Although PCoIP is very efficient display protocol also over WAN connection. (See video demonstration on Vimeo ) there was still the leak of a good WAN optimization solution for VMware View 4.0.

We all know that the user experience will heavily benefit  if we can control the WAN traffic. As we know the PCoIP uses both TCP and UDP transport protocols. All of the WAN optimization solutions support TCP. But UDP is not broadly supported with the WAN optimization solutions.

That changes because Expand Networks provide immediate support for all VMware View 4 remote display protocols across the Expand’s Accelerator range of WAN optimization solutions to securely enable, accelerate and control VMware View over the WAN, including the PCoIP protocol.

The benefits that Expand’s solution brings to VMware View include support for:

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In the last week these items are added or edited in VMware’s Knowledgebase at http://kb.vmware.com

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I have just updated the list after receiving word the new version is out and the build numbers are known for vSphere 4 and vCenter Server. So I compiled a list of build numbers and updates from the patch notes for VMware ESX and VMware vCenter Server.

vCenter Server 4.0 Update 1 | 19 Nov 2009 | Build 208156

vCenter Server 4.0 | 05 May 2009 | Build 162902

VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 5 | 10 Jul 2009 | Build 174791 (English version)

VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 4 | 23 Feb 2009 | Build 147633 (English version)

VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 3 | 03 Oct 2008 | Build 119598 (English version)

VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 2 | 25 July 2008 | Build 104217 (English version)

VirtualCenter 2.5 Server Update 1 | 10 Apr 2008 | Build 84767 (English version)

VirtualCenter 2.5 Server | 10 Dec 2007 | Build 64201

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Are you having trouble consolidating servers?

Having troubles achieving the consolidation ratios you wanted?

Maybe Intel has got the solution! Yesterday, Intel has presented a 48 core CPU!!

Let’s do the math, 4 virtual machines per core, 48 cores that’s 192 virtual machines per CPU. Take a dual socket server, add two of these CPUs and you have 384 virtual machines per host. That was the good news, the bad news is that this 48 core CPU is only available to research institutes.

The CPU which is developed and produced in Europe has 48 cores which are grouped in pairs of 24 all with their own L2 cache. The 45nm CPU contains 1.3 billion transistors on area of 567 square millimeter. Communications between the core pairs is handled by a message buffer and router and a 256GB/s mesh network. Six pairs share one memory controller and can maximally address 32GB of memory. Energy consumption is between 25 and 125W.

As mentioned before this 48 core CPU is only available to research institutes but some of the techniques used will eventually be used in CPU we use for our virtualization magic. Let’s wait and see.

At the end of May of this year we wrote a article concerning Hypervisor comparisons and we got a lot of positive feedback on it. The downside to that is that people want an update as soon as one of the companies launches a new version of its product, and who can blame them. However the issue is that this takes a lot of research and because of that, a lot of time. And because two of us are ill and in bed wearing a sombrero and the other two are extremely busy, we simply don’t have that time right now.

However, Scott Lowe has written an excellent article on the feature comparison between VMware vSphere 4 and Microsoft’s Hyper-V R2 which is a must read for everybody who’s advising customers on hypervisors.

It’s not as extensive as the Enterprise hypervisor comparison we did earlier but it gives you a good image how both products relate to each other. To extend the picture I added a list of supported operating systems.

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Last we had the opportunity to set up a VMware View Proof of Concept based on the new version 4.0.  We grabbed some hardware set it up in our Support Lab. Installed vSphere 4.0 Update 1 on it. Prepared three virtual servers setup a domain with a domain controller, a vCenter server and a View 4.0 Manager server. We prepared the XP Sp3 golden image we planned to use and setup a Windows XP Sp3 laptop we planned to use as a View 4.0 End Point.  From this point we started the VMware View installation. The installation is pretty straight forward and even me as a pre-sales consultant was able to do the trick. I was lucky to have some help from our engineers. One of them just passed the vSphere 4.0 exam and another one had some experience with VMware View 3.0. Everything worked well and with 90 minutes we had our first vDesktop up and running and a laptop connecting to it.

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In the last week these items are added or edited in VMware’s Knowledgebase at http://kb.vmware.com

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