There's a lot of confusion out there on VMware's support for the CPU vendors' virtualization assist technology. VMware has always led the industry with its support for hardware assist. We were the first vendor to support AMD-v and Intel VT-x in 2006, the first to support AMD RVI in 2008, and will be the first to support Intel EPT when vSphere 4 becomes publicly available. These technologies--which we call hardware assist--provide value to the part of ESX we call the monitor.
As we prepare for vSphere's general availability we're generating a lot of documentation to help people get the most out of the new version of ESX. One of my colleagues started a document that details the role of the monitor and how it flexibly uses different hardware assist technologies. I've summarized the default behavior of our monitor in several situations in ESX Monitor Modes. Of course vSphere's users will be able to override these defaults if they want to experiment with their workloads.
I wanted to include a textual summary of the role of the monitor in virtualization but found myself getting bogged down with the writing. So, I thought I'd try something new. Let me know what you think of this short video clip explaining the role of the monitor and how it might leverage hardware assist.
Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!
I’ve blogged about many of the good things that VMware has done in the past year. But New Year’s Resolutions provide a time for reflection and self improvement, and I think even VMware President & CEO Paul Maritz would agree that there are areas where VMware can improve. Let’s start with improving software QA processes.
In my previous post, I talked about a New Year’s Resolution I’d like to see Oracle make. Today, I’d like to offer up a few New Year’s Resolutions for VMware:
Continue to improve software QA and release processes
Embrace your role as enterprise middleware
Be clear with your ISV partners on your software direction and roadmap
I’ve blogged about many of the good things that VMware has done in the past year. But New Year’s Resolutions provide a time for reflection and self improvement, and I think even Paul Maritz would agree that there are areas where VMware can improve. Let’s start with improving software QA processes.
Improve Software QA and Release Processes
To understand the need for this resolution, rewind to August 12, 2008. In a letter posted on VMware’s Executive Blog, CEO Paul Maritz stated the following after a major ESX 3.5 Update 2 bug wreaked havoc on several VMware infrastructures:
We are doing everything in our power to make sure this doesn’t happen again. VMware prides itself on the quality and reliability of our products, and this incident has prompted a thorough self-examination of how we create and deliver products to our customers. We have kicked off a comprehensive, in-depth review of our QA and release processes, and will quickly make the needed changes.
Fast forward to December 2008. VMware releases ESXi 3.5 Update 3, and apparently shows some holiday goodwill by unlocking the free ESXi hypervisor API set. Problem is, however, that the API set was never supposed to be unlocked in the first place. VMware’s Mike DiPetrillo noted the mistake on his personal blog:
Turns out that while fixing an API bug the API set got partially unlocked. Yes, you read that right, VMware didn’t mean to unlock the API set - at least not wholly and not yet.
Mike DiPetrillo deserves credit for stepping up and fully explaining the issue. A lot of folks who work for software vendors simply would have tried to sweep the issue under the rug, but Mike didn’t do that. That level of integrity is certainly commendable.
The Converter 4 private beta is now public. You can now send your customers interested in the beta to this publicly visible web page. http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8712 http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/converter
Access requires a VMware store account.
What's New
The VMware Converter 4.0 Beta 1 release has several new features, including:
Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Linux (RHEL, SUSE, and Ubuntu) as source
Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Windows Server 2008 as source
Support for converting new third-party image formats, including Parallels Desktop virtual machines, newer versions of Symantec, Acronis, and StorageCraft
Workflow automation enhancements to include automatic source shutdown, destination start-up as well as shut down one or more services at source and start up services at Windows destination
Power off source machine when conversion is finished
Hot cloning improvements for cloning any changes to the source system during the P2V conversion process
Target disk selection, and ability to specify how the volumes will be laid out in the new destination virtual machine
Destination virtual machine configuration, including CPU, memory, and disk controller type
Known issues described in the Known Issues section
Getting Started
If you already have a VMware store account, please follow the link below to gain access to Converter 4.0 beta software, documentation and join the Converter 4.0 beta community.
http://www.vmware.com/publicbeta/conv4-beta
If you don’t have a VMware store account, please follow the link below to create a VMware store account, gain access to Converter 4.0 beta software, documentation and join Converter 4.0 beta community.
Richard Garsthagen, evangelist extraordinaire, giving the VMware overview at Microsoft TechEd EMEA. It's a good short overview that gets past the "my hypervisor is better than yours" argument to talk about the entire suite of infrastructure and management software that...
Most people don't know I'm actually a trained scientist. (I said a trained scientist, not necessarily a good one or a successful one, which is why I'm making my living hanging out with bloggers.) My scientific training usually comes out...
