Earlier this month VMware announced two new variants of its vShield Zones (formerly VirtualShield) virtual firewall: vShield App 1.0 and vShield Edge 1.0, both available now as beta.

The company inherited the security product after the acquisition of Blue Lane Technologies, in October 2008. Since that time, VMware updated the product only one time, including it for free in vSphere 4.0 (but only for Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus SKUs).

The new vSphere 4.1 doesn’t bring in any update for the product, or at least there’s no mention of updates in the official release notes (for both vSphere and vShield Zones).

VMware describes vShield App as a stateful inspection firewall, capable to analyze inter-VM traffic and to attach the security policy to the virtual machine itself. It’s not clear if this means that Zones has been renamed in App or not.

vShield Edge leverages the same engine and adds routing on top, allowing administrators to inspect and filter network traffic when it leaves or enters the virtual data center.
The product also leverages the VMsafe API, creating security zone for the virtual machines that are enforced down to the vNIC.
Last but not least vShield Edge includes DHCP, VPN, NAT and load balancing services.

vShield Edge will be included in the upcoming vCloud Service Director (vCSD, formerly project Redwood), to be launched during VMworld 2010 in early September, as an official VMware presentation available online confirms:

The presentation also clarifies that products will be centrally managed by a vShield Manager 2.0, which is integrated with vCenter Server.

View the VMworld 2010 San Francisco Content Catalog, or the Copenhagen Content Catalog to learn more about the sessions, labs and speakers that make VMworld the “must-attend” event of the year.

With the broadest variety of breakout sessions ever offered, you can dive deep into the heart of virtualization and cloud computing with topics like:

Future Direction of Networking Virtualization

Troubleshooting Using esxtop for Advanced Users

New Storage Technologies
And discover new technologies around the IT-as-a-service concept with sessions like:

Cloud 101: What’s Real, What’s Relevant for Enterprise IT, and What Role Does VMware Play
Technical Deep Dive: vCenter Chargeback

This new video from KBTV is about upgrading the vCenter 4.0 to 4.1 by using a script. vCenter 4.1 is not supported on 32 bits systems any more.  In case you do have your existing vCenter on 32 bit system, you have to reinstall, or choose another server and install the server with 64 bit Microsoft operating system.  There is a new script present on the installation ISO which you previously downloaded from VMware’s Website. The script is present in the root of the installation media in the folder called datamigration. By running this  script you’ll be able to migrate your vCenter Server .

What you must do?

You must first unzip the file containing the script (to the local c: drive for example), then stop the vCenter and Vmware  update manager services. Then with a command prompt type backup.bat in the C:

Then you just copy the whole folder from your c:\datamigration to your new 64bit Server via the network for example.

On the new vCenter Server first put the DVD with the vCenter 4.1 into the DVD drive. Type Install.bat in command prompt and follow the informations asked in the script (like if there is a netbios name change or drive letter of your DVD drive).   After those questions, the installation is launched.

This video compliments KB article 1022137 vSphere 4.1 upgrade pre-installation requirements and considerations. and describes the process for using our Data Migration tool to upgrade VMware vCenter Server 4.1

This post first came to our attention from Eric Sloof’s NTPro blog.

This hands-on training course explores installation, configuration, and management of VMware vSphere 4,1, which consists of VMware ESX™/ESXi and VMware vCenter™ Server. The course is based on ESX/ESXi 4.1 and vCenter Server 4.1. Upon completion of this course, you can take the examination to qualify as a VMware Certified Professional (VCP4).

Students who complete this course may enroll in any of several advanced vSphere courses.

The old 4-day course will change in duration to a 5-day class for all sessions after August 23rd. For differences please look at the course datasheet.

Scott Vessey has discovered some differences between the old and the new course. The new content in the 5-day ICM will be:

• vCenter Linked Mode
• Host Profiles
• Distributed Power Management
• Deeper content on High Availability
• Fault Tolerance

This week VMware announced its financial results for Q2 of 2010.

The company closes the Q2 quarter with $2.8B cash and $1.5B of deferred revenue, a year-over-year growth of 33%.
Total revenue for the Q2 was $674 million, up 48% from Q2 2009, while total license revenue was $324 million, an increase of 42% from the Q2 2009.
Software maintenance and support revenue was $290 million, an increase of 54% from last year, but the revenue decreased sequentially. Customers continue to buy on average more than 24 months of support and maintenance with each new license purchase.
Professional Services revenue was $60 million, an increase of 54% from last year, and up 11% sequentially, but VMware doesn’t expect a strong growth in the PSO revenue because of the investments in the partners ecosystem.

VMware also reported a great performance in the Americas: US revenues increased 43% from a year ago to $334 million, representing half of total revenue, and Latin America scored a 85% year-over-year growth.
VMware reported a mixed performance in Europe: losing ground compared to Q1 2010 in those countries that heavily adopt virtualization, UK and Germany, and improving in more challenging markets like France, Ireland and Russia.
APAC performance has been much better, with a 80% year-over-year growth, especially in China, Japan, India and Australia.

Total operating expense, including costs of services and costs of licenses, increased 6% sequentially to $487 million.

Sales and marketing expenses were $215 million or 31.9% of revenues, compared with 31.6% in the prior quarter.

Q3 revenues are expected to be within a range of $680 million and $705 million, or year-over-year growth of between 39% and 44%. VMware expects license revenue to be flat to slightly down from Q2.
The company currently forecasts the 2010 revenue between $2.725 billion and $2.8 billion, equal to a growth of 35% to 38% compared to last year.

Today an email VMware User Group Team listed the VMUG Board of Directors.

It reads:

VMware User Group Members,

As announced earlier this year, VMware is supporting the establishment of an independent, customer-led, customer-driven global VMware User Group (VMUG). The VMUG Steering Committee has been focused on forming the structure for this new organization and we are pleased to announce the inaugural VMware User Group Board of Directors.

The board is comprised of a group of experienced VMUG leaders whose knowledge, expertise and vision will provide an invaluable contribution to the VMUG organization. There is much for this Board of Directors to accomplish, as we look forward to the formal launch of the independent VMUG at VMworld in San Francisco this coming August.

The board has developed a VMUG mission statement to reflect the new organization:
The VMware User Group is an independent, global, customer-led organization, which maximizes members’ use of VMware and partner solutions through knowledge sharing, training, collaboration, and events.

The VMware User Group is a user community—of the users, for the users, by the users. Through an independent global VMUG, we believe we can strengthen our collective VMware and VMUG value proposition with expanded collaboration, member programs, and benefits.

As a VMUG member, your feedback and ideas will be critical to improving the VMUG experience and taking it to the next level. We believe that some of the benefits of the new model will be:

• Tap into new VMUG member benefits and programs, such as Special Interest Groups and VMware technical education offerings
• Increase your value to your organization by becoming the recognized VMware subject matter expert through knowledge and contacts gained through VMUG
• Gain more direct access to VMware subject matter experts
• Become part of a global, collective customer voice, impacting VMware products/services

While we are planning the official launch of the new group for August, there are several ways VMUG is already driving value to the members:

• The VMUG Voice—VMUG’s monthly newsletter—will provide news and updates for members
• New member recruitment activities at all VMware events
• Development of new onsite program for VMUG Regional Events
• VMware Technical Sponsors have been assigned to all VMUG Local Groups
• VMUG members will receive the discounted “Early Bird” pricing throughout the VMworld registration period

As we work to establish an independent VMUG, we want you to know that your voice will be heard. To that end, the VMUG Board of Directors is conducting a short survey of our members to better understand the members’ vision for VMUG and define the VMUG value proposition. It should only take about ten minutes of your time and all results will be kept completely confidential. In addition, all survey respondents can enter to win an Apple iPad—just complete the survey by July 30.

We look forward to hearing your feedback and ideas about the new organization. Please direct all communications to memberservices@myvmug.org or 1.800.606.8695.

Together we look forward to launching the new VMUG at VMworld and we hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
The VMware User Group Board of Directors

This is a repost of Duncan from Yellow-Bricks post on this issue.

PHD Virtual has released version of 4.0-4 of PHD Virtual Backup. The update can be applied by running the ‘Check for Updates’ process.

This release adds support for VMware’s latest release, vSphere 4.1.

New features found in version 4.0-4:

• Supports the latest VMware release: vSphere 4.1
• Simplified configuration with fewer steps
• Improved ease of use
• Login panel now uses the VI Client registry to display available servers.
• When deploying a DeDupe appliance with an attached VMDK for backup storage, a warning is now displayed if creating the disk will cause the volume to drop below 15% free space.
• VBA location will now display file size limits based on the block size of the selected storage location.
• The daily backup report now contains a simplified HTML view with links to the full report.
• Other various bug fixes.

Download a 30 day trial of PHD Virtual Backup.

VMware is about to significantly change the architecture of its virtual infrastructure. Before this happens the company will change another key aspect of its offering: the pricing model.

Along with the release of vSphere 4.1 in fact VMware announced today a new per-VM licensing that will take effect starting September 1, 2010:

VMware vCenter AppSpeed, VMware vCenter Chargeback, and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager will be sold in VM packs on a per VM basis starting on September 1, 2010. VMware vCenter Application Discovery Manager and VMware vCenter Configuration Manager are already licensed on both a per VM and physical server model. Per VM licensing for VMware vCenter CapacityIQ will take effect in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The minimum number of virtual machine licenses in a licensing pack is 25, reports IT News.

vCenter will continue to be priced per-Server, but for how long? It’s easy to guess that the per-VM licensing will be extended to the key tier of the virtual infrastructure as soon as the next version of vSphere will be out.

One community site we always keep an eye on is David Davis’ VMwareVideos.com.
Yesterday was the first ever vChat (episode 1 / “The Pilot”), with Simon Seagrave and David Davis discussing the new vSphere 4.1 and its top 15 killer features.

vChat is a regular virtualization video chat covering VMware vSphere, Cloud Computing, Virtualization News, and maybe some geeky humor. Regular contributors are 3 vExperts – Simon Seagrave (TechHead.co.uk), Eric Siebert (vSphere-Land.com), and David Davis (VMwareVideos.com).

vChat is sponsored by vSphere Video Training from TrainSignal.com

vChat – Episode 1 – New vSphere 4.1 – Top 15 Killer Features from Train Signal on Vimeo.