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esloof
Expert
Expert

TSX Interview with Mike Laverick

Today I had an interview with Mike Laverick. He is the owner of RTFM Education. On his website Mike placed numerous guides and white papers regarding the products of VMware. His daily job is delivering VMware training across Europe. Mike’s status level on the VMware forum is Virtuoso. He brings you up-to-date about the VI-3 book and tells something about the release of ESX 3.1 and the new edition of Virtual Center.

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/114-TSX-Interview-with-Mike-Laverick.html

Regards,

Eric Sloof

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19 Replies
sbeaver
Leadership
Leadership

Nice Job Mike!!!!!!

Steve Beaver
VMware Communities User Moderator
VMware vExpert 2009 - 2020
VMware NSX vExpert - 2019 - 2020
====
Co-Author of "VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center"
(ISBN:1420070274) from Auerbach
Come check out my blog: [www.virtualizationpractice.com/blog|http://www.virtualizationpractice.com/blog/]
Come follow me on twitter http://www.twitter.com/sbeaver

**The Cloud is a journey, not a project.**
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esloof
Expert
Expert

I also had an interview with Puneet Zaroo, he has been working at VMware in the ESX server Group for the last 2,5 years with CPU scheduling algorithms. Prior to that he did his M.S. from Prudue University and Bachelors from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in Computer Science. The photo taken by Viktor van den Berg on his website you can find more TSX photo's.

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/115-TSX-Interview-with-Puneet-Zaroo.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorious

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esloof
Expert
Expert

This video is taken before the official start of the VMware TSX 2007 in Nice, you can see Eric Berglund giving a presentation to the European VMware trainers.

http://www.youtube.com/EricSloof

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meistermn
Expert
Expert

Where are the news about the esx 3.1?

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bkelleman
Contributor
Contributor

Mike is a nice guy, I met him at VMworld '06. His website is beyond helpful.

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hp_Bladefanatic
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hi meistermn!

There was no track, which covered esx 3.1 news 😕

(or I did not attend the right one Smiley Wink )

Michael

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esloof
Expert
Expert

I visited the following session on day 3

Architectural

Directions

for Virtual

Infrastructure

From Yu-Shen Ng

He told me that the new version will contain Vmotion with storage, a new version of RadHat in the Service Console and better support for all brand of storage.

Regards,

Eric Sloof

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daniel_uk
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

so dmotion makes an appearence!

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Ripley8
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I taught Mike his A+ certification about a hundred years ago and now he's soooooooo up there. I wish I had half his knowledge of VMware!!!

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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

nobodies that old Smiley Happy oh hang wait a minute I am Smiley Sad

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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Michelle_Laveri
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Hey, where's my zimmer frame!

Seriously, news about future versions of VMware is pretty thin on the ground... with VMware being famously tight-lipped as ever. Unless your one of VMware's top 10 customers they keep the road-maps pretty much behind locked doors.

Your only way of finding more out is to:

1. Press VMware people at the conferrence events

2. Get a VMware Engineer drunk!

I won't say what method I deploy Smiley Wink

I attended the "Architectual Directions for Virtual Infastructure" with Yu-Shen Ng - and manged with others to squeeze some comments out of him:

Live data migration[/b]

Currently available to sys-admins to move data of a running VM from ESX 2.x/VMFS2 to a ESX3.x/VMFS3 volume. The natural extension of this is as a tool for data management for ESX 3.x as well

Third Party Virtual Switches[/b]

Allowing other companies to develop virtual switches in the ESX host to have properties and features you would expect to see in conventional physical switches. So rather the unmanaged switches of ESX currently (except for vLAN support, security settings and load-balancing settings). The switch would be more like a conventional Cisco Catalyst switch

Better Management of Virtual Switches[/b]

The ability to create switches across many hosts - and being able to store the vSwitch information in an XML file for portability. Talk of opening the vswitch API's to allow Cisco and others to emulate more functional switches in software. A scary prospect. Does that mean our network teams take ownership!

HA non-stop[/b]

VMware HA without the crashing of the VMs. VMs continue to run else where on another ESX host. I would expect VMware to redevelop the “replayer” feature currently in VMware Workstation 6

Improved Hardware Support[/b]

Currently we dependent on VMware writing VMware drivers for devices. This means validating any hardware purchases against a VMware HCL. It looks like VMware wish to open this out further to allow other vendors to speed up the process by having a programme to validate third party drivers

Improved VM Virtual Hardware[/b]

Asked if we will get improvements inside the VM the answer was yes - pressed further we were promised 8 virtual CPUs in a VM

Regards

Mike

Regards
Michelle Laverick
@m_laverick
http://www.michellelaverick.com
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Michelle_Laveri
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Oh... and by the way - while I remember if you enjoy Mike-Laverick multimedia experiences, Richard Garsengan has got me, Scott and Alessandro on his website via youtube...

http://www.run-virtual.com/

Regards

Mike

ps now I'm just waiting for my Hollywood Agent to call me about those movie offers... NOT!

Message was edited by:

Mike_Laverick

Regards
Michelle Laverick
@m_laverick
http://www.michellelaverick.com
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hp_Bladefanatic
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Mike!

Sounds really interesting, but what is exactly

"HA non-stop - VMware HA without the crashing of the VMs!?"

Do you know more about that upcoming feature?

regards

Michael

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Michelle_Laveri
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Hi Mike!

Sounds really interesting, but what is exactly

"HA non-stop - VMware HA without the crashing of the

VMs!?"

Do you know more about that upcoming feature?

regards

Michael

That's it in a nutshell. And that's all I know Smiley Sad

It's hardly an original insight i guess since that customers have wanted this from the 1st day start virtualising hardware.

As understand it (which is not very well given the lack of information) but VMware Workstation has a "replay" feature which "records" all the activity in a VM whilst its running. This "replay" data can be played against the original VM or a duplicate elsewhere. Apparently this is a feature in the WS6 beta, and is a "hidden" feature in version 5.

And that's the sum total of what I know - which isn't much...

VMware have an alpha release which is available to some of VMware's top customers and people who have been approved for the "Open Source Community". To get on this programme you have to apply and be approved by VMware. I don't expect to get approval because I am not a big company or a developer. Beside which me spreading rumours like this is hardly a testement to me being able to keep to the T&C's of an NDA! Smiley Happy

Regards

Mike

Regards
Michelle Laverick
@m_laverick
http://www.michellelaverick.com
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Anders
Expert
Expert

Mike, I think you just universally removed yourself from all future beta programs... Smiley Wink

Or perhaps we should have you sign the NDA so we can hold you to it? :smileygrin:

\- Anders

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Michelle_Laveri
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Smiles... I wish I could sign and NDA get on the alpha/beta programme. So far the only NDA I've signed is one that covers courseware material as an instructor...

Does VMware have the resources to a policy an NDA... I haven't seen the VMware NDA Police come down the street in a police car! Smiley Wink

Regards

Mike

Regards
Michelle Laverick
@m_laverick
http://www.michellelaverick.com
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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

thats because they are secet police, and use unmarked cars. Smiley Happy

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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Jazzer
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I thought for sure you'd say "virtual police". Smiley Happy

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esloof
Expert
Expert

During the TSX event in Nice there was a lot of speculation about new features in the next version of VMware ESX server. Mike Laverick managed squeeze some comments out of Yu-Shen Ng. And the past few weeks more and more news leaked out. Let’s take a look at the rumors and the facts. The release date of version ESX 3.1 will be around the end of October 2007. In this new version there will be better redundancy for iSCSI. Data replication in the kernel and filtering by third party apps will be possible. Besides authentication with AD, LDAP is going to be supported. When you logon to WebAcces there will be more possibility’s like creation of VM’s and controlling the resource pools and clusters. Different CPU family type’s within the Intel brand and connected internal switches are going to be supported in combination with VMotion. And last but not least VCB file level back-up for Linux VM’s.

Regards,

Eric Sloof

http://www.ntpro.nl/blog

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