My vlinks choice – 4-2011

This week I’m a bit late…so.. let’s go.

This week my attention was caught by performance related posts and by some “introduction guide type” posts:

• Jumbo Frames Comparison Testing with IP Storage and vMotion – a detailed post by Jason Boche with a test of jumbo frames to better understand if there is some real benefits using them.
• Storage IO Control and Storage vMotion? - more info about using storage vMotion of a virtual disk placed in a storage IO control (SIOC) enabled datastore from a VMware senior performance engineer.
• New hardware can affect TPS – a post about the how new CPUs affect Transparent Page Sharing.
• Presentation on VMware vSphere 4.1 Storage Features – an overview of the new vSphere 4.1 storage features by Scott Lowe as presented to the Triad VMUG meeting.
• vSphere Licensing and Options Overview – it’s not always easy to remember all the vSphere licensing options: this overview by VMguru.nl comes in handy.
• Windows PowerShell Survival Guide - I think that PowerShell is becoming important for vSphere administrators: this page is full of links to resources that can help starting with it.

 

 

Pagina ufficiale VMware per iscriversi al VMware User Group

Ormai credo che molti conoscano il gruppo Linkedin Italian VMUG, nato dall’incontro al VMworld di Copenhagen tra un po’ di “folli vGeek italiani” desiderosi di avere un VMware User Group italiano ufficiale.

Quello che invece ho scoperto non essere cosi’ noto è invece il fatto che esiste un sito ufficiale VMware per iscriversi a un VMware User Group locale ufficiale.

In questo momento, dato che per l’Italia di fatto non esiste ancora, questa iscrizione diventa a tutti gli effetti una segnalazione a VMware del fatto che si è interessati.

Invito quindi chi non l’avesse fatto a “iscriversi” tramite l’apposita pagina di VMware (scegliendo ovviamente Italy :):
http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmug/findgroup

Le cose si stanno muovendo, ma e’ importante far sapere a VMware che ci siamo!

It’s official:VMworld Europe 2011 will be in Copenhagen!

As you can see from the official VMworld site the location for VMworld Europe 2011 will be Copenhagen as for the 2010 edition.

I think it’s a good choice, the Bella Center was great and Copenhagen is a beautiful city. Just one “complain”…it’s a little cold ;)

Thanks to Eric Sloof (http://www.ntpro.nl) for the scoop!

My vlinks choice – 3-2011

It’s time for my usual weekly choice of posts, so… here we go!

• vCloud Director in your “Man Cave”… Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 – A four part article by Mike Laverick (@Mike_Laverick) about how to get VMware’s vCloud Director up and running in your lab.
• Home Lab Links – a huge and growing list of links to post about home labs by Eric Siebert (@ericsiebert).
• VMware VCAP Preparation Tips and Study Resources – a collection of tips and study resources for the VCAP certifications by David Davis (@davidmdavis).
• A compendium of concerns about ESXi - from the next version, there will be only ESXi, so it’s time to start migrating to ESXi. In this post Bob Plankers lists some complaints about ESXi and reply to all.
• Setting Correct Percentage of Cluster Resources Reserved – another interesting post by Frank Denneman on HA Admission Control Policy “Percentage of Cluster Resources Reserved” and the pro and cons of the various approaches for defining a percentage.
• Updated vSphere Security Hardening Report Script for vSphere 4.1 – the updated version of the vSphere Security Hardening Report script by William Lam; this version includes new checks based on the new vSphere 4.1 Security Hardening Guide

 

My vlinks choice – 2-2011

Well, it’s time for the second issue of my vlink choice :)

This week there has been a lot of posts: I think that holidays are really over ;)

My attention has been caught by a lot of blog post but there is one that own the first place and a mention on his own.

So, take Nicholas Weaver (aka @lynxbat), Kinect and a vSphere cluster and…this is the result: http://nickapedia.com/2011/01/15/fistful-of-cloud-interactive-cloud-demo/ . One word: awesome!

Ok, and now the usual list of interesting post :)

• VMware Labs – IOBlazer – IOBlazer is a new fling from VMware Lab. It’s a multi-platform storage stack micro-benchmark tool capable of generating highly customizable workload. I think I will give it a try.
• Running your own EMC Celerra ‘Uber’ Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) in your vSphere Lab – this is the first part of the Celerra VSA Blog post series by Simon Seagreave (@kiwi_si) that explain how to install, configure and manage the EMC Celerra VSA in a vSphere lab. As I want to dismiss my openfiler box and try the Celerra for my lab, these posts will be handy.
• HP resources for VMware – a useful page full of links about using VMware on HP hardware: from the links to ESX and ESXi HP customized images to vSphere and Lefthand white paper. An invaluable collection of links!
• VMware vSphere Home Lab – “The Green Machines” – an excellent post by Kendrick Coleman (@KendrickColeman) about building a full home labs with attention to “green” details.
• Beating a dead horse – using CPU affinity – interesting post about CPU affinity by Frank Denneman (@frankdenneman) explaining everything you must know about this topic :)
• How cool is TPS? – how TPS impact on Zero Pages and in a boot storm? Find it in this post by Duncan Epping (@DuncanYB)

Ok, that’s all for this week.

See you!

 

Save the date: 25 jan 2011 – the Italian vBeer in Milan!

* post in italian only *

Ebbene si, finalmente riusciamo a fare una “vBeer” italiana qui in Italia!

La data stabilita è il 25 gennaio a Milano. Il luogo esatto non è ancora stato deciso, ma lo sara’ al piu’ presto. Appena noto lo pubblicherò sul mio blog. Potete inoltre seguire l’annuncio relativo sul gruppo Italian VMUG in Linkedin (http://lnkd.in/RFeaE6).

Update: ci si ritrova il 25 gennaio, ore 19 al birrificio Lambrate, via Adelchi 5, vicino alla stazione di Lambrate e alla metro 2 fermata Lambrate.

In occasione di questa prima vBeer cercheremo di fare il punto sull’organizzazione del primo evento organizzato dal VM User Group IT.

Per chi non ne avesse mai sentito parlare, il vBeer si rifa’ allo stile degli omonimi incontri a organizzati a Londra da Simon Long (@SimonLong_) e Simon Seagrave (@Kiwi_Si): è un incontro informale in cui incontrarci, conoscerci e scambiare quattro chiacchiere.

Nota: nonostante il nome, potete partecipare anche se non bevete birra (tanto per citare uno a caso, il sottoscritto è addirittura astemio…) ;)

Vi aspettiamo!

the Italian VMUG linkedin group becomes “open”

*italian only post*

Da oggi il gruppo Italian VMUG in linkedin è diventato un gruppo ”aperto”: da oggi quindi qualsiasi persona puo’ partecipare attivamente alle discussioni.

Inoltre tutte le discussioni saranno competamente visibili, indicizzate dai motori di ricerca e condivisibili tramite Facebook, Twitter e gli altri network.

Per raggiungerci: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3576817

Partecipate numerosi! :)

My vlinks choice – 1-2011

Well, the 2011 has begun and it’s time to go back to work… and to blog :)

With this post I want to start a  regular (hopefully weekly) column: I often find myself reading a lot of post during the week and in need of a way to “pin” the ones that I find interesting or useful (with a short summary) so I can refer to them later.

So the idea of this post: it will be my personal choice of post that I’ve found interesting or useful (or funny!) during the week.

So, stop babbling and let’s start with the first ones for this week!

• How to backup Fault Tolerant VM in vSphere 4 - an interesting article about backing up FT enabled VMs, with a full how-to on automating the whole process using scripts by William Lam of www.virtuallyghetto.com
• Node interleaving: enable or disable? - a post by Frank Denneman ( @frankdenneman) with an excellent explanation of how node interleaving relates to NUMA and its impact on the hypervisor.
• Impact of oversized virtual machine (part 1, part 2 and part 3) – another comprehensive series of articles by Frank Denneman about the impact of oversized VMs. All aspect are covered: impact on memory overhead reservation and share levels, on HA and DRS and on CPU scheduling and memory management. A must read!
• VCAP-DCA & DCD page by Gregg Robertson (@greggrobertson5) - in this page there is a huge list of resources that can help in obtaining the VCAP accreditations. This list is an ongoing project and is still growing.We

Well, that’s all for this first my vlinks choice issue.

See you on the next issue!