VMware Virtual Center 1.4.1 and VMware Server 1.0.4 (minimal)

VMware Virtual Center 1.4.1 and VMware Server 1.0.4 on IBM PIII Thinkpads !

They said it wasn’t possible !

http://www.flickr.com/photos/osde-info/1803072059/

Next I’ll see if I can get a Red Hat 8 VM guest actually running in the 64M available

NOTE You must set up network labels on VMware Server before you try and add a new VM using VC (to prevent getting the “VMware VirtualCenter cannot create a virtual NIC until physical networks have been labelled for this server” error !

http://www.flickr.com/photos/osde-info/1803072051/

You can find this on the  VMware Server Console | VM tab

http://www.flickr.com/photos/osde-info/1804067104/

VMware Management User Interface

Don’t forget to install the optional VMware Management User Interface (MUI) on your VMware Servers so that you can web admin @

http://localhost:8222

and

https://localhost:8333

Citrix, DELL & XenSource

Citrix Completes Acquisition of XenSource

http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=683171

Dell and Citrix Partner to Simplify XenSource Virtualization Technology

http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=683297&ntref=hp_article_headlines_US

VMware Virtual Center 1.4.1 and VMware Server

Here are some VMware Virtual Center 1.4.1 (VMWVC) with VMware Server (VMWSVR) demo / 30 day eval tips:

• Don’t be put off by the VMWVC min spec of P4 & 2G RAM – it works (for demo/eval purposes) on a PIII with only 256M RAM !
• Make sure you install VMWSVR on CentOS/Red Hat/Oracle instead of Debi/Ubun (so you can connect as root from VMWVC to VMWSVR)
• Make sure you install the VMWSVR MUI Console
• Remember you first need to add a Farm Group and then a Farm before you can do File | New | Add Host and then finally add any optional Virtual Machine Groups
• Don’t run the Server Console against the VMWSVR you wish to manage with VMWVC

VMware Server icon dies

If your VMware Server icon dies as soon as you click on it try running it from the command line instead [$ vmware] and you might get a more detailed error message such as:

“VMware isinstalled, but it has not been (correctly) configured for this system.
To (re-)configure it, invoke the following command:/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl.”

this may mean you’ve recently autoupdated/aptituded/up2dated or yummed the kernel on your host OS so you need to re-run /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl

VMware Virtual Centre 1.4.1 documentation

According to http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vc_pubs.html VC 1.4.1 needs

• A minimum of 2GB RAM for VirtualCenter configurations managing 50 managed hosts or fewer. For greater than 50 managed hosts configurations, use 3GB RAM. For configurations with 100 managed hosts running 2000 virtual machines, use 4GB RAM.
• As a minimum a Pentium IV 2.0Ghz processor. Dual processors are
  recommended for deployments with more than 25 managed hosts.
• Disk space sufficient on the machine to support the VirtualCenter database and the template upload directory.

I wonder how much “sufficient” is ?

vmbk.pl – VMware ESX backup & copy disk utility

vmbk.pl – VMware ESX backup & copy disk utility now available for VMware ESX 3 and VMware VI 3

http://www.vmts.net/vmbkmanualv3.htm

XEN Virtual Machine Manager from Red Hat ET

XEN Virtual Machine Manager from Red Hat ET screenshots

http://virt-manager.et.redhat.com/screenshots.html

VMware VMTN Ubuntu 7.10 downloads ad infinitum

Do we really need all these variants ?

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1061

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1062

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1063

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1064

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1066

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1067

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1068

DMTF standard format for virtual machines

http://www.dmtf.org/newsroom/pr/view?item_key=3b542cbc5e6fc9ede97b9336c29f4c342c02c4e9

PORTLAND, ORE. September 10, 2007 The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF®) today announced the acceptance of a draft specification submitted by leading virtualization companies targeting an industry standard format for portable virtual machines. Virtual machines packaged in this format can be installed on any virtualization platform that supports the standard simplifying interoperability, security and virtual machine lifecycle management for virtual infrastructures.

The companies behind the collaboration on this specification include Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, VMware, and XenSource. This group of virtualization industry leaders has submitted the specification to the DMTF for development into an industry standard. DMTF is the industry organization leading the development, adoption and promotion of interoperable management initiatives and standards. DMTF will continue to develop this technology into a successful, open industry standard and promote it worldwide.