Virtualization

As I mentioned in my "Creating Virtual Machines with Microsoft Virtual PC 2007" article, Microsoft Virtual PC is one of the top contenders in a growing line of Virtual Machine utilities. I will not go into the age-old fight on who's best – Microsoft Virtual PC or VMWare's software. Both are free and both are… Read More

3 years after the acquisition of Connectix, Microsoft finally releases an enterprise class management tool for Virtual Server: Virtual Machine Manager 2007, included in System Center management family. Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager provide a comprehensive management solution for the virtualized data center that enables increased physical server utilization and centralized management of virtual… Read More

VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) is an add-on for VMware ESX Server & VMware Virtual Center. Many times, VCB is included in the VMware Infrastructure Suite along with the aforementioned applications. But VCB is a mysterious product, with little documentation that is difficult to explain. In this article, I will cover some of the most common… Read More

As part of VMware Infrastructure (VI), VMware includes VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB). This product is used to backup VMware ESX Virtual Servers. For those of you who are dealing with the challenge of backing up VMware ESX virtual machines, this article is for you. So why would you want to use VCB? What can it… Read More

As soon as you begin using VMware Servers in a production environment you will have a need for remotely managing those VMware servers. Sure you could use remote desktop or something but there are much better tools. As the number of servers grows, the need will grow for a remote management application to administer those… Read More

In our previous article, "What you need to know about VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)", we provided an overview of how VCB can help you. In this article, we will explore the command line utilities provided with VCB. There is no GUI interface for VCB so these tools are THE tools that you get with VCB.… Read More

When it comes to file and application servers, often times the server hardware is grossly underutilized. In fact, many servers only use about ten percent of the hardware’s total capacity. For several years now, Microsoft and various third party companies have offered server virtualization solutions that allow you to run multiple server instances on a… Read More

Microsoft Virtual PC is one of the top contenders in a growing line of Virtual Machine utilities. The latest version, called Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, allows users to conveniently run multiple operating systems on a single computer. Users can switch operating systems as easily as they switch applications instantly, with a mouse click. Because each… Read More

Whether you would like to use virtualization on your desktop PC or on a server farm, you must choose a virtualization product. The two most popular virtualization products are EMC’s VMware and Microsoft’s Virtual PC/Server. So how do you choose the right product for your needs? Let’s find out… Understanding Your Needs No matter what… Read More

VMware ESX Server 3i is a very powerful and free Enterprise virtualization platform. I covered all the basics of it, how it is different, and why you want it in our previous article "What is VMware ESX Server 3i?" Now, let me show you how easy it is to download and install VMware ESX Server… Read More

Virtualization is becoming more and more popular but that isn't reason enough to do it. So why should you virtualize your your servers? Specifically, why should you use VMware Server? Most of these reasons apply not only to VMware Server but to virtualization in general. Let's take a look at the top 5 reasons... 1.… Read More

Have you seen 64-bit versions of popular operating systems any applications? Perhaps you would like to try out these 64-bit editions. VMware is the ideal test bed to do this but what is required? Let's find out how to make it work... Running a 64-bit VM Guest on your 32-bit CPU? There are a ton… Read More

While it is normal to login as "administrator" when you are testing VMware ESX Virtual Center and normal to login as root while you are testing VMware ESX Server, as soon as your Virtual Infrastructure moves into production, you will want system administrators login as themselves. In fact, best practices dictate this. Besides providing accountability,… Read More

Matthijs ten Seldam, who has developed VMRC+ (see my Manage Virtual Server Machines with VMRC Plus article for more info), has released a new tool that helps import Virtual Server or Virtual PC virtual machines to Hyper-V. You see, the VHD file is compatible between the two, but the configuration file format has changed. While… Read More

Download Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Virtual Machines The Microsoft VHD Test Drive Program provides customers with an enhanced server-based software evaluation experience that’s faster, better supported and more flexible. You can now access the entire catalog of pre-configured Microsoft and partner products and solutions in the VHD format and start evaluating and testing today from… Read More