Just found this again and possible looking to sign up...been around some time but wanted to bring it to attention.

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virtualization.info Rent-A-Lab

Found a nifty trick today to help solve a outstanding issue for a customer.

"How to Use the Remote Command-line Interface to Invoke Storage Vmotion in Windows Server or Desktop."
B2V Guide to VMware ESX Server 3
Last Updated 5th January 2008 by Alistair Sutherland
http://b2v.co.uk/b2vguide2vmware3.htm

To perform remote command line operations on an ESX host on versions of ESX up to 3.0.2, required either direct console access or using secure shell, e.g. Putty. As of ESX 3.5.0, there is a new alternative which is called RCLI.

There are 3 RCLI options

1. RCLI Appliance (a ready-made downloadable VM appliance built on Debian Linux)
2. RCLI for Windows
3. RCLI for Linux

These three options bring the ability to run a subset of the commands available at the service console remotely without having to grant ssh access to the actual console. This RCLI interface provides the ability for users of VMware ESX Server 3i (hardware embedded hypervisor) to run the esxcfg commands.

Further, this interface is the only interface that a storage VMotion can be invoked from. To download the RCLI appliance, Windows installer or Linux installer, visit http://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=VI-RCLI and accept the EULA to reach the download links page.

 http://www.vmware.com/download/eula.do

Download Remote CLI

Click here for information about using MD5 checksums.

So this certainly adds some ammunition for VMware’s coming stoush with Microsoft in the Battle of the Hypervisors?

It makes you wonder who’s next on VMware’s radar?

VMware acquires Thinstall

Just yesterday virtualization.info published the news about a possible acqusition of VMware in the application virtualization market, speculating that the acquired firm could be FastScale.

The official announcement comes today, clarifing the actual acquired company and the company strategy behind the move:

VMware, Inc. , the virtualization software leader, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Thinstall, a privately-held application virtualization software company headquartered in San Francisco. VMware is acquiring Thinstall to expand its desktop virtualization capabilities which help customers better provision, deploy and update desktop environments. The terms of the acquisition, which is expected to be completed in the current fiscal quarter, subject to customary closing conditions, were not disclosed…

The acquisition of Thinstall and its use for VDI scenarios extended the competition front with Microsoft (which acquired Softricity application vendor in June 2006) and Citrix, and brings the company a notable set of OEM partnerships: with LANDesk (March 2007), with Provision Networks (July 2007), with BMC (September 2007) and with Macrovision (October 2007).

Given the strong focus of Thinstall on Microsoft platforms, the acquisition seems to validate an important point, often emerging in surveys: large majority of virtual machines contain Windows guest OSes.

At the same time this acquition validates once and forever the fact that application virtualization is considered one the next mainstream technology for most major players: before VMware, Microsoft acquired Softricity, Citrix acquired Ardence, Symantec acquired Altiris and even Google acquired GreenBorder.

Thinstall is the 7th acquisition for VMware. Before it the virtualization player acquired Akimbi (June 2006), Propero (April 2007), Determina (August 2007), Dunes Technologies (September 2007), Sciant (October 2007) and Foedus (January 2008).

If the trend continues VMware will acquire a new company per month.

virtualization.info: VMware acquires Thinstall

Last week, I was joined by consultants from xtraVirt at the World Trade Center in Barcelona to implement an Virtual Farm upgrade for ESX 2.5.2 to the new Vi3 ESX (3.0.2).

Be aware of xtraVirt in the marketplace.  These guys are not only technically astute virtualistaion experts but also business savy strategist with extreme creative flare and a natual nack for solving issues and overcoming tough challenges.  First, know xtraVirt.  These  guys deserve some marketing as I was sincerely impressed with their designs and ideas and what they had to bring to the table for  large-scale enterprise Virtual Server implentations, and associated p2v, v2p scenarios.

In fact they've just released a new vmish guide for ESX 3.5 which is well worth some time getting to grips with.  You can find the PDF here. http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=113&Itemid=64    Vimsh, the interactive shell buffer, allows execution of shell commands in a vim buffer, without having to suspend the vim session, effectively offering a interactive command line session. So good stuff.  VI3 pros will find this utility handy.
 

Second, I wanted to talk about an major issue we had with the particular 2.5.2 builds we encountered at this customer's Data Center.  After carrying the usual precautionary steps of backing VMs with VRanager Pro, we began pushing the auto-scripted build to the hosts, but half way thorugh the deploymnet process, the upgrade began to error. The install PIDs begain indicating \usr directory space issues.

In the end, we simply left the VMFS partion intact as is, vms remaining untouched since the vmkernel would not load.  And set the directories as follows:

/ = 5GB
/boot = 500mb
swap =8GB  *Determined via memory.
/home = 1000mb
/temp=2000mb
/var=2000mb
/usr=4000mb       *Programs Directory
/opt=2000mb
vmkcore=500mb

After the effective fresh install now, we then VMFS3 upgrade to VMFS3 and then added the individual Virtual Machines to the host with the same name, then selecting the orginal VMDKs.    And volla, everything was sorted.  Even VMTs were installed on top and then Time Sync set. 

One note is that after un upgrade of VMware Tools, the NIC drivers will be striped, so all TCP/IP configs will require re-setting, thus I would recommend a ipconfig /all >c:\ip.txt before the ESX install process.

Hope this helps other Virtualisation Experts.

For all those SBC consultants, admins out there, have a read of a September 26 article from Brian Madden

VDI for hundreds of apps and thousands of users?
A case study where we recommended this instead of a Terminal Server-based solution

But can VDI come out a niche and into the main stream?

The ending is key:
"If so, then bravo Citrix! Can we just please have Presentation Server and Desktop server integrated into a single farm in a single product? Can you integrate it with Ardence and XenSource? And can you make it cost less than $1200 per CCU? If not, well, whatever. This SoftGrid/Provision/VMware/Ardence solution looks pretty"

Not sure about my thoughts yet, but the hardware investment alone is just not mentioned for what would make fuly VDI solution possible.  I mean, <=32 VMs per PowerEdge 6850...is this really a good cost to power ratio? 

Event Overview
In this session, we move away from tradition, and bring you a new style of TechNet event; one driven by powerful product demo’s and bleeding edge technology.  We will start by explaining the environment we will be working in, then jump straight into a Server deployment, using Windows Deployment Services.  Once deployed, this new server will form part of a server cluster, with workloads subsequently created to run on this cluster.  These workloads will be created using a fantastic new technology, namely, Windows Server Virtualisation, with which we’ll create a number of Virtual Machines; Domain Controller, DNS & DHCP VM’s and we’ll also create a Windows Server 2008 ‘Server Core’ installation, before your very eyes.  Once complete, we’ll explore clustering further, specifically, the failing over of workloads between nodes.  We’ll close with a section dedicated to managing this infrastructure, using tools such as System Center Operations Manager (SCOM, formerly Microsoft Operations Manager, MOM), System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and the fantastic new command line shell and scripting language; PowerShell.

My thoughts:
I was not so surprised to see the similarity to ESX Virtual Centre and Infrastructure Client to SCVMM but I was duly impressed to hear the difference between the hypervisor technologies between ESX and SCVMM. Also, there were quite a few industry comments on what Intel are up to with their new chips.  More on this later....

 System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 How To Videos

 ENTERPRISE OPERATING SYSTEM DEPLOYMENTS

My latest project has been to take a walk back to the good ole days with Unattended Setups and Sysprep in order to standardise the Windows Server Operating System across a server fleet made up of more than 2000 servers, globally.

But this time, I'm doing with a twist after all the years of learning to apply.     Its good revisit the roots of how its all put together.

This is the beginning of the process, a HTML (hta) Front End application auto-launched from within a customised WinPE (Windows Pre-Installation) 2.0 Boot Environment.

THE KEY:  Behind each choice lies the following commands which begin the Windows Unattended Install based on flavour, whether Standard, Enterprise or Web, the 64-Bit versions of each OS have a diff

SUB osinstall
Main.InnerHTML = Main.InnerHTML &"<br>Initiating install..."
sh.Run "%windir%\avis\sleep.vbs 2", 0, True
SELECT CASE stros

CASE "std"
sh.Run "Z:\STANDARD_10300\i386\winnt32.exe /S:Z:\STANDARD_10300\i386\ /tempdrive:c /unattend:Z:\STANDARD_10300\i386\S10300untd.txt /syspart:C /noreboot", 1, True

CASE "ent"
sh.Run "Z:\W2K3\ENTERPRISE_10200\i386\winnt32.exe /S:Z:\W2K3\ENTERPRISE_10200\i386 /tempdrive:c /unattend:Z:\W2K3\ENTERPRISE_10200\E10200untd.txt /syspart:C /noreboot", 1, True

CASE "web"
sh.Run "Z:\W2K3\WEB_10200\i386\winnt32.exe /S:Z:\W2K3\WEB_10200\i386 /tempdrive:c /unattend:Z:\W2K3\WEB_10200\W10200untd.txt /syspart:C /noreboot", 1, True

END SELECT

Quit

END SUB

THE CONSEQUENCE: Within this one single interface and with only one mouse-click, a 2 1/2 HOUR OS Deployment process begins with absolutely no need for user intervention and giving a 100% HII (Hardware Independent Image) complete with routines and scripts which will deploy the entire sever fleet taking account over 11 hardware models from both DELL and HP....Awesome stuff!

Robocopy Standard on Windows Vista

It appears that RoboCopy.exe is a standard command line tool in Windows Vista and it includes additional options.  Previously this was only available via the windows resource kit.  The help command from the Windows Vista Robocopy returns:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY     ::     Robust File Copy for Windows     ::     Version XP027
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Started : Fri Feb 10 15:53:25 2006

              Usage :: ROBOCOPY source destination [file [file]...] [options]

             source :: Source Directory (drive:\path or \\server\share\path).
        destination :: Destination Dir  (drive:\path or \\server\share\path).
               file :: File(s) to copy  (names/wildcards: default is "*.*").

::
:: Copy options :
::
                 /S :: copy Subdirectories, but not empty ones.
                 /E :: copy subdirectories, including Empty ones.
             /LEV:n :: only copy the top n LEVels of the source directory tree.

                 /Z :: copy files in restartable mode.
                 /B :: copy files in Backup mode.
                /ZB :: use restartable mode; if access denied use Backup mode.
            /EFSRAW :: copy all encrypted files in EFS RAW mode.

  /COPY:copyflag[s] :: what to COPY for files (default is /COPY:DAT).
                       (copyflags : D=Data, A=Attributes, T=Timestamps).
                       (S=Security=NTFS ACLs, O=Owner info, U=aUditing info).

           /DCOPY:T :: COPY Directory Timestamps.

               /SEC :: copy files with SECurity (equivalent to /COPY:DATS).
           /COPYALL :: COPY ALL file info (equivalent to /COPY:DATSOU).
            /NOCOPY :: COPY NO file info (useful with /PURGE).

            /SECFIX :: FIX file SECurity on all files, even skipped files.
            /TIMFIX :: FIX file TIMes on all files, even skipped files.

             /PURGE :: delete dest files/dirs that no longer exist in source.
               /MIR :: MIRror a directory tree (equivalent to /E plus /PURGE).

               /MOV :: MOVe files (delete from source after copying).
              /MOVE :: MOVE files AND dirs (delete from source after copying).

     /A+:[RASHCNET] :: add the given Attributes to copied files.
     /A-:[RASHCNET] :: remove the given Attributes from copied files.

            /CREATE :: CREATE directory tree and zero-length files only.
               /FAT :: create destination files using 8.3 FAT file names only.
               /256 :: turn off very long path (> 256 characters) support.

             /MON:n :: MONitor source; run again when more than n changes seen.
             /MOT:m :: MOnitor source; run again in m minutes Time, if changed.

      /RH:hhmm-hhmm :: Run Hours - times when new copies may be started.
                /PF :: check run hours on a Per File (not per pass) basis.

             /IPG:n :: Inter-Packet Gap (ms), to free bandwidth on slow lines.

::
:: File Selection Options :
::
                 /A :: copy only files with the Archive attribute set.
                 /M :: copy only files with the Archive attribute and reset it.
    /IA:[RASHCNETO] :: Include only files with any of the given Attributes set.
    /XA:[RASHCNETO] :: eXclude files with any of the given Attributes set.

 /XF file [file]... :: eXclude Files matching given names/paths/wildcards.
 /XD dirs [dirs]... :: eXclude Directories matching given names/paths.

                /XC :: eXclude Changed files.
                /XN :: eXclude Newer files.
                /XO :: eXclude Older files.
                /XX :: eXclude eXtra files and directories.
                /XL :: eXclude Lonely files and directories.
                /IS :: Include Same files.
                /IT :: Include Tweaked files.

             /MAX:n :: MAXimum file size - exclude files bigger than n bytes.
             /MIN:n :: MINimum file size - exclude files smaller than n bytes.

          /MAXAGE:n :: MAXimum file AGE - exclude files older than n days/date.
          /MINAGE:n :: MINimum file AGE - exclude files newer than n days/date.
          /MAXLAD:n :: MAXimum Last Access Date - exclude files unused since n.
          /MINLAD:n :: MINimum Last Access Date - exclude files used since n.
                       (If n < 1900 then n = n days, else n = YYYYMMDD date).

                /XJ :: eXclude Junction points. (normally included by default).

               /FFT :: assume FAT File Times (2-second granularity).
               /DST :: compensate for one-hour DST time differences.

::
:: Retry Options :
::
               /R:n :: number of Retries on failed copies: default 1 million.
               /W:n :: Wait time between retries: default is 30 seconds.

               /REG :: Save /R:n and /W:n in the Registry as default settings.

               /TBD :: wait for sharenames To Be Defined (retry error 67).

::
:: Logging Options :
::
                 /L :: List only - don't copy, timestamp or delete any files.
                 /X :: report all eXtra files, not just those selected.
                 /V :: produce Verbose output, showing skipped files.
                /TS :: include source file Time Stamps in the output.
                /FP :: include Full Pathname of files in the output.
             /BYTES :: Print sizes as bytes.

                /NS :: No Size - don't log file sizes.
                /NC :: No Class - don't log file classes.
               /NFL :: No File List - don't log file names.
               /NDL :: No Directory List - don't log directory names.

                /NP :: No Progress - don't display % copied.
               /ETA :: show Estimated Time of Arrival of copied files.

          /LOG:file :: output status to LOG file (overwrite existing log).
         /LOG+:file :: output status to LOG file (append to existing log).

       /UNILOG:file :: output status to LOG file as UNICODE (overwrite existing log).
      /UNILOG+:file :: output status to LOG file as UNICODE (append to existing log).

               /TEE :: output to console window, as well as the log file.

               /NJH :: No Job Header.
               /NJS :: No Job Summary.

::
:: Job Options :
::
       /JOB:jobname :: take parameters from the named JOB file.
      /SAVE:jobname :: SAVE parameters to the named job file
              /QUIT :: QUIT after processing command line (to view parameters).
              /NOSD :: NO Source Directory is specified.
              /NODD :: NO Destination Directory is specified.
                /IF :: Include the following Files.

NOTE:   I have been unable to copy this version Windows XP/2003 and run as normal.  Seems there are additional dependencies.  More investigation required here.

VDI, as a Enterprise Technology ,is one of the key growth areas I'm seeing. 

Just catching up on some Industry News this evening...and not sure about all the readers here, but there is No Escape from the acronym VDI, i.e, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, in today's market space.

Big players are coming to the table folks and we are truly about to see a INFRASTRUCTURE REVOLUTION where I feel the non-virtualised infrastructure will be a thing of the past, both SME and Enterprise.

So who's got a place at the table?

The First 3rd Pary Connection Brokers:
First up, we've got Citrix's Desktop Broker.  Read more here:  Citrix Systems
(NOTE: I don't personally see VDI as a rival to Citrix and TS multi-user shared server environments, but rather an opportunity for Citrix to expand its already feature-rich "application delivery" architecture into VDI giving each user a virtual PC (a virtual session), and guess what, Citrix are already there with their Dynamic Desktop Delivery Solution "Desktop Broker for Presentation Server"...go Citrix...I know, I am slightly biased, but hey, I love the product offerings and the multitude of capabilities incumbent in the Access Suite range...so I gotta give a plug there.)

Then Zeus with their ZXTM VDB providing the middleware to link users at login with virtual Windows PCs running atop VMware's ESX Server or Microsoft Virtual Server.And now VMware have just announced a complete ESX integration with Propero’s workSpace virtualization platform.

And the open source player, XenSource.

So what is the DB service?
Essentially a Desktop Broker service is the key ingredient of the VDI end-to-end solution. 

The ideas behind VDI:

1. centralization
2. access control
3.  IP retention

all appeal to businesses.

All I can say is:  get ready for the INFRASTRUCTURE REVOLUTION. 

More VDI Players:

• ChipPC Virtual Desktop Center
• Dunes Virtual Desktop Orchestrator (VD-O) and Virtual Service Orchestrator (VS-O)
• LeoStream Virtual Desktop Connection Broker
• Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite (VAS)

Learn more about VDI here: msterminalservices.org and here: The best way to deliver Windows Desktops

I found it hard to find a definitive list on the internet for what ports needed opening for Active Directory to replication between Firewalls.  Here are my findings and all is working so, hope this helps someone else.