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2nd APAC Virtualisation Roundtable – Wed 10/2/10 @ 9pm

Join us for the second APAC Virtualisation Roundtable. The cast is via TALKSHOE.com.

The main topic of the night is “Xen Hypervizor & Xen Coud Platform (XCP)” with our special guest Kistoffer Sheather from Cloud Central. I also have few announcements to make.

During the podcast we will define the subject for the next podcasts as I have received a number of suggestions.

You can participate via web accessing http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/75046.

Title: EPISODE2 – Xen Hypervizor & Xen Coud Platform (XCP)
Start Time (EDT): Wed 03/02/10 09:00 PM EST (SYDNEY TIME)
Duration (minutes): 60 Call ID: 75046

or click the link below

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/75046

Other Time zones:
Perth (Australia) – 6PM
Hong Kong (Hong Kong) – 6PM
Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) – 6PM
Auckland (New Zealand) – 11PM

If you would like to listen to the EPISODE1 click here.

Learning the differences between vMA & rCLI

When I posted ESX vs. ESXi – Beyond the blogger opinion people commented that ESXi was the correct way to move forward and that I should get used to it and also prepare myself and my customers. This is the VMware recommendation.

I took it very seriously, as I always do to anything related to my customers. I decided that from that day onwards I would only use vMA and rCLI whenever possible. And I will keep doing it until someone tells me that the Service Console is not going to be removed from ESX anymore.

If you are not familiar with the terms vMA and rCLI read this:

vCLI/RCLI contains a set of scripts (esxcfg-* and others) to help manage your ESX/ESXi hosts, this is primary useful for ESXi where the Service Console no longer exists and allows for remote management. vCLI can be installed on either Windows/Linux or downloaded as a virtual appliance.

vMA/VIMA is RHEL 5 virtual appliance that allows for centralized management of your ESX/ESXi hosts and providing administrators a location where scripts and agents can be written/created to be executed across a set of ESX/ESXi or vCenter servers. The vApp contains not only the vCLI and the vSphere SDK for Perl but also a logging component and authentication component called vi-fastpass which allows for non-interactive login.

After using both for a little while the differences started to appear, so I decided to collect few of them to share with you.

esxcfg-module – Does not allow to unload/load a module via vMA or rCLI. The action is only allowed when connected to the ESXi unsupported console mode.

resxtop – Works only from vMA, not from rCLI.

esxcfg-nas –add – After several tentatives to re-add a deleted NAS datastore only the ESXi unsupported console mode allowed me to complete the action. vMA and rCLI always error as ‘The name ‘datastore’ already exists’.

I’m certain that VMware is working hard on vMA to make it ready for prime time. The last release of vMA was a major step in this direction.

Agentless and other Client options available for View4

There are three different VMware View 4 clients currently available for Windows clients. The first one is an ActiveX client which is installed if users login to the Connection Server via a web-browser. The second option is a standard 32-bit client. The third is a 32-bit client that supports the experimental “offline desktop" feature.

In addition to the standard View 4 clients provided by VMware, it is also possible to connect to the virtual machines via broker using Linux, Mac, Thin Client, and a repurposed PC. Lastly, find out how you can setup an agentless connection.

VMware View Open Client
VMware View Open Client is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (LGPL v 2.1) and is accessible from http://code.google.com/p/vmware-view-open-client/. Some of the features included in this release support secure tunnelling using SSL, two factor authentication with RSA SecurID, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client Add-On RPM package and a full command line interface. Support for the source code distribution is available through the VMware View Open Client community at: http://code.google.com/p/vmware-view-open-client/.

VMware View Client for Mac
VMware does not officially support or provide a VMware View Client for Mac OS (OSX), however after VMware released VMware View Open Client source code some users from the virtualization community have compiled versions for Mac OS.
For additional information please refer to http://ron.peterro.com/?p=201

Thin Clients
Today’s market offers a wide range of Thin Client brands and models. Look for Thin Clients that have achieved the VMware Hardware Certification for VMware View 4, and support PCoIP, MMR (Multimedia Redirection) and Smart Cards.
The VMware Hardware Certification Program enables VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program members to provide mutual customers with jointly supported hardware solutions.
The document link bellow shows a list of Thin Clients certified to be used with VMware View 4:
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/pdf/vi_view_guide.pdf

Repurposing Legacy PC
Another option for VMware View end-points is to repurpose legacy PC into a Thin Client. VMware has delivered a good document explaining how organisations should look at this option.
“There are several approaches you can use to turn a legacy PC into a thin client or locked down device with direct access to virtual desktop. This technical note highlights some of your options. It is not all‐inclusive, and you may prefer to achieve the same objective using different methods. This paper provides information for both Windows and Linux platforms. It does not constitute an endorsement or product validation of any third‐party tools.”
Repurposing a PC to a Thin Desktop Using VMware® View – http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/pc_to_thin_desktop.pdf

Agentless Access
As mentioned at the start of this article, in some specific cases, it would be handy to have agentless support from View 4. VMware View 4 does not offer HTTP/SSL encapsulation to enable agentless access to virtual desktops.

This might come handy in situations where you don’t have access to the laptops/workstations to install the clients and the administration rights are not assigned to the users using the end-point device. Example: Remote workers with access to virtual desktops over the Internet.

VMware View4 Windows Clients require administrator rights to install.

If you want to provide an agentless solution for your users I recommend combining VMware View Open Client for Linux and Sun Secure Global Desktop or NX Enterprise Server. NX Enterprise Server is a reasonable cheap solution under $1500,00 for unlimited number of concurrent sessions.