Plain Virtualization

Windows 2016 is announced and there are many great features included especially containers support.  One of the major improvement is reducing the number of management console as well which is greatly appreciated. There are also some changes to the licenses. Remember the licensing cost in Windows 2012R2 Datacenter edition  was increased compared to Windows 2012?  Windows 2016 has also some changes not in price but in the way it is licensed stated here .  Refer to Question 7 of the FAQ . Below is the table to see the pricing since Windows 2012 to Windows 2016. Datacenter Standard Windows 2012 $4,809 $882 Windows 2012 R2 $6,155 $882 Windows 2016 $6,155 $882 Taking Datacenter Edition, it seems that from Window 2012 to Windows 2012R2 was the only price increased and Microsoft has kept the cost the same for Windows 2016.  However, there are some changes not known unle...

With the release of vSphere 6, there were some changes to the certification as posted earlier. VMware announced the retirement of VCAP for vSphere Design and Administration and replaced it with VCIX which requires equivalent of both VCAP category exam with half the exam time . As announced recently, VMware Education has listen to feedbacks and instead of retiring VCAP certification all together it will still have it valid however VCIX will only been granted to individual with double VCAP for each track in Design and Administration except for VCIX-NV which will be the only direct VCIX certification with no option of VCAP. With this announcement, individual can now still be recognize in passing one of the category in each track and granted VCAP or VCIX for earning a double VCAP in any track. The upgrade path for existing VCAP does not change as announced earlier.  To achieve VCIX, existing VCAP with either category need just pass the other category in version 6. ...

Today release of Thinapp 5.2 which will support Windows 10.  This comes as a good news especially where users are migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 10 with little on Windows 8 or 8.1. This also resolved most but not all bugs.  But this is little problem. You can download it here .

Many like me are not aware of that VMware only support patches release of OS or minor update release of OS e.g. Windows 7 to Windows 7 Service Pack 1, RHEL 6 to RHEL 6.1 as refer to this KB . So what does this means?  If you are doing an in place upgrade of OS from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008 which is considered a major update release, this will not be supported by VMware although OS vendor supports this.  To be specific, the whole VM is not supported right after you have did an in place upgrade. As stated in the KB, it is recommended to install major update release in a new VM.  I see this a hassle as most users would just do an in place upgrade as long their software still works in the latter version.  In such a scenario, during an in place upgrade, any issue will need to be supported by the OS vendor and not VMware.  This is something I am totally caught unaware and not agreeable. However for customers upgrading form Windows 2003, due to the large dema...

If you have been active in contributing in the VMware communities, time to get your presence felt and recognize.  Head on to the link and read what it takes to be one.  For existing vExpert, if you are still keeping up, get it renewed. Once applied you will received a confirmation email like the one below: Now sit back and relax and wait for the results.

There are some confusion out there on VMware Horizon 6 Bundle.  You can take a look at the available products that are in Horizon Standard, Advanced and Enterprise Edition https://www.vmware.com/products/horizon-view/compare. Here we will use the Horizon Enterprise bundle as an example as the products which are available in the Advanced Edition will be what we will be going through. All editions from the bundle except Horizon Standard (only CCU) comes in both Named Users (NU) and Concurrent Users (CCU) licensing.  However there are products in the bundle that has no way in doing a CCU licensing even if you have purchase the CCU licensing.  This is because the way it is used is an active connections or active user and not possible to be a concurrent connection method. Let's take for example: Horizon View, this can be in NU or CCU.  Reason is simple you can have a fixed number of users who will always access the virtual desktops, that will help with a NU licensin...

This is not related to my blog post but currently participating in a contest and if you can just help me like a post. Am participating in this contest below. 1) Login to your facebook https://www.facebook.com/logitechsingaporefan/photos/a.278574702253965.59398.274502252661210/769793463132084/ 2) Click on the comments in the post. 3) Like my comment which looks like the below:   Thank you for your support!

Recently been asked how can you connect to multiple Horizon Desktops from an endpoint.  Just to get things right there are just two ways depending where your virtual desktops are at. Scenario 1 Multiple virtual desktops from the same connection server but in different desktop pools. With Horizon Client, you will be able to connect multiple virtual desktops you are entitled to from just single instance whether on Mac of Windows as the Horizon Client window will be left open for you to select other virtual desktops to connect. Scenario 2 Mutiple virtual desktops from different connection servers. In this case, you will need to launch another instance of Horizon Client to connect to every connection server.  In Windows, this is easily done however on Mac, this might be a challenge.  You can of cause run a commend as written by this author here , to run another instance on Mac via Terminal window and keep it on the dock so you get two instance anytime you need it. ...

Often come across this confusion between VMware License and VMware OEM License.  I wrote previously here the use of Open and OEM where VMware OEM license is some what different from other software OEM license e.g. Microsoft. Now what about support.  What do you get from VMware OEM license support?  Here is an article from VMware and an uploaded copy here . For VMware Support, you will contact VMware Support hotline or via myVMware license portal to seek for support request.  Level 1 to Level 3 support will come direct from VMware. For VMware OEM Support, you will contact through respective OEM partner support center route.  You can refer to Page 7-8 of the above document, you can see that Level 1 and 2 will be provided by the OEM partner and ownership is by the partner. Upon required the need of a Level 3 support, will it route to VMware Support as extracted the statement from the document.  At Level 3, the communication is only between customer ...