For a reason I still don’t understand, nearly 70% of the referring sites to my blog are either based in Russia or speaking Russian language!

Of course I’m not complaining here! I’m just making a very interesting observation (well, at least for me), and trying to tell them “thank you” for all their kind words (I hope!)

These are “some” of the sites I’m referring to..err…i mean, the ones referring to me:

• http://www.vsphere.ru/
• http://vsphere.vm4.ru/
• http://vmind.ru/
• http://vm.pro-it.kz/
• http://www.vmgu.ru/

And in case you are curious about the other traffic sources, the top list in order would be as follows:

• Google.com
• communities.vmware.com
• blogs.vmware.com
• vmware.com
• vsphere-land.com
• twitter.com

Thanks to everyone!

I updated the diagram (v1.2) to fix a small typo and adjust also a couple of shapes. Thanks to Joshua Liebster & Bert Bouwhuis for driving my attention to this.

I know everybody skips to the diagram so I’ll save you the introduction, just make sure to quickly go through the notes that follow it:

• This is not an introduction to the VMware HA, and it’s not a very advanced diagram for it either. I assume here that you have a general idea on the topic before looking into it to appreciate this incredible technology. If you are a VMware professional you may also find this useful to keep your information sharp and present about the topic at any given time. You really don’t have to re-read the documentation every time you’d like to remember a small detail about the subject.
• I’m introducing in this diagram the “Layers” feature in Visio for the first time. The diagram may look somewhat confusing at the first glance, so I thought that it might be a good idea to use these layers for you to hide/show the topics that you are going through in the diagram. I can see some other use cases for the Layers in future diagrams, so I hope you will like it.
• This is an A3 diagram, sorry I know most of you just love the traditional A4 from the feedback I get, but seriously, it’s just TMI to fit in A4.
• Everything you see in this diagram, and specifically for the admission control, is *not* fictitious. This is a real cluster I built specifically before designing this diagram. I wanted everything to be 100% accurate and more importantly: realistic. If you zoom into the middle of the vCenter shape, you will be able to see the actual screenshot of the vCenter interface showing the HA cluster I used, and its runtime information window as well.
• It’s worth mentioning that this is not all the “advanced options” that you can use for VMware HA. I just selected the ones I thought that might be more frequently used. You can always get back to the official VMware documentation for the complete list.
• The Admission Control was probably the hardest part not just to visualize it, but also to understand it in the first place! That being said, I do not expect anyone with no prior reading on this specific topic to just get it from the first glance when he/she looks into the diagram. Duncan Epping has an excellent article that I think everyone already knows about it, but it’s worth mentioning that it’s the best place you will ever find for VMware HA in general. The diagram should help you though to understand it faster and easier. You can see all the numbers/calculations in front of you in one shot, and how all these numbers are related to each other.
• This HA lab was built in nearly 5 minuets and is 100% virtual. Long live Lab Manager 4.0 ! (more details here)

That’s all folks! I hope you will find it useful!

I guess all of us are confused at this point whether it’s “vMotion” or “VMotion”! Every now and then, we would see a slide/wp/document/blog-post/presentation mentioning the term in a deferent way. I showed on twitter lately one of these slides which was taken from an official VMware material (the vSphere e-learning module) and you can see below how both of them are actually appearing in the same place!

Until VMware decides which one is the official term to be used, let’s vote for our favorite and see how the community thinks.

I, for one, stand by the “vTrend”!

[polldaddy poll=2279822]

If you are following me on twitter, you must have noticed that every now and again I tweet about a new vSphere book, and then one day later someone will blog about it (the book not my tweet of course )

For a change, and to get myself used to short blog posts (without all these full-blown video/diagram contents) I decided to break the rule this time and blog about it. Here is the description listed on Amazon.com, where you can pre-order it now also.

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: Sybex (May 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470569611
• ISBN-13: 978-0470569610

 
VMware’s vSphere 4 is the latest offering from this leading virtualization software provider. With today’s emphasis on going green and cutting costs, virtualization of IT infrastructures is a hot topic. What better way to show the marketplace your virtualization expertise than with a VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 4 certification? This in-depth study guide covers all exam objectives, thoroughly preparing you with challenging review questions, real-world scenarios, hands-on exercises, and more.

• VMware’s vSphere 4 is the latest offering from VMware, the leading virtualization software provider on the market
• Prepares you for the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) on vSphere 4 (VCP-410) certification exam, with complete coverage of all exam objectives
• Guides you through such topics as planning, installing, and upgrading ESX/ESXi; configuring ESX/ESXi networking and storage; installing and configuring vCenter Server; deploying and managing virtual machines; and more
• Reinforces your preparation with challenging review questions, hands-on exercises, and real-world scenarios
• Includes a CD with Sybex test engine, electronic flashcards, and practice exams
• Make sure you’re ready for VMware’s VCP certification exam with this packed study guide.

Happy reading! (6 months from now!)

Following the crowd/trend, starting from the cool new themes of Boche.Net/Blog and Yellow-Bricks.com all the way to the impressive new look and feel of VMware’s website, it’s right about time to refresh my 11 month old theme!

I tried to keep the original logo and colors as much as I could. No dramatic changes, except for the homepage’s Featured Content! There is still some work to be done, mainly in the comments area where I think it can be much cleaner and easier to read.

I hope you will like it, if not, please drop your thoughts and comments either here or through email and let me know what do you think.