Plain Virtualization

VMware has announced the end of availability (“EOA”) of VMware vSphere ESX hypervisor 4.x and VMware Management Assistant (“vMA”) versions 1 and 4, effective August 15, 2013. Support will be as per support policy however the binary and license key for the above will no longer be available after the 15th August. For users who are still requires the above, do remember to download and keep a copy. Please refer to the announcement here . For Support matrix refer here .  Click on Lifecycle Support Matrix. Update 21st Feb 2013 Even after 15 Aug, you are still able to purchase vSphere and downgrade via the myVMware portal to vSphere 4 and use it to license the ESX 4.x.  EOA does not restrict user from downgrading. Downgrading to vSphere 4 will be disabled only when the product has End of Life (EOL).

The release of the vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager allows vCenter 5.1 to be able to manage Hyper-V 2 servers based on Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2. I decide to give it a try so I install a nested Hyper-V2 server and try to create a Windows XP VM it.  However I receive the following error: Description: The Virtual Machine Management Service failed to start the virtual machine '%machinename%' because one of the Hyper-V components is not running (Virtual machine ID %ID_of_the_virtual_machine%). Apparently, I would need to add in this advanced setting to the vmx file which I can also use the web client to add that. hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE" After adding that, my Hyper-V VM is able to start up. Now let's head back to vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager.  This is a 1.0 release so do not expect too much on it.  This can be found in your normal vCenter download page. Please note that this plug-in is only available for vCenter Standard edition.  vCe...

Recently did a presentation on VMware Mirage to one of my customer who have attended the vForum 2012 and like to explore.  Some questions were posted and like to share some of the ways you can compliment or work with your existing patch management which you might currently have in your environment. You can find out more on VMware Mirage here . Download a free trial here . Question 1: SCCM in place for patching endpoints.  Mirage can help in two use cases: Use Mirage to build the reference machine for base layer and deploy to all end points.  SCCM to push all other apps and patches. Use Mirage to build reference machine for base layer and deploy to all end points as standard.  Use SCCM to only patch the reference machine.  Use Mirage to create different layers for different layers required. Now which to choose?  I would recommend option 2.  Here is why.  Using SCCM to patch the reference image and using Mirage to capture helps manag...

This is happening to many customers and it seems to be happening on several new models of servers typically most heard on IBM System x M4 series of servers and some Dell ones as well . Did some internet searching however none gave much resolution but refer to resolution for white boxes. These servers must be also be listed in VMware supported list of hardware here . Below are the two common problems identified: Problem 1 "Loading /imgpayld.tgz Relocating the modules and starting the kernel..." Resolution: Make sure all firmware including BIOS is updated.  In this scenario, BIOS firmware was updated and installation was successful.  Seems like this was due to the UEFI used on IBM servers need to be updated.  Do find out from your respective vendor on the latest supported firmware. Problem 2 "Loading /imgpayld.tgz Multiboot could not setup the video subsystem. Relocating the modules and starting the kernel..." Resolution: This is a strange...