For a recent customers I have been working on migrating e-mail from several completely separated e- mail infrastructures to one Office 365 environment. To achieve this the customer has chosen to use a product called MigrationWiz.

This product is offered as a web based service/cloud solution.

With MigrationWiz you setup a connection to both a source and destination. After setting up the connection(s) you can start the migration. MigrationWiz will download the data from a mailbox at the source to it’s own infrastructure and then upload it to the designated target mailbox. The picture below illustrates the process.

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The word is out!  The judges have decided and we here at VMGuru.nl are very happy to conclude that Edwin, Erik and myself can call ourselves vExpert 2012 again!

This year, the process was a bit different, as VMware decided that vExperts can be appointed in three new categories:

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Since my article on ‘Storage Optimization with Atlantis‘ on April 3rd, I’ve been in contact with Atlantis and got some additional information I would like to share with you.

First of all, in the article it says the following:

Another point of interest is, does Atlantis live up to the promises made regarding the alleged savings of up to 90%? Of course these numbers are sales numbers and it’s up to 90%. But recently I heard about some Atlantis test results from renowned industry parties, which aren’t so positive as the sales number want you to believe. The first tests do show a huge decrease of read I/O but they also show an increase in write I/O. Now, I don’t want to claim that the myth is busted, further investigation and testing is required, but you should definitely try before you buy.

The issues mentioned above where discovered by our colleagues from PQR and also by the Cisco VXI team. But according to Atlantis, they have already corrected this issue.

The issue with the linked clones was caused by mis-alignment of the redo logfile because of the VMware View Composer and linked clone format.  Atlantis released anew version which is able to treat a linked clone specifically for this issue and correct misaligned writes.

According to Atlantis, the PQR team has already retested Atlantis ILIO and found good write offload as promised.

The second item I would like to share, is a concern Anne Jan raised when using Atlantis ILIO.

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NetApp and Cisco have announced an extension to their joint FlexPod solution with a package which better suits smaller companies.

The current FlexPod solution consists of a Cisco UCS server platform and a Cisco network infrastructure combined with a NetApp FAS32xx or 62xx storage solution. It’s a great solution but it is quite expensive for smaller companies running smaller workloads. The sizing was based on the US definition of enterprise and Small and Medium Business (SMB) which is too large compared to European standards.

The components which can make the FlexPod solution costly for smaller companies are the storage and network components of the solution, NetApp FAS32xx or 62xx storage and Nexus 5000 switches.

NetApp and Cisco have now addressed the first issue and added the NetApp FAS2240 to the FlexPod solution stack. In the past the NetApp FAS2000 series wasn’t suitable for FlexPod because it lacked 10Gb ethernet support which is required in a FlexPod solution. But with the introduction of the NetApp FAS2240 this limitation was dropped but that’s not enough to use the FAS2240 in a FlexPod solution. A new component must first be tested in combination with all other components and if the new component is suitable, new validated designs must be developed which include the NetApp FAS2240.

Besides that, in the past FlexPod could only be build on Cisco UCS blade servers. The new entry-level FlexPod now also includes Cisco C-series servers.

The specifications for the new entry-level FlexPod Solution are:

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Today I was working at home when the Easter bunny dropped me two packages. It turned out to be a VMware day today.

The first package was the VMware VCP5 certificate for my exam two months ago. The second package contained two VMware vExpert certificates for 2010 and 2011 and a nice laptop bag with VMware vExpert logo. Three VMware certificates on one day, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Now that the papers are in, VMGuru.nl is ‘officially’ VMware vExpert certified again

Thank you, John and Alex, for recognizing me as a vExpert for 2010 and 2011 and thanks for all your effort on the VMware vExpert program. Hopefully I can join the vExpert ranks again in 2012.

I will keep you posted.

In our quest for native PC performance in a VDI solution we are always looking for better, faster and simpler storage solutions. To improve storage performance several vendors have introduced different solutions like controller cache, SSD disks, flash memory. Last week I received an e-mail from a colleague regarding ‘Atlantis Computing Uses Diskless VDI Architecture Made Possible by the Cisco Unified Computing System‘. This got my attention, what is Atlantis and how does this storage optimization work?

The Atlantis storage optimization works at the Windows NTFS protocol layer to offload virtual desktop I/O. When the Microsoft Windows operating system and applications request I/O from storage, Atlantis intercepts and inline deduplicates the I/O stream before it reaches the storage. Up to 90% of all I/O requests are processed in RAM. This enables native PC storage performance characteristics which VDI solution require. (more…)

Yesterday the internets were humming with rumours again. Computerbuilder Dell has shown interest in buying a company in thin clients. Not long after it was confirmed that Dell and Wyse have signed a deal.

The official press release states:

“Dell has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, to significantly extend its desktop virtualization offerings. The addition of Wyse will expand Dell’s desktop virtualization capabilities and provide new market opportunities for the full range of Dell’s enterprise solutions and services.” (more…)