VMware has been investing in the VMware User Group (VMUG) program over the past year, adding new benefits and opportunities to an already great program.  In addition to local meetings where you can interact with fellow VMware professionals, the VMUG program offers other great benefits – the latest is the VMUG Advantage program. The VMUG Advantage program offers the following benefits:

• $100 Discount to VMworld
• 20% Discount on VMware Instructor Led Training
• 20% Discount on VMware Certification
• 1-Year Free Subscription: All Access eLearning Courses ($750 Value)
• 30% Discount on Workstation and Fusion Software html Licenses

The VMUG Advantage program has an introductory price of $170 for individuals (with corporate/multi-user discounts available) until May 21.  Not a bad deal if you plan to attend VMworld in Las Vegas (Aug 29 – Sept 1), complete a certification (VCP, VCAP, VCDX, VCA-DT), or take some instructor led training through VMware.  Heck – the eLearning subscription alone more than pays for program subscription cost!

As a VMUG member be sure to login to the new www.myvmug.org and update your profile or add an picture or avatar. Over the next month you’ll see exciting new benefits added to the website, including VMUG Community Pages, Event Listings, and Education Resources.

If you’re not already a VMUG member, go ahead and sign up at www.myvmug.org to learn about local/regional events and to get access to the other great benefits like the VMUG Advantage.

Happy New Year to everyone!  2010 is shaping up to be quite a good year, both personally and professionally.  Between two little boys at home and a bunch of new projects at work I should stay busy.  I will also continue to co-lead the Washington, DC VMware User Group (VMUG).  In my spare time I will continue to write what I hope are technically sound, practical, and timely articles on VMtoday.com.

And speaking of VMtoday.com… Eric Siebert has opened up voting for the top 25 virtualization bloggers on his vSphere-Land.com site.  I am very honored to be included in the ballot list of 55 of our industry’s top bloggers.  Please take a few minutes to vote – a couple lucky voters will win a copy of TrainSignal’s VMware vSphere DVD training course.

Thanks for reading and best wishes for a blessed and productive 2010!

~Josh

The VMware ecosystem is rich and thriving, with partners, vendors, and the virtualization community at large continuing to drive innovation and producing complementary products. VMworld is where this ecosystem comes together to show the latest and greatest they have to offer, and to give a glimpse into what lies ahead. With VMworld 2009 just a few days away, the ecosystem is pulsing with increase vigor, as evidenced by the increased amount of email, Twitter traffic, and general buzz in the community.

The VMworld 2009 Sponsor and Exhibitor list is available at http://www.vmworld.com/community/conferences/2009/sponsors-exhibitors and gives good insight into who and what is part of the VMware ecosystem.  If you are heading to VMworld next week, be sure to check out the exhibitor list ahead of time so you can target your time on the exhibition floor (or so you know which booths to hit up for the best schwag, tchotchke, booth babes, and T-shirts).

While setting up a new 17″ MacBook Pro today I found that an update to VMware Fusion has been released. The update, version 2.0.5, has a release date of June 23. According to the release notes, the update includes:

• Support for Mac OS X Server guest operating systems on Macs with Intel Xeon 5500 and 3500 Series processors (based on Nehalem micro-architecture)
• Provides experimental support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server as a guest operating system (32-bit only)
• Provides experimental support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as a host operating system (32-bit only)
• Supports Ubuntu 9.04 as a guest operating system, including features such as VMware Tools pre-built modules and Easy Install
• Reduces CPU usage when a virtual machine is idle under VMware Fusion
• Contains fixes for more than 80 bugs

Download a trial version or update your purchased copy here: http://vmware.com/download/fusion/.

The VMworld 2009 Content Catalog was released on Friday night according to a post on the VMworld.com blog.  I have only started to browse the many breakout sessions, instructor-led labs, self-paced labs, and panel sessions that are currently planned for VMworld 2009.  A quick glance shows a wide variety of content for all technical levels across many tracks, including Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, Desktop Virtualization, Enterprise Applications, Technology and Architecture, Virtualization 101 and Virtualization Management.  It also appears that the catalog includes a nice mix of VI3 and vSphere content, as well as expanded desktop virtualization information.

Be sure to browse the catalog now so you are ready for session registration later in July.  From past experience, knowing what session and labs you want to attend before registration, and then jumping right into registration once it is available, is the best way to ensure you get a slot in the hottest sessions.

Today is the last day for VMworld early-bird registration, and I got in just under the wire.  Here’s to hoping that VMworld 2009 is as informative, fun and valuable as last years.  I remember sitting in Vegas last year as the first of the big financial institutions began to fall.  It will be interesting to see how the current economic condition impacts attendance, vendor quality, tee-shirt availability, and the VMworld party.  Here’s to fun, free beer, and virtualization!

I’m also hoping that my wife will be able to join me and ‘geek out’ (her term) this year.  If so, I’ll have to get her connected with the unofficial VMworld 2009 Spouse Activities!

VMware released version 1.5 of the VI Toolkit for Windows – the PowerShell management and reporting tool of choice for many VMware administrators. The new version carries build number 142961. You can download v1.5 here: http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/. The update includes some 32 new cmdlets, including ones for getting/setting NTP settings on ESX, getting/setting Advanced configuration options on ESX, getting/setting ESX Firewall settings, and the ability to modify DRS rules using PowerShell. Existing cmdlets have also been updated with new parameters, and several fixes have been introduced. Check out the release notes here: http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/windowstoolkit/wintk15/windowstoolkit15-200901-releasenotes.html.

There are plenty of examples on the Internet to get you started with the VI Toolkit for Windows. Check out these sites to get started:

Start at the VMware Community site for the Windows Toolkit for great examples and a little help from some friends: http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/windows_toolkit/
There are also some good example scripts and resources floating around, such as:

http://vmetc.com/2008/08/27/powershell-scripting-examples-for-vmware-virtual-infrastructure/
http://www.peetersonline.nl/
http://www.ivobeerens.nl/?p=106
http://www.vmguru.com/

Not a hard-core scripter? Grab this handy tool for a little GUI on your PowerShell, and extend it with the VMware Infrastructure PowerPack 2.0

What tools or examples are you using to extend the power of PowerShell into your Virtual Infrasturucture?  Leave a comment to share!