ESXi is not your father's ESX. There is no Service Console, so trying to fit it into the exact same processes that you're used to with ESX isn't recommended. I know, I know, you have all those scripts you're used to running in the console. VMware is building tools to manage and administer your ESXi from outside the box, and while they're not quite feature complete, they're well on their way. So don't pop the hood; it's welded shut for a reason.

Behold the power of the blogosphere! Last week I reported, along with a number of other bloggers, that several important Symantec products aren't supported on VMotion, VMware's technology that moves virtual machines around with no downtime. I missed it at the time, but a couple of days later, Symantec changed its tune and now does give "best effort support" to Symantec AntiVirus Clients and Symantec Endpoint Protection Clients.

If you have enabled Dropbear SSH or used technical support mode on VMware ESXi without a VMware support representative, you may have voided your ESXi warranty. Learn sanctioned ways to manage VMware ESXi connections.

Security was a pretty big song and dance for VMware during VMworld 2007. But the music seemed silenced at the 2008 event, or at the very least, the volume knob was turned down a few notches.

It's kind of hard to believe, but a couple of Symantec's security tools -- Symantec Antivirus (SAV) and Symantec Endpoint Control (SEC) -- don't work with VMware's VMotion. This Symantec Knowledgebase article tells the tale (hat tip vinternals). What I love is this part of the article: "Solution: Symantec does not support ESX server Vmotion at this time."

Virtualization Team vs. Security Team: It is important to remove the “vs.”! Rob Randell, one of our security specialists here at VMware, is guest-posting over at Mike D's blog. (Guys, you're welcome over here as well.) Link: Mike D's Virtualization Blog: Virtualization Team vs. Security Team: It is important to remove the “vs.”!.

Is credit card data truly safe in a virtualized environment? By joining the PCI Security Standards Council, VMware hopes to sway the discussion in its favor.

I started to mention this in Virtualization Short Take #22, but I felt that burying mention of a security notice amongst a bunch of other links just wasn’t the right way to bring it to everyone’s attention. I don’t want to be accused of crying wolf, but I do want readers to be aware of this sort of issues when they arise.

I've written about the link between NAC and MSP before, and the success of NAC in the higher education market is certainly no secret.  More and more of our higher ed customers have been talking lately about outsourcing their residential networks.  This seems to make sense on a number of levels, provided that the schools can work out a structure for the support as well as engineering and maintenance of the residential network.

So, my attempt to drag out some members of the community did work. It did get me some unfriendly and nasty response. As Joseph Goebbels said: