F5 BigIP Virtual Edition

F5 released a trial version of their famous LTM (Local Traffic Manager) product. The product is valid for 90 days trial use. It can be a great candidate for testing the product for your virtual environment or building a home lab for your F5 Certification studies.(F50-521 and F50-522 exams)

First download the file for your VMware virtual platform (ESX(i) vSphere or Workstation 7)

https://downloads.f5.com/esd/product.jsp?sw=BIG-IP&pro=big-ip_ve&prodesc=BIG-IP+Virtual+Edition

Then generate a registration key for your product that will be used to create the dossier file for activation during initial setup. You can have up to 4 registration keys e-mailed to you :

https://www.f5.com/trial/secure/generate-eval-key.php

The virtual machine has :

1 GB RAM
3 NIC (should be possible to additional NIC for redundant pair heartbeat traffic)
10 GB vdisk

NOTE : Don't try to decrease memory, otherwise you will have problems allocating additional modules to LTM.

You can find the detailed installation document on :
https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ve/releasenotes/product/relnotes_ve_10_1_0.html

Hyper-V Memory Overcommitment in new Service Pack for Windows 2008 R2

One of the features in Vmware Infrastructre that was missing in Hyper-V was over-provisioning of memory resources which is also known as memory overcommitment. A leaked screenshot from Softpedia shows that the dynamic memory management features is about to be included in the next Windows 2008 build.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Windows-8-Start-Post-RTM-Windows-7-Build-6-1-7700-0-100122-1900-133746.shtml

How to Rescan SCSI Bus in Linux

I have a RHEL5 lab on my laptop, that's hosted on Vmware 7. For my RHCE prep I usually add/remove disks while the VM is up and running (hot swap). In order to make Redhat recognize the new disk you need to trigger the rescan of the SCSI bus :

echo “- - -” > /sys/class/scsi_host/hostX/scan

instead of hostX use the HBA ID. It's host0 in my case. Immediately after you can see the new disk on "fdisk -l"


NOTE : This works on 2.6 kernel only.

Tip of the Day : Vmware - Linux Virtual Consoles Keystroke from Vmware

As you know in linux the keystroke from GUI for virtual consoles is CTRL+ALT+Fx. As CTRL+ALT is the keystroke for releasing the mouse from Vm session, these functionalities conflicts. In order to achieve CTRL+ALT+Fx in Vmware :

1. Press CTRL+ALT+Space

2. Only Release Space leaving Ctrl+Alt pressed

3. Press the Function (Fx) key

The battle of hypervisor footprints

Microsoft's stance against the statement in Vmware's official site saying Hyper-V has a bigger footprint then ESXi :

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/08/12/hypervisor-footprint-debate-part-1-microsoft-hyper-v-server-2008-vmware-esxi-3-5.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/08/14/hypervisor-footprint-debate-part-2-windows-server-2008-hyper-v-vmware-esx-3-5.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/08/17/hypervisor-footprint-debate-part-3-windows-server-2008-hyper-v-vmware-esxi-3-5.aspx

      Hyper-V Server 2008 vs ESXi 3.5 | June 2008 - June 2009
      Hyper-V: 82MB footprint increase with 26 patches
      ESXi: 2.7GB footprint increases with 13 patches
    Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V vs ESX 3.5 | January 2008 - June 2009
      Hyper-V: 408MB footprint increase with 32 patches
      ESX: 3GB footprint increases with 85 patches
    Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V vs ESXi 3.5 | January 2008 - June 2009
      Hyper-V: 408MB footprint increase with 32 patches
      ESX: 2.7GB footprint increases with 13 patches

and now Vmware's official reply :

http://blogs.vmware.com/virtualreality/2009/08/our-position-on-hypervisor-footprints-patching-vulnerabilities-and-whatever-else-microsoft-wants-to-throw-into-a-blog-post.html

I'm leaving the final decision to you :)