VirtualPro

I wrote a post about bluebear 0.0.2 beta invites back in October and still have about 30 beta invites left if people are still interested.  This beta invite will allow you access to all the future beta releases from Bluebear and allow you 5 invites to send out yourself.

vmware-vmrc remote console has been a very popular post,  lots of people seem to be landing on it from Google. It’s obviously stirred up interest out there and I hope people are getting good use out of it,  I have to say I always like this feature in ESX 2.5 and am glad to see that they’re planning to incorporate it into VI4. when it comes out.

General bluebear, ESX management, remote console, VMware server, vmware-vmrc

Well I finally overcame the Windows certificate issue that occurs with Adobe Air and BlueBear Kodiak. I thought I should reshare this seeing as everyone wants to have a play with this new ESX management tool.

Step 1

Ensure your ESX server has a valid hostname on it’s certificate by connecting to it through a web browser and viewing the certificate. Certificates are usually not a problem with ESX 3.0 or ESX 3.5.  ESX 3.5i on the other hand is a completely different story.  See my blog post on how to sort this problem out Regenerating SSL Certificates in ESX 3.5i

Step 2

Follow Bluebear’s updated instructions on how to install the certifcate and workaround the trust issue. http://www.bluebear.org/wiki/display/pub/Windows+trust+work-around

Step 3

When logging on to Bluebear Kodiak,  don’t make the same mistake I did.  Log on with the FQDN name of the ESX host,  I was using the shortname which works fine for most things but obviously does not match the certificate that’s been installed.  Once you’ve done all that you should have no issues using this great program on a windows machine.

Citrix, New Products bluebear, Certificates, ESX management, SSL

Well BlueBear have kindly given me another 47 beta invites to give away to coincide with the release of the second beta version of the software , Interestingly named “Curious Cub”.

I haven’t had a chance to take a look at it myself but have had a good look at Duncan Epping’s article over at Yellow Bricks which you can read by clicking here

If you’d like a beta invite just drop me a comment on this post and I will do my best to process them all tomorrow.  Might be after the day job has finished though :o)

Beta Release Documentation

New functionality

We have added support for configuring existing virtual machines. All the expected functions are available. Configuration for a Virtual Machine is accessible via the configure button attached to a given VM object on the screen (Inspector Panels / Map)

Configuration of all standard resources is available, e.g. Memory Size, CPU allocation/shares, virtual disks, virtual NICs, and removable devices. Usage Notes

Virtual disks are of the “preallocated/thick” type, support for all disk types will be available in the next release.

‘Host-device-backed’ virtual devices (e.g. floppy/cdrom/raw) are not supported, but will be available in a future release.

‘Remote-backed’ virtual devices (e.g. floppy/cdrom/ISO images on the client) are not supported, but will be available in a future release.

VMs must be powered off for configuration. While it is possible to reconfigure a running VM, it may result in a host fault that will cause your changes to be discarded.

If you make changes to a VM that you don’t want to commit, simply close the configure window and the changes will be discarded, (or hit the discard button).

Support for VM Creation will be available in the next release.

Known Issues

Untrusted certificates on windows may cause an authorization dialog to continually appear. The certificate must be added to the local store, please see this page for a work-around.

License keycodes are case sensitive, please ensure you enter them exactly.

VirtualCenter is not yet fully supported. While it might work, functionality is not guaranteed to give predictable results. We are currently adapting Kodiak’s back-end data model to more effectively handle VirtualCenter’s data structures.

Support / Bug Reports

We’re working on enhancing our support wiki, bug reporting and additional content are almost ready.

ESX, General, New Products bluebear, ESX management

I’ve got a few invites available for the private beta version of bluebear kodiak which I’ve been blogging about this week.

If you’d like an invite to the beta program just respond to this post and I’ll get it sorted out for you as soon as I can. Numbers are limited so it’s a first come first served basis I’m afraid.

New Products bluebear, ESX management, kodiak, virtual center

Duncan Epping over at Yellow Bricks has done a great review of Bluebear Kodiak which I blogged about last week.  The general impression is that it looks nice but is obviously still in Beta and therefore lacks a number of features that would most likely make the final version.  Interestingly someone has commented on the article indicating that because Bluebear Kodiak uses the SDK it’s limited to read only operations with the free version of ESX 3.5i.  If that is the case that could be bad news for what I saw as one of it’s main uses,  centralised management without having to invest in Virtual Center.

You can read the full review by following this link.

New Products bluebear, ESX management, kodiak, management tools

Just been having a little look at a product called Kodiak by a company called BlueBear

http://www.bluebearllc.net/

It’s a hypervisor-agnostic, cross platform virtualisation management tool which currently supports ESX but they have plans to support Citrix XenServer very soon and Windows Hyper V in due course.  The best thing about it is its going to be free.

This could be very good for small businesses looking to get into virtualisation without inccuring the usual costs.  a couple of ESX 3.5i servers and BlueBear Kodiak and you’ve got yourself a nice little setup. Graphically it looks stunning and they appear to be suggesting that it will be a lot faster and more fluid than the clunky virtual center interface we’ve all come to know and … well love, only because there is no  alternative.

You can see some screenshots at the link below

http://www.bluebearllc.net/kodiak/screenshots/ 

I’ve put my name down for a beta key as I’d like to look at it a bit more in depth,  when / if I get it and have had a look I’ll post back to give some feedback.

New Products bluebear, ESX management, management tools