What's New

The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone release adds several new features including:

• Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Linux (RHEL, SUSE and Ubuntu) as source
• Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Windows Server 2008 as source
• Hot cloning improvements to clone any incremental changes to physical machine during the P2V conversion process
• Support for converting new third-party image formats including Parallels Desktop virtual machines, newer versions of Symantec, Acronis, and StorageCraft
• Workflow automation enhancements to include automatic source shutdown, automatic start-up of the destination virtual machine as well as shutting down one or more services at the source and starting up selected services at the destination
• Target disk selection and the ability to specify how the volumes are laid out in the new destination virtual machine
• Destination virtual machine configuration, including CPU, memory, and disk controller type

• NT4 hot cloning
• ESX 2.5 destination

VM Monitor

Get X-Ray Insight into Your ESX Servers:

• Quickly check the health of your VMware ESX Server

• View detailed virtual machine health statistics

• Get visual alerts when performance degradation occurs

FREE Real-time NetFlow Analyzer

This free desktop tool captures and analyzes NetFlow data so that you can:

• Quickly answer "why's the network so slow?"

• Identify network top talkers

• Analyze traffic spikes and bandwidth consumption

Exchange Monitor

Continuously monitor Microsoft® Exchange health, including:

• Exchange services

• Mail queues

• Host server health

Award Winning TFTP Server

The most robust, widely trusted and easy-to-use TFTP server which enables you to:

• Concurrently upload and download images from multiple devices

• Upload and download configurations to devices

• Transfer files larger than 32MB

Advanced Subnet Calculator

Compute addresses for IP subnets with ease and perform other tasks with:

• Forward and reverse DNS resolution

• CIDR calculator

• Ability to geneate a list of addresses for any subnet

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

Here you have the 3 must read articles from VMwarewolf about VMware Infrastructure troubleshooting:

1. Common Network issues in VMware Infrastructure


2. Common System Management issues in VMware Infrastructure


3. Common Licensing issues in VMware Infrastructure

"Resolution Paths are collections of modular steps that can be used to solve tech support issues.  Being modular, they can be re-used in other paths. A good example is using the ping command to test network connectivity.  This step is used in all kinds of troubleshooting procedures. Put a number of these steps together, and you have a method...Down the left side in yellow are common problems we get calls on. To the right of each problem are the steps you would take to resolve the problem. I have included hyperlinks to help get you to the answers fast."

From TrainSignal.com:

"This 6 hour training course introduces you to Windows Server 2008. It will teach you some of the hot new features that are available in Window Server 2008 and how to configure them.

This course is just the beginning..."

You can download the free training videos here.

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

SolarWinds free VM Monitor is an ingenious desktop tool that continuously monitors a VMware® ESX Server and its virtual machines, delivering the real-time virtualization monitoring that you’ve been missing. With VM Monitor at your fingertips, you’ll be able to track virtualization health at-a-glance and ensure your mission-critical apps never fail you. Go ahead, declare victory in the virtualization game and impress your boss and your fellow IT administrators with your newfound X-ray vision into ESX Servers!

SolarWinds free VM Monitor makes it easy to:

• Quickly check the health of your VMware ESX Server by monitoring CPU, memory utilization, number of virtual machines configured and running, and much more


• View detailed individual virtual machine health statistics including VM name, guest OS, and VM state, as well as processor, memory, and network usage


• Leverage best practice thresholds to begin monitoring virtualized servers right out-of-the-box


• Prevent performance degradation by watching threshold-specific indicators to visually alert you when problems occur

Posted by Gabriel Maciel

Virtualization + Security were the news headlines this past week. More specifically, Tripwire announced ConfigCheck as a free utility capable of providing recommendations for hardening your VMware environment. Here is the official announcement:

Tripwire ConfigCheck TM is a free utility that rapidly assesses the security of VMware ESX 3.5 hypervisor configurations compared to the VMware Infrastructure 3 Security Hardening guidelines. Developed by Tripwire in cooperation with VMware, Tripwire ConfigCheck ensures ESX environments are properly configured—offering immediate insight into unintentional vulnerabilities in virtual environments—and provides the necessary steps towards full remediation when they are not.

1. Ensure recommended ESX configurations
2. Discover possible vulnerabilities
3. Deploy virtualization safely and securely
4. Increase security posture of the entire enterprise
5. Easily implement security and compliance best practices
6. Reduce configuration drift