Here’s a quick list of a few of the articles that I currently have in progress:
- I’ve been looking at the recently-announced products from Altor Networks and have their VNSA (Virtual Network Security Analyzer) running in the lab right now. Look for a short post on the product and my initial thoughts. (One piece of advice I can offer to Altor right now: use the virtual appliance OVF format and save your customers a lot of trouble.)
- I’m going to have some hands-on time with a Xsigo I/O Director over the next few weeks, so look for an article on that product.
- Prodded to action by Nick’s comment in my article on thin provisioned VMDKs on NFS, I’ll have an article on using SnapRestore to clone VMs on NFS without losing the thin provisioned VMDKs.
- The Active Directory integration articles are getting a bit long in the tooth, so look for updates to both the Linux and Solaris integration instructions. (By the way, speaking of Solaris integration: I came across this article a short while ago.)
If anyone has any other topics they’d be interested in seeing me tackle, feel free to mention them in the comments below. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll certainly consider them!
UPDATE: The article on preserving thin provisioned VMDKs with SnapRestore is now available.
Tags: ActiveDirectory, Blogging, Hardware, NetApp, NFS, VMware
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Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Clif Smith
Regarding AD integration, I’d be interested in possible third-party clients that handle this. I’m in a heterogenous shop (AIX/HPUX/Linux/Solaris/Windows) and trying to come up with the secret sauce has grown tiresome. I know there’s options out there, but I’d like to hear about people’s experiences.
Friday, April 4, 2008 at 12:12 am
ron terren
scott,
as the monty python show would say….and now for something completely different…
how about a how to on on creating a captive portal radius server for wifidog or coovaAP http://www.coova.org , since their support and documentation is abysmal.
Or you could just put on that magical mr. wizard hat of yours and design your own captive portal solution with cebtralized user management and accounting using windows radius, and linksys routers.
tx,
ron
ps I am eager to see if there is anything new in ad integration land
Friday, April 4, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Ben
I’m really interested to see the capabilities of Altor’s new Virtual Firewall and how it compares with other products that are similar. Montego Networks has just announced a new V-Switch with a firewall, and TBD Networks is coming out with a Virtual Firewall that appears to have a lot of great capabilities.
Friday, April 4, 2008 at 4:50 pm
slowe
Clif,
I can discuss options, but I’ll have to rely upon readers to give you any real-world experience.
Ron,
Anything else?
Ben,
I haven’t seen the Altor Virtual Firewall stuff yet. So far, I like the VNSA, but it’s still pretty early. I have a meeting scheduled with Montego week after next, and I need to take a closer look at Catbird as well. Stay tuned; I’m sure the results will end up here.
Saturday, April 5, 2008 at 8:46 am
ron terren
Ron,
Anything else?
—
No that should pretty much do it
Ron
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 2:47 am
Todd Ignasiak
Hi Scott,
I’m the Product Manager at Altor Networks. You’re right about the OVF format, it has a lot of benefits over the current Virtual Appliance packages. But, it’s only supported by ESX 3.5 with VirtualCenter 2.5. So, for this release, we decided to stick with the format that would work across all the most common versions of ESX+VC. Look for OVF in a future release from Altor.
As for the virtual firewall product, if anyone is interested in getting on the Beta list for that product, or has other feedback on that or VNSA, feel free to contact me at todd@altornetworks.com