Chris Farris

$1500 for a new ESXi server for vSphere 4.1 is a bit high. Unlike this guy, I have a lab in the basement so decibles aren’t as important as capex and opex costs. Plus, to have a lab in the basement where I can do things with a cluster would require two of these beasties. Running a second on the iMac i7 probably won’t cut it. Last time I needed a lab for something it was because a network change crapped out 1/4 of my primary vSwitch.

I’m beginning to think vmware people are cult-like. Show And Tell : First vSphere Plugin for WordPress! | Nickapedia.

More iPad tastiness – “The iPad Will Be The Best Thing To Happen For Desktop Virtualization & VDI Adoption” – Liberty Technology Blog. Excellent read on the iPad as a desktop virtualization thin client. If you’ve seen any science fiction (StarTrek, Babylon 5, etc) they all use iPad/tablet like computers. The traditional laptop/desktop form factor requires you working at a desk. If you’re doing anything standing up, normal computers fail.

Note to self: VMware ESXi performance monitoring with Cacti | Bernhard Bock.

So about 20 days after I get my stuff (new HD, Snow Leopard, Fusion2) to upgrade my MacBook Pro (one of the first intel models) VMware goes and releases Fusion 3. I was just outside the free upgrade window. Bah! I’d installed Fusion, created me an Ubuntu and XP Guest, and verified I had installed all the windows apps I might need in an emergency (ie VSphere 4 client). Fusion2 had some nice features.

VMware Self-Service- Setting up mirrored folders for your Mac and virtual machine. This looks kick-ass. I wonder how the performance is.

I’ve not tested this as I don’t have a Win7 VM anywhere (yet). Cavet Emptor. VMware vSphere Client on Microsoft Windows 7! | Virtual Lifestyle.

How to open CLI to VMware ESXi. How to Clone Virtual Machines. | HowConfig.

In case anyone was wondering, you can run the VI client inside Parallels Desktop on a Mac. As I plan to switch to VMware Fusion if I get Snow Leopard for my birthday I hope it works in that too. I’d really like to virtualize my Windows box. Ew, assuming I can get the USB pass through to work in ESXi. I need to be able to use the scanner in my VM.

So a few months ago I started thinking about virtualization and the future of my profession (System Administration). So much of the hassle we have involves software compatibility issues with libraries and the code that runs on it. My thoughts were that is would be much easier if, instead of big OSes with lots of services running on it, we had a micro-distribution running just a single application. A DNS or Mail server could be shipped as a virtual appliance with some form of hooks for shared storage via NFS or MySQL for its configuration information.