Well, today was the big day that all of us with VMware NDAs plastered all over our cube walls have been waiting for: The official launch of VMware vSphere 4 (and the lifting of a heavy gag order).

There has been much going on today between the regular line up of expected blog posts and Twitter feeds going off faster than I can read.  It all started off at about 11:30 pm Central Time last night when Twitter started going crazy and VMware's site was updated.  The last 24 hours has seen lots of pent up writing and screenshots dumped all over the Internet by people who have spent a lot more time with vSphere betas than I have.  Therefore, I will not only link to the best information, rather than recreate it, but I will rely heavily on linking to link compilations that other trusted bloggers have created.

Condensed version of the press release:
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2009/04/introducing-vmware-vsphere-4-the-industrys-first-cloud-operating-system.html

I'm assuming most of the people who are going to find value out of this post will not be perusing the regular blogs, so I'm going to start with the basics:

 

New licensing and pricing structure

Instead of the old three tier pricing of VI3, vSphere now has six price/feature tiers (two of which are targeted at the SMB market).

The details are here:
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

Edition comparison chart:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html

Jason Boche notes some specific observations on the new licensing:
http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2009/04/21/vsphere-licensing-notables/

 

New features

Particular notables from my perspective: 

What's new overview:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center/overview.html#whatsnew

Extensive listing of features (old and new) and related editions:
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/key_features_vsphere.pdf

Again to Jason Boche for a series of screen shots of some updated and new features:
http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2009/04/20/a-random-collection-of-whats-new-vsphere-eye-candy/

 

Learn more

http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2009/04/vmware-vsphere-resources-and-webcasts.html

http://vmetc.com/2009/04/21/vsphere-announced-now-what-for-vmware-customers/

http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2009/04/vmware-launches-vsphere.html

Performance notables:
http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1075-VMware-vSphereTM-4-Sets-New-Records-in-Virtualization-Performance.html

 

A bit of everything (the relinking links)

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/04/21/vsphere-linkage/

http://vmware-land.com/vSphere_Links.html

 

Upgrade process

VMware has done a pretty good job providing information to enable customers to upgrade.  I will add that you should immediately go out to VMware's licensing portal and make sure you can log in.  Then validate the data they have is accurate and complete, including SnS.

Upgrade advisor:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center/advisor/

Upgrade prereqs:
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere-migration-prerequisites-checklist.pdf

Hardware compatibility (note that vSphere is x64 only):
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

I'm sure there's more, so I may add to this list, but this will keep you busy for awhile!

Embarassingly late, but here's my final update from VMware's Partner Exchange 2009

The last full day started with Steve Herrod's keynote, where he went over some of the details of vSphere, including the packages and pricing.  If you like choices you'll have plenty of them real soon.  Unfortunately most of the information wasn't terribly new, but Dr. Herrod always has a way of keeping the content interesting.

The rest of the day I spent doing more of the same -- attending sessions and networking with many different people.  The highlight of the sessions was the Architecture Design of View, which didn't give me much in the way of new knowledge, but prompted a lot of great thoughts for service delivery and presentations.

On Friday, we got to attend a Cisco boot camp that introduced the Nexus 1000v.  It provided a lot of great information, but didn't provide the hands on opportunity I was hoping for.  It was well worth staying another half day for though.  Then it was finally time to head home.

All in all, Partner Exchange was a great opportunity I'm glad I didn't miss out on.  I'd like to thank everyone who made this possible and all the great people I met up with, both old VMWorld friends and new acquaintances. 

Yesterday’s keynote started with Carl Eschenbach, VMware’s VP for Global Sales, who presented a series of improvements to the Partner Program.  Being a recent addition to the Partner community, I have felt some of the pains with the online access to Partner information, but have had little introduction to the program itself.  I have to admit to being very impressed with the changes they are making to the program.  Though most of the improvements will only be seen by the Partners, I think the agility and access to resources will be felt by the customers.  Very cool stuff.

The sessions I attended varied by content, but definitely had a focus directly on vSphere or preparing for vSphere.  There is so much to absorb, I think describing it as a fire hose drinking experience doesn’t do it justice.  Maybe drinking from a tidal wave?  A tsunami?  Either way, I expect to be doing a lot of vSphere upgrades in the next few years.

The best of the sessions was definitely Architecture Design for vSphere.  This session was a 4 hour session structured with an upfront presentation followed by 1.5 hours of design session with a group of 5-6 people and about 30 minutes of presentation, justification and discussion.  It was really great to be presented with a scenario, then work through the requirements with a group of experienced engineers.  The presenters also shared some established mins/maxes and best practices.  It was a great learning experience and I am planning on attending the same type of session for View this afternoon.

The party last night was very subdued compared to VMWorld parties.  I assume that is because we’re not “customers”, therefore not worthy of the big fancy party. J  It was a good time to kick back and relax and continue the good conversations.

Day two started off with the typical keynotes, this time featuring VMware COO Tod Nielsen and Intel General Manager for Server Platforms Boyd Davis.  Mr. Nielsen gave a great presentation showing the partner perspective of the typical VMware keynote talking points, which included a lot of market facts.  Mr. Davis discussed Intel’s contributions to VMware’s vision, focusing mainly on their enablement to VMware’s newer features (i.e. EVC, vCloud).

The sessions I attend, including a vSphere lab, were all pretty good.  So far, after two days of presentations, I think I have a record number notes (which is a big deal for me!).

Evening activities included the Welcome Reception, a Tweetup and a party put on by Avnet.  Met or reconnected with some great people and had awesome conversations at each step.

I now need to admit that it’s really hard practically starting my blog at a conference where most of what I hear is covered under NDA.  What I will say is that, fortunately, most of it will be sharable soon.

Some great quotes from yesterday:

- Regarding VDI deployments: “Consolidate Complexity – Distribute Simplicity” 

- Regarding pilots: “Success in the core will spread”

- Regarding purpose of VDI: “Provision users, not desktops/devices”

A few hints I picked up:

- Make sure you know how to login to VMware’s licensing portal and that all licenses are there.

- There is a lot of new or updated stuff coming in the next year from VMware and it’s partners.  Take advantage of your trusted partner to at least help you figure it all out, even if don’t have them implement it.

Looking forward to another great day (unfortunately I’m not looking forward to the poor wireless, but I guess that’s not a critical success factor)…

Yesterday was the first day of VMware Partner Exchange, and was lucking enough to be invited to join in on the Partner Technical Advisory Board (PTAB).  Obviously I can’t go into too much detail, but I can tell you that there were about 30 or so of us in a room together for about 13 hours straight.   I left with a headache, but I’m not sure if that was because of the fact the room was 60F, getting 4 hours of sleep, intensity of content and discussion, or the uncomfortable chair that started killing my back after about 8 hours.

Overall, it was a great experience.  It was a series of presentations that generated a lot of great discussions and introduced us to some of VMware’s future products and features.  They even had a couple of presenters that would throw out ideas just to see if it was a feature we thought was worth developing.  Meeting some of the elites within the partner community was definitely a highlight as well.

I’m really hoping to be honored with a request at VMWorld.  Special thanks to Sean and Don at VMware for nominating me and Danny for selecting me for this great opportunity.

Ever wonder how they come up with serial numbers for HP servers?  Take this for instance serial number (made this up on my own, so any match to a real serial number is completely coincidental): USE8441234.  Here's what each piece means:

• US = Country Code, in this case, obviously the United States
• E = Site Code, possibly Houston, but I can't find anything definitive
• 844 = Manufacture Date, 2008 week 44
• 1234 = Unique Sequential Identifier, the unit number for that week

Not entirely useful for anything other than trivia, but it is something fun to understand.

I had to update the IP address of a VMware SRM server recently, but after the update, the SRM service wouldn’t start.  Of course...why should that be that simple?!

Symptoms:

   

From %AppData%\VMware\VMware Site Recovery Manager\Logs\vmware-dr-x.log:

[2009-03-25 15:50:20.800 'MainVcConnection' 2024 info] VC Connection: Logging in as user 'srm.service' [2009-03-25 15:50:21.050 'MainVcConnection' 2024 info] VC Connection: Logged in session 90C5B71A-7DB4-4E53-9E1F-22B879DE3722 [2009-03-25 15:50:21.691 'App' 2024 error] The proxy spec for extension com.vmware.vcDr points to 192.168.254.12, not to this host [2009-03-25 15:50:21.691 'DrServiceInstance' 2024 error] Registration with the local VC server is not valid [2009-03-25 15:50:21.691 'DrServiceInstance' 2024 warning] Initializing service content: Unexpected exception 'class Vmacore::Exception' Registration with the local VC server is not valid [2009-03-25 15:50:21.691 'App' 2024 error] Application error: Registration with the local VC server is not valid. Shutting down ... [2009-03-25 15:50:21.800 'App' 1516 info] [serviceWin32,414] vmware-dr service stopped

Ah-ha!  vCenter is pointing to the old IP, which clearly isn’t this SRM server.  That’s why the service isn’t starting.

Turns out that when SRM configures vCenter it gives it the SRM server’s IP address instead of it’s hostname/FQDN.  So much for DNS rules all VMware environments.

 

So where to change this setting?

Running C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Site Recovery Manager\bin\srm-config -cmd info -cfg ../config/vmware-dr.xml provides me the following information:

 

So, it’s the SRM extension that’s holding onto the old IP.

 

The fix:

1.       Update the IP address in C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Site Recovery Manager\config\extension.xml file in two spots

a.       <server>
     <url>http://192.168.254.12:8095</url>

b.      <client>
     <url>http://192.168.254.12:8096/VMware-srmplugin.exe</url>

2.       Run C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Site Recovery Manager\bin\srm-config -cmd updateext -cfg ../config/vmware-dr.xml –extcfg ../config/extension.xml

And voila…

Just registered for my sessions at VMware's Partner Exchange conference in April.  This is kind of a mini-VMWorld for VMware partners...or so I assume, since I've never been to one.  The main reason I'll be going is so I can attend the invitation-only Partner Technical Advisory Board (PTAB).  It's an additional whole day of content before Partner Exchange.  I'm excited and honored to be given this opportunity.