Top VMware and Virtualization Blog voting 2013 now open

Just a quick note: Eric Siebert over at vsphere-land.com just launched this year's voting for the Top VMware and Virtualization Blogs. This blog is listed in the categories "Independent Blogger" (and among "all" of course). Make yourself heard and vote here!

HP releases Service Pack 2013.02.0 for ProLiant and updated software for ESXi 5.x

Yesterday HP released version 2013.02.0 of their Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP). This is a (bootable) ISO file that contains the latest firmware and driver packages for ProLiant servers. What's new:

• Added online deployment of a select set of firmware components to systems running VMware ESXi 5.x (that means you can now deploy Smart Components through HP SUM!)
• Support for new hardware devices and OS versions
• Support for PXE booting the SPP ISO
• Updated HP Smart Update Manager (SUM) to version 5.3.5

Additional information:

• Full release notes
• February 2013 VMware FW and Software Recipe (Recommended Firmware and software versions)

On http://vibsdepot.hp.com/ there are updated Offline bundles and drivers for VMware ESXi 5.x available (see the feb2013 directory for downloads).

The latest versions of the HP customized installation ISOs are available for ESXi 5.0 U2 and ESXi 5.1. As usual they do not include the latest ESXi patch level. For instructions on how to build a custom ISO with the latest VMware patch level and the latest HP stuff please see this blog post.

I have updated my HP & VMware Links page to include the new releases.

Implementing IPv6 in a hosted virtual lab

Did you know that the IPv6 standard was drafted more than 14 years ago, in Dec 1998? Adoption grew very slowly since then, but with today's ongoing exhaustion of IPv4 addresses IPv6 is gaining momentum:

• Almost all important ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and big companies that make business on the Internet already use and support IPv6.
• More an more other companies and institutions look into implementing IPv6 for their Internet-facing services (mainly public web sites).
• All modern Operating Systems have built-in support for IPv6. Many of them (inlcuding Windows 7/8) have it enabled by default.

IPv6 is inescapable. It's here. It's here to stay. It matters. Are you ready?

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My ownCloud adventures, Part 2: Certificates and Windows access

This is the second part of my postings about ownCloud, an Open source solution for managing your data in the cloud. The first part covered the installation and initial configuration of the BitNami ownCloud stack virtual appliance. I will continue with explaining how to secure access to your data with SSL certificates and using WebDAV in Windows to access your ownCloud files.

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A common misconception about resource pools

In vSphere resource pools are a great way to divide your overall compute resources into multiple independent pools and prioritize resources among different VMs. But before you create and use them you should make sure that you have fully understood how resource pools work, and what effect their settings have. In the vSphere Resource Management Guide there is a long chapter about Managing Resource Pools that describes how to set them up and how they work using some real world examples. And still it looks like this information is not clear enough (or maybe there is just a part missing in the documentation that explains how resource pools do not work), because there are surprisingly many vSphere environments that use them in the following way:

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My ownCloud adventures - Part 1: Installation and Initial Configuration

If you own multiple different computing devices (portable computers and Desktop PCs at different places, Smartphones, tablets, ...) - and I bet you do - then you will sooner or later feel the need to share your personal files between them in a seamless, convenient way. You may e.g. want to have your music files and pictures available on any device at any place without manually copying them around. This is why using a Cloud Storage provider is becoming more and more popular: Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.net, ... just to name a few. They will offer you a limited amount of online storage for free - if you pay them a monthly fee then you will get more. However, if you want to have a lot of space (1 TB, 2 TB?) then this will get very expensive ... and there are also other concerns: Data security, privacy, ...

Luckily there is software available that enables you to be your own Cloud Storage provider like the Open Source solution ownCloud. I have started playing with ownCloud in my hosted virtual lab and will blog about how I got this up and running, configured for my needs, and what else is needed to make good use of it. This first post is about installing and initial configuration.

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Importing virtual disks of hosted formats in ESXi 5.1

Recently I stumbled over a new issue that really puzzled me. I was trying to import a virtual appliance (the Bitnami ownCloud stack) into my lab ESXi host. This appliance is provided with a virtual disk in 2gbsparse format to make it compatible with VMware Workstation. For using it in ESXi instructions were given to clone the disk into an ESXi supported disk format using vmkfstools like this:

   vmkfstools -i bitnami-owncloud-4.5.5-0-ubuntu-12.04.vmdk owncloud.vmdk

On my ESXi 5.1 box this command promptly failed with a very confusing error message:
  "Failed to open 'bitnami-owncloud-4.5.5-0-ubuntu-12.04.vmdk': The system cannot find the file specified (25)."

Of course the file existed in the current directory, so how could it not be found?!?

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