VM-Aware

VMware have released a Best Practice guide for DMZ implementations in a VMware ESX infrastructure.

It outlines the three main implementation routes and discusses the advantages and disadvantages below: (more…)

Check out the Smart Citrix Client tool that was written by the guys at Virtual Technologies Software.

A really cool tool that allow fast and simple connection to a MetaFrame Server or a published application and to export the connection to an ICA file.

Works perfectly with lots of customisable options:

• Display Settings
• Local Devices
• ICA Cache

Brilliant and it just works. Download it here.

For all of you out there that have recently started buying the Nortel layer 2-7 Switch Modules for your IBM BladeCenter H because they can be cheaper than there Cisco counterpart with more functionality, check out this article.

It points out how to resolve some of the issues that you may be having with VLANs and ESX. The crux being that by default the Nortel Switch will tag the default VLAN so unless the Service Console is configured with the same VLAN tag, then things get messy. A simple checkbox is all that is required to fix this problem, but check out the article for more information.

I stumbled across this great pdf, call it Microsoft Licensing for Dummies or whatever you want, but it has a great breakdown of how licensing should be undertaken to be fully legit.

• Server & CAL Licensing
• Enterprise CAL Suite
• Core CAL Suite
• Server Licensing
• Licensing Exchange Server

It even has a stab at Sharepoint, but I think that this is better handled by reading one of my earlier posts. Thanks to vinf.net for the original spot.

The partitioning of the Service Console in ESX has always been a fairly fluid practice for me in that over the years I have tried to use my experience to make adjustments here and there.

Scott Lowe of Scott’s Weblog has managed to condense all the various documents out there and his own experiences into what I now routinely use (well for the time being at least).

Here are the recommendations, but make sure you check out his post for the rationale behind all the allocations:

A great article on how to enable SSH for ESXi, which if you didn’t already know does not have a Service Console to speak of, but is built on the BusyBox distribution. However, it is still possible to remote manage it using SSH with a tweak here and there.

Here’s the great video that shows you how to do it step by step, but check out the rest of the article for more detail: