I've been rebuilding my VMware lab and decided to do it all right this time by having a centralized database server, and I choose SQL Server 2008 R2. I have configured vCenter, VUM, and View Composer to all use SQL 2008 R2 with windows authentication, then it came time to get the View Events database up and running. Jason Langone has a great article on setting up the events DB using SQL Express, but there isn't a good walkthru for regular SQL server setup. So here we go.

Before we begin, make sure that SQL Server ports are allowed through the firewall. do some googleing and there are plenty of batch files out there that will open them up for you.

VMware View Events Database cannot use Windows Authentication for the SQL backend, so we have to use local authentication. Open up SQL Server Management Studio and go to the properties of the database server

EMC isn't the only company with some news to unveil at EMC World 2011. VCE has some announcements as well all revolving around the BRAND NEW VBLOCKS!

The first announcement that effects VCE is the unveiling of Unified Infrastructure Manager 2.1. UIM is standard with a Vblock and is the major hardware orchestration piece with many new road-map additions to tie it in with other VMware products. Check out Chad Sakac's post because he has already covered this really in depth EMC UIM v2.1 Provisioning and Operations.

The second announcement from VCE is the availability of the new VNX Based Vblocks. The original Vblock names are still there, and I've created a chart that help depict the new differences.

Last year's VMworld was an exciting time and its shaping up to be bigger and better than ever in 2011. I have scrolled through the entire list of VMworld sessions and was pleasantly surprised to see all my submitted sessions are open for voting. Even if you know you won't be able to attend VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas, you can still vote. I encourage everyone to log in to their VMworld account or create a new account (it's free) and VOTE! I feel like the 8th grader running for class president and trying to get all my friends to vote for me, but sometimes shameless self-plugs are part of the process. I had an exciting time speaking at VMworld 2010 and I really do appreciate your votes to make it all happen again in 2011. Even if my sessions aren't your cup of tea, then vote for ones that do strike your interest. The voters dictate the outcome of the conference so take a few minutes to make it happen!

Session 1940: 10 Best Free Tools for vSphere Management in 2011

Last year, Team Free Tools (David Davis and I), did our session on the Top 10 Free Tools for vSphere Management. It was the 3rd highest rated session at VMworld 2010 and had stellar feedback. This year, David and I are back at it again with a brand new session with more free tools, an updated list, demos, and even more videos for your eye candy. You won't be disappointed by what we have lined up!

Sadly, I won't be able to attend EMC World 2011 in Vegas this year. But I have been in the loop on emails floating around about all the cool stuff that will be a part of this great event. Over 10,000 attendees will be at EMC World this year and the vSpecialist have quite a massive vLab they have been building to allow people to test out products. I would encourage anyone that is attending EMC World to venture into the Lab to see all the great work some of the brightest minds in the industry have put together, it's quite impressive.

For 2011 the vSpecialist team has decided to kick it up a notch and leverage our private cloud support a 200 seat hands on lab pavilion during EMCWorld! The lab topics are:


•    VMware Storage Optimization Solutions - EMC VMAX, VNX, VNXe, Isilon, Atmos
•    VMware Storage Management Optimization - Virtual Storage Integrator plug-in for vCenter (VSI)
•    VMware Storage Performance Optimization - vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI)
•    VMware Data Protection - EMC RecoverPoint, VPLEX
•    VMware Backup & Recovery - Avamar
•    VMware Datawarehouse Solutions - Greenplum
•    Vblock automated Provisioning - Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager (UIM)
•    VMWare Security - RSA Archer, RSA enVision

VMTurbo announced a brand new FREE product to their lineup called Performance and Efficiency Reporter. I'm actually really excited about this release and can't wait to test it out for the Top Ten Free VMware Tools for 2011. If this product is anything like VMTurbo Watchdog, then this product will hit a homerun. The fact that the efficiency reporter uses algoirthms to monitor usage and typical workloads puts it right up there in the next class generation of monitoring tools. And it's free! The performance piece sticks out to me the most by able to see into the CPU Ready Queue and IOPS deliverd without having to be inside ESXTOP. This feature alone makes it worthy of being at the top, but we'll have to wait for the testing. Give it a go and tell us all what you think!

The VMTurbo Performance and Efficiency Reporter package is a collection of reports that fall into two categories.

Performance Reports

• Host/VM Utilization Heat Map contains an ordered ranking of utilization (UI) for both physical hosts as well as virtual machines. Raw data for each host and each VM also is provided. Useful metrics include the peak utilization. This data enables both an “at-a-glance” indicator of workload as well as useful information for provisioning.
• Host Top CPU Ready Queue provides a detailed breakdown of the metric surrounding CPU ready states. By showing both the host total wait times (aggregated over a sample period) and the total times waited by virtual machines for each multiple of vCPUs, the report provides insights into how either a re-allocation of vCPUs or the re-location of a VM would impact this raw performance metric.

I feel like my blogging has been lagging lately and I wanted to give my readers an insight as to why.

First, I've been working like a mad dog at my new gig. I remember sitting at previous jobs and see the tweets that said "on a mission for inbox 0", I now know what that means. VCE is on a rocketship and my days are no longer 8-5, it's more 8-8, or 6-10, or 24/7. The inbox is constantly getting hit every day with new clients needing to know more about Vblock. My job is a mission to educate Service Providers on why we do VMware better on a Vblock. Then develop a bill of materials for that specific Vblock. In addition, I'm working with Chris Colotti from VMware on a special project that will hopefully unravel itself in the weeks to come.

2nd, I've been spending what little vSphere client time I have inside of vSphere.Next. Since I can't blog about vSphere.Next yet, I've had to draft up a few blogs in waiting. Now i just need VMware to unleash the beast so I can hit the publish button. Believe me, there are some cool things coming and it's better to wait until the bugs are worked out.

3rd, kitchen remodel... 4th, a wife who actually wants to spend free time with her husband

Last week I attended the Louisville VMUG and listened in on some talks by Dell and my good friends from Veeam. As I listened to the Dell SE, he was asking some questions that I was surprised to hear. My goal is to get a better understanding of where most people in the industry are and where we all want to be "someday".

He started asking the simple question of "does everyone run some sort of centralized storage?" and of course everyone answered yes. The he asked to see a show of hands of iSCSI vs FC vs FCoE. Nearly 80% of the room raised their hand for iSCSI storage connections while the other 20% were split for FC or FCoE. He seemed to really find his target audience. I believe most people were in the SMB space which makes perfect sense. Yet, the room seemed to be sort of bored. We've all been to VMUGs and heard the same pitches instead of talking about core technology or thinking beyond technology and the end result. I started thinking to myself, perhaps everyone here doesn't know the benefits or understand the process of running a converged fabric and leading up to a converged infrastructure.

About 2 weeks ago I was on Cody Bunch's VCAP-DCA brownbag podcast. We discussed my home lab and how I have everything configured. As being a part of the show, I was given a 50% off voucher for my VCAP-DCA exam. The day after the podcast I scheduled my VCAP-DCA exam and that's where I started losing my mind.

Does anyone remember The Office episode where Dwight thinks it's Friday? That's basically what happened to me. I scheduled my exam for March 31st, and for some reason I had it stuck in my head that March 31st was a Friday. I woke up on Friday morning at 7:15am ready to take my 8am exam, looked at my morning facebook feed and I saw someone saying "Happy April Fools Day". I thought to myself, huh? I double checked my phone and sure enough, it was April 1st. My test was scheduled for Thursday. I called Pearson Vue and they basically told me I was SOL. Sorry, no refunds. Great, there goes $200.

I assured myself I was ready for the exam, so at 8:00am I went on the Pearson Vue site and registered again for the VCAP exam for Monday April 4th... or so I thought....