The past ten years have been the most challenging, painful and yet most rewarding in my entire life. I’ve lost many friends, but I’ve gained many new ones. I’ve lost love, but have found new love that is deeper than ever before. I’ve found a greater respect for family and being together. I’ve also seen the world reach an all time high, then crash lower than it ever has before.

All of the situations, feelings and things that someone would normally endure over a lifetime, I’ve experienced in 10 short years.

Recently I’ve had to make a number of life changing decisions. Decisions that not only affect me, but will also affect my family, friends and a number of other people. Decisions that people typically handle one at a time.

For me, this was all thrown in my face at once.

One of the most stressful things to do in ones life, purchase a home, almost got the best of me. But, with a big sigh of relief we have recently closed escrow on a beautiful new home (two weeks later than we should have, adding additional unwanted stress to the situation). Now we get to choose carpet, paint, appliances and all of the other great things that home-ownership brings.

So, enter the second piece of the puzzle. For the past 8 years I’ve enjoyed a great position as a Solutions Architect in local government. In these past years, I’ve grown as a person as well as a professional. The things I’ve learned and the friends I’ve made will last a lifetime, but, it is time for me to continue to grow as a professional and take the next leap in my career.

Starting on February 1st, I will become an employee of EMC Corporation. I will be joining fellow bloggers such as Scott Lowe and Ed Saipetch, working as a VCE Architect in Southern California.  As Scott mentioned in his blog, this change in employment will not affect the blog in any way. In fact, it’ll let me blog even more as I’ll be reporting on exciting things coming out of the lab and in the industry in general.

It will be extremely hard leaving all that I have with my current employer, but like I said, this will be an enormous leap for my career and family. I want to thank everyone that has coached me along the way and the friendships that were made. I hope we can continue to work together in the future and continue to keep in touch.

As you can see, quite a bit of change all happening at once. Now that it is behind me I feel that a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I am excited to see what this new decade will bring.

Hello 2010…
Hello New Home…
Hello New Opportunity!

Enter in problem of network flooding from the NetXen based HP branded NC522SFP.  Because all of the 10GbE ports from the (9) new ESXi servers were creating thousands of pause frames on the Cisco Nexus 5020 switches, I thought originally that it was an issue on the switch.  Talks with Cisco revealed nothing.  We attempted to disconnect one of the connected ports (each ESXi host is dual connected into a pair of N5Ks using vPC) to remove a potential spanning tree loop….no dice.

A reboot of the host resolved the problem, things appeared to be running normally and we decided to let it be and wait until Monday.

10 hours goes by, it is now Sunday morning and the problem returns.  First host loses storage (we’re doing NFS over 10GbE here), then two more…until all 9 in this cluster are pretty much toast.  I decide to open a ticket with VMware.  Wouldn’t you know, there is a potential known bug and resolution.

Bug 496013

Description: Some NetXen based 10GbE cards using the unm_nic and nx_nic drivers sometime flood the network with pause frames causing the port to become disabled.

Resolution: NetXen believes upgrading the firmware to version 4.0.516 will resolve the problem.

I’ve gone ahead and patched 4 of the hosts with this new firmware, so far it has been stable (knock on wood).   I’ll let you know if something happens.

Checking which version of the firmware you’re running is simple. From a command-line (ESX or ESXi hidden CLI), type ethtool -i <vmnic#> (replace vmnic# with the alias to the vmnic you’d like to check).  You should see output similar to:

driver: nx_nic

version: 4.0.301

firmware-version: 4.0.406

bus-info: 0000:07:00.0

Update - Utility CD with firmware patch now included…

As you can see above, the firmware is out of date. To update the firmware you will need to boot from a Linux utility CD that has the appropriate driver, you then run a firmware update utility provided by HP.  To make this process easy I have created a bootable SLAX utility CD with the drivers pre-loaded. You can download the ISO from here (file temporarily removed). Once booted run the installer located in the root filesystem (ie: ./CP011471.scexe).

Let me know if you have any questions.

Now the part you’ve all been waiting for.

Our third place winner, taking home some Veeam Backup and Recovery licenses is:

Gil Salazar from Tucson, AZ

Our second place winner, taking home a Veeam Management Suite license is:

Abe Lister from Glen Burnie, MD

(drum roll please)…and, our Grand Prize winner, taking home an IOMEGA IX4-100 is:

Herbert Tucker from Keyport, NJ

Once again, thank you to the sponsors and a very special Thank You to all the participants. Thank you for making VMwareTips.com so successful in 2009.   Happy New Year and here’s to a very prosperous 2010.

I also feel it’s going to be the year of VDI and that virtualization is really going to hit the world even harder than it has already. I’m excited to see what’s in store for I.T. this year, and I’ll be even more excited to blog about it.

With that said, Eric Siebert at vSphere-Land.comis looking to update his Top Bloggers list. I’ve held positions #11 on the list for quite some time, and I’d love to maintain (or even go up on the list).  So please, go vote for VMwareTIps.com on his website, click here to vote.

Thank you for taking the time to vote, I really appreciate all of my readers visiting the site as well as e-mailing me comments and suggestions. It is because of you that the site has grown to over 85,000 visits per month from over 20,000 unique visitors. Cheers to you!

ESX 4.0, Update 1, Alert: Upgrading ESX 4.0 to 4.0 U1 can fail or time out and leave the host in an unusable state if using HP Systems Insight Management Agent. ESX 4.0 Update 1a (a re-release of ESX 4.0 Update1) that addresses this issue is available. Please read KB article (ID 1016070) before proceeding with the upgrade.

As I said above, this patch is listed as ESX 4.0 Update 1A and can be found on the VMware Downloads website, or from within VMware Update Manager.

How about a little background on the environment, vCenter Server 4.0 U1 and multiple ESX(i) hosts (3.5, 4.0, 4.0 U1).   The vCenter Server as well as a number of ESXi 4.0 hosts were upgraded to U1 a couple days after it was released,  this problem however happened ~8 days after the upgrade.

Symptom 1: All ESX(i) hosts disconnect from vCenter Server, however, they are still online and no VMs went down.  Within 15 minutes all hosts appear to be reconnected.

Symptom 2: After the hosts reconnect, the ESX hosts appear to be functioning normally. However, the ESXi hosts display an error on the Overview tab as well as in the Events tab; “Unable to Synchronize with host that is unavailable.”

Symptom 3: Random VMotions start, for no apparent reason (DRS engaged, yet no constraints causing DRS to be invoked).  However, these VMotions fail at 10% due to the fact that the source and destination host is not available.

Symptom 4: /var/log/messages file displays errors with keywords: [VpxdVmomi] Error getting vpxa info: SSL Exception: Unexpected EOF From hosts, blacklisting showing up.   — I apologize for paraphrasing.

So, all this starts happening and I start investigating….pulling logs, restarting vCenter, and just sit there stumped.  I did notice that the rui.crt on the vCenter server expired, but back in 2008.  I went ahead and renewed the certificate and even restarted the entire vCenter server.  No luck.  I engaged VMware Support and their Tier-1 and Tier-2 support were stumped,  nothing even showed up in their internal database on this issue.

Then it all disappeared.  Roughly 90 minutes after it started, the problem just went away and everything was good.

Have you seen this issue?  What were your troubleshooting steps?  Did you resolve it or figure out the resolution?

The following information provides highlights of some of the enhancements available in this release of VMware ESX Server, this information can be found in the VMware ESX(i) 3.5 U5 Release Notes:

Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 3400 Series– Support for the Intel Xeon processor 3400 series has been added. Support includes Enhanced VMotion capabilities. For additional information on previous processor families supported by Enhanced VMotion, see Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support (KB 1003212).

Driver Update for Broadcom bnx2 Network Controller– The driver for bnx2 controllers has been upgraded to version 1.6.9. This driver supports bootcode upgrade on bnx2 chipsets and requires bmapilnx and lnxfwnx2tools upgrade from Broadcom. This driver also adds support for Network Controller - Sideband Interface (NC-SI) for SOL (serial over LAN) applicable to Broadcom NetXtreme 5709 and 5716 chipsets.

Driver Update for LSI SCSI and SAS Controllers – The driver for LSI SCSI and SAS controllers is updated to version 2.06.74. This version of the driver is required to provide a better support for shared SAS environments.

Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems – Support for the following guest operating systems has been added specifically for this release:

For more complete information about supported guests included in this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software.

• Windows 7 Enterprise (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Professional (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Standard Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition (64-bit)
• Windows 2008 R2 Web Server (64-bit)
• Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Ubuntu Server 9.04 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Newly Supported Management Agents – See VMware ESX Server Supported Hardware Lifecycle Management Agents for current information on supported management agents.

Newly Supported Network Cards –This release of ESX Server supports HP NC375T (NetXen) PCI Express Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter.

Newly Supported SATA Controllers – This release of ESX Server supports the Intel Ibex Peak SATA AHCI controller.

In addition to the enhancements found in ESX(i) 3.5 U5, there is also one lonely enhancement made to vCenter Server 2.5 U5:

Support for High Consolidation in VMware HA Clusters- VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 includes significant performance and scalability improvements to VMware HA. Use VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 5 for environments with more than 35 virtual machines per host in an HA cluster.
For information on the ESX Server host settings required for this scalability improvement, see ESX Server host settings required for environments with up to 80 virtual machines per host in an HA Cluster (KB 1012002).

Updating your ESX servers can and should be done with VMware Update Manager. To upgrade your vCenter Server installation you’ll need to download the installation ISO or ZIP from the VMware website and perform an in-place upgrade. Be sure to create a backup of your vCenter Server database then follow the steps in the Installation Guide.

One prerequisite is that you’re running on VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1 or at least Update 3 of the VI 3.5 Suite.

The most anticipated feature (IMO) with View 4 is full PCoIP support, which brings a full rich desktop experience regardless of the connection type (LAN or WAN). This truly means that virtualized desktops are a viable option for almost any environment now.  Another amazing feature of PCoIP is the ability to support up to four monitors so now even my desktop could be a virtual one.

Here are a few of the other new features found in the VMware View 4 Release Notes:

VMware View 4  Release Notes
What’s New

Enhanced single sign-on – The Log in as current user feature is integrated with Active Directory and smart cards to help simplify the process of logging in to a VMware View desktop.

Restricted entitlements – Administrators can control user access to virtual desktops based on the View Connection Server being used for authentication.

Smart card policies – Administrators can set group policies to force desktop disconnection and require reconnection when users remove smart cards.

Domain filtering – You can use vdmadmin.exe to control the accessibility of domains and traverse trust relationships more quickly.

You can cleanly delete View desktops using scripts.

You can log in to View desktops using user principal names (UPN).

You can explicitly configure IP addresses to override those supplied by the View Agent when accessing a desktop.

Mixed Active Directory and Kerberos authentication is supported.

From viewing the VMware HCL it appears that there are a number of Thin Clients that already have full support for PCoIP and View 4.

Another topic of discussion on Twitter was the Guest O/S support matrix, there were concerns that Windows 7 wouldn’t be supported as a Guest.  From what I’ve read in KB 1015591 it appears that there is full support for Windows 95/98, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Ultimate, Business or Enterprise, and Windows 7.

So, go download your trial today and experience a true rich experience that PCoIP can provide.

One of the key drivers of this update is to provide support for VMware View 4 which was just released for download as well.

It also provides support for Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7, for both as a Guest Operating System and base O/S for the vSphere Client.  This resolves the freeze issue in both of those O/S as discussed in my previous article.

Another hot update is the full support to utilize the pvSCSI adapter for your boot disk on Windows 2003 and Windows 2008.

Here are a few of the other items from the What’s New section of the Release Notes:

VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1 ESX Release Notes
What’s New

Enhanced Clustering Support for Microsoft Windows – Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) for Windows 2000 and 2003 and Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering is now supported on an VMware High Availability (HA) and Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) cluster in a limited configuration. HA and DRS functionality can be effectively disabled for individual MSCS virtual machines as opposed to disabling HA and DRS on the entire ESX/ESXi host. Refer to the Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service guide for additional configuration guidelines.

Improved vNetwork Distributed Switch Performance – Several performance and usability issues have been resolved resulting in the following:

• Improved performance when making configuration changes to a vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) instance when the ESX/ESXi host is under a heavy load
• Improved performance when adding or removing an ESX/ESXi host to or from a vDS instance

Increase in vCPU per Core Limit – The limit on vCPUs per core has been increased from 20 to 25. This change raises the supported limit only. It does not include any additional performance optimizations. Raising the limit allows users more flexibility to configure systems based on specific workloads and to get the most advantage from increasingly faster processors. The achievable number of vCPUs per core depends on the workload and specifics of the hardware. For more information see the Performance Best Practices for VMware vSphere 4.0 guide.

Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 3400 Series – Support for the Xeon processor 3400 series has been added. For a complete list of supported third party hardware and devices, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Resolved Issues – In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

Updating your environment to U1 isn’t that difficult, for vCenter Server simply download the installation files from VMware and install like any previous version.  Ensure that you choose the option to maintain your existing database, or else you’ll lose all of your data.

For updating your ESX hosts, simply use Update Manager or the Host Update Utility to perform these upgrades.

More information on Update 1 can be found here.

The resolution is to either upgrade to U1 or to use the standard SVGA driver and not the one provided in the VMware Tools package.

VMware KB 1011709 Excerpt…

To deselect the SVGA drivers installed with VMware Tools:

When you install VMware Tools, select VMware Tools Custom Install and deselect the SVGA driver.

Alternatively, remove the SVGA driver from the Device Manager after installing VMware Tools.

For the most part you should all understand the concept of VMware View and virtualized desktops.  Virtualized Desktops are simply Virtual Machines with a desktop operating system installed (Windows 7, etc.) running on the VMware vSphere platform.  They are delivered and managed through the VMware View Manager, this utility allows the creation and assignment of these desktop virtual machines.

So, what is new in VMware View 4?

• PCoIP – A display protocol specifically developed for virtual desktop delivery. PCoIP is able to dynamically detect and adapt to the end users network connection providing each user with the best desktop experience regardless of location or task. VMware View with PCoIP is delivered with support for software end points, which include the View Client and a VMware View virtual desktop. In addition to software support, the VMware View solution also supports PCoIP enabled end points to address the requirements of even the highest end users.

• vSphere Support – Provides the foundation for VMware View and helps to extend the power of the datacenter to the desktop environment by delivering powerful business continuity and disaster recovery features such as VMotion, High Availability, Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) and Consolidated Back Up. Optimized specifically for VMware View desktop workloads, VMware vSphere is able to scale to support 1000s of desktops to meet the requirements of even the largest organizations. In addition vCenter helps organizations to manage more than 1,000 hosts and up to 10,000 Virtual Machines from a single console providing a common platform to manage both servers and desktops from the datacenter to the cloud with unparalleled levels of scale, control and automation.

• Simplified Sign On – Addresses the need for a seamless end user experience when logging into a VMware View virtual desktop from a physical thin client or workstation. With Simplified Sign On user credentials entered into the local client can be reused to authenticate the user as they log into their virtual desktop. This makes the login process simple and efficient.

• Restricted Entitlements – Enables to ability to restrict user access to desktop pools based on the connection server being used for access. With connection servers being deployed across different networks, IT organizations can enforce access based on the user’s location. Depending on how the connection server is configured a group of users can be either permitted or denied access to their virtual desktop according to the connection server being used for access.

In addition to PCoIP VMware View 4 supports ALP, RDP and RGS protocols.  Sadly Offline Desktop is still an experimental feature as well as Windows 7 host and guest support.

For additional details and features available in VMware View 4 please see the release notes: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/view_pubs.html

Update: VMware View 4 is still not available for download as of the writing of this post, I really expect to see this within the next week or two.  To be notified when the download is available you can sign up for the evaluation at https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=default

On a side note, for those of you that haven’t noticed, when you visit the VMware website you’ll now be greeted with the new VMware branding as well as a new color scheme….which I’m not sure if I like.

VMware, Cisco and EMC created a new marketing ploy called VCE (Virtual Compute Environment), this will provide technical innovations as well as integrated pre-sales services and support.

What is the product? vBlock.  Think of vBlock as the plug and play data-center solution, it will consist of Cisco UCS/Nexus/MDS, EMC Storage and VMware Virtualization all within a pre-designed and built rack solution - simply drop it in your data-center, plug it in and deploy virtual machines.  This is not really any different than purchasing HP Servers, NetApp Storage and VMware licenses separately. Ultimately it is the same solution, but now with a single SKU that partners will be able to sell.

I can’t say that VCE is really innovative, but it is brilliant from a business standpoint.  It will allow partners to sell a single source solution quickly and easily - no longer will VARs need to bring in multiple vendors to sell the entire design.

Click Here to Learn more about VCE from the CEO’s of Cisco, EMC and VMware.

OK, so where does Intel come into this? Well with some venture capital from Cisco, EMC and Intel a new organization called Acadia is being formed.  Acadia will bring the vCloud into the private data-center.  In a phone conversation today, Chad Sakac informed me that Acadia will provide a pay by usage solution for Enterprise users that aren’t ready for the public cloud. The solution will be completely supported and provided by Acadia and the customer will only be billed for what they use.  Pretty much a vBlock will be dropped into the customers data-center, the end-user will have a self-provisioning utility to create virtual machines and then they’ll receive a bill for actual utilization.  So no capital expense at all, your data-center now turns into a full 100% operating expense.

I didn’t plan on writing a full explanation on who/how/why. Chad Sakac covers all of these topics extremely well on his blog and I invite you to check out the following links;

VCE-An Insiders Take

VCE-Technology Innovations

VCE-Integrated Sales/Service/Support

VCE-Acadia

VCE-Partner Ecosystem

HP VMware ESXi 4.0 solution requires the following:

VMware ESXi 4.0 free downloadable product. To upgrade your license to Enterprise Plus, purchase HP VMware ESXi 4 product 571979-B21.

HP ESXi 4 CIM Providers.

Registration on VMware ESXi hypervisor web page to obtain permanent license serial number.

Acquire your choice of HP supported and qualified media - any HP supported hard drive, USB or SD Flash devices listed below.

Please note that all devices will need to be imaged for ESXi 4.0.

Information about HP supported SD card and USB Flash drive:

• Supported SD card**:
  HP 4GB SD Flash Media
  HP Part Number 580387-B21
  [spare kit part number 583306-001]
• Supported USB Flash Drive**:
  HP 4GB USB Flash Media Drive Key
  HP Part Number 580385-B21
  [Spare kit part number 583307-001]

*Must be purchased separately.
**HP VMware ESXi 4.0 does not support any other USB or SD flash devices

Seems simple, doesn’t it?   Actually it works great and I have put a few dozen servers into production with this method, the best part is no more local HDD which saves even more power!

One question I often get is,  why do you need a 4GB drive, I though ESXi was only 32MB?  Well, even though it is true that ESXi is only 32MB you still need adequate space for the VI Client, VMware Tools (all Operating systems) and upgrade space (for future ESXi patches and releases).  Using a 4GB drive ensures that you’ll have enough space for everything.

There is one problem currently that I am facing, HP has both the SD Card and USB Flash Drive on back-order and there is no expected ETA for either of them!  This has delayed a major project I’m working on and I’ve had to resort to using temporary “junk” USB drives to get the customer by in the mean time.

If someone from HP is reading this, PLEASE get your OEM to produce some new ones ASAP!

San Diego VMUG Meeting
The next San Diego VMUG meeting will be held on October 22nd,
this will feature a recap of VMworld 2009 as well as
special guest Carter Shanklin from VMware to discuss
PowerShell and how to automate your vSphere environment.

Date: Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Time: 12:30pm - 5:30pm *Lunch Will Be Provided*
Location: CareFusion - 3750 Torrey View Court, San Diego, CA 92130
Topics: PowerShell and VMworld 2009

Agenda

So, HA kicked in finally when the host was powered off - however the remaining hosts in their cluster did not have adequate resources to power everything back on.  We needed to get this failed ESX host back online and quick!

Brought in new USB stick with fresh ESXi 4.0 installed, plugged in and powered up.  In the TUI configured the Management Port IP address/gateway/DNS, etc.    But now what, all of the (NFS) Datastores, vSwitch configuration and advanced settings were toast…and they didn’t have Enterprise Plus.

Say Hello to vicfg-cfgbackup.pl — a RCLI command which could be found in the vMA.  This utility will allow you to create a backup and restore a full ESXi configuration.  Luckily we had this (backup) command running on a nightly basis so we knew the configuration was complete.  A simply command and the host was online.

Seeing that ESX is going to be phased out, this RCLI command is a valid alternative for those ESXi users that do not have Enterprise Plus licensing.

The commands vicfg-cfgbackup.pl (esxcfg-cfgbackup.pl) allow you to backup and restore the configuration of your ESXi host.

To backup the host you would run the command.

vicfg-cfgbackup.pl –server <server_name> -s <backup_file_name>

To restore your backup configuration to your host you would run. This will cause the host to reboot once the process is complete. NOTE: The host must be in Maintenance Mode for this to work. The backup configuration must also match the patch level of the ESXi install. You can add a -f to force if needed.

vicfg-cfgbackup.pl –server <server_name> -l <backup_file_name>

A couple weeks ago I was sent an e-mail about a VMware Workstation Technology Preview.  I particularly love these tech previews, mainly because they are great previews of where ESX is going (remember Record/Replay -> FT).

Here is a short list of enhancements found in Workstation 7:

• Aero support for Windows 7 and Vista Guests!
• Windows 7 support (as a Host and Guest OS)
• OpenGL and Shader Model 3.0 support for Windows guests
• Create guests with Multi-core or 4-way CPUs and up to 32GB of Memory
• Download VMware vSphere 4 and install ESX as a guest OS to try out the latest features.
• Dynamically Download the latest VMware Tools package only when you need it.
• Print from your VM without installing printer drivers. Virtual Printing courtesy of our friends at ThinPrint.
• Automatically create snapshots on scheduled intervals with AutoProtect.
• Secure your Virtual Machines with 256-bit encryption.
• Remote Replay Debugging and other advanced development features
• ALSA Sound support on Linux hosts enables multiple VMs to play “music” concurrently.
• Instantly pause a VM to free up system resources or dedicate horsepower to other running VMs.
• The highly acclaimed Linux Virtual Network Editor user interface has been implemented for Windows users.

Some of the biggest enhancements not listed here include Multi-core and Four-way SMP support.  You can now specify how many physical processors and how many cores per processor right from GUI (this would be nice in ESX, right now you must manually edit the VMX file!).

Another would be the support for up to 32GB of RAM in a Virtual Machine and the ability to Pause a Virtual Machine.

Pause a Virtual Machine — Should not be confused with suspending a guest operating system. Pausing a virtual machine frees up system resources that can be dedicated to other virtual machines or operations by the host operating system. Pausing a virtual machine (available from the menu only) immediately halts the operation of a virtual machine.

Another big improvement is with 3D Graphics, OpenGL 2.1 and Shader Model 3.0 support is now available for Windows XP virtual machines.

3D Graphics Improvements — OpenGL 2.1 and Shader Model 3.0 support is now available for Windows XP virtual machines. The XPDM graphics driver works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. However, only Windows XP virtual machines install a graphics driver by default.

This also means you’ll get Aero Glass support in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

This is some exciting stuff coming to the Workstation product line,  wouldn’t mind seeing some of this incorporated into ESX.  One thing I did notice, Record/Replay still only supports 1 vCPU, sorry guys!

Thought I’d give all of my avid readers an update on VMwareTips and my personal life.  For those of you that attended VMworld 2009 you already know there wasn’t too many exciting announcements made.  We have VMware View 4 coming with PC over IP (PCoIP), SRM 4 with its NFS support and more hype of the vCloud and VMware Go, a tool for ESXi users to deploy and manage your systems via a web based tool. Expect some write-ups soon on View 4 and SRM 4, those are set to be released before the end of the calendar year.

As of August 2009 we’ve hit over 70,000 visits per month and over 18,000 unique visitors!  The growth of the site has been phenomenal over the past year and I have no one to thank but my readers!  I pledge to you that the next year will only be better!

Mastering VMware vSphere 4

Earlier this month Sybex published Scott Lowe’s masterpiece “Mastering VMware vSphere 4″which is available on Amazon.com. I had the honor to be the technical editor of this great book and I truly feel this is a great tool for those of you just learning VMware vSphere or simply need a quick reference tool.

VMware Certified Professional 4 (VCP4) Study Guide

I’ve been asked by McGraw-Hill to be the technical editor on an upcoming publication focused on the VCP-410 exam. This book “VMware Certified Professional 4 (VCP4) Study Guide”should be released by January 2010 and will be available on Amazon.com.  Don’t forget that the requirements for the VCP4 certification are successful passing of the VCP-410 exam and also sitting through a certified VMware training session.

VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference

In what would be the third VMware book I’ve worked on, Sybex has once again asked me to be a technical editor on Scott Lowe, Jase McCarty and Matthew Johnson’s upcoming release “VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference”.  Think of this as a smaller pocket guide of the Mastering book. Perfect for those crunch moments, or perhaps some light bathroom reading? Pre-order now on Amazon.com!

TrainSignal vSphere Training

David Davis is at it again with the next edition of their popular video based VMware training series. TrainSignal has asked me to be the Technical Editor for this product and I promise we’ll provide nothing but the best video based training available for VMware vSphere.  Also be sure to keep an eye out for the Cisco Nexus 1000V video training which I will be authoring, this will be included in the vSphere series and should be added around mid November.

I’ve saved the best for last…

Most of you already know, via Twitter, but it is official.  I am now a VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX).  I am one of a few select bunch (< 25), I couldn’t be happier to be part of this elite crew!

And guess what…?!   You can be part of the BETA too! Check out this link and sign up to be part of the distributed virtual switch revolution!