Top10.jpgFor VMGuru 2013 was a great year in which we wrote 104 blog posts and introduced our new, more responsive and bandwidth-friendly website-layout.

Due to this served 2.2M pages to 426.338 visitors, using 346,5GB bandwidth last year.

But which are the most popular blog posts from 2013? We summarized our top 10 articles for 2013!

  • No 1. – How to improve VMware View video performance.
    In 2013 we did two articles on how to improve video performance with VMware Horizon View. Probably due to the increased use of VDI and VMware Horizon View this is the best read article-series of 2013. Part 1 explains how to influence video performance by manipulating VMware View Group Policy Objects (GPO). In part 2 Edwin added a section to improve Internet Explorer performance in VMware Horizon View environments.How to improve VMware View video performance.
    How to improve VMware View video performance – Part 2
  • No 2. – Bye bye Citrix XenServer.
    The second best blog post is one on Citrix XenServer. In October of 2013 when I was updating our Enterprise Hypervisor Comparison, I noticed that Citrix had removed a ton of features in the new Citrix XenServer 6.2. This looked like the end of Citrix XenServer, of course looking at the comments Citrix-enthousiasts don’t agree but check out the list of withdrawn features and do your own math.

    Bye bye Citrix XenServer    .
  • No 3. – How does VMware vSphere 5.5 compare to the competition?
    With the release of VMware vSphere 5.5 I updated our ever popular Enterprise Hypervisor Comparison to include the new features and enhancements. VMware again raised the bar on enterprise grade hypervisors, but how does it compare to Microsoft Server 2012 Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer 6.2 or RedHat RHEV 3.2? Check out the blog post from August 2013.How does VMware vSphere 5.5 compare to the competition?
  • No 4. – vSphere 5 memory management explained.
    During my everyday work I was amazed how VMware memory management is still a topic which a lot of VMware administrators don’t understand. Administrator of big VMware environments who don’t have a clue what Transparent Page Sharing (TPS), memory compression, host swapping or ballooning is or what it does and when it is used. Also a lot of VMware administrators have trouble explaining the virtual machine memory allocation graphs. So I wrote a blog post in which I explain the different memory management techniques in VMware vSphere 5 which ended up number 4 on the 2013 top 10 list.

    vSphere 5 memory management explained (part 1)    .
    vSphere 5 memory management explained (part 2).
  • No 5. – How to: Shutdown ESXi host in case of a power failure.
    This number 5 blog post was also inspired by my every day work as a Solution Architect. I got this question from a colleague, “A customer of ours is running a virtual infrastructure based on VMware vSphere using multiple techniques to create a high available environment. Clustering, VMware HA and FT but when the power fails this all doesn’t help. The customer has an UPS in place, just enough to start a standby generator or just wait until the power returns. But what if this takes too long? Can when automatically power down the entire virtual infrastructure?” I know it can be done but it annoyed me that I couldn’t give him a standard working solution so in the evening I started Googling and testing in my lab and wrote this blog post.How to: Shutdown ESXi host in case of a power failure.
  • No 6. – Look at the Horizon! VMware’s Horizon Suite is finally here.
    This is a blog post by Alex written at the exact moment VMware released their Horizon Suite. It explains what the Horizon Suite consists of, which version there are, how it all works together and which improvements have been added.Look at the Horizon! VMware’s Horizon Suite is finally here.
  • No 7. – HP finally killed the EVA.
    This has proven to be a controversial article as people totally missed the point I was trying to make. So I expected this to be much higher on the 2013 top 10 list. The point I was trying to make was that everyone suspected HP to replace the EVA with 3PAR but nobody within HP ever wanted to confirm that. I was disappointed that HP did not inform its partners by not being open on the EVA/3PAR-replacement. So I celebrated the moment when HP was finally clear on the EOL of the EVA. Besides that I wanted to point out that HP was once a leader in the storage market but due to their drifting storage portfolio, like with the EVA/3PAR, many customers left. They could have profited from their huge install base but they dropped the ball. HP is not the storage solution provider it once was and now they’re also taking a beating a the server market, mainly by Cisco UCS. They still hold a huge market share on the server market but I’m wondering how HP will do business in 5 years time.
    Check out the blog post and comments below.HP finally killed the EVA.
  • No 9. – How to license Windows 8 in a VMware Horizon View deployment.Licensing has always been one of Edwin’s specialties. He already wrote several blog posts on licensing Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Windows 7  and with the support for Windows 8 in VMware Horizon View he added a blog post explaining the do’s and don’t s of licensing Windows 8 as a VDI operating system in VMware Horizon View.Wondering which version of Windows 8 to use? Get VDA through SA or VDA subscription? How about roaming use rights? Windows 8 downgrade rights? Check out Edwin’s blog post on how to license Windows 8 in a VMware Horizon View environment.How to license Windows 8 in a VMware Horizon View deployment.
  • No 10. – What’s new in VMware Horizon View 5.3.
    With the release of VMware Horizon View 5.3 at VMworld Europe 2013 in Barcelona, we were one of the first to present a detailed list of new features and improvements. As VDI seems very popular in 2013, this number 10 on the list does not surprise me. Check out the impressive list of new features and enhancements below.What’s new in VMware Horizon View 5.3.