VMware Parnter Exchange 2012

Great start to PEX.  Looks like another great conference this year.

VMware Introduces VMware vCloud Integration Manager

VMware vCloud Integration Manager software will allow service providers to quickly create and deploy cloud service offerings, operate at maximum efficiency and scale to meet customer demand in a reliable, repeatable and cost-effective manner. VMware vCloud Integration Manager will help service providers:

• Accelerate time to revenue: vCloud Integration Manager will be tightly integrated with VMware vCloud Director, VMware vSphere®, VMware vShield™ Edge and VMware vCenter™ Chargeback Manager to automate and accelerate the provisioning and delivery of infrastructure and associated services. vCloud Integration Manager will provide a REST-based API to integrate with a service provider’s back office systems (CRM, billing, etc.), and a Web-based administration portal.
• Simplify operations to increase efficiency and reduce costs:vCloud Integration Manager will include Web-based portals to streamline and automate service plan, customer lifecycle and reseller management. With the click of a button, service providers will be able to standardize product configuration and delivery, manage customer lifecycles from sign-up to decommission, and reduce the time and overhead involved in transacting with resellers.

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Additional Resources:

• Learn moreabout VMware vCloud Integration Manager
• Learn more about VMware private and public cloud computing services
• Learn moreabout the VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP)
• Read "vCloud Integration Manager and More Clouds in More Countries" blog post by VMware senior director of cloud services, Mathew Lodge
• Find, learn about and quickly test drive vCloud services at vcloud.vmware.com
• To learn how to offer a vCloud Powered service, click hereto join the VMware Service Provider Program

Best Practice: How to correctly remove a LUN from an ESX host

I find this to be a very common topic that is not covered.  This is the best article from VMware that I have seen regarding what to look out for when removing storage from a vSphere Cluster or ESX host.

Yes, at first glance, you may be forgiven for thinking that this subject hardly warrants a blog post. But for those of you who have suffered the consequences of an All Paths Down (APD) condition, you'll know  why this is so important.

Let's recap on what APD actually is.

APD is when there are no longer any active paths to a storage device from the ESX, yet the ESX continues to try to access that device. When hostd tries to open a disk device, a number of commands such as read capacity and read requests to validate the partition table are sent. If the device is in APD, these commands will be retried until they time out. The problem is that hostd is responsible for a number of other tasks as well, not just opening devices. One task is ESX to vCenter communication, and if hostd is blocked waiting for a device to open, it may not respond in a timely enough fashion to these other tasks. One consequence is that you might observe your ESX hosts disconnecting from vCenter.

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PowerCLI 5.0.1 vCloud Director Basic Usage

VMware recently released the 5.0.1 version of PowerCLI with a new Powershell snap-in to tie into vCloud Director.  They have included a video (below) to get you started on the cmdlets.  Check out the video and then the full article after the jump.

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Ready for VMware Partner Exchange

Looking forward to another big 'geek out' at PEX in Las Vegas.