Virtualization Changes Everything: Storage Strategies for VMware vSphere & Cloud Computing

3 September, 2012 by 6 Comments

A long long time ago Vaughn Stewart reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to write a foreword for his book. When Vaughn told me the topic I knew this was going to be a hit! For several reasons it took a while for the book to be released but now it finally is available. Vaughn and Michael Slisinger did an excellent job and I would recommend everyone who is interested in storage / virtualization / cloud to pick it up. I love the fact they went the self-publishing route and decided to make it available for $ 19.95 (print) and just $ 9.99 (location dependent pricing, so may vary) for the ebook! I would recommend everyone to pick up the ebook though, GO VIRTUAL!

I want to thank Mike and Vaughn for the opportunity to write the foreword, and congrats on the release… I hope you will sell millions.

Storage is a foundational component in the support of virtualization and cloud computing – and it is dynamically evolving. It is an aspect of the datacenter that is all-too-often overlooked, but without storage, there is no data, and without data, there is no cloud. Virtualization Changes Everything, by Vaughn Stewart and Mike Slisinger, examines the evolutionary influence of host virtualization and cloud computing in breaking storage deployment out of outdated silo models and into a dynamic, flexible hosting environment. Virtualization Changes Everything reviews common goals and challenges associated with providing storage service with cloud computing, and addresses each through the application of advanced storage technologies designed to scale in order to support the ever-expanding storage needs of the future. The examples within the book are pulled from real-world experience, and often involve the integration of multiple innovative technologies. If you are looking for measured guidance on high availability, efficiency, integration and performance for the storage in your cloud, then this book is for you!

 

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VMworld 2012 San Francisco… what a week

2 September, 2012 by Leave a Comment

It was a crazy week last week, VMworld 2012 SFO kept us all very very busy. I have a bunch of blog articles to finalize, so more will follow this week. Just a couple of keywords that summarize the craziness of this week for me:

  • New book release, vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive
  • 5 speaking slots, 1 group discussion slot and 2 “expert” slots
  • Meetings, meetings and more meetings
  • Receptions and parties, triple booked every evening
  • 1200+ copies of the 5.1 book handed out / sold at VMworld!

Just some random pics to give an impression of the week… Thanks everyone for taking these pictures. If you have full res pictures please email them to me (duncan @ yellow-…com).

And a VMworld TV video to top it off. (Nice to see the infamous Eric Sloof presenting / interviewing for VMworld TV along side Jeremy van Doorn!) Make sure to follow VMworldTV on twitter for updates!

I want to thank everyone who took the time to say hi, provide feedback, have open discussions or just wanted to shake hands / get books signed. I really appreciate it and it was great meeting all of you!

See you again in Barcelona,

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Demo time – vCloud Director 5.1 disaster recovery demo

30 August, 2012 by 7 Comments

When I was playing with the new vCloud Director 5.1 and Site Recovery Manager 5.1 I figured I would record a demo of the DR solution that Chris Colotti and I developed. The demo is fairly straight forward and hopefully helps you in the process of building a resilient cloud infrastructure. In this demo I have included:

  • vSphere 5.1
    • vSphere Replication
  • vCloud Director 5.1
  • Site Recovery Manager 5.1

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Demo time – Consuming vCloud Director 5.1 resources in 10 minutes…

29 August, 2012 by 1 Comment

We all know how difficult it can be to implement and configure a new infrastructure. Racking, cabling, configuring VLANs, setting policies / permissions, firewalling etc. It is a lot of work… Well in a physical world it is a lot of work, in a vCloud Director environment that is slightly different. In this demo that I recorded I am going to show you:

  • Login as a vCloud Admin
    • How to create an organization
    • How to create an organization virtual datacenter
      • Selecting a specific compute tier
      • Selecting all storage tiers
      • Selecting a specific networking tier
    • How to create an Edge Gateway
    • How to create add a vApp to a Catalog
  • Login as the tenant:
    • Deploy a 3-tier vApp with each VM on a different storage tier
    • Snapshot the full vApp

All of that in under 10 minutes, I could do it faster… but I guess it would be difficult to watch then :) . Anyway, I hope this demo shows how easy it is to provide access and resources to a tenant in a vCloud environment .

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VMware Open Innovation Contest 2012

28 August, 2012 by 2 Comments
It seems to be the week of the Innovation Team. I think it is a really smart move, not unlike the CloudPhysics contest by the way, to get your user involved in new innovations. First of all, why would you bother entering your idea? Well you can win a free pass to VMworld 2013! On top of that, and I believe that is the real price, it could be developed by the VMware team and become a fling… or maybe even a real feature, who knows!
For those who don’t know a fling is:

A fling is a short-term thing, not a serious relationship but a fun one. Likewise, VMware Flings are software tools that are offered on the VMware Flings website that are intended to be played with and explored. Though Flings might not become part of any future VMware product offering and are not supported, many VMware customers find them incredibly useful. It also doesn’t hurt that they’re free.

This contest runs from August 27th through October 31st 2012, and, yes, you’re allowed to submit multiple ideas. Although I am not eligible, I did not already enter one… and I am hoping all of you will do the same. So go register your ideas and win that free VMworld 2013 pass, but again maybe the best price is seeing your idea being developed and turn in to a fling, feature or product!

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VMware vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive available on Amazon now!

27 August, 2012 by 15 Comments

Frank and I published the book this morning and Amazon was extremely fast with getting it up on the website. It is available now:

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What’s new in 5.1?

27 August, 2012 by 10 Comments

As you might know the team I work for, VMware Technical Marketing, is responsible for a lot of the release collateral. Of course it was no different with the vSphere / vCloud 5.1 launch. Here are the links to all the excellent papers my colleagues wrote up.

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