KVM should join Microsoft's Server Virtualization Validation Program

Recently, Brian and I spent some time in Sunnyvale, Calif. working with Qumranet testing their Solid ICE VDI solution. Solid ICE uses an open-source hypervisor called KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) to host Windows XP VM's. Qumranet is the company that develops KVM and makes it available for free, while Solid ICE is their commercial product that uses KVM. During our tests, we learned that KVM is a very capable hypervisor and should probably be considered among the ranks of the other...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on August 20, 2008 -

Microsoft announces licensing changes, frugal admins rejoice!

At last, Microsoft has announced a virtualization-friendly change to the license agreements for 41 server products. The changes will allow administrators to run software on more than one physical piece of hardware, which, in the world of VMotion, XenMotion, and OS provisioning is a welcome change.Prior to today, according to the license agreement included with several packages of Microsoft software, packages were allowed to be installed on only one piece of physical hardware, and that licensed...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on August 19, 2008 -

BriForum Video - The Excruciating Detail of the XenApp Logon Process

This week's BriForum video is always a popular session during the show: The Excruciating Detail of the XenApp Logon Process (2008 Version). Brian Madden and Kevin Goodman have been doing this session since BriForum 2006 in Washington, D.C., evolving it over time as new servers and platforms have been released. From the session description: This session documents the steps of a logon to a Citrix XenApp Server from a successful credentials negotiation to the displaying of a published...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on August 14, 2008 -

VMware Update 2 wrap-up, Plus - what can we do in the future?

It's been a few days now since VMware's VI 3.5 and ESX 3.5i Update 2 problems, so I thought it prudent to wrap up what's gone on. Those of you directly affected are probably already aware of what's gone down. As of Wednesday morning, a new, full version of Update 2 was unavailable, but an Express Patch has been released to fix existing problems. The Express Patch was made available Tuesday night, as announced in a blog post by new (and probably really tired) CEO Paul Maritz. ...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on August 14, 2008 -

Oops! VMware's VI 3.5 Update 2 locks out customers, pulls Update 2 download.

Word on the street is that VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Update 2 and ESXi 3.5 Update 2 have been affected by a licensing bug left over from development. This bug renders any powered off machine incapable of being turned back on, suspended machines incapable of being resumed, and admins unable to use VMotion to migrate machines, only reporting a "general error." Searches through the logs unearth this as the real problem: Aug 12 10:40:10.792: vmx| http://msg.License.product.expired This...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on August 12, 2008 -

BriForum Video - Xen vs VMware by Ron Oglesby

Back in April, I posted a session from BriForum Amsterdam comparing Xen to VMware ESX.  The only problem was that enough had changed in the time between BriForum and the release of the video that some people found it wasn't relevant.So, in an effort to keep up with the times, today we're releasing the updated Xen vs. VMware video from BriForum 2008 in Chicago. In this session, Ron will share his results of running Xen and VMware ESX head-to-head on the same hardware. In addition to...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on August 07, 2008 -

Citrix sells off the part of Ardence that isn't Provisioning Server

Just a quick note to clarify a recent Ardence/Citrix related announcement that's making the rounds this week.Yesterday, Citrix announced that it had sold off Ardence's embedded software business, which has been stuck in Citrix purgatory after Ardence was acquired about 18 months ago.As you may or may not know, Ardence created more than just the disk streaming technology used in Citrix Provision Server.  This "other half" of Ardence designs software for embedded devices,...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on July 29, 2008 -

BriForum Video - Technical Review of Citrix XenApp Web 5.0

Today we wanted to show some of the great content that we had at BriForum last month. In this video, Thomas Kötzing of www.ThomasKoetzing.de discusses XenApp Web 5.0, otherwise known as Web Interface 5.0 in a session titled "Technical Review of Citrix XenApp Web 5.0." In this session, Thomas will talk about and show you the new features of XenApp Web 5.0. To view the presentation, click on the screen shot below. The associated PowerPoint can be downloaded here.While you're...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on July 22, 2008 -

No more /console? Why?

Just a quick note to call attention to an email that was sent to me by Brad Scott at UPS, just in case other people run into the same issue.  Brad writes:Gabe, I am a big user of brianmadden.com and wanted to share this with you guys.  You may already know this but I had to spend some time researching the problem because I installed XP SP3 and noticed the issue. If you install SP3 for Windows XP or SP1 for Vista, the switch for connecting to a console via a RDP session...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on June 11, 2008 -

Should we expand our focus and cover more virtualization? I'm not sure it will matter...

Since VDI has become more popular, we've had to take a look at where we stand with Virtualization as a whole. Until Citrix bought XenSource it was pretty easy - we just waded in to the hardware virtualization pool from time to time when we'd talk about the big VDI picture. "So, that's VDI...oh, and you need VMware or Virtual Iron or XenSource for a backend. Ask Ron." We'd also bring in little tidbits about VMware Ace or Fusion and Parallels once in a while. But now...

Posted by Gabe Knuth on June 02, 2008 -