Manage Your Cisco UCS Environment from an iPhone

General

Here’s one for all you Cisco Unified Compute System (UCS) administrators out there. Imagine being able to perform basic management functions on your Cisco UCS from your iPhone when out of the office or away from your desk! Well look no further as Tige Phillips from Cisco has produced the Simple iPhone Management of UCS (SiMU) application for the the iPhone which can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store here. The interface has been designed with the iPhone in mind though you could also run it from an iPad just as easily. It is important to point out that this ‘lab’ version of SiMU does not use an encrypted connection, with all traffic travelling between the UCSM and SiMU application being in clear text, though encrypting this data stream using SSL s something that the author,Tige, is working for an upcoming version.

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From SiMU Lab (Simple iPhone Management of UCS) you can perform simple management functions on a Cisco UCS such as login, reboot servers, check errors and assign service profiles to blades along with other basic administrative functions. The following is a brief description of the application from the SiMU application’s site:

“SiMU uses the open XML API built into the UCSM software. All of the security and access permissions are granted by UCSM and therefore are carried through to this application. SiMU Lab does NOT use secure communications. All traffic is passed between the UCSM and SiMU in clear text. For this reason SiMU should only be used in test environments and labs. A future version of SiMU will include SSL communications. Your password is stored in clear text in the memory of the iOS device, but is never saved to nonvolatile storage.

This application has been tested with version 1.2 and 1.3 of UCSM. If you do not have a Cisco UCS but want to learn more you can get a UCS simulator from the Cisco developers portal.”

So if you are a Cisco UCS Administrator this useful looking application could definitely be worth a look. Unfortunately I don’t have access to a UCS to try it out though if any of you do try it out I’d be interested in getting your feedback on it.

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VMworld 2010 – San Francisco vBeers

# VMware

VMworld San Francisco is looming and there have already been some great events announced such as VMUnderground’s WuPaaS on Sunday evening(for more details see here) and the Official VMworld Tweetup (details here) on Monday.

Come along to vBeers at VMworldWith VMworld kicking off on a Monday this year many folk will be rolling into town over the weekend so what better time to arrange a nice social get together on the Saturday night before the main event’s festivities begin.

Based on this Simon Long and myself put our heads together and thought that a vBeers sounded like a jolly good idea, so if you’re in San Francisco on the Saturday night and would like to come and meet fellow virtualization geeks enthusiasts then make a note in your diary and come along.  All welcome and the more the merrier!

Watch this space for details on the VMworld Copenhagen vBeers in the coming weeks.  The details on the San Francisco event can be found below – hope to see you there and please feel free to spread the word and use the banner below.  :)

 

Come along to the VMworld San Francisco vBeers

When?

VMware vBeers - When

Date: Saturday 28th August

Time:  7:00pm until whenever we finish

 

 

 

Where?

VMworld vBeers

VMworld vBeers Cheiftain

The Chieftain Irish Pub &Restaurant

Drink/Food:  They serve a good range of beers and soft-drinks along with decent bar food – check out their site here for a menu.

Address:  Opposite the Inter-Continental Hotel and only one block from Moscone Center and Westfield Shopping Mall.

198 5th Street @ Howard
San Francisco
CA 94103

Map: (Click to enlarge) 

vBeers Map

 

Hope to see you there!

 

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VIDEO: vChat – Episode 3 – vSphere Home Labs

# VMware

Here it is folks, vChat Episode 3! This week Eric Siebert, David Davis and myself discuss VMware vSphere Home & SMB Labs. This is a topic that Eric (vSphere-Land.com) and I along with Simon Gallagher of vinf.net will be discussing at the upcoming VMworld (San Francisco) event – Session V18328 “Building an affordable vSphere environment for a lab or small business” (Monday 30th August @ 12:00pm).  There are so many topic areas to cover when discussing building a successful vSphere lab though we managed to cover off most of the key areas (I think).  Feedback and comments, as always, most welcome.  Hope you enjoy and find it of use.   :)

 

Here are links that we discussed in this episode: 

vChat is a regular virtualization video chat covering VMware vSphere, Cloud Computing, Virtualization News, and maybe some geeky humor. Regular contributors are 3 vExperts – Simon Seagrave (TechHead.co.uk), Eric Siebert (vSphere-Land.com), and David Davis (VMwareVideos.com).  Sponsored by VMware vSphere Video Training from Train Signal.com

 

You can now SUBSCRIBE TO vCHAT on iTunes!

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Recover MS Outlook Email Attachments – Free Utility

Microsoft

Here is a really useful, and free, utility that displays the temporary MS Outlook email attachments stored in your PC’s local OLK cache.  I found myself needing this utility after working late last night and making the school boy error of working on a MS Word document directly from an email attachment and then closing it without saving it to a directory on my hard disk.  When I had realised what I had done and went to open the Word document from within the attachment it unsurprisingly had reverted back to the original version with no sign of my last 60 minutes worth of updates to be seen.  Doh!

I knew about the temporary OLK directory that contains the temporary files for the MS Outlook attachments though this can be quite a chore to try and search through it to find the required file.  This is when I called on the services of the ‘OLK Finder’ utility.  Within seconds of running this useful utility it presented a list of my OLK based temporary files without having to rummage through the temporary internet files directories – check out the long ‘OLK Location’ field in the screen shot below.

 

Outlook Recover Email Attachment

 

I definitely recommend adding ‘OLK Finder’  to your IT toolbox and the fact that is free makes it a great addition.  It doesn’t require to be installed on your PC so is suited to a USB key for convenience.

 

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vChat Episode Deux – VMware & Tech Related Webcast

# VMware

The second episode of vChat has now been released into the wild.  In this latest episode David (VMwareVideos.com), Eric (vSphere-Land.com) and myself discuss whether vSphere ESXi is ready for prime time, the new vSphere Power Monitoring Feature, Eric’s useful VMworld justification letter, iPhone 4 Signal Issues and theWyse Pocket Cloud on the iPad.  We will also be releasing an MP3 version via iTunes.  We should have the patchy video quality sorted out by the next episode – it didn’t help that I was using a USB 3G dongle to connect to the vChat.  :) Hope you enjoy watching/listening to it and feedback always welcome…

 

Show Notes:

-    Eric’s article on vmworld justification
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/sample-lett
er-for-justifying-vmworld-to-your-manager/

-    Vsphere 4.1 power monitoring graphs and config
-    Ipad pocket cloud

http://www.wyse.com/products/software/pocketcloud/

-    Esxi transition course – eric sloof’s post
http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrreg/courses.cfm?ui=www_edu&a=one&id_subject=19816

-    William lam’s 8 character article and KB article

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2010/07/esxi-41-major-security-issue.html

VMware Released two KB’s on this issue-
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1024500

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1024500

 

 

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