My friends over at Train Signal just posted a new article that I think all the Virtualization Admin’s would be interested in! Checkout:

 7 Awesome Things you can do with Hyper-V

I am working on my new Train Signal VMware vSphere training course. It will soon be released but, until then, click on the video below to watch an 18 minute demo that shows how to run VMware ESX 4 / vSphere inside VMware Workstation.

This is a great way to test and learn about VMware ESX 4 / vSphere and, best of all, using evaluations, you can do it all at no cost for 60 days.

vSphere has a ton of new features, without doubt. In my opinion, one of the features that doesn’t get a lot of press is the new vCenter Linked Mode. No, this isn’t important for small companies but it could be a huge feature for any company that has multiple virtual infrastructures requiring multiple vCenter servers.

That’s because with the new linked mode, you can manage multiple vCenter servers from a single vSphere Client. With Linked Mode, you can manage up to 1,000 ESX physical servers and 10,000 VMs (vs 300 and 3000 without). Still, you have multiple vCenter servers but you are able to manage them with all one single vSphere Client connection.

Here are some links on vCenter linked mode so that you can learn more (I recommend the video because that what I prefer):

VMGuy: vCenter Server Linked Mode
VMware Communities Linked Mode Discussion
VMware Linked Mode Best Practices
vSphere vCenter Linked mode YouTube video

I admit it, I’m not a Virtual Iron user but I did attend a seminar on it and I was impressed with what they were offering and the low cost that they were offering it for.

When I read the story about how Oracle bought, then killed Virtual Iron’s product line, I was disappointed (see VirtualizationReview.com - Oracle Kills Virtual Iron). It was a good product, why kill it? It served a purpose to thousands of SMBs. Why not give it away for free, at least?

This is just one more reason that I don’t care for Oracle…

Likely you saw my blog post about how you can Manage VMware and Hyper-V with your iPhone or Blackberry using Hyper9’s VMM. However, Hyper9’s core business is not mobile management, it is their Hyper9 flagship product.

Their hyper9 tool collects information on your virtual infrastructure and provides “higher intelligence” (as they call it). In other words, it helps to make you, as a virtualization admin, look smarter by telling you just what you need to know and when you need to know it.

When I think of hyper9, I think if search for your virtual infrastructure. However, it can do a lot more than search. It also monitors your VI and alerts. Their VMDNA feature understands your (and my) virtual infrastructure and its daily/weekly/monthly cycles. Essentially, it will tell you if things aren’t as they should be.

At the Hyper9 Download Site you can download:

• Hyper9 30 day free trial
• Hyper9 Labs monitoring and alerting applet (free)
• Hyper9 GuessMyOS (free)
• Hyper9 Search plugin for the VI Client (free)

Back in April, I blogged about the Virtualization Ecoshell. Recently, I received an email from Vizioncore about the Ecoshell and this prompted me to checkout their website. I discovered that they have a new beta release out and they now have a ton of resources available. Their downloads page offers things like instructional videos, visio templates, and new “power packs”.

In case you aren’t familiar with the Virtualization Ecoshell, it is a “freeware desktop application for novice and expert IT administrators leveraging Windows PowerShell scripts across their multi-platform virtual environments.”

Download the latest beta release and all the new resources at TheVESI.org.

VMware’s vSphere has been around for a month now and, the more I use it, the more I realize that there are so many major changes and big new features to try out and learn about.

Just so that virtualization admins have a quick list of features to try out in vSphere, I put together a top 10 list (kinda like those David Letterman top 10 lists).

Checkout my article covering the Top 10 VMware Products to Try in 2009 !

This month, Hyper9 launched VMM into general availability, out of beta. What this means to you is that you can now purchase their VMM (Virtualization Mobile Manager) to allow you to use your iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile device, or Google Android phone to manager VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer. Unlike many of the third party products for your virtual infrastructure, VMM is inexpesive at only $199.

Read the full press release below: 

Hyper9 Unleashes Virtualization Mobile Manager 

Industry’s First Heterogeneous Hypervisor Mobile Management Tool Includes Up to Five VMs for Free and Special Introductory Pricing of $199 

AUSTIN, Texas–Hyper9, Inc. (http://www.hyper9.com/), the leading provider of virtualization management solutions, released today a browser-based management and monitoring tool that allows Virtualization administrators to control their virtual infrastructures from a mobile device. 

The Virtualization Mobile Manager (VMM), which was created by Andrew Kutz, a well-known developer in the VMware community, has been in beta for the last month, where hundreds of virtualization administrators have used the product in the field and provided positive feedback to Hyper9. 

During the beta period, VMM demonstrated its ability to work with VMware Server 2, VMware Infrastructure 3, VMware vSphere 4, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer 5. The application will also work with almost any mobile device, including the Apple iPhone, Blackberry, Google Android and Windows Mobile Devices. 

“The fact that we are reaching out to a new product like vSphere 4 is significant,” said Chris Ostertag, CEO and co-founder of Hyper9. “We are committed to creating cutting-edge products that are compatible with the latest technology.” 

VMM also offers the ability to monitor host and VM performance statistics (CPU, Memory), control VMs and take action on the go - start, stop, pause, reset and disable network - all of which were important features to the beta users. 

Not surprisingly, the beta users unanimously informed Hyper9 that they would refer VMM to a friend or a colleague. 

Hyper9 is doing its part to make VMM a compelling offering, by giving users the ability to manage up to five VMs for free as well as special introductory pricing of $199.00 for up to 1000 VMs. 

To download the product, visit http://store.hyper9.com/. To learn more, visit http://www.hyper9.com/vmm. 

About Hyper9 

Hyper9 is a privately held company backed by Venrock, Matrix Partners, Silverton Partners and Maples Investments. Based in Austin, Texas, the company was founded in 2007 by enterprise systems management experts and virtualization visionaries. Since then, Hyper9 has collaborated with Virtualization administrators as well as systems and virtualization management experts to develop a new breed of virtualization management products that leverages Internet technologies like search, collaboration and social networking. The end result is a product that helps administrators discover, organize and make use of information in their virtual environment, yet is as easy to use as a consumer application. For more information about Hyper9, visit http://www.hyper9.com/. 

All product and company names are trademarks of their respective companies. 

In the past I have written about two of TripWire’s free tools - OpsCheck and ConfigCheck.

(see How can the free vWire OpsCheck help with your VMotion Configuration?
and Assessing VMware ESX server security with TripWire ConfigCheck)

Now, TripWire has launched a new, more complete management tool for your VMware environment called vWire.

Here’s what it can do for you:

• Monitors the health of your virtual infrastructure
• Correlates that data
• Alert you and take action
• Integrate with vCenter

Compared to other virtualization management tools, vWire is very inexpensive and there is  a free 30-day eval. Checkout vWire at this link

New 2X VirtualDesktopServer helps businesses make the most of their chosen virtualisation platforms 

With so many competing virtualisation platforms in the market, for any organisation, making the right decision to take advantage of this latest technology is critical. The new 2X VirtualDesktopServer reduces overall operating costs and unlocks the full potential of virtualisation platforms by improving desktop manageability, security and performance.

Today 2X VDS is the only software supporting so many virtualisation platforms. Being vendor independent means that companies are not forced down a one-way street with any single proprietary software platform - it’s the first true ‘open’ virtualisation platform connection broker.

Just released, 2X VirtualDesktopServer maximises the investment companies are making in virtualisation software and guarantees to work with the different vendors now and into the future.

“2X VirtualDesktopServer acts as a hub for all types of competing virtualization technologies. It doesn’t matter whether your business is using Microsoft HyperV, VMWare, Sun VirtualBox or even a combination, our software lowers costs and improves control,” says Nikolaos Makris, CEO of 2X Software.

Many medium and larger companies are deciding to go down the virtualisation route for good business reasons, not least cost reduction and mobility. However, often they come up against administration and performance constraints. 2X software is designed to overcome these issues by providing centrally managed access to virtual desktops and applications - hosted on VMware, Microsoft, VirtualIron, Parallels, Sun VirtualBox and other leading virtualisation platforms.

About 2X VirtualDesktopServer

2X VirtualDesktopServer publishes any Windows application or virtual desktop onto remote computers, including Thin Clients, Mac and Linux PC’s without the need to install the application or desktop onto each user’s machine. This saves significantly on administration and support. VirtualDesktopServer is designed to be highly cost-effective from the outset, particularly as its charging structure is based on the number of agents (servers) rather than per user, as the platform vendors favour.

2X VirtualDesktopServer Features:

• Publish virtual desktops and applications, rather than installing locally
• Use the same client to connect to virtual desktops and terminal server applications
• Automatically suspend inactive virtual desktops for maximum server efficiency
• Seamless integration with local desktop & taskbar
• Publish applications & Desktops based on username, group membership or IP
• Publish Windows applications and virtual desktops onto Linux and Mac
• Publish applications to Web Interface
• Publish applications to a terminal server farm
• SSL secure connection to Applications
• Automatic Redundancy
• Single Sign on
• Multiple Monitor support
• Universal Printing

Easy to use, yet powerful

2X’s development team has ensured the new software hits the right button with users: for the administrator it’s easy to setup and manage, including intuitive step-by-step wizards; for the end-user it’s simple to use and fast, with a clear, easy-to-navigate Windows-like client.

Pricing & Availability

Pricing starts from as little as 900,- EUR for the Small Business Edition managing 1 server without user or connection limitation. More information and a free trial version of the product are available at http://www.2x.com/virtualdesktop/