VMware ThinApp Review
By Todd | June 27, 2008
Today I was playing with VMware’s ThinApp, which is a program they have in beta right now that virtualizes applications so they can run side by side where conflicts would otherwise be present. There are several solutions out that that can do this but from my experience non of them were able to get IE 8 Beta 1 installed. VMware’s ThinApp came through and I was able to successfully get IE 8 Beta 1 installed in a single, portable application to run right next to IE 7 or any other browser.
It was very easy to do, too. They recommend that you have a clean system to get this applications working. So I started with a clean virtual machine of Windows XP SP2 and simply ran the Setup Capture program for ThinApp. From there you just follow the directions and install IE 8, even rebooting after the install caused no problems; the Setup Capture program came right back up and continued on. When all was said and done, I copied the final package to my XP SP3 desktop that has IE7 installed and double clicked the executable. I instantly had IE 8 running right next to IE 7.
I was very impressed with how easy it really was. I highly recommend you check this beta out if you can! It could be very useful for a lot of purposes in a business environment.
Topics: Reviews, VMware | No Comments »
VMware Releases Beta 2 for Workstation 6.5
By Ryan | June 24, 2008
Moving closer to the release of their long anticipated next-gen release of Workstation, VMware has released Beta 2. Here are the highlights of the new release:
- Virtual Machine streaming let’s you download VM’s from a web server and power it on before it’s even finished downloading!
- Installer for Linux
- Record/Replay Debugging functionality (proclaimed b VMware as “experimental”; be a bit skeptical at this stage)
- Unity enhancements
- Clipboard enhancements
- Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI) improvements
- enhancements to “vmrun”
Check out all of the details on this new release here.
Topics: Headlines, VMware | 1 Comment »
Ohio State University: Early VMWare Adopter
By Ryan | June 23, 2008
We all know that using virtualization to go green and conserve energy and space is a hot topic of today. Colleges and Universities are no exception. One public university was ahead of its time, using VMware to pursue these objectives in 2003.
The College of Humanities needed to upgrade its IT infrastructure, but had no room to do the necessary expansion. After deploying the VMware platform, the College was able to meet its upgrade needs with 54 virtual machines running on three host servers. The College avoided $160,000 in hardware costs and cut server provisioning from three weeks down to five minutes.
“Before the upgrade, we lacked the physical space, cooling and power needed,” said Tim Smith, director of Information Systems for the College of Humanities. “We had some PC-class hardware with no failover disks, no secondary power and no SAN connectivity. We wanted to grow, but didn’t have the resources. The VMware virtual machines worked great. They stayed up and worked well. Believe the buzz about VMware virtualization. It works! It gives us the ability to add new servers without even thinking about the hardware costs. It allows my staff to think more creatively.”
A familiar success story, just not for 5 years ago! Find out how other high education institutions are using VMware: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/
top_universities_go_green.html
Topics: Green, Headlines, VMware | No Comments »
Suse Linux on Hyper-V?
By Ryan | June 12, 2008
I know that I had some problems getting it up and running and from what I have heard/read, I’m not alone. I found a good article that outlines exactly what it takes to get Suse Enterprise Linux 10 SP1 up and running on Microsoft Hyper-V.
The question is… should it really be this complicated?
Topics: Hyper-V, Microsoft | 1 Comment »
Desktop Virtualization
By Todd | June 4, 2008
Kevin Fogarty of Network World wrote a good article about Desktop Virtualization. He Briefed over several different options for virtualization on the desktop including VMware, MokaFive, and Xenocode. It was interesting because he said that when someone mentions a solution such as Xenocode, virtualization is not usually the first thing to mind.
Click here for the full article.
Topics: VMware, Xenocode, moka5, mokafive | 1 Comment »
Fusion 1.1.3 Released
By Ryan | June 2, 2008
On May 30th, VMware released the 1.1.3 update to Fusion for the Mac. This maintenance release fixes a variety of issues. Below is a summary of the fixes for this release:
- Corrects a problem in which VMware Fusion encountered reactivation problems in the native Boot Camp partition and the Boot Camp virtual machine when installing Windows Vista SP1.
- Fixes a problem in VMware Fusion 1.1.2 that caused HGFS mounting failures in Linux guest operating systems.
- Fixes a problem where VMware Fusion did not distinguish between Traditional and Simplified Chinese and updated Simplified Chinese on-line help.
- Corrects a problem in which a virtual machine originally created with a product other than Fusion got the error “Cannot connect virtual device sound” when it tried to play a sound.
- VMware Fusion 1.1.1 incorporated a workaround for Apple bug 5679432 (Mac OS X hang under heavy disk load when unbuffered I/O is in use). That version of Fusion disabled unbuffered disk I/O on Mac OS X 10.5 hosts, even if the user selected Optimize for Mac OS application performance in VMware Fusion preferences. Apple fixed this bug in Mac OS X 10.5.3, so VMware Fusion 1.1.3 removes the workaround when the guest operating system is Mac OS X 10.5.3 or higher.
Download the update here.
Topics: Headlines, Mac, VMware | No Comments »
Virtualization Versioning?
By Ryan | June 2, 2008
Recently I have been asked on several occasions: What is up with all this “Virtualization 2.0″ and “Virtualization 3.0″ stuff I keep hearing about? Good question. First of all, these are just “buzz-words.” To my knowledge there is nobody that is officially stamping versions on the virtualization industry. Looking at the history of the technology and what we are doing with it today, it is easy to see clear trends and waves.
Basically, it breaks down like this:
Virtualization 1.0: Emulation, run things that cannot be run natively for testing.
Virtualization 2.0: Server consolidation and efficient use of hardware resources.
Virtualization 3.0: Using virtualization to proactively improve software quality by doing things that would not have been possible (or realistic) in the physical world.
Check out http://ztrek.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-heck-is-virtualization-30.html for a good explanation on all of this.
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
VMware to Acquire B-hive Networks
By Ryan | June 2, 2008
VMWare, Inc. announced last week that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire B-hive Networks, Inc. This is a strategic move for VMware to provide proactive performance management solutions for its customer base. VMware will take advantage of the human capital and technologies from the purchase as well as the R&D center in Israel which will be the based for its new development facility.
B-Hive offers a solution that is centered around business processes. By inserting a layer in between your clients/servers and your business services, it allows administrators to map and report on, improve, and automate business processes and services throughout your ESX fabric. B-hive’s solutions currently include support for other platforms such as Citrix, Xen, and even physical hardware which I would expect won’t be kept around long.
Check out the full press release here: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/bi_hive.html
Topics: Headlines, Performance, VMware | No Comments »