Planet Lowyat

As my previous post about 8G RAM upgraded, I did a STRESS TEST on my desktop today.

click here for biggest picture.

My desktop setup:

• Microsoft Windows Vista x64 SP1.
• 8GB physical RAM.
• Non-brand Desktop.

Let me explain what I did:

• More than 75 applications running simultaneously. (Still can’t beat 165 Linux applications)
• Running 2 x VMware ESX 3.0.x(1024MB RAM for each ESX Server) on top of VMware Workstation 6.0.3
• Running 2 x Windows 2003 Server(512MB RAM for each Win2K3) on top of VMware Workstation 6.0.3.
• Running Ubuntu 8.04 beta(1024MB RAM) on top of VMware Workstation 6.0.3.
• Running Windows 2008 Data Center(2048MB RAM) on top of VMware Workstation 6.0.3.
• Running SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (1024MB RAM) on top of VMware Workstation 6.0.3.

Read more »

PC fair(KL) is just around the corner and I had upgraded my non-brand desktop to 8G ram yesterday.

PIKOM PC Fair 2008 (I)
Dates and Venues

Read more »

VMware has just released a Beta 2 build of its very popular and free server virtualization software, VMware Server 2.0 (build 84186).

What’s New

New features and enhancements in the VMware Server 2.0 Beta 2 release:

• Updated VMware Infrastructure (VI) Web Access management interface: With the faster performance, improved stability and broader range of configuration options, the VI Web Access management interface provides a simple, flexible, intuitive and productive management experience. In addition, embedded help files are context sensitive based on the task being performed.
• Independent virtual machine console: With the new VMware Remote Console, you can access your virtual machine consoles independent of the VI Web Access management interface plus resize the virtual machine console windows as needed.
• Support for USB 2.0 devices: Transfer data at faster data rates from USB 2.0 devices.
• Multi-tiered permissions: Configure different levels of permissions to access virtual machines in different ways, including browsing, interacting, configuring and administering virtual machines.
• New hardware editors: Edit and add devices such as USB 2.0 devices and legacy devices such as floppy drives, serial and parallel ports.
• Automatically start your virtual machines: Select which virtual machines that you want to automatically start when VMware Server starts. In addition, there is also an option to boot the virtual machine directly into the BIOS Setup Screen.
• Link to Virtual Appliance Marketplace: Access thousands of pre-built, pre-configured, ready-to-run enterprise applications packaged with an operating system inside a virtual machine. This speeds up time to value and simplifies software development, distribution, and management.

Existing VMware Server 2.0 Beta features

• New operating system support: The broadest operating system support of any host-based virtualization platform currently available, including support for Windows Vista Business Edition and Ultimate Edition (guest only), Windows Server 2008, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Ubuntu 7.10 in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
• More scalable virtual machines:Support for up to 8 GB of RAM (up from 3.6 GB in Server 1.0) per virtual machine, 10 virtual network interface cards and up to two virtual SMP (vSMP) processors per virtual machine.
• 64-bit guest operating system support:Use 64-bit guest operating systems on 64-bit hardware to enable more scalable and higher performing computing solutions.
• Support for Virtual Machine Interface (VMI): This feature enables transparent paravirtualization, in which a single binary version of the operating system can run either on native hardware or in paravirtualized mode to improve performance in specific Linux environments.
• Support for VIX API 1.5: This feature provides a programming interface for automating virtual machine and guest operations.

Read more »

Personally I would preferred to use keyboard shortcuts instead of mouse. In fact, you may said you can save a lot of time using mouse for certain task. In some cases, you must know the right keys to push to do what you need to do much more faster.

There are some required VMware keyboard shortcuts you should know:

Ctrl+B - Power on the Virtual Machine
Ctrl+D - Edit the Virtual Machine Settings
Ctrl+E - Power off the Virtual Machine
Ctrl+G - Grab input from mouse & keyboard
Ctrl+N - Create a new Virtual Machine
Ctrl+O - Open a Virtual Machine
Ctrl+P - Edit User Preferences
Ctrl+R - Reset Virtual Machine
Ctrl+Z - Suspend the Virtual Machine
Ctrl+F4 - Close the selected Virtual Machine
Ctrl+Alt - Return to normal(windowed) mode
Ctrl+Alt+Enter - Switch to Full Screen Mode
Ctrl+Tab - Switch between open virtual machines while mouse and keyboard input are not grabbed. VMware Workstation must be the active application. Read more »

ESX Server 3i is the industry’s first hardware-integrated ultra thin hypervisor built on a next-generation thin architecture, giving your organization an efficient foundation for building a dynamic, secure, reliability, manageability & automated data center.

ESX Server 3i represents a significant advance in realizing the vision of virtualization as the standard computing platform for x86 servers, further simplifying IT operations through integration with server hardware.

Read more »