Wow! I should change “released” to say “soon to be unleashed upon the world” !!!

Trend Micro has done it AGAIN – hitting the ground running this year – easily outpacing most of the competition in the race to win the cloud-enabled anti-malware software market.

From cloud-enabled, VDI-aware endpoint protection, to vmsafe API-based virtual machine protection through the core protection modules, Trend has a forward-looking and effective (and affordable) security solution for every cloud-savvy Data Center.

Earlier this summer, and given our track record with both messaging and security, eGroup was invited to participate in the InterScan Messaging Security Virtual Appliance (IMSVA) 8.0 Hybrid SaaS Email Security Early Adopter Program. The results were pretty fantastic!

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Here’s a quick and easy way to change the Service Console VLAN ID on an ESX host:

1) Log in to the host console as root, or SA to root
2) Check which vSwitch the Service Console is on with the command “esxcfg-vswitch -l”
3) To set a vlan id on the service console: esxcfg-vswitch vSwitch0 -v X -p “Service Console” (replace the “X” with the VLAN ID)
4) To remove the vlan id completely, just set it to 0, like this: esxcfg-vswitch vSwitch0 -v 0 -p “Service Console”

That’s it! The change takes place immediately. No reboot is required.

Earlier this week we had a little contest around the office – that is, who could get in and get their vSphere4 VTSP accomplished the quickest.  The VMware Technical Sales Professional Program (VTSP) provides foundational technical knowledge for pre-sales engineering individuals to certify them to successfully architect, engage, and participate in a VMware solutions sales cycle. For VMware partners, the VTSP is a pre-requisite that must be completed before you can obtain Technical Pre-Sales Competency Accreditations.

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At eGroup we had a LABMANAGER virtual machine with a 40GB vmdk hard drive – Fully allocated! (Thanks to Jason for this)

However, only 6.5GB was in use – 84% free space – but hogging up a full 40GB on the production vmfs datastore! (Thanks to Jason for this)

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Customers are often asking what server configuration they should choose for their virtualization environment. Do they go with a 2-socket multi-core based system, the traditional building block of the Data Center, or should they select a 4-socket server, which typically has more RAS features and better capacity in terms of cores, memory, and I/O better support their needs?  It’s kind of like choosing to go on vacation with that convertible you love to drive on the weekends or your trusty sedan that you go to work in every day! They both have their purpose but one may be better suited for the task at hand.

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VMware vSphere includes a number of enhancements that enable it to deliver very high I/O performance. In one study using EMC Enterprise Flash Drives (EFD) a single ESX host was able to achieve just above 350,000 I/O operations per second – enough to host the entire Wikipedia database on a single server with room to spare!

Read more here: http://blogs.vmware.com/performance/2009/05/350000-io-operations-per-second-one-vsphere-host-with-30-efds.html

Before starting down the path to VMware vSphere, it is worth taking some time to determine what your current VMware Infrastructure deployment scenario looks like with respect to the setup of VMware vCenter and how it is configured to support VI3 Clusters with Resource Pools, VMware HA and VMware DRS. An eGroup Virtualization Healthcheck will help identify the state of your VI3 environment.

How Do I Upgrade?
Phase 1: Complete the upgrade of the VMware vCenter Server along with VMware Update Manager. VMware Converter Enterprise and VMware Guided Consolidation are two additional components that can be installed along with their respective VMware vCenter Client plug-in.

Phase 2: Choose from three VMware ESX migration methods. The three options are: VMware Update Manager, Host Update Utility or Clean Install of VMware ESX 4.

Phase 3: Complete the upgrade of your Virtual Machines by first upgrading VMware Tools, followed by the upgrade of the Virtual Hardware from version 4 to version 7.

Click here to access eGroup’s VMware vSphere 4 Upgrade Center and to access step-by-step migration videos