In a previous post, Using the WANem WAN Emulator Virtual Appliance, I’ve talked about how I’ve successfully used WANem to emulate different WAN scenarios.

Since I work for a shipping company, the ability to emulate VSAT conditions are especially useful for testing and proof-of-concept scenarios.

You can use WANem a couple of different ways but my setup is pretty simple but does the job perfectly.

Downloading WANem #

I have chose to use the WANem Virtual Appliance running in a virtual machine hosted by VMware Workstation. If you don’t have Workstation handy, VMware Player will also do the job. You don’t need to use the virtual appliance, as WANem also offers a bootable ISO download that you could boot your VM from

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Thanks to Maish Saidel-Keesing, vExpert 2010 and blogger over at Technodrone I have been made aware that VMware has used one of my posts here on vNinja in their internal presentation material.

The material in question is vSphere 4.1 to 4.0 differences (page 44 and 45 in vSphere 4.1 Deep Dive - Part 1 - v6.pptx), where my post about Using USB Pass-through in vSphere 4.1 is quoted and my screenshots used. I guess no-one else had tested USB passthrough in vSphere 4.1 with USB based UPS setups before I did.

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When Rich Brambley posted “A Pirate Invented Server Virtualization” today, it reminded me of a little story from my own production environment.

This story is a couple of years old, but sadly it’s still valid. A very specialized application that we run, requires a SQL Server Express instance, a proxy/licensing server and client installation with license files to work. This application isn’t very advanced, nor very resource intensive so by nature it’s prime for running in a virtualized environment. None of the application developers customers had ever attempted setting it up in a virtualized environment, and so we offered to be a pilot customer and test it live in our environment. The testing confirmed what we thought, it worked perfectly when virtualized! We were happy, and so were the developers. At least, that’s what we thought.

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A couple of days ago, while I was at VMworld Europe I got the following tweet from Asbjørn A. Mikkelsen (@neslekkim) (translated from norwegian):

@h0bbel Do you know if I can script something against vCenter to duplicate (or create from template) VMs, and also start/stop them?

My immediate response, was of course to suggest using PowerCLI. Asbjørn, who works as a full time developer, jumped at PowerCLI immediately and within a very short time frame came up with a PowerCLI script for the task at hand.

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Now that the VMworld events are over for 2010, I’m still trying to digest a lot of the impressions I’ve had over the past few days.

However, I do have a couple of suggestions I would like to voice:

• Add contact information to the attendee badge!

Just like David Owen (@vMackem) suggested, adding Twitter ID and blog link to the attendee badge would make it easier to keep track of everyone you meet up with. I would even take it a a step further, and actually add a QR code with the contact info in it directly to the badge. That way, we could all run around and scan each other! (Not as dirty as it might sound!). No more need for business card exchanges, business cards you eventually lose anyway.

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I’m back home again, after spending the better part of this week in Copenhagen, attending VMworld Europe 2010.

Let me just say, straight off the bat, that attending VMworld is probably the best idea I’ve had in years. In reality, that’s not saying much, but the value of attending is immense.

The way VMworld is organized, with lots of simultaneous sessions, labs and other activities is both a challenge and a blessing. It’s a challenge in the sense that you need to plan your schedule pretty well and really take control over your own experience. The blessing is that you’re not locked into a predetermined path, and you can re-arrange your schedule at any time if you wish to do so. And trust me, you’ll plan one thing and probably end up doing something completely different in the end.

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Undoubtedly one of the most popular “features” of VMworld 2010, both in the US and in EU, are the labs. These hands-on exercises in configuring and using various VMware products lets you play around without the need for lab equipment or licenses installed locally. What if VMware extended this to not only run during the VMworld conferences?

Let us get our hands dirty all year round! It’s hard to have a full lab setup in the office, and if we could book time in the VMware Cloud Lane to play around with VMware vCloud™, VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager or even VMware ThinApp™ that would be great!

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They found me! Well, not they, but Duco Jaspars (@vConsult) found me straight after the keynote and was promptly handed the Trainsignal VMware vSphere Pro Series Training Vol. 2. training kit.

Duco Jaspars (@vConsult) #

Gerben Kloosterman has posted some pictures of the handover as well.

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View slideshow with larger photos

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VMworld Europe 2010 is close. Very close. In fact, lots of people are already in place in Copenhagen, personally I don’t get until tomorrow evening (the 11th).

Since I get in pretty late, I really hope I’ll be able to get to my hotel quickly, and then find Custom House for the Tweetup/VMUG Party. Remember I have a little contest going, where you can win a copy of Trainsignal VMware vSphere Pro Series Training Vol. 2.

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