so many storage options this is a very nice presentation mentioning very important tips about each of the big ones, FC, ISCSI, NFS, and RDMs, with coverage of scaling ISCSI and NFS,Multi-pathing, Queue Depth, and SRM support. You won't be sorry if you download this pdf.

One note: page 24 has a small error in talking about Thin disk, they grow in increments dictated by the VMFS blocksize and not 1MB. Still a great read!

I need to do some catch-up with my readers...

Wow folks sorry for the several weeks of no blogging...but I have really been busy. This is just a few updates on what has been going on:

a) CISCO UCS visit: We took a field trip to Moses Cone Hospital (Greensboro, NC) to see their new CISCO UCS implementation. They were so open and friendly in sharing why they selected this for their next platform for vSphere and I was really impressed in what we heard and saw. The blade chassis themselves are very basic which makes them fast to install. Four plugs and 4 wires for the Data/Storage paths and your done! Then all management and firmware is sent from one place (instead of at each chassis like in a traditional blade setup). I highly suggest you look into this more.

b) Chinwag with Mike Laverick: A "Chingwag" is his term for an informal discussion about virtualization...and I had a ton of topics! It was really fun and I hope we can do more in the future. It was my first use of Skype for video conferencing and I found it worked really nice. You can listen or view the chinwag here: http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/2010/02/11/chinwag-with-mike%E2%80%A6-and-jay-rogers-episode-02/ or all chinwags here: http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/category/chinwag/

The Chinwag was also mentioned on the famous ntpro.nil site here: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1451-My-Chinwag-With-Mike-Laverick.html

 

c) xSigo POC is on track. We got in the equipment and some loaner test hardware from HP (Thanks HP). More to come on this as we get in the POC more.Some interesting new we got directly from xSigo...it appears VMware has selected then for their own internal VDI deployment!

d) Suddenly on the radar pops up VDI as a major interest this year. I was originally involved in this in the original VMware View beta and presented on it and local VMUG events and the NC/SC Summit in 2008. After winning a PCoIP display last year and VMworld 2009, it was nice to see interest in this again for a corporate solution, since now they have PCoIP support built in.

d) vBlock: I had a meeting with EMC to discuss some strategies and then this came up again in our discussion around VDI. I have to say this appears very impressive to. Basically, you get CISCO UCS, MDS, and Storage guaranteed to handle workload you are intending to use it for with it all racked and ready to go. Even better you have one place to call for support with no finger pointing! You can see a 3D design of a vBlock here: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns517/ns224/ns836/ns976/ns1027/vce_vblock_kaon.html

e) Turn-key, repeatable VMware Data Center footprint: I was charged with finding a good solution for a repeatable small VMware footprint we could put into remote data centers that join Novant. We have been doing a ton of research with solutions like: vBlock, HP Storage Works P2000, Lefthand P2000 solution, and Netapp to mention a few. If YOU have any suggestions for this type of solution I would love to hear from you. We are looking for maybe a 2 server vSphere setup with 2-5GB of storage. 

Another item of interest to me from http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1453-VMware-VCP-Plus.html is it appears some new certifications with VMware will be announced soon (VCP Plus) being one of them!

Until next time...

MICROSOFT ELIMINATES VDI CHARGE!

I had predicted Microsoft would change their policies several years ago when it hurt their progress in virtualization. That change takes effect July 1, 2010. No more charge for VDI licensing for SA customers and a greatly reduced plan for non SA customers. I like the quote from the article below:

 "Microsoft customers have complained that its virtual desktop licensing scheme, known as Virtual Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD), is too confusing.(Amen to that).

"We've gotten feedback from our customers and partners that it was confusing and complex," says Dai Vu, director of virtualization marketing for Microsoft. Yep

To see more details please see this article: http://mobile.networkworld.com/device/article.php?CALL_URL=www.networkworld.com/news/2010/031810-microsoft-lowers-windows-licensing-costs.html

HYPER-V TO GET MEMORY OVERCOMMIT

Microsoft, after repeatedly downplaying the VMware's ability to overcommit memory has...you guessed it, quietly reversed it's stance on this feature and now states "we definitely need to put that in our product". Virtualization.info is now reporting Microsoft will put this feature in an upcoming release.

 

However, after reading some of the comments it appears some are questioning if this feature will really perform the same "transparent page sharing" and "ballooning" advanced techniques used by VMware or is it just using swap with a GUI setting for dynamic RAM allocation. This would be similar to what you can do with VMware by assigning a large amount of RAM to a VM and then setting a limit that you can adjust dynamically (the OS will see the Full amount of RAM but vSphere only allocates to the OS the limit amount--thus causing the vm to use swap inside the VM and have Dynamic RAM adjustment.

VMWARE 2010 PREDICTIONS- MIKE LAVERICK

Wow, with great interest I am pouring over Mike Laverick's VMware 2010 predictions post on TechTarget. I think this is a good read for sure and I can testify I have heard from some internal VMware sources about the ESXi part. Amazingly, one of his predictions was one I was just thinking about as I work more and realize immediate ROI from Thin Provision. How about Thin provisioning of RAM (without using the Limits tricks). vSphere/ESX already handles this is the background but how about a GUI front-end to adjust what user/OS sees and admins actually permit. Mike calls this "memory compression". Anyway, I digress. 

XRAVIRT's new RDP vCenter Plug-In

Now this is a very nice plug-in just release from the Xtravirt folks which I am sure every vCenter admin will want to load. I have always wondered why we didn't have this already built into vCenter. But a very nice implementation for sure.

Just install the MSI file (nice PDF instructions are included), start up vCenter and go to the HOME screen. Now down under "Solutions and Applications" you will find the new plug-in. Go into this for a one time configuration: Domain/Acct credentials to use, default screen resolution, alternate port option, and select advanced options you like (disable wallpaper, themes, etc.).

Now on you have a right-click menu option on a virtual machine for "Connect VIA RDP"!

Get the RDP plug-in now!

Take the XSIGO I/O Challenge


So you might be a little curious now about this Xsigo solution and what it can mean to your business and your data center. Well step up and walk through a simulation to solve three common tasks the Xsigo way! Take the Xsigo I/O Challenge (also available from www.Xsigo.com) and in 90 seconds be amazed at what you can do.

In the Xsigo I/O Challenge, you will perform 3 common tasks and find how the Xsigo solution makes these tasks much easier.

1. add a 10GB connection to a server
2. migrate NICs/HBAs to a new server (profiles)
3. adjust storage QoS on the fly!

I think you will agree the Xsigo way is what your data center needs!