I was recently engaged with some colleagues on a large appvirt + VDI solution that involved many moving pieces, including cross-domain authentication for VMware View, zero clients with PCoIP and ThinApp in a wide array of permutations.

One of the requirements was to map a drive (e.g. V:\ which equates to \\IGIVBCFS01\Visio) when launching a VMware ThinApp package (e.g. Visio 2007) and then unmap the drive upon package exit.

It's no secret that I've been a big fan of VMware vCenter AppSpeed since it was a B-Hive product. It's one of those products that sells itself when shown to the customer. It is extremely useful in any environment that wants to identify or monitor SLA's or have a finer-tooth comb for troubleshooting purposes.

Just as a reminder, as I have at previous VMWorlds, I will once again be LiveBlogging. This year it will be a bit more dynamic as I plan on toting my Dell Mini 9 running Win7 (which has been fantastic, by the way) to each session. Also, unlike VMWorld Europe where my mobile device lacked coverage, I will be on Twitter as well.

Below is my schedule, as of right now.

VMworld 2009
Personal Schedule for Jason Langone

Print Date: Aug 27, 2009

Monday

8:30 AM-9:30 AM

Announced at VMware Partner Exchange 2008, the VMware VCDX certification is the mecca of certifications for VMware architects around the world.

I passed the VCDX Enterprise Exam about a year ago, and took the VCDX Design Exam in spring of this 2009.

I just found out that I have indeed passed the VCDX Design Exam!

Back at Virtualization Congress 2009, I had the pleasure of meeting the team from Tranxition, an Oregon-based company.

I recently got my hands on a Teradici hardware solution that included:

• Teradici thin terminal (D400)
• Teradici PCIe host card
• Power cable should I want the Teradici PCoIP host card to have separate power [perhaps to watch a machine boot?])
• Quick start guide & documentation CD

Now that Microsoft has finally announced pricing for the Azure platform, I thought I would take a look at comparing the pricing model against the most popular and mature cloud on the market to date, Amazon Web Services (AWS). My initial reaction is that Microsoft took Amazon’s price structure and met their cost point, or shaved off half a cent.

Acronyms

AWS = Amazon Web Services
AMI = Amazon Machine Image

Legend

I've just received confirmation that I will be attending VMWorld. As always, I'll be involved in both public and private discussions around virtualization and cloud computing. I'm happy to meet to discuss the industry, and as of right now, do not have a full schedule.

Also, keep an eye out for me in the labs.

See you in San Francisco (a city I much prefer to Las Vegas).

I will also be liveblogging as I have been since 2006, complete with grainy pictures from my Blackberry.

Cheers.

The most recently and widely publicized world health concern, is known as A/H1N1, or “swine flu” to the masses. A/H1N1 was given the, “swine flu” moniker because it resembles a strain found in pigs. The latest strain has affected ~13,000 people globally thus far, according to the Center for Disease Control.

I was recently working with an SMB to provide a secure offsite storage solution for some of their data.

After signing up for Amazon S3 I went hunting for a FileZilla like interface for my S3 storage.

First I tried, S3 Browser. It tempted with me with a Free version, but the free version couldn't change permissions on the bucket. Uninstalled.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Import/Export is a feature few people know about that can quickly expedite moving your data into the cloud.

Some of you may already be familiar with the strategic and financial advantages from leveraging Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) as your storage platform. However, there are a few different solutions to actually migrate your data to S3.

If you have a Microsoft Sharepoint site and you are trying to publish slides to a Slide Library, but receive the following error, "This feature requires microsoft office powerpoint professional," here is the fix:

Upgrade to Office Enterprise 2007.

Strange, I know, but the error message from Microsoft is wrong.

You may then need this Link..

I found the fix here.

I've been doing a lot of various virtual desktop testing lately, from thin clients to various solutions from major/minor vendors to testing Desktop-as-a-Service with a few cloud providers.

My latest test put VMware View against Citrix XenDesktop with HDX in a comparison of Adobe Flash performance only.

Disclaimer:
My testing was performed using the same underyling hardware but is not a hardcore scientific test (as I don't have the free time for that at the moment). Having said that, similar effort was made to optimize both solutions.

Disclaimer #2:

Do you want to unleash the full power of your smartphone and reduce or eliminate the need to carry a laptop? The REDFLY Mobile Companion links to your smartphone via a USB cable or wireless Bluetooth connection and extends the Windows Mobile interface to a more convenient and capable environment. The REDFLY Mobile Companion comes in two models, the C7 and C8N.