During VMworld I attended a good session on VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) for remote users, presented by HP. To support ROBOs (remote office/branch office) there are two basic architectures.The first is a centralized approach, where one or two datacenters host all the required servers and storage to support all VDI...
Here is the second batch of enterprise storage array questions you can ask prospective vendors. Of course depending on your specific requirements, you will likely have additional questions, and some in this list may not be relevant.Array Partitioning (Virtual Arrays)Note: Array partitioning is a fairly rare feature on arrays which...
Enterprise class storage arrays are technological marvels, and thus are the most expensive storage on the planet. Think you can slap in a 1TB drive for $200? NOT! Think $20K or more per TB. But what do you get for that $20K? Well that's a bit more tricky, and where...
Today I attended a killer session at VMworld 2009 on getting the most performance out of your disk array with VMware. After the session, my head was spinning with all the new information and the realization that optimizing your vSphere storage can be non-trivial. If you attended VMware world, please...
In a previous blog I mentioned that VMware is working on a client hypervisor called the Client Virtualization Platform (CVP). That product is not yet released, but I found another vendor (NxTop) on the showroom floor which IS shipping a client hypervisor TODAY. In fact, they have numerous DoD customers...
During one of the sessions today on storage sprawl the speaker recommended a three tiered storage architecture. He suggested:Tier 3: OS images; SATA storageTier 2: General application data and binaries; FC storageTier 1: Page files and databases; FC storageHis rationale was once an OS is booted, very few I/Os occur...
VMware is doing a private beta/preview of Workstation 7.0. While I can't reveal the new features due to a NDA, other people have leaked some of the possible new features. Google is your friend! Today I asked a VMware guy when the planned release was, and decoding his carefully worded...
VMware has a good whitepaper on setting up a Microsoft fail-over cluster in vSphere. Unfortunately there are number of restrictions when using Microsoft clustering with VMware vSphere, which really put a damper on the practices in certain environments. The following environments and functionality are not supported for MSCS setups with...
One of the best sessions to date of VMworld was discussing virtualizing SQL 2008 in vSphere. VMware has written a lengthy whitepaper going over the gory details. In short, you will likely get 86% or better of bare metal performance if you virtualize SQL with vSphere, even for the most...
At VMworld VMware is showing off a preview of their client hypervisor. When combined with their VMware View product, it virtualizes the client hardware yet gives you the full desktop experience..online or offline. You can then check in or check out VMs, create new client images, all with hardware independence....
Today at VMworld HP announced their the HP Insight Control for vCenter. In a nut shell, HP is adding a new tab in vCenter which allows you to quickly monitor hardware health with one button launch to iLO, SIM, or power stats. Red/yellow/green lights for many subsystems let you quickly...
Later this year VMware will be releasing a software only version of PCoIP. What is PCoIP? Teradici developed the protocol to compete with RDP and ICA, but offer a richer multi-media experience. Their original product requires specialized hardware on both the server and client end. However, the LAN experience is...