faisal farooqui

VMware is going on the road to showcase its virtualization technology. And it’s bringing all its equipment with it in a rolling mobile data center packed with gear from Cisco Systems, NetApp, Dell Xsigo and parent EMC Corp.The VMware Express is making its debut at this week’s VMware Partner Exchange Event. The Express will be crossing the U.S. and Canada to bring VMware demos to customers, but the exact schedule of apeparances hasn’t yet been worked out.

The road show follows on the example of Sun Microsystems, which put its Blackbox data center container on a truck and stopped outside industry events and customer sites in the U.S. and Europe. The 2007 road trip helped familiarize many data center professionals with containerized data centers, and was good for a few photo ops along the way.

Rather than using a shipping container to house its demonstration equipment, VMware (VMW) has opted for a trailer. The approach is similar to that taken by APC with its InfraStruXure Express, a fully mobile data center in a 53-foot long trailer. The challenges of this form factor: when packed with gear, the trailer is heavy. This also is a challenge for some fully-loaded 40-foot data center containers, an issue cited by HP in its recent decision to offer a lighter, cheaper 20-foot version of its HP POD container.

So last night after I got home from visiting my parents, I just so happened to realize that I haven’t received an email on my iPhone since the afternoon. I thought nothing much of it and just restarted my phone, still nothing Then I decided to try to log into OWA to see if the server even running, and it was so that was a relief, until I tried logging in. The exchange server wasn’t authenticating my credentials. I think figured small little glitch and I’ll just VPN into the network, restart a few services or services if needed and I’ll be on my way. But when I couldn’t even log into the VPN, that’s when I started getting concerned.

Now a million scenarios start going through my head on what the possible reasons could be effecting the issues that I am experiencing. I just needed to get onto the network somehow to see what the servers were doing. Did one of my ESX hosts just fail and HA didn’t kick in? Why isn’t even one of the three domain controllers accepting logins? Was there a network switch failure? And tons more questions just lingering.

So I can’t VPN into the network, so I decided to create a local login on our firewall so I can at least have that authenticate me and allow me to pass through to see what was going on. That worked! I got through and was able to ping a few servers, but now to investigate the rest of the issue.

I tried to SSH into all my ESX hosts to see if I was able to restart the management services only because I just figured the hosts may have just locked up and froze any of the VMs sitting on there. That didn’t work, the hosts werent recognizing the commands I would send it. Then I tried logging into virtual center to see what the cluster was up to and of course, that wasn’t possible either. Now I am just thinking what the heck is going on, its 11:30 at night, I really don’t want to drive back to the office ( since I just got home) and I was exhausted. My next natural instinct was to log into the ESX hosts directly via the vSphere client. My findings where pretty interesting.

I was able to log into ESX2 and ESX3, but not ESX1. That gave me some promise, because I could see some of the servers running on these hosts, but none of the three DCs were on the two available hosts. They had to have been sitting on the failed ESX1 host, and so was vSphere. Now I realized that I couldn’t vMotion these downed servers over to the running hosts, without virtual center, so how was I going to make this happen? I figured I’ll call VMWare support for assistance and they’ll help me get back up and running again in no time. They were really no help because apparently I had only Basic support which was good for Mon-Fri, and that the earliest support tech would call me on Monday morning. VMWare didn’t seem to care that this was a critical situation and wouldn’t make an exception. They said they could offer me a one time paid support assistance for $1200. I tried calling back and hoped for a different response, but got the same unfortunately.

Moving on, I was trying to figure out what I could do to get these servers up and running. I attempted to start another virtual center VM that was powered down after creating a clone from last week. I powered it up and was able to see all three ESX hosts running, but VMs sitting on ESX1 were all powered down! That is why I couldn’t authenticate. I vMotioned all the servers over to ESX2 and ESX3, powered them up, rebooted ESX1 just to make sure all was good and we were back in business!

I think what I got out of the experience is first that I am truly blessed with being able to figure these kinds of things out by being challenged with unusual issues like these, second, I should have created an HA rule not to have all three DCs sit on any one ESX host at the same time, and third to look into why the heck I wouldn’t have signed up for 24/7 support from VMWare. I really think I did, but maybe our vendor put in the wrong order. I’ll look on Monday.

In the end, I am just glad I didn’t just give up and not take responsibility for the crisis. Even after 20 years in IT, I’m still learning everyday so to me, persistence pays off.

There are many articles out discussing “best practices” for configuring virtual switches (vSwitches) in a VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) environment. A blog posting I came across a couple months ago that has a great explanation of best practices for your ESX infrastructure. It is done in 8 separate parts but I think it is pretty thorough. Here is the link.

Together with a launch of new design of VMware Website there is a new product launch – VMware View 4. Desktop Virtualization platform.

One of the new features is PCoIP, which is a technology that is used by View 4 especially for low bandwidth ana WAN connections. PCoIP is able to dynamically detect and adapt to the end users network connection. There are two editions of VMware View 4 available:

1.VMware View Enterprise – includes vSphere 4 for Desktops, vCenter 4, and VMware View Manager 4.
2.VMware View Premier – includes vSphere 4 for Desktops, vCenter 4, VMware View Manager 4, VMware View Composer, VMware ThinApp 4 and VMware Offline Desktop.

Openfiler is a CentOS- and rPath-based network operating system developed by Xinit Systems in 2003. It is designed to convert x86-64 systems into a complete NAS or SAN supporting up to 60TB. With Openfiler’s Web-based management system, you can easily create and manage storage systems using protocols such as Network File System (NFS) 3, SMB/CIFS (Server Message Block/Common Internet File System), Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV), HTTP/ 1.1, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and iSCSI. You can also configure storage using Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) levels such as 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10. Openfiler can even be integrated with authentication mechanisms such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Active Directory, Network Information Service (NIS), and Hesiod for secure storage access.

Like other enterprise storage systems, Openfiler provides snapshots for easy storage recovery. However, it also offers one feature not normally seen on even proprietary storage — support for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) integration. Thus, Openfiler provides the same functionality, performance, and availability as proprietary storage, without the high cost.

Openfiler’s minimum system requirements are a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of disk space for its operating system (OS), and an Ethernet card. For better performance, a 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 2GB of OS disk space, Gigabit Ethernet, and a RAID controller are recommended. Of course, you must also include the disks that will be used as storage. I recommend at least a RAID 5 configuration, either hardware or software, on storage systems, so a minimum of three hard disks would be necessary. With the price of a 1TB Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard disk having fallen to less than $200 nowadays, a three-disk RAID 5 configuration is a good option. You can get a decent four-port SATA RAID controller with RAID 5 support for a little more than $100. If you plan to use a Fibre Channel host bus adapter (HBA), check the hardware compatibility list first.

You can download the Openfiler ISO CD image or, if you prefer, the VMware appliance, from the developer’s site. You can find further details on both bare-metal and virtualization installation on Openfiler’s system requirements page.

Installation

Openfiler login. Click to enlarge.

Openfiler installation is straightforward and just like a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or CentOS installation. However, make sure you manually configure the hard disk partition when it comes to that portion of the process. If you let the installer configure the hard disk partition, it will distribute the filesystems if multiple disks are available. If you plan to put Openfiler on just one of the disks and let the other local disks be assigned as storage volumes, you must manually configure the partitions. Just enter the necessary information, such as root password, time zone, and so forth. It is also a good idea to assign Openfiler a static IP address during installation rather than a dynamic address so you can easily access the Web-based management after installation.

After you enter all the necessary information, Openfiler will proceed with the installation without requiring you to configure or choose packages. The test system I used for this article was an Athlon X2 4400 dual-core system with 2GB of memory and three 250GB SATA disks. Openfiler itself runs on a VMware Workstation virtual machine with three 6GB virtual hard disks. Although this scenario precludes hardware RAID, I configured two of the virtual disks to use a software RAID 1 setup.

Openfiler configuration and management

Openfiler status page. Click to enlarge.

To access Openfiler’s Web-based management, you can use any browser, and the format “https://hostname:446.” As you can see, Openfiler uses a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) session and port 446. You will be presented with a login screen where you will need to use the default username of “openfiler” and default password of “password.” You should change the default administrator username and password in the top of the Web GUI, where the Systems menu is listed, before you create the network storage.

To create storage volumes, first go to the Volumes tab. Since the disks are not yet configured, configure them by clicking Block Devices. Here, you can select the physical disk, designated on my system by sda, sdb, and sdc. I am using sdb and sdc, so I click on them and configure. A disk can be a physical disk or an array member. Since I plan to use software RAID 1, I select the “member of an array” option.

Once both sdb and sdc are set as array members, you can proceed to software RAID configuration. You can choose RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, or 10. Since there are only two disks, I use RAID 1, and I check sdb and sdc to be members. If you have spare disks, you can also set them as “spare” rather than “member.” Once you’ve finished the configuration, just wait for the RAID group to be 100 percent synchronized.

In the Volumes section, go to the menu options on the right and select the Add Volume option, which allows you to add created volumes, and select the newly created RAID 1 to create a logical volume. When creating a logical volume, you can choose XFS, ext3, and iSCSI filesystems. Since I want to test SMB, WebDAV (NAS), and iSCSI (SAN), I created two logical volumes: a 1GB XFS volume for SMB and WebDAV, and a 2GB iSCSI volume. Note that you cannot create shares for iSCSI volumes — only for XFS or ext3 volumes.

Once the logical volume is created, you can create SMB and WebDAV shares. Go to the Shares tab, choose the logical volume you created, and create a shared folder on it. You can then share that folder using SMB, NFS, WebDAV, and rsync. Before sharing the folder using one of those protocols, make sure its corresponding service is enabled under the Services tab. In addition, make sure you have at least one network access list to tell the storage system what network, or network host, will have access to its storage resources. If you don’t list a network entry, the Openfiler storage systems will deny any network access to the storage. To enter the network access list, you must go to the System Section, go to its networking settings, and enter the network segment or host.

Openfiler iSCSI setup. Click to enlarge.

I set the local subnet 192.168.100.0/24 to have access to the storage shares that I will create. There are two options when sharing a resource: Public Access and Controlled Access. Use Public Access when you want access to be based on the network access list only. Use Controlled Access when you want to use authentication mechanisms such as LDAP and Active Directory and you want per-user or -group access. I chose Public Access. Check the local subnet you configured and allow read/write (RW) access using SMB and WebDAV.

Next, configure the iSCSI volume. Ensure that the service iSCSI Target is enabled. Under the Volumes tab, go to iSCSI Target and add Openfiler as a target. Here you can change some iSCSI settings, but we will leave them as is. Finally, go to logical unit number (LUN) mapping to bind the iSCSI volume you created.

That’s all it takes for configuration. With a few simple steps, you can easily set up enterprise storage using Openfiler. If you need assistance, check Openfiler’s online manual or forum. An administrator guide is also available, but it costs about $88. Subscription-based technical support ranges from about $148 to $3,427. With Openfiler’s ease of use, you should not need technical support unless you deploy the software on a mission-critical application and want someone to assist you around the clock. However, even with such support, Openfiler is still likely to cost much less than proprietary storage hardware.

Connecting to storage

Once you have created and shared volumes, clients can connect to them. I tested SMB connectivity by mapping the shared folder. To map it, you must follow this format: \\host/physicalvolumename.logicalvolumename.sharedfolder. For example, it you need to access the shared folder \store1\nas\test1, use \\192.168.100.50\store1.nas.test1.

For WebDAV, you must follow a different convention. For the same shared folder as SMB, you must enter this address on the browser: https://192.168.100.50/mnt/store1/nas/test1.

For the iSCSI volume, you need an iSCSI initiator installed on the client machine. When I tried to connect from a Windows client, I downloaded the latest iSCSI initiator for Windows and installed it. You then enter the iSCSI target address of 192.168.100.50. Since I didn’t change any Openfiler iSCSI settings, I use the default settings. Log on to the target address and, once connected, check Windows disk management. You should see that the 2GB iSCSI volume is available.

The iSCSI protocol uses SAN technology, which means the iSCSI volume is seen as an ordinary disk in which you can perform any normal disk operations. By contrast, NAS protocols such as SMB are file-based, meaning that you can manipulate the files but not the volume.

Openfiler, your enterprise storage solution

Overall, Openfiler’s features and capabilities make for an impressive enterprise storage solution. With server hardware — including a Pentium 4 or above, four SATA disks, a RAID controller, and Gigabit Ethernet — costing less than $1,000, anyone can have a decent storage system that supports both NAS and SAN. With support for authentication mechanisms, you can easily control and manage access to your storage and even integrate UPS support — something not commonly found even on proprietary storage systems. Finally, with the snapshot feature, you can easily recover your storage when something goes bad.

Source

When VMware released vSphere, they also included a new product called VMware Data Recovery (VDR), which is their first entry into the virtual machine (VM) backup arena. Unlike VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB), which is an enabling technology and not an actual data backup product, VMware Data Recovery is a standalone product that creates hot backups of virtual machines to any virtual disk storage attached to an ESX/ESXi host, or to any NFS/CIFS network storage server or device and is not meant as a replacement for VMware Consolidated Backup

An additional feature of VMware Data Recovery is its ability to provide data deduplication to reduce storage requirements using block-based in-line destination deduplication technology that VMware developed. This means that duplicate data is found at the block level instead of the file level while it is being streamed to the destination disk and the deduplication process occurs as the data is stored on the destination disk. The deduplication feature cannot be disabled so all backups done by VDR are deduplicated.

VMware Data Recovery is built using the new vStorage API’s in vSphere and is not compatible with VI3 hosts and virtual machines. The vStorage API enables backup tools to connect directly to ESX hosts without additional software and enables backup tools to do incremental, differential and full-image backups of virtual machines. VMware Data Recovery is integrated with vCenter Server and can back up virtual machines even when they are moved to other hosts by VMotion and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). VMware Data Recovery is available only in the Essentials Plus, Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus vSphere editions. It comes packaged as a plug-in for vCenter Server/vSphere Client and a prebuilt OVF format backup appliance that runs on your host servers (you can run multiple backup appliances). It can only do backups at the virtual machine level (VM image) and does not do file-level backups; full backups are initially performed and subsequent backups are incremental. It does have individual file-level restore (FLR) capability that is currently considered experimental that requires a special client and can only restore files to virtual machines running a Windows XP/Vista/2003/2008 guest operating system. The FLR utility is a command-line application that mounts the virtual disk from a selected VM/restore point to a Windows drive letter so the files can be accessed and copied.

VMware Data Recovery vs. Veeam Backup and Replication

VMware’s VMware Data Recovery product directly competes with several third-party vendors, including those from Veeam Software (Backup and Replication), PHD Virtual Technologies (esXpress) and Vizioncore Inc. (vRanger). However, VDR is a pretty basic, first-generation backup product and more suited for SMBs. While its basic functionality is similar to the other more mature products, it lacks the polish, advanced features and scalability that other products such as Veeam Backup and Replication offer. The chart below shows the major differences between the two products.

As you can see, the major differences between the two products are in the support for host and operating system versions, replication support, scalability and usability. Because of its limitations, VMware Data Recovery may not be a good fit for organisations that have large numbers of virtual machines, large amounts of virtual data storage or running predominantly Linux virtual machines. Despite its limitations, VDR is still a good choice for SMBs that want to augment their current backup solution or perform disaster recovery backups. Due to its limited support for individual file restores, it may not be a good solution as a primary or solo backup method.

Installation of VMware Data Recovery

Now that we know a bit about VMware Data Recovery, I will walk you installing and using the product. The system requirements are fairly simple. First you must be using vSphere; this includes vCenter Server 4.0 and ESX and ESXi 4.0 hosts. As mentioned earlier, you cannot use VDR without a vCenter Server. The release notes and documentation currently do not reference ESXi at all, but it does supports ESXi (except for the free edition). You also need some storage to use for your target data store; this can be any type of storage attached to an ESX/ESXi host (local, SAN, iSCSI, NFS) or any NFS/CIFS network storage server or device.

Once you are ready to begin, follow the steps below to install and set up VDR:

1. Download the VMware Data Recovery from VMware’s website. There are three downloads available. The first is an 759 MB ISO file that is used to install the vSphere plug-in and deploy the VDR appliance, the ISO file also contains the install for vShield Zones. The second is the experimental file level restore client (Windows only) and the last is the documentation for the file level restore client.
2. You can burn the ISO file to a physical DVD or mount it to a virtual CD-ROM. The autorun program will bring up an installer wizard that will install the VDR plug-in to the vSphere Client on the server/workstation that you run it on; it does not install the VDR appliance that must be installed manually later on. Optionally, you can copy and run the VMwareDataRecoveryPlugin.msi file from the ISO/DVD and run it separately. The wizard is very simple, just hit “Next” a few times and the plug-in will be installed. Once installed you start your vSphere Client and select Plug-ins from the top menu and then Manage Plug-ins, you will see the new plug-in installed (click on illustrations below for full image).
3. You can enable the plug-in by right-clicking on it and choosing “Enable.” Once it is enabled you will see a new option on the “Home” screen under “Solutions and Applications” called VMware Data Recovery. If you click on it, you will see a screen that will prompt you to connect to a VDR backup appliance — since we don’t have one installed yet we will have to do that next. Note that the VDR plug-in connects to the backup appliance using port 22024 so be sure that port is open in any firewalls between the system running the vSphere client and the backup appliance.
4. To deploy the appliance, you use the vSphere Client and use the Open Virtualisation Format (OVF) template from the ISO/DVD file to create a new virtual machine. Since the OVF template is on the ISO/DVD, you will need it to deploy the template. In the vSphere Client select “File” from the top menu and then “Deploy OVF Template.” The wizard will load and the first screen is to select the source, click the Browse button and select the VMwareDataRecovery.ovf file located in the \DataRecovery\VMwareDataRecovery-ovf directory. Click “Next” and it will display the template information. While the actual template is only 297 MB, the virtual disk size of the virtual machine that is created on the specified host will be about 5 GB. Click “Next” and then give the VM a name or keep the default, continue through the screens selecting a destination Datacenter/Host/Resource pool and finally a storage volume and click “Finish” at the final Summary screen to begin the creation of the VDR appliance on your host server.
5. If you want to store your backups on a storage volume connected to the host that the VM is located on then you should edit the settings for the newly created VM and add an additional virtual disk to it to store your backups on, this can be any storage type that is configured on your ESX host. One thing to keep in mind when creating the virtual disk is the block size of the VMFS volume that you will create it on, the default 1 MB block size only allows for a maximum virtual disk size of 256 GB. If you need a larger disk size you will need to use a volume with a 2 MB or larger block size so you can create larger virtual disks on it. If you want to store your backups on a network storage device such as a CFIS share you can skip this step and move onto the next one.
6. Before you power on the VDR appliance, you should edit the settings and make sure the NIC for the VM is connected to your desired network. The VDR appliance is configured to automatically obtain an IP address using DHCP but if it isn’t available, you can change this when it first boots up. The appliance is built using the CentOS Release 5.2 Linux operating system and when you power it on you will see the familiar Linux boot sequence. Select the Configure Network option and you can enter your IP address and network settings. Optionally, you can login to the appliance using the default username root and password vmwa@re and change the password using the passwd command.
7. Once the appliance is powered on and the network configured, you can connect to it using a Web browser using the URL https://:5480 (note you must use https). In the Web interface, you can only do basic things like viewing system information, view/change network settings and reboot/shutdown the appliance.
8. The main interface for managing the VDR appliance is the plug-in in the vSphere Client. Click the Home link and then click the VMware Data Recovery link and you will be presented with a prompt to connect to a VDR appliance. Enter the IP address/host name of the VDR appliance and click the “Connect” button. You will be prompting to enter login credentials for the vCenter Server (not the VDR appliance). After your login credentials, your backup destinations will be displayed, this includes any virtual disks that you added to the VDR appliance and you can also add network shares. If you choose to add a network share you must use the IP address of the server (i.e., \\172.200.100.55\share) and not the host name (\\server\share), this is specified in the release notes. You can use the “Refresh” button to display any disks that you recently added to the VM that are not showing up.
9. Before you can use a virtual disk (not a network share) you need to format it, once formatted it will show as a local volume instead of a physical disk and the name will change to scsi:x:y. Once you are done with your backup destinations click “Next” and you will be at the Configuration Complete screen. If you check the box to create a backup job and click the “Close” button, a new wizard will open letting you create a backup job. In the Backup Job wizard you can specify the virtual machines/virtual disks to be backed up, the destination, backup scheduling and the retention policy. The backup window is the most important setting and you should know how it works, VDR will attempt to back up your VM in the specified window (not at a specific time) and if the backup does not complete in that window the backup will stop and be restarted when the window occurs again. So, if you specify many virtual machines to be backed up during a window it’s possible that some may not get backed up due to resource/time constraints. Only a maximum of eight virtual machines can be backed up concurrently but multiple backups will only happen if CPU utilisation is less than 80%. VDR will give higher priority to the VMs that did not get backed up in subsequent backup windows.
10. Once you are done with the wizard, you will be at the main VDR screen where you can choose different tabs to manage backups, restores, reporting and appliance configuration. The “Backup” tab will show all your jobs and which are not in compliance, you can start a backup immediately by selecting a job and choosing the “Bring to Compliance” option. The “Restore” tab will show all your completed backups and available restore points. You can choose to do either a restore which will replace the selected virtual machine or a restore rehearsal which will create another copy of the virtual machine and not replace the original. Restore rehearsals are a good way to test that your backups are working and that you can restore them if needed. The “Reports” tab shows you event and status data and the “Configuration” tab lets you configure the appliance and manage backup destinations. Here you can also see the free space on your destinations, mount/unmount, extend and check the integrity of them.

If you plan on using VMware Data Recovery then you should make sure you understand it thoroughly and read the administration guide and the release notes, which contain many known issues that you may encounter. Also be sure and download and install the File Level Recovery utility and test it out so you know how to use it when it comes time to restore files. VDR is a new 1.0 product and therefore may have some issues until it matures it a bit and new versions are released. But overall it’s a pretty solid entry-level backup application that is great for organisations that want to add additional backup and recovery options to their virtual environment.

Source

Austin, TX (PRWEB) June 16, 2009 — VDIworks, a virtual desktop software provider with a long history in centralized computing, today announced the release of its new high-speed connection protocol for virtual desktops, VideoOverIP 1.0. This release drastically improves the user experience delivered in a hosted virtual desktop model, while also allowing customers full freedom to choose their preferred client and host hardware.

While a variety of connection remoting protocols exist in the industry today, many are unsuited for multimedia playback, others are tied to specific Thinclients or server hardware and yet others have technical limitations related to the kinds of video they can accelerate. VideoOverIP is designed to overcome these challenges and provide an enhanced set of features to both the IT manager and the end-user. Version 1.0 of VideoOverIP includes the following key features:

1)   Multi-monitor support
2)   High degree of configurability to deal with network conditions; configurable audio buffers, configurable compression levels, GDI and mirror driver modes etc.
3)   Universal codec independent acceleration; Flash®, MPEG, DivX and all other kinds of animation and video are accelerated without any need for codecs on the Thinclient
4)   KVM and Audio redirection
5)   Support for Hypervisors; Microsoft Hyper-V®, VMware Virtual Server and VMware ESX
6)   Standalone mode and full integration with VDIworks VDP Management Platform and Connection Broker
7)   Support for embedded SKUs of Windows® for deployment on Thinclients
8)   Support for 1:1 operation; Server, Blade PC and legacy PC remoting is also supported without the use of Hypervisors

“Based on extensive interactions with partners and customers, we know that end-users are concerned about maintaining the quality of their user experience as they move to virtual desktops. VideoOverIP 1.0 is the first step in addressing this concern”, said Amir Husain, President and CEO of VDIworks. “Customer demand for our VideoOverIP solution has been exceptionally strong because it solves the end-user performance issues that IT organizations have encountered with desktop virtualization.”

VideoOverIP is available immediately and supports Windows XPe clients, Windows XP hosts, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware Virtual Server and VMware ESX. For more information and to register for an evaluation, please visit: http://www.vdiworks.com/

More info…

It’s the “most powerful, fastest iPhone we’ve ever made,” says Apple VP Phil Schiller of the 3G S, now with an upgraded three-megapixel camera, voice commands, and picture messaging—all due on June 19. Also: The 8GB version of the iPhone 3G is now just $99.The news came during Monday’s keynote of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, and the announcements pretty much fell in line with earlier predictions, including a new digital compass, better battery life, laptop tethering, and MMS—although the latter two won’t be supported on AT&T just yet, news that was followed by a chorus of groans in the audience.

Also, those hoping for a cameo by the recovering Steve Jobs left the keynote disappointed.

So, without further ado, on with the details …

We really can’t deny the fact that businesses are testing out Twitter as part of their steps into the social media landscape. You can say it’s a stupid application, that no business gets done there, but there are too many of us (including me) that can disagree and point out business value. I’m not going to address the naysayers much with this. Instead, I’m going to offer 50 thoughts for people looking to use Twitter for business. And by “business,” I mean anything from a solo act to a huge enterprise customer.

Your mileage may vary, and that’s okay. Further, you might have some really great ideas to add.

First Steps

1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetblue gives travel tips.)
7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepot does it well.)
9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
10. Talk about non-business, too, like @astrout and @jstorerj from Mzinga.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet

1. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
2. Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
3. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
4. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
5. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
6. Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
7. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
8. Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
9. Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. – Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn).
10. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

Some Sanity For You

1. You don’t have to read every tweet.
2. You don’t have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you (try to reply to some, but don’t feel guilty).
3. Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation ( got this from @pistachio).
4. Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
5. 3rd party clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl make it a lot easier to manage Twitter.
6. If you tweet all day while your coworkers are busy, you’re going to hear about it.
7. If you’re representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it.
8. Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up your tweets.
9. If someone says you’re using twitter wrong, forget it. It’s an opt out society. They can unfollow if they don’t like how you use it.
10. Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community.

The Negatives People Will Throw At You

1. Twitter takes up time.
2. Twitter takes you away from other productive work.
3. Without a strategy, it’s just typing.
4. There are other ways to do this.
5. As Frank hears often, Twitter doesn’t replace customer service (Frank is @comcastcares and is a superhero for what he’s started.)
6. Twitter is buggy and not enterprise-ready.
7. Twitter is just for technonerds.
8. Twitter’s only a few million people. (only)
9. Twitter doesn’t replace direct email marketing.
10. Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and griping.

Some Positives to Throw Back

1. Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
2. Twitter works swell as an opinion poll.
3. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to good things.
4. Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel.”
5. Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
6. Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. Remember presence in the 1990s?
7. Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).
8. Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.
9. Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online (mine are).
10. Twitter can augment customer service. (but see above)

Source: Chris Brogan

Apple on Wednesday launched its annual back-to-school promotion offering Mac-buying students and teachers an iPod Touch at no additional charge.For many years, students and schools have been an important market for Apple, and the company wants to keep it that way with its annual giveaway. This year, students and teachers buying any Mac, other than a Mac Mini or a refurbished model, and an iPod Touch on the same invoice qualify for a $229 online rebate, which is the price of the 8-GB iPod Touch.

In addition, educators and students will still get Apple’s education discount, which can amount to as much as $200.

To qualify for the iPod promotion, purchases have to be made before Sept. 8 and buyers have to submit their rebate claims by Oct. 8.

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