Honestly speaking, VDI solution could cost more compare to traditional desktop deployment. Cost saving will not be the selling point for this solution with business users, and IT team will not be the key decision maker to adopt on this. Similar to cloud computing, the target audiences are required to go beyond from IT group only. Business will be the 1 who pay the bill at the end of the day, and IT will be responsible to execute the solution for business enabler.

A VDI project will hardly catch interests or attentions from business users, but a desktop transformation will change the whole thing. I would rather not to talk about brand, hardware or etc while dealing with business users about VDI topics. They are more interesting to know how it could transform the current user experiences to the next level. If you are still thinking the VDI will only be accessing your desktop from pc, laptop or thin client, you are on the wrong path. A virtual desktop should always available & accessible anyway at anytime with Applications and Data.

Beside this, the next generation desktop management should come with uptime SLA and recovery SLA. This is not happening today in major enterprise environment.You will require to hands off your laptop for 4 hours to re-image if your operating system is corrupted. This will no longer happen with VDI in place. Desktop offline often cost business lost in every segment. Uptime SLA and resolution SLA is absolutely important in this case.

Data Security are always important to every organization. Information leaks could cost multi-million dollars lost to the business. This could be prevented by introducing the next generating desktop computing without sacrificing the performance require for the end point users.

To summarize this, a VDI not just to replace the desktop you have on the desk, but rather it will transform the ways we utilize and manage our desktops environment and applications availability.

Recently with anonymous tips from someone I was able to get ESX running inside VMware Fusion Version 2.0.1 (128865).

Just create a VM as per normal wizard & select “Generic Linux” or “RedHat Linux” works well for me.

In order to get a guest VM power up inside ESX running on Fusion you will need the following setting inside the .vmx configuration:-

ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000″

monitor.virtual_exec = “hardware”

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = “true”

Once installed you can just connect with the standard VI client as per normal. ESX will detect all the BIOS & hardware config as well.

The above .vmx config will work with VMware Workstation from v6.x onwards.

As I was conducting some testing which required quite a number of VMs. I was able to have the following running in a single MacBook Pro:-

2 * 768Mb RAM Windows 2003 RC2
1 * 1.3Gb RAM ESX 3.5 U3
1 * 512Mb RAM Ubuntu 64bit
1 * 256Mb RAM Knoppix

As follow is hardware spec for my Mac

This beast is really value for $$$. I am sure I can’t run that many VMs in a M$ environment with the same hardware spec.  As why I need to have so many VMs running will continue the series next time.

I would like to share How to disable or turn off beep speaker sound on VMware Workstation.

1. Look for virtual machine DOT VMX(.vmx) file.
2. Edit virtual machine .vmx file.
3. Insert

“mks.noBeep = “TRUE””

4. Save .vmx file.
5. Power On virtual machine.

For an example, my OpenSuSe 11 DOT VMX file save in drive D:\My VM\OpenSUSE11\ folder as show below.

Enjoy!

“The following VMware kernel modules have been found on your system that were not installed by the VMware Installer. Please remove them then run this installer again.”

vmblock
vmhgfs
vmmemctl
vmxnet

Execution aborted.

Solutions are:

# rm /lib/modules/2.6.25.5-1.1-default/updates/vmblock.ko
# rm /lib/modules/2.6.25.5-1.1-default/updates/vmhgfs.ko
# rm /lib/modules/2.6.25.5-1.1-default/updates/vmmemctl.ko
# rm /lib/modules/2.6.25.5-1.1-default/updates/vmxnet.ko

Configure VMware Tools again!
# vmware-config-tools.pl

Probably you may refer to VMware tools for Linux for more about VMware Tools installations.

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.

To force 2 Vcpu per VM, you will require to log in through the web console on the ESX host, and power off the VM. Edit the Vcpu numbers from 1 to 2 or 4. My test result, 2 might be the better option on ESX. Power up your VM now, you should able to see the 2 Vcpu on Netware 6.5 which run on ESX 3.5. Weird thing happen now, you will notice that the CPU utilization is very high and consistently over 50% even with fresh install Netware 6.5. When you do a monitor command from netware, you will only see the 5% utilization from the CPU. I am sure there is bugs from VMware regarding this.

Now we go to VMware Server 2.0, you need to export the image from ESX 3.5 to VMware Server, and power it up. Please do not modify the number of cpu per vm on the webconsole, as it is not allow to be run more than 1Vcpu for Netware 6.5 on vmware server by default. In this case, the CPU utilization on VMware server is much more acceptable which only 30% utilize.

Due to a low demand on Netware today, I believe it is the reason of VMware is not investing too much time of fixing the netware issues. But again, I believe it  is sufficient to host the netware server on VMware as it will not require the extra resources as we normally have on any server today.

Due to certain requirement, you may need to clone a snapshot taken sometimes ago and you can make as many copies as you need.

This guide show how to making a clone from a snaphot on VMware Workstation 6.5.

Note: The snapshot MUST BE from a virtual machine that is powered off.

Open VMware Workstation 6.5, click on VM tab, click Snapshot, click Snapshot Manager or CTRL+m.

Click clone.

Click Next on Clone Virtual Machine Wizard.

Click Next Clone from The current state in the virtual machine.

Click Create a full clone and Next.

There are 2 types of clone:
# A full clone is an independent copy of a virtual machine that shares nothing with the parent virtual machine after the cloning operation. Ongoing operation of a full clone is entirely separate from the parent virtual machine.
# A linked clone is a copy of a virtual machine that shares virtual disks with the parent virtual machine in an ongoing manner. This conserves disk space, and allows multiple virtual machines to use the same software installation.

Enter Virtual machine name, Location and click Finish. You’re done!

I’m sure you will ask making a clone from a snapshot for VMware ESX Server. Just do a live clone and revert to snapshot taken or you may refer to VMware Communities Forum.

Enjoy!