Anyone who has installed VMware's ESXi4 hypervisor (if you haven't then get an idea of what you are missing with my article on how to setup your own ESXi4 server will be aware that the options for maintenance at the server itself are somewhat limited. [..]

Organizations are enthusiastically deploying server virtualization because of the immediate benefits it provides. As a result, deployment of server virtualization has never been higher - in spite of the economy. In fact, many organizations today have adopted "virtualize first" policies to help reduce capital (e.g., hardware, software, etc.) and operational (e.g., management) costs as well as improve underlying business processes....

By Simon Gallagher

Now that VMware are moving away from ESX classic (with service console) to the ESXi model I have experienced a couple of issues recently that got me wondering if NFS will be a more appropriate model for VM storage going forward. in recent versions of ESX (3.5 and 4) NFS has moved away from just being recommended for .ISO/template storage and has some big names behind it for production VM storage.

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Cisco Systems will soon release a VPN client for smartphones and PCs aimed at enterprise administrators who want to provide secure access to their networks and ward off malicious software.

The debate on Stackable vs Chassis based switches has a long and proud pedigree. Here is my addition to the debate.

From the Punching Cloud blog

Over the course of past week I was asked a couple of storage related questions in regards to VMFS volumes and LUN partitions. The topic of the questions were based on something that folks with experience, and knowledge of VMware virtualization platforms are aware about.

Companies looking to move to desktop virtualisation should be wary of what approach to take.

By Simon Gallagher

I am currently presenting a follow-up to my previous vTARDIS session for the London VMware Users Group where I demonstrated a 2-node ESX cluster on cheap PC-grade hardware (ML-115g5).

The goal of this build is to create a system you can use for VCP and VCDX type study without spending thousands on normal production type hardware (see the slides at the end of this page for more info on why this is useful..) – Techhead and I have a series of joint postings in the pipeline about how to configure the environment and the best hardware to use.

by Chris Hoff

I saw a very interesting post on LinkedIn with the title PwC/TSB Debate: The cloud/thin computing will fundamentally change the nature of cyber security…

By Daniel Eason

s an afterthought after visiting a few recent Cloud Camp's and after talking to some very bleeding edge and clever individuals who develop applications and object based storage for the cloud I felt compelled to blog about my thoughts on this subject.