convincify A Little Virtual Machine Recreation It's time for a little VM recreation and you don't even have to get sweaty in the process. You’ve just scheduled a week of vacation in a remote location near some sand, water and a wee dram of your favorite beverage. Your backup feels confident that he can handle the situation while you’re gone but just before you walk out that door; you pick up your phone to hear a hysterical voice on the other end explaining that the accounting department VM crashed and now it won’t start up. Don’t let the air out of your favorite floatation device just yet. Anatomy A typical virtual machine descriptor (VMDK) is a small (~300B) text file that describes its associated disk file and named for the VM to which it refers. Let’s look inside a VMDK file and examine it more closely. VMDK File The version=1 entry refers to the version of the Disk Descriptor File. Since this file is an ASCII text file, you can edit it with any text editor—a bit of trivia that will come in handy later. Recreation
Parsimony CMS Free Trial Free Trial How do I sign up? If you are eligible, your free trial will start when you sign up for Google Cloud Platform. To sign up, sign in or create a Google Account. You will also need a credit card or bank account details so we can verify your identity. What's included in the free trial? $300 in credit to spend on all Google Cloud Platform products over 60 days. Who's eligible for the free trial? The free trial is a one-time introduction to the platform for new customers. Do I pay anything for the free trial? No, the trial is free and you will not be billed. How long does the free trial last? Your trial ends once 60 days have elapsed or you've spent $300. What are the Terms of Service for the free trial? The Cloud Platform free trial requires that you accept the Free Trial Terms of Service, as well as the Google Cloud Platform Terms of Service. Can I cancel my trial? If you want to leave the free trial, there's nothing to do. How easy is it to migrate to Google Cloud Platform?
What’s GNU in Virtualization Taking a new operating system for a spin is easier than ever before with virtualization software but when that software is free, it’s even better. There are virtualization choices for all tastes listed here. For those of you who prefer hypervisor-based virtualization, I urge you to try Xen or Proxmox. If you’re into high performance, container-based OpenVZ wins the prize. Red Hat’s enterprise-level virtualization solution, KVM, delivers incredible performance for a full virtualization solution. And, for you desktop-level virtualization converts, VirtualBox dishes out performance and a gaggle of high-end features. All virtualization software in this week’s article is released under the GPL-specifically GPL version 2. The Kernel Virtual Machine is a full virtual machine (VM) solution for Linux-based hosts. Virtually GNU Choices OpenVZ OpenVZ is container-based virtualization, which is analogous to BSD jails or chroot environments. ProxMox VirtualBox Xen
Top 10 Technology Trends for 2016 By David W. Cearley Gartner, Inc. Think of your last 24 hours. Our lives are becoming increasingly connected to our devices, other people and a variety of things. This year’s top 10 strategic technology trends are grouped into these three complementary trends that are mutually reinforcing with amplified disruptive characteristics. The Digital Mesh Trend No. 1: The Device Mesh The device mesh moves beyond the traditional desktop computer and mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) to encompass the full range of endpoints with which humans might interact. Trend No. 2: Ambient User Experience All of our digital interactions can become synchronized into a continuous and ambient digital experience that preserves our experience across traditional boundaries of devices, time and space. Organizations will need to consider their customers’ behavior journeys to shift the focus on design from discrete apps to the entire mesh of products and services involved in the user experience.
Which Major Hypervisor is Cheaper? Does it Matter? The search for the answer to this ultimate question is a noble yet daunting quest. Licensing obfuscation makes the answer the stuff of Sherlock Holmes novels and fortuneteller quarry. A direct comparison seems nearly impossible among the Big Three (VMware, Citrix and Microsoft) hypervisor vendors but you’ll find many failed and frustrated attempts sprinkled throughout the Internet on this very subject. Why is hypervisor comparison pricing such an occult subject when, in fact, it should be very simple? You shouldn’t need to consult a crystal ball, a psychic, Underdog, Mr. Peabody or a curmudgeonly magazine columnist to find the answer—notice that I said “shouldn’t.†What makes a neat and direct comparison nearly impossible is that you’re asking to draw a comparison between such distantly related items as Christmas ornaments and Horse-apples. You might be wondering if there’s really that much disparity between hypervisor technologies. VMware VMware isn’t cheap. Citrix
The cloud changes IT culture, demands new tech skills As enterprises are moving to the cloud, it's changing a whole lot more than just where companies' data and services are sitting. The emergence of the cloud is heralding a shift in the skills that IT workers need and the jobs they are doing. It's changing the entire culture inside IT departments. "The cloud is part of the evolution of IT," said Mike Chapple, senior director for IT service delivery at the University of Notre Dame. The trend is also altering the balance of who is pushing to migrate to the cloud. Sharon Gaudin/Computerworld Technology leaders told Computerworld about these changes during AWS's recent re:Invent cloud-themed conference. How IT fits Those shifts are starting with how IT sees itself fitting inside the business as a whole. For some time now, IT managers have talked about aligning IT with the business side -- understanding business needs and trying to meet them. That means the business is getting their IT-related requests through much faster. Thinking like a startup
OVF to VM and Back Again Do you need to deliver your appliances in smaller packages or do you have an OVF and don't know how to use it? This how-to unravels the OVF mystery. The Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is a virtual machine standard that provides a flexible, secure, portable and efficient way to package and distribute virtual machines. So, what’s so great about OVF? Download and Install Point your browser to OVF Tool Download and download the tool for your operating system (Windows or Linux). Using ovfTool Once you have ovfTool downloaded, unzipped and installed into your path and library locations or just used as is, where is, it’s time to put this thing to work. Let’s say that you’ve found and downloaded as an OVF and you need to convert it to a standard VMware ESX-style virtual machine. # . All the syntax information you’ll need for the ovfTool displays for you on the screen. # . Where /downloads is a common download location and /VM is where you store your virtual machines. Deploying OVF # .
Free Webinar: SIP Trunking and UCaaS: Two Trends, One Strategy? SIP Trunking and UCaaS: Two Trends, One Strategy?Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 | Time: 2:00 PM EST/ 11AM PST (Duration: 60 Minutes) SIP Trunking services are maturing, and enterprises, in turn, continue to increase their deployment of SIP Trunks as a way of saving money over legacy PRIs. But SIP Trunking isn’t an end in itself; SIP Trunking’s true value is the greater UC functionality and network resiliency it enables—not only for premises-based UC deployments, but also in hybrid scenarios where enterprises leverage Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). Whether you’re focused on refining your SIP Trunking strategy—looking to get the lowest cost and best service today—or whether you’re positioning SIP Trunks as part of your broader UC future, this Webinar will help you build the SIP and UCaaS strategy that’s right for you.