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Showing posts from 2014

VMware User Group Singapore Conference - The First!

Yes the very first VMware User Group (VMUG) Singapore Conference is happening on 23rd Jan 2015! It came a long way, from the first VMUG meeting held from few members to a large group of members now.  From a meetup every couple of months to almost every month.  As it matures today, it has more and more sponsors/vendors sharing their technology and road map as well as special speakers. Coming the first month of next year (not too long to wait), the very first VMUG SG Conference will be held at Marina Bay Sands.  This is the first time a full day conference been held in Singapore.  There are already many in the States and Australia however this is the very first milestone for Singapore. For those not aware, VMUG are run by users in the VMware community so VMware does not come into any organizing this such event like vForum equivalent.  This is focus for the VMware users by the users. The agenda is finally out and the speakers are all ready.  You will be looking forward to meet up

IT Paradigm Changed, Have you?

Last month of the year and today have a some talk over lunch with a colleague and decide to pen this down which I see lacking on the market. I have spoken to customers and also spoken to some colleagues and realize the IT paradigm as changed quite substantial.  However many are still operating the wrong way which end up even with virtualization, cloud or Software Defined Data Center, etc. it is still not helping them achieve in a big scale. Recently I did a session on BC/DR: Implementing a Holistic Strategy with VMware Solutions session at APJ vForum in Singapore.  I mentioned a few things that was abstracted from VCDX Design Defense Blueprint page 11.  This diagram has helped me in a lot of discussion and I see many are still not aware.  The five things: Availability, Recovery, Security, Manageability, Performance. Taking an example today, when a Application owner request a machine with certain specification in terms of CPU, Memory and space from an Infra personnel, the answe

VMware CPU Compatibility for EVC

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Quite sometime back, I did wrote about how to use the compatibility site on VMware HCL page here .  Recently I saw that there was and additional page there was added just for CPU. It might be a little too much work to clicking through for one model and another just to check what are the Enhanced vMotion (EVC) modes supported. So here VMware just release one for CPU just to have a ease of check here .  Of cause you can still check out the KB to understand more on CPU class. Here is a video to illustrate how you can use the new section.

VMware vExpert 2015 Kicks Off!

Updating my first blog post this month by the new of the vExpert 2015 kick off while I am busy with vForum Singapore. There are so many great news today.  First the news on VMware by ZDNet as the most important IT vendor. Back to the main subject.  Hurry yourself now head to the blog post to sign up and be accredited vExpert yourself by proving your contribution to the communities. I have previously shared my experience why I started all this sharing.  Do your part, so this community can be leverage on to help you and me and everyone else. This year will two application date while the latter date is not yet announced, it best not to missed it. Hope to see more vExpert in 2015! Update 28th Feb 2015 The vExpert 2015 round two application is now live!  Head to the form now.

New and Re-brand with vRealize

With both the VMworld 2014 in San Francisco and Barcelona, there are many new bundles and re-branding starting with vRealize. To many there are many questions and confusion on what is really in all these bundles?  Here I am just to clarify the confusion which I, myself got confused with and have cleared it up. Re-branding We know that VMware has vCenter Operations Management Suite (Standard/Advanced/Enterprise).  In this suite, there were 4 components namely: vC Ops Manager, vCenter Infrastructure Navigator, vCenter Chargeback (EOA), vCenter Configuration Manager.  With the new re-branding, this is now call vRealize Operations 6 (Standard/Advanced/Enterprise). The powerful vCloud Automation Center (formerly DynamicOps), is now rename to vRealize Automation . IT Business Management (ITBM) which provide a transparency of cost and services across your whole infrastructure is now known as vRealize Business . VMware Log Insight a log analytics tool is also renamed to vRealize

VMware vSphere Desktop Licensing and Usage

I have encounter not once but several times by many including partners and customers who got confused with the vSphere Desktop licensing. Well what is vSphere Desktop?  What edition of the normal vSphere is is different or similar?  When do we used it and what can we used it for? VMware has vSphere Desktop licensing to be used by VMware own virtual desktop solutions it is and by third parties virtual desktop solutions.  The only different is the licensing model is different. First and foremost, vSphere for Desktop has the same features and functions of vSphere Enterprise Plus.  Yes every single functionality is available. Before we touch on the different licensing type, you can refer to also VMware Product Guide ,  on page 16, you will see what is allowed to be hosted on vSphere Desktop in summary: 1) virtual desktop infrastructure, 2) terminal servers 3)  associated desktop management and monitoring tools. If you are purchasing vSphere Desktop for third parties virtual desk

VMware Horizon 6 Application Remoting Direct Connect

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The Scenario ABC company has a remote office and connection back to HQ is not very possible due to bandwidth.  Applications used by the users at the remote office must not have any access to the server directly for security reason and manageability.  The second requirement is the server that serves the applications is not joined to Active Directory. With the release of Horizon View 5.2, we were able to use View Direct Connection without a Connection server or a broker with or without Active Directory.  With this we are able to meet some of the requirements above.  This is currently only possible on VMware Horizon View, Citrix XenDesktop does not have this feature. With the release of VMware Horizon 6, it comes with Application Remoting, this not only allow a RDSH Desktop but now you can provide Application Remoting (Application Presentation similar to Citrix Xenapp).  With this add on feature and the Direct-Connection, this makes Application Remoting without any dependency on a b

Security Alert: bash Code Injection Vulnerability

This morning got brought to attention by my colleague, Iwan regarding this bash Code breached.  I am no linux or unix guy but when comes to security this is not to be play with especially in industry where security and compliance is highly evaluated. A security vulnerability was detected known as "Shell Shock" which is a bash shell commonly found in unix and linux platform.  You can refer to CVE-2014-6271 , CVE-2014-7169 . VMware was fast to publish this discover as well and you can read the post here and also to follow up with this KB on what products will be impacted.  So check back the KB to see which product from VMware is impacted and how to mitigate. Note: that ESXi are not impacted with this "Shell shock" vulnerability. As for other platforms, you would have to look back to your respective principle to find out if it is affected and the solution to resolve. Update 29th Sept 2014 As extracted from CSOOnline , CentOS versions 5-7, Ubuntu 10.04,

VMWare vForum 2014 Singapore Registration is now Live!

In Asia Pacific, this is what we have been waiting for the biggest event of all time at in Singapore; VMware vForum 2014! Every year there are more than 3000 participants from customers to partners within the Asia Pacific region with our various sponsors gather at this major event bringing with the announcements from VMworld both held in San Francisco to Barcelona. This year without fail VMware Singapore is hosting it annual biggest event in Singapore at its usual same venue Raffles City Convention Center. If you are new to VMware or just getting started or you are already in the matured level of building your cloud, this is an event not to be missed.  Not only will you get to meet up with all the professionals on the field and get to know all the solutions available to meet your needs, you will also get to understand what on the market just for you at one single day and place! What's different this year from other years, is it is a 2 days event.  First day with all the an

VMware World 2014 SFO Day 2 What's New!

If you have not read about what was on Day 1 check out here .  There ain't much announcement on solutions here on the second day.  There are quite a lot of announcements on EUC space and that you can read it here .  There are also mentions of CloudVolumes which was recently acquired by VMware just last week, a few partnership with Google and nVidia on Chromebooks and Horizon DaaS which lightly further expansion from the acquisition done on Desktone . Also VMware has joined as a Gold Partner in the Open Compute Project as reported by AMAX . With VMware been the first partner of SAP with AirWatch and SAP Mobile Secure into the mobility space on security and experience stated here . On vCloud Air, there is on demand which was previously mentioned and as well as vCloud Air  Object Storage offering.  Check out all the new announcement by Bill Fathers. To sum it all, the second focus much on the EUC and mostly partnership betwee day 1 and 2.  If you are expecting some new laun

VMware World 2014 SFO Day 1 What's New!

With VMware World 2014 at San Francisco there are so many great news and one of them is VMware EVO:RAIL.  A hardware appliance that comes in 2U and have up to 4 nodes and expandable to 4 appliance.  Read this article .  Also in a tech preview is EVO:RACK which you can read more about it here . You might have thought, is VMware selling hardware?  Nope you will purchase from VMware partners and not from VMware.  This is build from bottom up tuned to fit vSphere with vCenter LogInsight and Virtual SAN. You can take a look at the interface of how VMware EVO:RAIL interface looks like here . Next the vRealize Suite which was announced which comprises of vCloud Automation Center, vCenter Operations Management Suite and IT Business Management which available for outside the vCloud Suite customers or non VMware customers who need a comprehensive Cloud Management Platform (CMP). This also add to vRealize Air with beta sign up .  This enables customer on to experience vRealize as a SaaS

Virtual SAN Sizing Tool Available!

With the days getting nearer to VMworld 2014, there are so much news from VMware.  First the acquisition of CloudVolume announced on 20th August 2014, now the release of the Virtual SAN (VSAN) Sizing Tool which everyone is having a great effort trying to find one or build one. Check out the release article on this and read about its limitation or requirement at the moment supported. You will be able to access the tool here . Just to note this is an initial release, so there might be one or two bugs you might encounter.  Do help by providing feedback by clicking on the feedback icon so we can have better tool by refine it further. Bugs found on 22nd Aug Initial test, the host count always stay at 14 irregardless of the parameters given. Issue has been resolved on 22nd Aug.

VMUG Singapore 27th August 2014

If you are like me grounded in Singapore and have no opportunity to attend the VMworld in San Francisco or Barcelona, no worries!  VMUG Singapore with sponsorship from PureStorage , is going to bring all the announcements made in San Francisco back to Singapore right after the second day key notes. The details of the event can be view here .  If you are able to attend, please register so we can estimate the crowd.  Whether you can arrive on time or after its fine, just come join us!  Register yourself so you can be updated of future VMUG Singapore events too! Also join our Facebook Group VMUG ASEAN . Details of the event is as follows: Date: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 Time: 6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Location: RedWorks 71 Robinson Road #07-01 Singapore 068895 See you guys there!

Microsoft Lync 2013 with Horizon View 6

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There are all the articles available and most of them are on Horizon View 5.2 with Lync 2013.  However these are still valid there is nothing changes.  One great article which I refer to when doing my Proof of Concept (POC) with my customer is here .  The document that the article refers to is a must read and its pretty clear.  But some confusion that came to my mind when doing so here are some of questions you might have. On the endpoint, it has to be a physical machine running Windows which can be 32 bit or 64 bit.  The LyncVDI plugin needs to be the same bit level as the Office (where Lync is usually installed with) or the Standalone Lync that is installed in the virtual desktop. Note: Do not install Lync Client on the end points where Lync VDI plugin is installed.  And no USB redirection should be done for the camera or audio device which will be used by Lync for video and audio. On the end point, you will need three things: Horizon View Client MS Lync VDI 2013 Plugin

VMware vSphere Beta Program Sign Up Now!

If you are not aware, the vSphere Beta Program is not available to the public.  This is beta 2 where beta 1 was via invite or to VMware employees only. This is the first product from VMware where beta is free for sign up.  Do not miss this if you are a interested with the next release of vSphere. To sign up, head on here . By participating in the beta program, as always you need to be able to install this in some environment.  This can be your home lab or an isolated environment at your work place.  It can also be nested however if any issues resulted from nested will limit the support you reeive. So help sign up in this beta program and provide all your feedback and issues you encounter so that vSphere can remains as resilient, reliable and stable.  VMware will need any inputs possible to better this release so do not hesitate to provide. You will find all the documents and guides from the landing page upon signing up completion.

Horizon Mirage 5.0 What to Look Out For!

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On 25th Jun 2014, VMware has announced the availability of Horizon Mirage 5.0.  This marks another milestone to complete the full Horizon 6 release (shorting vC Ops 6 for View). Key features in my opinions: 1) The interesting features other than the support of Windows 8.1, is the cross migration between 32 bits and 64 bits OS.  A summary below: Windows XP 32 bits to Windows 7 32 bits & 64 bits Windows Vista 32 bits to Windows 7 32 bits & 64 bits Windows Vista 64 bits to Windows 7 64 bits Windows 7 32 bits to Windows 8.1 32 bits & 64 bits Windows 7 64 bits to Windows 8.1 64 bits 2) The next is one of the chore I find is the in place upgrade.  You no longer have to follow the old upgrade process by uninstalling the previous version followed by installing again as stated in the KB .  Just by clicking the Horizon 5.0 setup files, it will detect and upgrade accordingly and shutting down any services if required (prompts are provided to go ahead). 3) The remov

VMware Horizon 6 Available Now!

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With the announcement of Horizon 6 on 9th April 2014, and the release of the availability of download marks another milestone from VMware in the End User Computing (EUC).  You will find the landing page for Horizon 6 (with View).  At the same time, the VMWare Hands-on-Lab (HOL) have release a new lab on Horizon 6 too! Let's first look at the available solutions that are in Horizon 6. Horizon View (VDI) The version is as similar to the launch Horizon View 6.0.  This is still the same Horizon View that using PCoIP to access a virtual desktop solution.  Typically used case are mostly found in office users, factory floors, retail or any place that is able to utilize a virtual desktop without the need of a powerful end point of offline access.  In this release, all the management servers can be support with the latest Windows 2012 R2 operating system.  The different in this release includes the End of Life (EOL) of Local Mode as a feature which was only available from VMwa

VMware vSphere App HA 1.1 What's New

I have been presenting during VMware Partner Exchange in Singapore as well in certain workshops for customer and many times we brought up vSphere App HA as part of application availability solution which is part of vSphere Enterprise Plus. Previously with the 1.0 release, I did a post on the setup but it slip from my mind that there was an minor update to 1.1 on 8th April 2014 which I forgotten to update here which I find it pretty useful.  Do check out my previous post to have a better understanding.  The setup does not change much. In 1.0, it only support vSphere web client 5.5 and using vCenter Hyperic 5.7.  With the release of 1.1, it will now support from vSphere 5.1 U2 and creation of custom service where it is non default applications in vSphere App HA.  Lastly the pain in 1.0 of not able to edit a policy after it is created it now possible.  Finally this is fixed else you would need to delete and re-create a policy due to minor changes and reapply to all the VM involved