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If you have trouble to understand vSphere API when you first use it, you are definitely not alone. I had the same trouble when I first used it a while back.

Some of the troubles come from the disconnect between conventional programming model and that of vSphere API. In this blog, I summarize the top 5 myths about vSphere API based on my experience and the questions I see in the VMware community forum and vSphere Java API forum:

1. Non-existing Managed Objects
2. Pervasive PropertyCollector
3. Short-Lived Task Object
4. “Weak” HostSystem
5. “Un-documented” View

Let’s examine each of them one by one.  Read more... (734 words, 1 image, estimated 2:56 mins reading time)

When I start to use a new API/SDK, I always look for the object model diagram before digging into the API Reference. With that, I can have a good overview of the API, from the concepts to the structure. This can save a lot of time.

Unfortunately, we don’t find such a object model diagram in any official document. The following is the UML diagram from my book VMware VI and vSphere SDK.  Read more... (340 words, 2 images, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

Last summer, Reflex VP engineering Aaron Bawcom visited VMware campus. He is one of the authors of Virtualization For Security: Including Sandboxing, Disaster Recovery, High Availability, Forensic Analysis, And Honeypotting.

During our talk, Aaron told me a secret project called VQL. Because it’s a secret, I didn’t talk about it to anyone. Just before the PEX 2010, we exchanged emails about the VQL. Aaron told me it’s already shipped. So it’s time to broadcast it.

VQL is a DSL that looks like SQL, easy to understand and easy to use. Unlike SQL on data, it’s on virtual resources in vSphere environment. The following is a quick sample. It gets back the VMs installed with SQL servers with verions newer than 9.2 and they are running 10 minutes ago.

SQL Server and VersionMajor >= 9 and VersionMinor >= 2 project vm at 10 minutes ago  Read more... (339 words, 1 image, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

Several years ago, I tried to install SAP NetWeaver. It took me more than a day, and N installations plus N-1 removals before I finally got it right. I searched with several search engines and read many forum postings on SDN. Hinted by one post, I renamed the 13 character machine name to 9 characters, then the magic happened all of sudden.

The result wasn’t too bad but one day of time wasted. Many things could be improved to avoid the pain there. The foremost is the installer – why didn’t it check the hostname and alert me of the limitation?

At that time, I didn’t know VMware. After joining VMware, I knew more about virtualization and realized that a virtual appliance (VA) could have been a big time saver for me had the NetWeaver been packaged as a VA.

The pain as such can easily push potential customers away. It would be a different story if you have somewhat dominance in the market like SAP in enterprise ERP – you can charge big bucks for consulting and training services. Most other ISVs are not in such a position. Even for SAP, it faces strong competitions from others like Oracle.

As a side note, SAP has a virtualized NetWeaver evaluation edition. More info can be found about the SAP-VMware partnership.

In general, ISVs can leverage virtual appliances in two different ways:  Read more... (394 words, 2 images, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

Several folks asked me about how to use vSphere(VI) Java API to connect to a VM running on vSphere. The quick answer is vSphere Java API is not designed for this. You will need VMware Remote Console, browser plug-in, remote desktop/VNC, SSH client etc. However, it can help you to get the information required by the console or plug-in. Tal Altman from CISCO suggested that it be a topic for doublecloud.org. Here it is.

There are 3 ways to connect to the VM from your client side outside the vSphere and Web Access which have built-in support for console access.

1. Using VMware Remote Console which is a standalone application
2. Using browser plug-in to either IE or Firefox (Note: this is NOT supported by VMware. Please don’t call the company tech support for this.)
3. Using Remote Desktop, VNC or SSH

The first two connect to the ESX host, and work even there is no guest OS installed on the VM. The last one assumes you have guest OS installed, and have IP network and server components in place already.

Note that these 3 ways work for the VMs in the public cloud as well if the related ports are open in your firewall. It is, however, not the case for most enterprises, therefore I particularly say it’s for VMs in private cloud. If you don’t have firewall issue, feel free to give it a try with public cloud as well.

Let’s go over one by one in details and see how vSphere Java API helps.  Read more... (1112 words, 2 images, estimated 4:27 mins reading time)

Inspired by the book Made to Stick – Why do some ideas thrive while others die? by Heath brothers, I would like to give it a try on software platforms rather than the ideas covered in the book. Although the computer industry is still relatively young compared with other industries, it’s quite dynamic and we’ve seen some platforms came and died while others came and thrive. So, what are the general characteristics for such sticky platforms?

The authors of the book summarized the 6 principals to make ideas stick, meaning the ideas change either the thoughts or/and behaviors of the receivers. These principals are Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Credibility, Concreteness, Emotions, and Stories. They are shortened to SUCCESs for easy memory.

Most of these principals don’t apply on software platforms. Unexpectedness, for example, may be the last thing you would like to see of a software platform. For software platform, we definitely need predictability, among other qualities.

After thinking the problem over, I summarized 4 basic principles for a software platform to stick: Simplicity, Extensibility, Ecosystem, and Developers, in short SEED.  Read more... (700 words, 1 image, estimated 2:48 mins reading time)

While browsing the project home of VI Java API, I found a link to a great tool contributed by pitchcat. It is a standalone Java application that shows managed objects and data objects in a tree hierarchy, and all the methods attached to a managed object.

I highly recommend it to all the VI Java API developers. Why? Although you can get similar information from MOB, vijava browser gives you an overview of all the managed objects and clear paths to any managed objects or data objects.  Read more... (129 words, 2 images, estimated 31 secs reading time)

Compared with advances in other application development, the rich Web application development using Java is not quite there yet. Instead of simplifying JavaScript, AJAX, and JSF, we need a new head start. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are still needed and continue to work well for plain Web applications.

“Develop Once, Run Everywhere”

Adobe Flex has done a fairly good job for Web. Even better the same code can be easily tweaked to run as a standalone application with Adobe AIR. This was once an expectation for Java when it first came out to run as an Applet. Somehow it didn’t succeed in its birth place, but gained its ground at the server side instead.

JavaFX from Sun is a nice try but too late in the game. More importantly, Sun is not a client software company like Microsoft who was also late with SliverLight but has client side expertise and managed to compete. I don’t think Sun will reclaim its already lost client market at all, and therefore JavaFX is likely a candidate to be axed after Oracle’s acquisition. The investment on JavaFX should have gone to Java Swing, which is a lackluster compared with IBM SWT.  Read more... (584 words, 1 image, estimated 2:20 mins reading time)

newScale recently announced it would support VMware vCloud API in a press release.

San Mateo, Calif. - February 17, 2010 – newScale^®, Inc., pioneers of the self-service IT storefront for the enterprise, today announced it will support the VMware vCloud API, a key component of the VMware vCloud initiative. Enterprises and service providers integrating with the VMware vCloud API can now use the newScale FrontOffice^TM Suite to effectively manage and control self-service requests for cloud resources as well as their physical and virtual environments. 

This announcement underscores newScale’s continuing commitment to supporting multi-vendor, cross-platform data center and cloud infrastructures. The newScale FrontOffice Suite -  a complete set of Service Catalog solutions for managing IT services from cradle to grave –  integrates with VMware vSphere^TM 4 and VMware vCenter^TM Server. newScale is also a member of the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program. By leveraging the VMware vCloud API, newScale demonstrates its ongoing support for a wide range of virtualization and cloud infrastructures, giving newScale customers maximum flexibility, efficiency, and agility in their data center deployments.  Read more... (249 words, 1 image, estimated 1:0 mins reading time)

Done with the four day training, finally! It’s pretty exhausting given that I had to get up two hours earlier to match the Central time schedule.

Spring Faces

I talked about JavaScript and AJAX two days ago. They are all good to some extent, but seemingly disconnected from the server. You have to think and manage the Web app as two pieces, bad for the productivity.

JavaServer Faces (JSF) technology was created to solve this problem. It a server-side framework, which provides GUI components, manages their states from the server side, handles events, and etc. You can then develop a web app more like the standalone application in some sense. Because JSF manages the state from the server side, it uses more resources and less performant than it’s JS/AJAX equivalent.

Spring Faces is not a replacement for JSF, but complements in the “Spring” way. It facilitates deeper JSF and Web Flow integration, manages JSF components’ states, and provides more lightweight JSF components. Therefore, you can get leaner web application than using pure JSF.

Debugging

Several tools can be handy for your debugging:  Read more... (708 words, 2 images, estimated 2:50 mins reading time)