Blog Posts

Hi everyone, please take a look at this weeks newsletter which is packed with loads of interesting new articles related to VMware Technology.

Kind Regards

Neil Isserow | VCP | Technical Account Manager - Queensland |
VMware Australia

It's been about 2 years since we introduced a re-designed website with an entire new look. It was an incredible struggle for the team to make that happen back in 2007. This year, we did a new design, and we spent about 2 months to re-work the design of communities.vmware.com.

The team did an excellent job, and this time it was smooth. I personally like the new look, and it tends to be easier to navigate. It will be interesting to see what the reaction to this is. We didn't change much functionality, just some navigation behavior and new content boxes on landing pages.

I would say, we are all much more aware of the requirements for doing major redesigns.

Eric Nielsen

Director, Web Communities.

See Attached

So your big day is approaching and you would like to present either
your future spouse or your wedding party with a stunning piece of
jewelry as a wedding gift.Preparations often seem to focus around the
dress, but there are many other elements of your look to
consider.Purchase identical gifts, but in varying colors, for your
bridesmaids. Tennis necklace in each of their birthstones, or perhaps stones that match their dress colors, make perfect reminders of the day.

Although all eyes will be glued to the beauty and symbolism of your
wedding ring, other jewelry will round out your bridal look. Depending
on your personal preferences, the cut of your dress and the style of
your hair, you may opt for a necklace, bracelet or earrings.
Coordination of gemstones is key, as are the jewel tones you choose.

Pearls are a traditional wedding jewelry for both brides and bridesmaids. Pearls are available in all forms, but necklaces and earrings
are the more popular options.Giving jewelry such as a necklace is a
tradition when it comes to wedding presents. The bride’s mother or the
groom may give her something special, or she may give jewelry to her
bridesmaids.

Opt for a necklace that complements the cut of your dress. A pearl
or rhinestone choker works well with a strapless bodice, whereas a
diamond solitaire will look stunning with a V or sweetheart neckline.

Let your hairstyle, necklace dictate the earrings you choose.
Harmonize the gemstones found in your dress or headpiece with those in
your jewelry. Pearls will complement beading, whereas diamonds or
zirconia go well with sequins or crystals.

Bridal necklaces are as important as your wedding gown and your
wedding shoes because they add beauty and elegance to whatever wedding
dress you plan to pick for your wedding day.

Workstation 7 is FANTASTIC on Ubuntu 64. I'm so excited about this new workstation release as it provides many additional features over WS 6.5.

1) Sockets / Core selection - You can now set number of sockets and cores per socket to your individual workstation vm's.
2) Compacting of VM disk files can be done from workstation.
3) Encryption of Workstation VM's can now be done preventing access into VM's without proper credentials.
4) Windows 7 support

These are just a few of the options that are available, as well as, the ability to run nested ESX environments inside of Workstation 7.

If you are installing workstation for the first time on Ubuntu 64, you MUST execute the vmnetset script (http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/ecrossley/2009/06/29/ubuntu-and-vmware-workstation-networking) from this blog in order to allow promiscuous mode for your ethernet adapters

If you are a user of SAP Community Network, then you might have already seen the new forum about "SAP on VMware" which is live since Oct 21. The forum creates a platform for customers where answers to minor technical questions can be adressed or discussions about best practices, configurations, etc. can take place. You can find the forum right here:

http://forums.sdn.sap.com/forum.jspa?forumID=471

I was recently involved in a situation where a development group at a SMB was tasked with consolidating two SQL servers into one. These SQL servers were physical servers running old versions of Windows, with equally old versions of SQL Server, on some pretty old hardware. The situation became interesting, when the development group put in the specifications request for the new virtual machine. The request was for a 64-bit Windows 2008 server with 8 GB of RAM, 4 vCPUs and over half a TB of FC SAN disk for storage.

This seemed like a bit of a tall order, so the first thing I did was to compare the specifications in the request with the specifications of the current physical servers. Server 1 had two Pentium III 1.2 GHz processors with 512 MB of RAM and 90 GB of used disk space. Server 2 had two Pentium III 1.0 GHz processors with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of used disk space. Even after ignoring the massive storage difference, the requested numbers didn't match up with the 4 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM specified in the request. Next I went to the system baselines, thinking that the systems might be overburdened. The baselines actually revealed that the systems weren't doing much work - 3% CPU average utilization, low disk IOPs, and very low network utilization. Using the perfmon SQLServer:Memory Manager -> Total Server Memory counter did reveal that the SQL servers were actually using the memory they were allocated. The numbers in the request still didn't add up though, and now with data in-hand, it was time to go talk to the requestors.

Ultimately it was discovered that this request was submitted this way to "allow for future growth." Many years ago this may have been standard practice with physical hardware, but in today's virtual environments it just no longer makes any sense. Based on the baseline data, the requested virtual machine could be built with 1 vCPU, 3 GB of memory and less than 100 GB of SATA disk space. If it turns out that the server actually needs more resources in the future, then these resources may be very quickly added with minimal or even no downtime. Gone are the days of provisioning everything up front while allowing room for future growth, hoping the server makes it to the next refresh cycle and then repeating the same process over again. To complement the virtual infrastructure, there must be an awareness of the way this technology fundamentally changes how systems are now provisioned.

Thanks for reading!