This post is inspired by a tweet from Andrew Storrs, where he pinpoints that the host log file locations have changed between ESXi 4 and ESXi 5.

Note: This post has been updated with new log files for ESXi 5.1

ESXi 4 Log File Locations: #

[table id=6 /]

ESXi 5 Log File Locations: #

[table id=5 /]

Between version 5.0 and 5.1 the log file locations have not changed, but a couple of new logs have been added.

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Now that vSphere 5.1 and assorted products have been released into the wild, how do you check the integrity of your downloaded file? As you might be aware of, VMware publishes both MD5 and SHA1 hashes for their files, making it possible to check if the file you just downloaded is identical to the file offered from VMware.

Checking the MD5 or SHA1 hash for a single file is easy, at least in OS X where you don´t need any third party tools to check.

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Way back in the old days, you know when VMworld 2012 was held in San Francisco, I tweeted that if someone could get hold of a VCP pin for me, I would be very happy.

Luckily Paul Valentino from vCommunity Trust picked that up, and apparently went on quite the scavenger hunt on my behalf.

Imagine my surprise today when this little square meter of carton appeared, courtesy of Mr. Valentino:

For some reason I suspected that Paul had not only shipped me a VCP pin and that there might be a couple of other things in the package as well.

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Fabio Rapposelli´s post “On the Real Value of IT certifications” highlights some of the current problems related to IT certifications in general, and basic “entry level” exams in particular.

The problems with brain dumps, lack of experience and testing methods is not new, and the_ “Paper MCSE”_ term was coined back in the early 2000´s when the influx of newly certified Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers, with little or no real world experience flooded the market. Sure, they were certified, but without hands-on experience, what is a certification worth?

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My Saturday morning started the same as any other.  I checked my emails and my tweets, started a coffee, walked my dog and got into the shower.  My iPhone buzzing on the sink caught my attention a few minutes into it. Covered in soap and the rest censored for the public here I answered the call.  Without getting into too many details of my organization - my bosses-bossess-boss contacted me reporting a fire in one of our server rooms in Shanghai China. Trying not to panic I got it together and agreed to meet and discuss ASAP.

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VMware Offers vCloud “Test-Drive” with New Evaluation Service.

This announcement doesn´t seem to be “Project Zephyr” which, if the rumors are true, is VMware´s own fully fledged IaaS service.

This Public vCloud “Test-Drive” service, which VMware themselves describe as “white-label” from a vCloud service provider, seems like a way for VMware to provide cheap test-drive access, to vCloud through their existing service providers.

Where the rumored “Project Zephyr” might be seen as a competing service, Public vCloud looks to be engineered to drive long term customers to the existing ecosystem of providers.

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Mike Laverick and Barry Coombs has released their new book, elegantly titled “Building End-User Computing Solutions with VMware View”.

Not only is this a great book, it is something that every existing and potential VMware View (and related technologies in the EUC area) administrator should add to their (digital) bookshelves.

I´ll let the authors themselves describe it:

This book is all about VMware View 5.1 and ThinApp 4.7.2 administration - and it takes in a wide scope of complementary technologies from the likes of Teradici, BitDefender and F5 Networks. Towards the end the focus switches away from virtual desktops to look at the future of end-user computing including VMware’s ThinApp Factory and Horizon Appliction Manager.

This book is a not for profit venture. The monies raised by the sale of the book will be donated in full to the work of UNICEF. UNICEF carries out work across the globe that benefits all children regardless of their social, ethnic, religious or geographical location. It’s our sincere hope that people will use the legitimate sources for acquiring this book – and by doing so support the work of UNICEF.

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I´ve been a Mac and OS X user now for about 7 months, but to be honest I have not been very experimental in my usage of my Macbook Air. Until now, my main focus has been basic usage of the hardware and operating systems, and making it work in my corporate environment. As I feel that I´ve reached mission accomplished status on that initial project, I decided to use some of my “free” vacation time to play around a bit and experiment a bit more.

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I love it when a plan comes together, especially when someone gets an idea and then someone fires on all cylinders and executes!

As mentioned before, there has been a lot of talk about various ways to create a “soapbox” for all those who submitted VMworld sessions and got rejected, or those who did not submit but would still like to present.

Thankfully the guys behind vBrownBags has teamed up with VMware communities and are now offering this opportunity at VMworld 2012. I am not sure if this also extends to VMworld Europe, but it is happing in the US event at least.

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I recently had a need to create a VM for usage on ESX 3.x, but the only thing available to me in my lab was vSphere 5, which naturally creates new VMs with the latest and greatest version 8 virtual hardware.

The following table lists the virtual hardware versions and the corresponding ESX and ESXi releases:

Of course, I could have created the VM on the ESX host that it was supposed to run on on the first place, but the host in question was unavailable at the time and the plam was to prepare the VM off site before deployment in the production environment.

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