The status of SMP Fault Tolerance

VMware FT (Fault Tolerance) has been around for a while an enables you to protect a VM in a way that allows for a seamless non-disruptive fail over to a copy of it running on another host. The execution of the primary and the secondary copy of an FT-protected VM is synchronized through the vLockstep protocol by sending all input data over a dedicated FT logging link to the host that runs the secondary copy and replaying it there. If the primary host fails for whatever reason the secondary host will detect this and instantly activate its own copy of the VM to become the primary one - with no loss of data or network connections.
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New esxcli namespaces (incl. SMART disk monitoring)

With ESXi 5.1 there were several enhancements to the esxcli command that you can use in an ESXi shell, but also remotely, to get and set system configuration parameters.
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My VMworld 2012 Europe schedule

I'm looking forward to be at VMworld 2012 (Europe) in Barcelona next week! Below is my planned session schedule. There are some promising topics on it ... I will also try to visit some Lab sessions and meet my fellow vExperts, vendors and other people.
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VMware Labs' latest fling: VIB Author and how it compares to the ESXi5 Community Packaging Tools

The VMware Labs have published a new tool called VIB Author that "allows ESXi administrator to create custom VIBs at the CommunitySupported level". When I read this news my first thought was: Hey, that's exactly what my ESXi5 Community Packaging Tools (ESXi5-CPT, consisting of tgz2vib and vib2zip) are supposed to do! So, how do these two compare?
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ESXi-Customizer-PS script updated to be compatible with PowerCLI 5.1

I was made aware that my ESXi-Customizer-PS script fails when running with the new PowerCLI version 5.1. With this version VMware made changes to the ImageBuilder object model (dropping the SoftwareChannel object) that broke my script.
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The SBHVL project - Part 3: Management, Remote Access and more Security

This is the third and last part of the SBHVL (Small Budget Hosted Virtual Lab) project post series (I will assume that you have already read at least Part 1, see also Part 2). This time I will explain how to remotely access, use and manage the environment.
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Updated ESXi-Customizer-PS script allows to create ESXi 5.1 Offline bundle

Following the availability of the ESXi 5.1 packages in the VMware Online depot I have updated my ESXi-Customizer-PS script and made two minor, but important changes:
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