technical notes - vmware image promoted to USF, posted as vmware appliance

[Jeremy Cothran]

Hi all,

Wanted to post some progress regarding server virtualization via vmware.  The past 2 weeks I've been in communication with Vembu Subramanian at USF regarding some vmware http://vmware.com free tools and software - ESXi(bare-metal host OS for virtual server),vSphere(desktop/browser based virtual server management tool) and vCenter(desktop/browser based virtual server conversion tool):

Vembu was able to use the following documentation links along with a few phone calls

http://code.google.com/p/xenia/wiki/VMwareInstall#VMware_ESXi

http://code.google.com/p/xenia/wiki/VMwareInstall#static_ip

to setup his server and copy the vmware image of our main production environment (which includes much of the earlier Seacoos development including in-situ aggregation and processing to a variety of community formats(CSV,XML,KML,GeoRSS,GeoJSON,HTML) and services(WMS,SOS-both Oostethys and DIF flavors) http://code.google.com/p/xenia/wiki/VMwareProducts ) to his local server.  Ideally this image and other community vmware images/appliances could be shared to help improve our operational redundancy, capability/capacity and technical understanding.  Like any shared software, security issues are also a concern.

Would like to repeat this process with others in the region,etc as it might be useful - this image/appliance is mainly targeted towards in-situ observation collection with stationary(buoys,etc) or mobile(gliders,drifters,ships,etc) platforms.  The latest image is also Postgres focused (instead of an earlier Sqlite focus) to bring the project back in line with several other projects which are utilizing the Postgres relational database.

Also plan to continue to provide additional releases incorporating further scripts or development efforts as things permit and can work to incorporate other individual/groups efforts that leverage the same image/development base.

This vmwware image (labeled 'xeniavm') has also been posted on the vmware appliances page http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/233143 which should also help expose its availability to users searching that site.

Thanks to everyone again for past contributions/support and to Vembu recently for going through an initial test process.

Jeremy