Virtual Disks.  They are single file containers that hold entire file systems within them (think of the Galaxy Marbles in Men in Black!)  Operating systems blissfully run within them without any knowledge of the outside hypervisors. Very nice from a management perspective.  Need a quick backup, just copy the file and you are good to go.  Need an exact byte by byte copy of that server’s C drive, just copy the file and you are good to go.  Very useful and tidy in their current form.

One of the more annoying things for me that has come out of the Hypervisor Wars between Microsoft, VMware and Citrix is the 2 different standards of Virtual Disk file formats.  Microsoft and Citrix have standardized on Virtual Hard Disks(VHDs) while VMware was first to release their Virtual Machine Disks (VMDKs).  In my opinion, there is no real difference between the two formats.  Operationally though, they are incompatible.  I think in most other scenarios, this might be acceptable since most users would choose a hypervisor and run with it.  Even changing between the hypervisors isn’t too difficult with the availability of various conversion tools and methods.  I take issue with the whole situation when I am using solutions that run various products concurrently which are now leveraging the different (and incompatible) formats. 

Take for example a common VDI solution leveraging Citrix Provisioning Services with Citrix XenDesktop running on top of VMware’s vSphere platform.  Citrix Provisioning leverages vDisks (VHDs) to stream an Operating System to a XenDesktop target running as a vSphere Virtual Machine (VMDK).  Everything is fine until you realize how GREAT it would be to mount that VHD directly in ESX to make some modifications to it (Update VM Tools or a NIC driver).  Can’t do it unless you go through a kludge process of converting the VHD to VMDK and then back again.  Under Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V, mounting that VHD is a simple supported process.  Even Windows 7 can now directly boot VHDs!

As I create a mental tally in my head, I am currently counting more products out there that are leveraging the VHD format than the VMDK format.  VHDs are and will continue to be an excellent way to evaluate the newest Microsoft Back Office software.

I’m definitely not advocating that VMware change it’s file format from VMDK to VHD but would love to see them begin to support VHDs natively.  It’s not enough to convert them on the fly to VMDKs since sometimes I need to bring them back to their original programs (i.e. Citrix Provisioning Services).

Come on VMware!

As published on VMwareInfo.com:

In case you missed them this month, Citrix published 2 KB articles detailing the End Of Life support plans for their current XenDesktop products. 

XenDesktop 3 is end of life at the end of this year, and there won’t be patches after 10/28/10.  XenDesktop 4 however, will be supported through 5/2014.

XenDesktop 3 – http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124351 
XenDesktop 4 – http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124352

It’s interesting to me that XD3 which was released in February 2009 will have it’s support pulled so soon while XD4 is slated to have support until 2014.  From my perspective, it seems that most of the XD3 implementations where still in Test/Dev while XD4 has made inroads into production environments making support of the product more critical and requiring the customers to upgrade more of an issue.  I would imagine that from now to 2014, at least 2 more major revisions will be released to the public. XenDesktop 6 anyone?

As published on VMwareInfo.com:

Even though the iPad will not hit the streets until Saturday, iTunes is starting to show iPad applications.  One of interest is the GotoMeeting application.  Jump on that webinar from wherever!

Although released on April Fools, Chris Hahn has verified that the download and application are in fact real.
Check it out for yourself @ http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gotomeeting/id363452804?mt=8

Originally Published on VMwareInfo.com:

If you are reading this post and your machine keeps shutting down every 2 hours, you might be running a Beta version of Windows 7!

That was almost me about 3 weeks ago.  I got this notification from my system tray followed up by an official email from Microsoft (** on the bottom) letting me know that my beta version of Windows 7 (that I had been running gleefully for about 7 months) was about to EXPIRE.  Oh and yeah, beginning March 1st, the machine would shut down every 2 hours!  Nice!  To further complicate matters, there is no LEGIT way of upgrading from a Beta copy to a Released version of Windows 7.  It is recommended to wipe the machine and start from scratch.  Although there were some hacks to upgrade the Beta version, I took the opportunity to wipe the machine and go from a 32 bit Beta straight to 64 Bit Production!

I personally am always nervous to wipe my laptop and start from scratch in fear of screwing up my productivity.  As a consultant, I use my laptop as my primary machine and use it everyday.  I have tons of little tweaks and programs that I never remember until I need them.  Here are three solid practices I used this time around for a successful wipe and rebuild.

1) I P2V’d my laptop to an external USB drive. This worked out great for me.  I had a 320 GB passport USB drive that was fully capable of storing my 250GB Laptop image.  After P2Ving the machine, I wiped the laptop, installed the new OS and immediately installed VMware Workstation.  With the base OS and Workstation running, I was able to fire up my P2V’d Laptop Virtual Machine directly from the USB drive and copy things from the VM to the REAL laptop.  This also gave me an opportunity to ‘remember’ how I had everything set up and what programs I had installed.  A great reference for me to use while rebuilding the machine.

2) I bookmarked all the cool utilities/programs/tweaks I found using Delicious.com. Although I started this practice a little too late, I had been bookmarking all the neat things I installed on my laptop with Delicious with the tag of REBUILD.  The idea behind this one is clear.  After rebuilding my machine, sign into Delicious and begin downloading all the programs again.

3) I never used the Windows Settings Transfer Wizard. Rather than having all the junk from my old build dragged into my new build, I leveraged the P2V’d image.  For many applications, I took the defaults for the installations and then just overwrote the Program Files Application directory with it’s equivalent from the Virtual Machine.  This worked great for many applications that I had done a lot of customizations on.  Firefox is a perfect example.  All the Add-ons and tweaks are stored in the file structure so after the initial install and copy, the application was back exactly the way I wanted it.

So after a couple of days of reinstalling programs, copying down documents, and changing things around, I am now 100% back to my 80% productive self. 64 Bit no less!

On a side note, I don’t really notice much difference between my old 32bit version of Win7 and my new 64Bit Win7 – Even with the FULL 4GB RAM now.

** Here is the Microsoft Email I received prior to my upgrade.

It’s time to upgrade from the Windows 7 Release Candidate

While most people who tested Windows 7 have now moved to the final version, some are still running the Release Candidate. If you haven’t moved yet, it’s time to replace the RC.
Starting on March 1, 2010 your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Your work will not be saved during the shutdown.

The Windows 7 RC will fully expire on June 1, 2010. Your PC running the Windows 7 RC will continue shutting down every two hours and your files won’t be saved during shutdown. In addition, your wallpaper will change to a solid black background with a persistent message on your desktop. You’ll also get periodic notifications that Windows isn’t genuine. That means your PC may no longer be able to obtain optional updates or downloads requiring genuine Windows validation.

To avoid interruption, please reinstall a prior version of Windows or move to Windows 7. In either case, you’ll need to do a custom (clean) install to replace the RC. As with any clean installation, you’ll need to back up your data then reinstall your applications and restore the data. For more details about replacing the RC, see the Knowledge Base article KB 971767. For more information, visit the Window 7 Forum.

Thanks again for helping us test Windows 7.

As Published on VmwareInfo.com:

It’s a pretty solid best practice to create a separate virtual disk or VMDK/VHD for each volume in a virtual machine.  The alternative is to create 1 vDisk and then partition the drives within it.   Single volumes per virtual hard drive allow for much easier management in my opinion.  Growing, shrinking and otherwise manipulating a single volume when it is 100% of the virtual disk becomes a trivial thing with most hypervisors.  Situations where a single virtual disk is partitioned to multiple volumes and manipulating the first partition on the disk, becomes an exercise in data block juggling.  Sometimes preventing the operation from occurring at all.  Of course for new VMs, I still tend to favor a single partition approach but when multiple partitions are in play, separate virtual disks are the way to go.

From within the Windows’ Disk Manager/Administrator, multiple VMDK/VHDs will just look like separate Hard Disks within the Operating System.  Hopefully, these Virtual Disks will also be located on a SAN storage LUN somewhere!

One of the new features of Windows 7 / Windows 2008 R2 is DirectAccess.  The promise of DirectAccess is the ability for corporate laptops and machines to connect to the corporate LAN seamlessly without the need for a VPN. (Or rather, DirectAccess will be your VPN).  The machine will be connected whenever it is connected to internet access.  All of your internal resources will be available to the client machine whenever it has internet access.  Marcos Velez summarized some of the requirements and challenges clients may face when looking to implement the new Windows DirectAccess feature.

… as with everything that is too good to be true, the requirements [for DirectAccess] are enormous.  I will try to summarize some of those right now:

1. DirectAccess requires Windows 2008 R2
2. DirectAccess requires IPv6
3. DirectAccess clients need a client certificate in order to be able to connect to the network
4. DirectAccess requires deploying a DirectAccess server
5. DirectAccess STILL requires users to log in, but
6. DirectAccess client laptops (or computers) are ALWAYS connected to the corporate network (even before the user has logged on)

By the way, DirectAccess is a very cool idea, and it really is worth considering, but the list of pre-requisites is long.  Daunting, even.  DirectAccess requires a large investment (of time and money) by clients into technologies that they might not be able (or willing) to undertake at this time.  That is a discussion that needs to be taken up with the client, of course.

As published on VMwareInfo.com:

Chad Sakac, EMC RockStar extraordinaire, is helping to launch a new VMware focused portal site at EMC.com and is hoping everyone out there will stop by and check it out.  The “Everything VMware at EMC” site is www.emc.com/vmwarecommunity.  This community is open to everyone and will give you access to the EMC vSpecialists, forums, discussion groups, events and other relevant Virtualization information EMC is hard at work creating. 

Of course you can also check out Chad’s Blog @ Virtual Geek or follow his Tweets @ Twitter.com/sakacc.

Originally Published on VMwareInfo.com 

As published on VMwareInfo.com:

So there were a bunch of unconfirmed plans last year (2009!) that VMware might be getting rid of the Enterprise edition of vSphere in favor of the more expensive feature rich Enterprise Plus.  I think there was a lot of push back from customers and VMware issued a stay of execution for Enterprise licensing.  Sort of.  Looks like the current stance is that EXISTING customers with up to date subscriptions for VMware 3.5 Enterprise licenses can renew/upgrade to VI4 Enterprise licenses but NEW customers or NEW licenses only have the Enterprise Plus option.  Enterprise without plus is not an option for new licenses.  If you are confused, then this chart probably won’t help much.

As published on VMwareInfo.com:

Finally got a chance to play with the vDR appliance a little more in depth at my last engagement.  I have to say that I am pretty impressed. 

After the installation and configuration process were completed, I set up a quick job to back up all 20 or so VMs in the environment.  Most of the VMs were based off of a 25GB VMDK clone machine.  I had high hopes for the De-Dupe!   I set up the backup windows to happen over night and headed home.

We had decided to create the De-Dupe store on a LaCie NAS device using a simple share. (10.10.10.10\Public).  vDR created a subfolder called VMDataRecovery and put all backups into this directory.  The resulting backup of all 20 or so machines took up only 55 GBs of space on the LaCie.  Very Impressive! 

One thing to note, Unlike Veeam or Vizioncore, vDR does not create individual packages for each backed up VM.  Rather it creates a type of backup catalog where it stores ALL backed up machines and restore points together.  Be sure to replicate or backup the entire store to tape. 

Some additional items to note about vDR.

• You can’t really set up a schedule of when to backup Machines.  You basically create windows for the appliance to backup the machines.  You could create separate jobs for each VM and stagger very small windows but I think over the long haul it would become too tedious to maintain effectively.
• There is an option to Backup Now that you can click to perform just in time backup requests.

VMware Data Recovery is included with vSphere for any customers running Advanced or higher.

As published on VMwareInfo.com:

In environments where you might be so inclined to run XenApp Published applications over your XenDesktop sessions, the default behavior for the ICA protocol is to map a client’s local drives all the way through the sessions. (Pass-through ICA)  See image below :

This may not be the desired user experience if the XenDesktop session is the user’s Main desktop.  Users might need to access files saved to the local XenDesktop drives from within their published XenApp applications.

Changing a quick registry value on the XenDesktop machine will correct this issue.  From the Support article : http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX238200

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Configuration\Advanced\Modules\ClientDrive
Create the Reg Value: NativeDriveMapping
Reg Type: REG_SZ
Add the Value: True

This value will yield the desired results illustrated below :