Archive for November, 2008

Yo! VMware Workstation 6.5.1

Posted on November 21st, 2008 in Virtualization | 2 Comments »

VMware Workstation 6.5.1 have been released.

VMware Workstation Version 6.5.1 | 21 NOV 2008 | Build 126130
Last Update: 21 NOV 2008

What’s New?

  • Japanese localization — A localized version of Workstation is now available in Japanese for Windows hosts.
    Note: Technical Support services for Workstation are currently delivered in English. Japanese-speaking support engineers are available in a limited capacity during the operating hours of the local support center. For more information, see VMware local language support.
  • Smart card support for Linux guests — Smart cards are now experimentally supported with Linux guests.
  • Unity mode on Linux guests — Although support for Unity mode on Linux guests is still experimental, repainting of application windows is much improved.
  • 3-D graphics — Additional improvements have been made to improve 3-D performance on Windows XP guests.

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Virtual I/O Xsigo

Posted on November 20th, 2008 in Hardware, Industry News, Storage | 5 Comments »

Virtual I/O is not new to the IT market and I was introduced by my friend about Xsigo recently.

Many enterprise who have implemented virtual environments as a way to consolidate servers and centralize management are running may facing I/O bottleneck issue. No matter how many servers, switches, SAN storage or operating systems that you have, you’re still require to go through IO device.

Xsigo
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VMware Server 2 Vs VMware Workstation

Posted on November 17th, 2008 in Industry News, Virtualization | 3 Comments »

As VMware 2.0 is officially launched and final release since October 2008, here I would like share some preview related to the new VMware Server 2.0.

VMware Server 2.0 is free and open source version, which is different with enterprise ESX 3i which also a free version from VMware. In term to utilize VMware server 2.0, you will require to have a Windows or Linux install on your machine or server, and install VMware Server 2.0 on top of the operating system to enable the hypervisor to be executed. This is different with ESX 3i which is not require any Operating System to be installed.

We may see this as a competitive product with VMware Workstation 6.5 which recently launched. If you ask my opinion, I will say that both are on different product range. VMware Server 2 can be consider as alternative to the business users, who may not need the advance technology & features to simplify their IT environment with minimal administration require. This product is more suitable for the Small Medium Enterprise users which may not have a Data Center for their working location. I will say that a Junior IT professional will easily able to manage the VMware Server and take the opportunity as a entry level for Enterprise Virtualization with VMware Server 2. Besides that, it does provide opportunity for every users to have virtualization in place for their business to provide better ROI in term of hardware investment and utilization.

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DELL Equallogic VS Fiber Channel SAN

Posted on November 14th, 2008 in Hardware, Industry News, Virtualization | 3 Comments »

Economy Crisis this year has encouraged users to consider the ISCSI SAN Vs FC SAN today. Data Storage growth will never stop unless the business is stop. In order to keep the environment growth, the IT architect will have to provide a cost effective solution in the finance critical timing like now.

Performance wise, we may know that the Equallogic ISCSI might not beat the huge SAN box which easily cost you double as your TCO on ISCSI. I would like to share my finding relevant on the features it bundle with Dell Equallogic. In FC SAN, we are able to achieve performance and functionality, which require always additional license cost and expensive infrastructure to support it. Today, ISCSI provide more flexibility in term of FC due to the common understanding we all have on the IP technology which we deal with it everyday.

In Equallogic ISCSI, you will entitle every features which bundle together with the storages you purchase.

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Netware 6.5 on VMware

Posted on November 13th, 2008 in Operating Systems, Virtualization, Workstations | 3 Comments »

I had recently setup a development environment to verify the potential of migrating the existing age servers which running with Netware 6.5 from physical to virtual. The reason of doing this is purely due to the expiration of our server life cycle, and potential to reduce the capex requirement for replacing with new servers. As we know that the Novell Netware 6.5 will not able to utilize the quad cores processing power which is consider a common servers resources today.

I had tried to setup the VM for Netware 6.5 on VMware ESX 3.5, VMware Server 2.0 and VMware Workstation 6.5, and it was surprised myself that the workstation edition, I can easily provide 2 Vcpu for a single VM which run the Netware 6.5, which ESX 3.5 and VMware Server 2.0 is refused by default. I went for some google search and technical research, it show that the Netware will not require to have 2 Vcpu in most cases, even if you need to do so, you have to know the back door to overcome this.

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