David Davis Blog

Have you seen my new article 5 things you need to know about VMware vSphere Alarms? The proper setup of alarms in vSphere is crucial so that you are notified when there is about to be an issue with your virtual infrastructure (and hopefully not when issues have already occurred). I cover the hierarchy of alarms, where to configure them, the different types, and more.

Read the full post at 5 things you need to know about VMware vSphere Alarms

I recently talked with Charles Windom of VMware and he mentioned that he has a new vSphere book coming out which covers how to virtualize Microsoft Tier-1 Applications using vSphere. I think that this is a very important topic so I pre-ordered my copy. I hope that you will take a look! (just click on the graphic below)

Here is a cool press release from UniPrint related to virtual desktops / VDI:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 9, 2010 – UniPrint (www.uniprint.net), the innovative leader in printing virtualization for server-centric environments, today launched UniPrint Version 7.0.  Incorporating an enhanced printer driver, UniPrint Version 7.0 significantly improves overall printing quality, speed, manageability and security for Windows and Mac users working in a 32- or 64-bit physical or virtual desktop environment.
Introducing a completely redesigned central management console, UniPrint Version 7.0 makes it easier than ever before to manage every aspect of printing in any network environment.  This includes centralizing the time-consuming task of managing server licenses – a feature particularly important in virtualized environments where licensing is complicated by the fact that servers go online and offline on demand.  With the new management console, system administrators can utilize any machine that has a UniPrint component installed to apply a single license file on the designated license server, and also monitor license usage in real time from any remote location.
“Recognized as an innovative leader in network printing for eliminating the two major obstacles – printer driver incompatibility and bandwidth consumption – UniPrint now launches UniPrint Version 7.0 to further enhance printing speed, quality and security for any enterprise computing environment,” explained Arron Fu, Vice President, Software Development at UniPrint.  “We believe the printing

This week, I was the guest on a new weekly virtualization podcast called This Week in Virtualization. In this episode, we talked about the next version of vSphere and its features – to be released at an unspecified date. You can watch on a webpage or you can subscribe to an iTunes RSS feed and watch in iTunes or on your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. Click on the video below to bring up the webpage to watch:

Interested in Virtualization? Interested in Security? Then you need to listen to (and participate in) the virtualization security podcast. You can start right now by listening to archived podcasts (there was a great one this week) and put the next one on your calendar to make sure that you are able to watch it live. The TalkShoe URL is at: Virtualization Security Podcast

Brad Hedlund over at Internetwork Expert.org made a really amazing post about the Cisco UCS, Nexus 1000V, and the Palo Adaptor. With UCS, there are a couple of network adapters designed just for virtualization. There is one for the blade UCS and one for the rack-mount UCS. These adapters allow the virtual machines to gain access to virtual fibre channel and virtual ethernet adaptors – amazing stuff!

Checkout this diagram from Brad's post:

Read the full post at:  Cisco UCS and Nexus 1000V design diagram with Palo adapter

I was a guest on the VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast this week where I covered my new vSphere Pro Series Volume 1 video. After that quick promo, VMware's ESXi product management discussed the upcoming release of ESXi and what it will look like in the future. It was really amazing info! You can listen to it on the web, or subscribe to it in iTunes.

Here's a graphic from the podcast:

List to the VMware Communities Roundtable here

I read a recent post on how to use PowerShell to create a large number of test virtual machines with sequential names. I can see this being so useful in testing and it's really amazing what you can do with PowerShell!

Check out the full post at: Quick and Dirty PowerShell to create a large number of test VMs with sequential names

I enjoyed reading a recent post by DoubleCloud where they cover 3 Easy Ways Connecting to Your VM in Private Cloud. The 3 ways they discuss are:

Using VMware Remote Console which is a standalone application
Using browser plug-in to either IE or Firefox
Using Remote Desktop, VNC or SSH

Read the full article to find out how to do each of these three at: 3 Easy Ways Connecting to Your VM in Private Cloud