Great Websites and Blogs for VMware and other Virtualization Support

Published June 18, 2011 | By Joe Sanchez

Today I did a Google search to see how many people like myself have started a blog or website to discuss or support virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V, Virtual Iron, etc). I was surprised to find so many cool websites with catchy names.

Take this name for example: www.vmwarewolf.com. Visiting the site I found quite a few posts on troubleshooting VMware, especially ESX. Lots of information on the old “ESX random disconnect from VirtualCenter” issue.

At the top of the Google search list was VMware’s own support community. If you support VMware Virtual Infrastructure and you haven’t visited the community yet, you are missing out. Here’s the link, go there now! Then come back and finish reading this post. http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/suggest/support

One of my old favorites is www.VMGuru.com. I remember when this site was just taking off. The owner, Scott Herold, even wrote one of the first ‘worth a darn books” on Virtual Infrastructure. I must have downloaded the free chapters 10 times. Now you can download the whole book, but don’t be a cheap-skate, buy Scott, Ron and Mike book. VMguru.com has quite a few posting on every subject relating to VMware VI, such as platform, networking, storage, management and monitoring, VDI and scripting. Don’t just take my word for it go and visit www.VMGuru.com now then come back and finish reading my post.

OK, one site that I have really found useful over the years has been http://blog.scottlowe.org. I have watched this site grow in popularity and mature with every new version of ESX server. I think I might have run into Scott once at VMWorld 2007 in San Francisco, he was standing along the side where the computers for folks to check their email are and blogging away about what was going on at VMWorld. I think that was right after he got a new gig writing articles. If you can’t find what you are looking for on VMware support site, make sure you visit http://blog.scottlowe.org. Scott keeps up with almost every trend and product VMware related, or you will find a link to where you can find help. You go Scott! BTW, Don’t go visit Scott’s blog yet, or you will never finish reading my post.

This website, www.vminstall.com has been around since 2007. During that time I was supporting a new VMware Virtual Infrastructure deployment for Arizona State University. One day I happened to visit Godaddy.com and did a name search and lucky me, www.vminstall.com was available. VM Install has been through some changes over its existence as I’ve tried to keep it going with various types content. The original site was done in Drupal, and then last year I got rid of Drupal and the crazy job posting and re-did the site in WordPress with a clean professional template. I know some of my posts are old but they keep visitors coming for now. Heck, I’ve given up on trying to keep up with all the “techies” and now I just blog about niche things I figure will make system administrator or IT Managers think before making a mess of their virtual environment. Okay, I’m done talking about my website, VM Install.

A relatively new website that I have found while searching VMware problems is VMETC.com. It has a green and white template and a big presence on the web because so many people are linking to the RSS feeds. Don’t get me wrong, the owner of this site, Rich Brambley, whom I’ve never met, really knows his stuff. You go Rich, and by the way, the picture of you and your kids at the Falcon game is great. Too bad the Cards had to take them out in the play-offs, maybe next season, eh? VMECT.com is packed with posts with command line examples and solutions for all kinds of technical stuff, take this link title for instance: http://vmetc.com/2009/01/19/esxiesx-35-update-3-iscsi-and-fc-alert-queue-for-device-has-been-blocked/. Didn’t I tell you Rich knows his stuff?

There are plenty more good websites, but two final sites I want to mention are www.wmware-land.com and www.VMtoday.com. VMware-Land is the place to go to find out who the “who’s” are in VMware blogging, plus there also hundreds of links to help you find what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, VMinstall.com hasn’t made it to his top ten list yet but that’s okay, just do a search on Google for “VM install”. Here’s the list borrowed from VMware-Land:

(1) Yellow Bricks (Duncan Epping) – 9

(2) Blog.scottlowe.org (Scott Lowe) – 2

(3) Mike D’s Virtualization Blog (Mike DePetrillo) – New

(4) NTPro.nl (Eric Sloof) – 6

(5) SearchServerVirtualization Blog (Various) – 3

(6) Virtualization Pro (Various) – 4

(7) VM /ETC (Rich Brambley) – 5

(8) RTFM Education (Mike Laverick) – 1

(9) Rational Survivability (Christofer Hoff) – 8

(10) Virtual Geek (Chad Sakac) – New

Note: Find more top ten list at http://vmware-land.com/Top_10_Lists.html

The other site is www.VMToday.com. VMtoday is a clean VMware News, Views, and How-To’s website, which for a moment I thought I was looking at my own site because the site has so much in-common with VMinstall.com. Jashua Townsend the site owner has good taste and you will find VMtoday informative.

Summing up this blog post about some of the fantastic websites and blogs for VMware support and virtualization, I just want to ask all the webmasters mentioned above to keep up the great work. I’m just one of thousands who visit your site regularly for help and I don’t know what I’d do without you. Now can someone please tell me how to join my VMware VirtualCenter 2.5 to Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), just kidding!

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