30 June 2009

VirtualBox 3.0 released

Today Sun released VirtualBox 3.0, a major update introducing Symmetrical
Multiprocessing (SMP) in virtual machines as well as much improved 3D support. See the Changes Log...

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog

for a complete list of all changes. You can download the binaries here:

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.0/


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29 June 2009

Create a cluster on Hyper-V?

In this video, Mark Wilson shows how to create a failover cluster for high availability with both nodes running virtualised on Hyper-V.

Continue at Microsoft Technet

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27 June 2009

MAP 4.0 Beta now available!

Microsoft team just released the beta version of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool (MAP) 4.0.

For more information, head over to Baldwin Ng’s team blog posting here.

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25 June 2009

GFI Backup – Free Backup Software for Desktops and Laptops

GFI Backup Home Edition is a free backup tool for desktops and laptops which can also be useful in a corporate environment.


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23 June 2009

Windows Server 2008 SP2 Hyper-V

There are some notable updates in SP2, including scalability enhancements for running on systems with up to 24 logical processors which enables support for up to 192 running virtual machines, update for Hyper-V when managed with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and updates for backup/restore of virtual machines with the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).


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21 June 2009

Downloads: ITStuff Labs

IPv4Router: Enable / Disable IP Packet Forwarding (Routing). Routing starting work immediately, without reboot. Works on Windows Vista, Windows 7, WinPe 2.x and WinPe 3.x


WSUS-Local: Configure Automatic Update Client (WUA) for WSUS in a Workgroup or Multi-Domains environment.


LocGrpMemb: List all user accounts that belongs to the local group. To get a list of users that belong to the specific local group run LocGrpMemb.exe and provide a name of local group.


FindRep: Find and Replace Text in a Text File. To use FindRep.exe just type a command similar to this from the command prompt:

FindRep.exe "C:\TEMP\File1.txt" "Good Morning" "Good day"



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Windows Server Hyper-V Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007

This management pack provides the following functionality:

* Management of critical Hyper-V services that affect virtual machines and host server functionality
* Management of host server logical disks that affect virtual machine health
* Full representation of virtualization in a single Hyper-V host server, including virtual networks, virtual machines, and guest computers
* Monitoring of virtual machine hardware components that affect availability

Source: Microsoft Download

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15 June 2009

How To Shrink VMware Virtual Disk Files (.vmdk) (Windows OS installed as Guest).

Recently I worked on building VM Appliance and when I was ready to convert my VM to appliance I've figured out that virtual disk is too big. So, I did what I usually do in this situation. And now I'd like to show how you can shrink the virtual disk files of your VMware virtual machines so that if you zip them, they will use much less space. It is then easier to upload and share them with other people.

Yes, I know, many of you now said “Misha is going to talk about Shrink”. You know what, you pretty true, but ...

Everybody knows What the "shrink" does. Shrink removes an empty space from .VMDK file.

However, the problem is this: What is empty space?

When Windows deletes a file, it doesn't actually delete the data on the disk, it just deletes the references/pointers in the file allocation table. So when “Shrink” is processing a vmdk and is looking at the raw disk, it's seeing values that aren't empty (non-zero), and exports them as such.

You can easily test this out. Create a new vmdk on a VM. Export the VMDK right after you've created it. The exported files will be very small. Now fill the vmdk up with files and export; it will be very big. Now, delete all the files in the vmdk and export; it'll still be big! If you will try to do a "Shrink", you will see that the vmdk file is still big.

So, before doing a Shrink, I’m always using a really cool command line tool developed by Mark Russinovich, SDelete. Simply, execute SDelete with parameter -c inside running Virtual machine, then shut down the Guest and do a Shrink.

Last note. Just in case you forget how to do a shrink ;). From command line go to C:\Programme\VMware\VMware Server\ and execute the vmware-vdiskmanager.exe as shown in following example:

"C:\Programme\VMware\VMware Server\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -k "ITSTUFF-SRV-1.vmdk"



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12 June 2009

Virtualization at TechEd09

Hyper-V, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtual PC (including Windows 7 XP Mode), VDI and more.






Get Microsoft Silverlight




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10 June 2009

How to Use Hyper-V Snapshot Revert, Apply, and Delete Options

Janique Carbone, published very interesting article about How to Use Hyper-V Snapshot Revert, Apply, and Delete Options.

Continue at VirtualizationAdmin.com

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08 June 2009

HP releases Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center

Zane Adam, senior director of System Center and Virtualization marketing at Microsoft, shares some exciting news related to Microsoft’s virtualization and System Center offerings and HP’s Insight Control Suite for System Center. With the official release of Insight Control Suite for System Center, HP has taken a significant step in advancing the dynamic datacenter for customers with HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem platforms by enabling HP Insight Control capabilities to be invoked directly from the Microsoft System Center consoles.

Continue at Windows Virtualization Team Blog

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06 June 2009

vSphere Virtual Machine Upgrade Process

Upgrading a VMware Infrastructure 3.x environment to VMware vSphere 4 involves more than just upgrading vCenter Server and upgrading your ESX/ESXi hosts...

Continue at VMTN Blog

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04 June 2009

Install Windows updates on the command line and in scripts

Everybody knows that i'm a real fan of scripting :).
I was really happy to read post of Michael Pietroforte about WuInstall 1.2 Pro...

Continue at http://4sysops.com

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03 June 2009

Get your Cisco Nexus 1000V (N1KV) 60 day free trial

The Cisco Nexus 1000V (N1KV) is Cisco’s IOS-like switch for VMware’s vSphere.

  • Step 1: Download VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus www.vmware.com/tryvmware
  • Step 2: Download Nexus 1000V Software www.cisco.com/go/1000vdownload
  • Step 3: Free 60-day 16-CPU evaluation License for Nexus 1000V www.cisco.com/go/1000veval
  • Step 4: Read the Cisco N1KV Documentation www.cisco.com/go/1000vdocs



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SSH in vSphere 4i

To enable SSH in vSphere 4i we should do the following steps (similar as esx 3i):

1. First, press Alt + f1 then type “unsupported” and press enter.
2. At the prompt for password, provide the credentials, previously configured, and we will be able to log in to the service console.
3. Do a vi /etc/inetd.conf and look for #ssh. Remove the # and save the file after this.
4. Go to /sbin, and run this command ./services.sh restart

Now, we will have SSH enabled.

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02 June 2009

HOW TO CREATE A COST EFFECTIVE HYPER-V CLUSTER: STEP-BY-STEP

Join Greg Shields, Microsoft MVP, renowned Hyper-V virtualization expert, Contributing Editor and Columnist at TechNet Magazine, Concentrated Technology and Realtime Windows Server, and a professional IT author and speaker.

Bring cost-effective virtualization to your datacenter with Hyper V:

• Hype-V clustering
• Shared Storage
• Network configuration

The challenge with Hyper-V is in making your virtual machines highly available. Hyper-V relies on Windows Failover Clustering for its high-availability underpinnings, a technology that can be challenging to set up. Greg will show you the exact steps necessary to ensure your clustering success. You’ll leave with the knowledge you need to get started and you can do all this with completely Free software from StarWind.

EVENT DETAILS:
Thursday, June 18, 2 PM EDT
Register Today


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01 June 2009

The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta

Want a quick way to check if your PC can run Windows 7? In general, if your PC can run Windows Vista, it can run Windows 7. But if you're not running Windows Vista, or are just not sure if your system is ready to run Windows 7, download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta. The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta is a pre-release version, and is available in U.S. English only.


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