Lately, there have been many discussions on the Internet and on various forums regarding the implementation of HA clustering technologies (namely and primarily Microsoft Cluster Server) within virtual machine environments (namely and primarily VMware infrastructures). Many customers are still treating virtual machines …

Read More

In the last few months I have been struggling to understand what is so different, in terms of mass adoption, between virtualizing server workloads and virtualizing desktop workloads (also known as "VDI" or "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure"). I have been exposed to this phenomenon of x86 …

Read More

VMware, at VMworld 2007, announced that next year they will provide an out-of-the-box solution/product for Disaster/Recovery scenarios. It is called Site Recovery Manager (SRM for short) and it is supposed to orchestrate and facilitate system administrators to create a D/R plan for their organizations. It is important …

Read More

Hardware virtualization these days is a hot topic and we all know that. There are many customers looking into it for the first time and one of the problems they are facing right now is how they are going to size their new virtual infrastructure. Lately I have received lots of requests from many people in order to help …

Read More

Last week I came across a hardware configuration requested ad-hoc by a customer to support their VMware VI3 setup. The hardware, an IBM System x 3950 M2 4-way (I know it's not yet generally available at the date), was configured with as many as 5 quad-port 10/100/1000 Ethernet adapters which in total would account for …

Read More

"I need to setup a VI3 solution. Which CPU should I choose from a performance perspective? Intel or AMD?". I have heard this ad nauseam. If I was to get one single cent for every thread discussion I have seen on the net regarding the matter... I would be a billionaire. I have my opinion on the matter and I …

Read More

A few days ago Microsoft released Release Candidate 0 for Windows Server 2008. Apparently, in a last minute rush before the final RC0 build was "cooked", they wanted to give the industry a taste of how Windows Server Virtualization (aka Viridian) will look like. I took the opportunity to get the build and …

Read More

Last week, at VMworld 2007 in San Francisco, VMware announced ESX 3i. There have been lots of speculations within the virtualization community about what ESX 3i would have looked like. And now it's here. So what (really) is this thing and what does it mean for the industry? I personally think that 3i is a good …

Read More

It's interesting that up until a year ago many people were showing their AMD tattoos claiming that Opteron was king of the hill and Intel was going nuts. Nowadays all these people seem to wear very nice shirts that hide these tattoos as there seems to be a consensus now that Intel, backed by their immense R&D …

Read More

For those interested the Session ID is WV27 and the title is "Virtual Appliances and the New Data Center - Changing the Rules" The bad news is that there is going to be a partner on stage (IBM). The good news is that I won't be trying to sell you anything ... :-) Joking aside, this year I thought it would …

Read More