Virtualization: Microsoft and VMWare Webinars

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Microsoft getVIRTUALnow

Couple of weeks ago I've participated to two webinars about virtualization organized by Microsoft Romania part of their getVIRTUALnow initiative: Overview of Hyper-V Technology; Windows Server 2008 R2; HA and The management of virtual infrastructure.

I must say that at the end of the 2+ hours I have been slightly disappointed. The part I have appreciated the most was the slide decks. They were so great I'd really like to share them with you, but I'm not sure I'm allowed to do so. Unfortunately, the presentations were just vendor pitches and I cannot say I've really learned a lot. I got the feeling that instead of spending the time discussing about Microsoft solutions, their strengths (and weaknesses) and providing tons of details, the talks have most of the time slipped to simple comparisons with competitors' products. I would have also liked to see some more elaborated and consistent demos. All in all, I have to say that even if interesting from time to time, the 2 webinars were not the best use of my time.

VMWare Virtualization Webinars

In order to better understand Microsoft's virtualization and also see how competitors are positioning themselves, I've put together a list of webinars from VMWare, the name that came up quite often during the getVIRTUALnow webinars.

Just to make sure there is some common ground for all the materials I'd suggest to start with:

Intro to Virtualization: [...] who should use virtualization? Why should you use it? How does it work? What does it do? [...] This webcast provides a basic overview to virtualization solutions from VMware and explains the technology that enables virtualizations, as well as the features and benefits of VMware solutions.

View this webcast and learn how virtualization can help you:
  • Save time, money and energy while achieving more with the computer resources you already own.
  • Transform your IT infrastructure into a competitive advantage.

Desktop Virtualization

ESXi

ESXi is the free VMWare type 1 (native/bare metal) hypervisor.

Appliances

Application Virtualization

VMWare Advantage

The Cloud and Virtualization

Building the Internal Cloud: Transforming the Datacenter: This webcast will look at what cloud computing is and how you can begin to transform your own IT organization into a self-service, yet centrally controlled business unit.

Terms and Definitions

Hypervisor
also called virtual machine monitor (VMM), is a computer software/hardware platform virtualization software that allows multiple operating systems to run on a host computer concurrently.
VDI
Virtual desktop infrastructure is a technology consisting of a couple components presented in the attached picture:
vmware-vdi.jpg

Last

Who won the getVIRTUALnow prizes?