I went to the Future of Virtualized Networks with Howie Xu this morning and I thought I was going to hear about some new amazing technology, from the vFabric buzz. Not so much. His first sentence was this isn't a product or even a roadmap. It's just a vision.

Virtualized networks are still in development and is going to continually be a journey. Its a big push to put networking guys into the virtual infrastructure and continue to converge the two.

VMware sees it's current networking journey to go from the managed vSwitch to the vNetwork Distributed Switch and on to the "Distributed
Virtual Network". More companies are going to start playing the Nexus 1000V game and integrating more with vSphere.

The journey has 4 key concepts:
Anything. Being able to put whatever you want out there
Anytime. Spinning up and done workload instantaneously with end to end Layer 2 to 7 networking
Anywhere. Deploying workloads where there is computing capacity without network  constraint
Any Scale. Scaling workloads up and down, horizontally, vertically, easily and economically

I'm back on the free tools vibe again. I'll be presenting with David Davis at VMworld in his breakout session discussing the Top Free vSphere Tools.

David wants your input! Head on over to VMwareVideos.com and vote for your favorite free tool! David will calculate the results and announce those rankings in video form – before the end of 2010.

After much deliberation, I think I finally have my VMworld schedule made out. I'm very positive I'll be calling a few audibles and scratching something out to attend more sessions by other vExperts.

As for the announcement, David Davis of Train Signal and VMwareVideos.com has asked me to be a special guest speaker during his breakout session MA8339, 10 Best Free Tools for vSphere Management. I'm thrilled to not only be attending my first VMworld, but getting a chance to speak as well. Thanks David! The breakout sessions will be taking place on Monday and Wednesday from 1:30-2:30pm in Moscone South Room 301. I have seen David's presentation and we are currently tweaking it to be ready for San Francisco next week. Hope to see you there!

Xangati has released a new free tool to the public. If you're familiar with my Top 10 Free Tools list, then you know I'm a sucker for free stuff, who isn't? I've had a chance to play around with Xangati's new free tool and it really caught my attention. Xangati Free is a great free tool because it's essentially the core of the whole Xangati management platform. I'll explain the differences below.

If you remember the grading scale I had for the Top 10 Free Tools list, here is how Xangati Free stands:

19 points puts it right there on the cusp of a Top 10 Free Tool. Seeing as how Embotics V-Scout has hit an EOL, we can put Xangati in the Top 10. Let's dive a bit deeper.

More ways to make the transition to ESXi are making it to market. Take a read at my previous articles:

• The Migration From ESX to ESXi is Happening. Moving Configurations
• The Migration From ESX to ESXi is Happening. Moving Configurations. Part II

This week, VMware Labs has created another free tool called VMware Auto Deploy. Here is a short description:

VMware Auto Deploy supports automatic PXE boot and customization of large numbers of ESXi systems. Auto Deploy allows rapid deployment and configuration of a large number of ESXi hosts. After a DHCP server has been set up, Auto Deploy PXE boots machines that are turned on with an ESXi image. Auto Deploy then customizes the ESXi systems using host profiles and other information stored on the managing vCenter Server system. You can set up the environment to use different images and different host profiles for different hosts.

 

As an update to The Migration From ESX to ESXi is Happening. Moving Configurations. Part II, I opened a VMware SR and it seems that the problem was on my end with host profiles not working with AD. I tested it out on a different machine and it worked, go figure.

Greg Stuart over at vDestination.com was one of the lucky people to snag a GestaltIT and Boche.net Free VMworld ticket. He is already paying it forward by holding a contest to Win the Ultimate vSphere Reference Library and more.

The lucky winner will receive the following prizes:

* A signed copy of Mastering VMware vSphere 4 from Scott Lowe
* A signed copy of VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference from Scott Lowe
* A signed copy of Maximum vSphere from Eric Siebert
* A copy of VMware vSphere Pro Series Training vol. 2: Site Recovery Manager (SRM), Veeam Management Suite, VMware Data Recovery,
Power CLI and vSphere Advanced Features from David Davis

I hope everyone is familiar with Mike Laverick's Podcast series called The Chinwag. Mike approached me a few weeks ago about being on the wag and I was more than happy to oblige. We discussed some topics relating to Free vSphere Tools, NFSv4, and VMworld. Don't know why my eyes look so squinty... must be because it was in the early AM and I was looking down into a camera :)

Chinwag with Mike… Kenny Coleman [Episode 23]

Here are some talking points I had that we didn't have enough time to chat about as an addition to my Why vSphere Needs NFSv4 post:

Some of the features of NFS from version 3 to version 4 are going to give VMware environments a big boost.

NFSv4 now has this thing called the stateful protocol. It basically gives a client temporary access to a server. Instead of accessing a file and having a stateless lock on it, the client must check back in with the server every 45 seconds or the file will become unlocked and the next client can access it. For VMware deployments, this could mean less of a chance of corrupted VMs if a server or NAS were to fail and kept locks on a file.

If you ever read my Top 10 Free vSphere Tools post, you would know that Embotics V-Scout tied for 8th place out of a list of over 50 free vSphere tools.

I got this email earlier today:

You are receiving this email because you are a registered user of Embotics V-Scout.

When we released V-Scout as a free reporting tool back in 2008, there were few tools like it available for VI administrators.   That situation has of course changed, and there are now many free reporting tools.

So, rather than continue to upgrade V-Scout, we have decided to retire it, effective immediately.      We would like to thank everyone who downloaded V-Scout, and hope you found it useful.   You are, of course, welcome to continue using it, but Embotics will no longer be supporting or updating it.