VMGuru.nl – I choose (a virtual) life!

While designing and writing administrator guides, I often use pictures instead of words. In my opinion: a picture says more then 1000 words. When VMware vSphere 4 went live I started collecting pictures from  Sphere and the Virtual Infrastructure client, I combined them in a Microsoft Visio 2007 shape so I could track off them and use them more often in pictures and designs accompanying virtual infrastructures.

Using them in memo style documents to tackle known issues or incorrect handling is quit effective. Also with the new menu driven style of the vSphere VI Client combined with VMware vCenter Server some administrators are looking for the right path to get to the correct content.

This Visio stencil is a combination of different icons, shape and such. You can design a Host and Clusters drill down with it or use components to use in manuals or troubleshooting documents.

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Hello folks,

Yesterday we noticed a huge increase in the amount of traffic. After some in-depth investigation, we discovered that some ‘friends’ in China found a loophole which quadrupled our traffic within a few hours.  Fortunately no real harm was done. Our systems were not compromised.

During this investigation, we also noticed several attempts that were made from within China to ‘probe’ our security. Although China is one of the biggest upcoming markets in the world (if not the biggest), this apparently comes at a price. So, we here at VMGuru.nl decided that we will be avoiding China for the moment. We therefore blocked all known IP ranges appointed to China from accessing our site.

We’re sorry for any genuine followers of VMGuru.nl in China, but the amount of attempts was too big to ignore.

Update: The problem seems to be solved! We will continue to monitor the web server but it looks like we’re back in business.

Since last week we are experiencing problems with the stability of our web server.

Sorry for the inconvenience, we’re working hard to find and correct this problem.

Until then, we will restart the web server manually once or twice a day.

Again, sorry! We hope to be up, running and reliable as soon as possible.

Well, it’s done, as far as we’re concerned. The migration to new hardware is a fact. You might see a significant speedup in the site (we do). We’re very happy with the results, allthough we had some issues, but then again, which migration hasn’t?

We made some pics during the swap. The quality is pretty poor but you can’t expect much from a mobile phone. Here they come! (more…)

Good news! Our brand new server is finally ready for production! Next Friday we will replace the old workhorse with a brand new one, with many thanks to our friends @ Dell (a big hurray and thank you to you all over there!) Our new infra will, of course, be fully virtual. Since we have more processing power AND more RAM, our site should benefit a lot in terms of speed and stability.

We hope that service will hardly be interrupted but as with all migrations, you never really know until it’s over

Work starts Friday at 10:00AM CET and ends when it’s ready

Update 15:41 CET+1 (AJ): Basic functionality of the site is up again. We’re still doing some tweaking during the next couple of days. If you get an 404 error, just try again.

January 3rd, Eric Siebert, started the Top 25 VMware/Virtualization bloggers contest. During two weeks everybody in the community could vote for their favorite Top 10 and the challenge was to get VMGuru.nl into the Top 25 and to knock Duncan Epping from the top spot . This last challenge proved to be very very difficult and again, Duncan took the top spot. So until July 2010 Yellow Bricks is the #1 blog in the community.

And how did VMGuru.nl do? Due to all your votes we finished at a respectable #18 in the Top 25 VMware/Virtualization bloggers and we’re very proud of it.

So, for everyone who voted for us, thank you very very much!

You can check out the complete score list here.

Eric Siebert over at vSphere-land is running a new blog contest which let you decide who the most favorite blogger is. Can anyone knock Duncan Epping from the top spot? With the last elections VMGuru.nl entered the voting list so make us proud and kick VMGuru.nl into the Top 25. Your votes will decide the winners and help decide the Top 25 bloggers.

You can pick your 10 most popular bloggers based on your points Eric Siebert will create a vSphere-land blogger top 25.

Please cast your vote and make a change to win a copy of the TrainSignal vSphere DVD training course.

Here’s how it works, you pick your top 10 favorite blogs, to vote simply number your 10 favorite blogs from 1 to 10 with 1 being your most favorite blog (VMGuru.nl of course ).

hey folks!

First of all, a happy newyear to you all!

With 2009 behind us, we look forward to a new and intense 2010. Personally, I think 2010 will be a very interesting year. With the world economy leaving the ruins of the crisis and alot of new trends and technology introductions ahead, we are in for quite a treat. Also, we are eagerly looking forward to VMworld in Copenhagen, later this year. We hope to see a lot of you in Denmark!

However, a quick look back is in order too. (more…)

The VMGuru.nl-crew wishes all of you a very happy new year!

A brand new year to perform your virtual fireworks!

The VMGuru.nl crew wishes you a merry Christmas.

During the coming two days it’s all about the VMware Virtualization Forum 2009.

VMware Virtualization Forum event is a free, interactive full day event where you can learn about virtual infrastructure from experts, industry analysts and companies like yours. No matter what your company size, there’s a virtualization solution for you—from the desktop to the datacenter. You can visit the VMware Virtualization Forum 2009 and attend hands on labs in Orange County, CA.

If you join onsite you can join the Virtualization Forum online. During this highly interactive two-day event, you’ll experience all of the areas you’d find at the onsite event.

Plus during these two days, there will be an ask the experts panel. VMware gathered seven vExperts/bloggers to answer your questions.

These vExperts are:

• Sven Huisman – Virtualfuture.info
• Carlo Costanzo – VMwareinfo.com
• Tom Howarth - PlanetVM.Net
• Michael Keen
• Douglas Brown
• Brian Knudtson – knudt.net/vblog
• and of course Erik Scholten – VMGuru.nl

Visit the VMware website to register for the VMware Virtualization Forum 2009 or check out the schedule.

Don’t miss your chance to:

• Learn about VMware vSphere™ 4 — The next generation of the market leading virtualization platform
• Attend introductory sessions on virtualization and learn how you can cut costs at companies of all sizes
• Get practical advice on choosing a virtualization solution for everything from the desktop to the datacenter
• Learn how to add capacity on demand to your IT infrastructure with cloud computing

One year ago, October 13th, we announced our new website/blog called VMGuru.nl and October 15th we posted our first article ‘No guest customization after upgrade to Update 2′. Much has change since then….

The birth of VMGuru.nl
When, in August 2008, I changed my Internet provider I had to look for a new place to host my personal website. Luckily a colleague, Alex, has a web server on-line and offered to host it for me. The only thing I needed was a domain name, so I registered at NederHost and tried some domain names. Most were already taken but my first good one was VMGuru.nl, however I discarded the idea because my personal website has nothing to do with virtualization. After registering Motor-Freak.net I decided to keep VMGuru.nl just for the fun of it. Maybe in the future me and some colleagues could do something nice with it.

When I mentioned the domain name again in the beginning of October 2008 Alex grabbed the opportunity and quickly deployed a website using Wordpress. The idea was to use it to  share our knowledge and experiences with colleagues as we don’t have a good enough Intranet to do that. Quickly the idea broadened and we decided to share with the VMware/virtualization community which required us to write in English.

My first steps
From the start reactions were positive, with 851 visits and 80.316 hits for the remaining two weeks of October we were very surprised. In November the number of visitors grew to 4.538 and in December we had almost 10 times the number of visitors we had in October, 7.059 . In these first two and a half months we wrote 72 articles with subjects like ‘What if life was a virtual machine..‘, ‘VC Upgrade went haywire‘, ‘Faulty HP ESXi 3.5 USBs‘ and ‘Hyper-V, not in my datacenter!‘.

My first fight
In the beginning of February we ran into a nasty comment in the community claiming that we ’stole’ someones domain name. It turned out to be a comment of Scott Herold (VMGuru.com) who, after finding out a colleagues had registered ‘vmgu.ru’ just to annoy him, discovered VMGuru.nl. All ended in a fizzle, after explaining our intentions and the idea that we could both contribute to the community, each in our own way, all was well. Scott turned out to be a decent guy and we planned to meet up at VMworld in Cannes at the end of the month. We even did a video with him on VESI.org!

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During VMworld Europe 2009 in Cannes, VMware announced the vExpert program. Erik and Anne Jan both were awarded with a vExpert award for their effort and enthusiasm around virtualization and their community work.  Today, ta the end of the day a special delivery arrived at the office from overseas we had to sign for, bringing proof that we have 2 vExperts in our midst. Congrats guys, you earned it and you now have a nice paper to proof it. Keep up the good work and maybe you can prolong the vExpert status in 2010.

Today we added a new blogger to VMGuru.nl!  Arjan van ‘t Hoff is a colleague from another division of Centric, Centric ITS.

Arjan is a great addition to VMGuru.nl because he works for another division of Centric which main focus is to sell hardware and software and hopefully this will add a new and fresh view.

We all hope to spot content from Arjan soon.

Yesterday, the three of us attended one of the quarterly CDG⁽¹⁾ Technical update sessions which was held at ‘de Glazen Ruimte‘ in Maarssen.

The three subject were:

1. RES Software and VMware View by Bart van Winden (RES) en Ton Hermes (VMware);
2. Citrix reduces traffic jams on the roads to and from our Dynamic Delivery Center by Marc Wagevoort (CDG);
3. VMworld San Francisco 2009 update by Rob van der Wel.

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VMGuru.nl widgetI finally got around to it: Installing the development tools for Mac OS X. After a couple of months using the Mac I now enter the world of development again.
One of the first things I tried was a dashboard widget with the VMGuru.nl RSS feed. I must say that for a first time (and with all 2 minutes I spent on it) it looks nice IMO.

I hope you enjoy it. If you got any problems, let me know.

File: VMGuru.nl widget

The VMGuru.nl-crew congratulates the VMGuru.nl founder and his family with their beautiful new home.

After receiving notice the founder of VMGuru.nl got the keys to his new home, we urged to apply a street name  change to the local government. Unfortunately the request to change the street name sign to reflect VMgurulane was declined.

So we had to think of a new plan to show the world a VMGuru.nl founder and vExpert had landed. So a new offical street sign was released today.

We wish Erik and his family a pleasant and healthy life in their new home and hope the soil is fertile in numerous ways but ofcourse one of them being a basis for some new great blog posts after he gets tired decorating and finishing the house.

The VMGuru.nl-crew

We all know Eric Siebert from his vLaunchPad were he publishes his VMware Top 20 blogs. Yesterday Eric started an election to determine the Top 5 in VMware blogs.

VMGuru.nl is not on the list yet and I doubt if we could enter the Top 5 but if you like our blog, vote (Other) VMGuru.nl.
It would be nice and a great honor to get us in the Top 20.

Here’s Eric’s original post.

I have a hard time picking the top blogs from the many great ones that are out there. I initially started with a top 10 and recently expanded it to the top 20 as more and more blogs have started. In this post I outline my blog selection criteria for the top 20 and it’s no easy task for me to pick them and rate them in order. Well here’s the chance for you to pick the top 5 of my top 20 blog list using this new survey form that I created. You can pick from the current top 20 which you can see on my vLaunchpad,or choose other and add one that is not on the list. The survey will be open for 2 weeks, afterwords I’ll announce the results and update my vLaunchpad accordingly.  Duncan Epping from http://yellow-bricks.com has been the reigning number #1 for a while now and is a tough one to beat. So head on over to my survey and cast your vote, each position will have a weight assigned with it and they will be added up accordingly for the final results.

Due to an IP address change at our hosting service this website may be temporarily unavailable during the coming two weeks. We will try to limit the disruption as much as possible. Because of the DNS replication time this may take a maximum of two weeks to sort itself out.

Sorry for the inconvenience,

the VMGuru.nl-crew

It is now April and in October 2008, 6 months ago, we started our own virtualization blog. I registered a funny domain name when applying for a private domain name and Anne Jan, Edwin, Alex and I started this website just for the fun of it.

In the beginning the blog was intended to share our knowledge and experiences with colleagues who work throughout the Netherlands but very soon we attracted the attention of VMware enthusiasts all over the world.

At the end of December the number of hits grew from 80.000 (October) to almost 200.000 hits per month and we started getting positive responses. We then decided to try to walk and talk with the big boys like Erik Sloof, Gabrie van Zanten, Mike Laverick, Scott Herold, Duncan Epping, Richard Garsthagen, etc. The plan is/was to post our real life experiences and bring you as much VMware related news as possible. A part of this was to do a live report from VMworld Europe in Cannes with photos and videos.

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