Various

Unexplored Territory Episode 065 – Jatin Purohit discussing Oracle Cloud VMware Solution

Duncan Epping · Jan 9, 2024 ·

For episode 065 of the Unexplored Territory Podcast I invited Jatin Purohit to discuss Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, and what was introduced since we had Richard Garsthagen on as a guest. Jatin went over all the details, and shared some great use cases with us. Make sure to listen to the episode via your favorite podcast app, or the embedded player below. We are now starting to plan for the upcoming episodes, if you want to be a guest and have an interesting story, or solution, to share, then do not hesitate to reach out.

Call to action: Help cancer patients enjoy life when still possible!

Duncan Epping · Nov 16, 2023 ·

CALL TO ACTION: Everyone knows someone with cancer, who passed away as a result of cancer, or maybe even won the battle against cancer. I have seen too many family members and friends fight the battle and lose. For this reason, I decided to participate in the Roparun this year. The Roparun non-profit organization aims to help organizations (financially) in Holland that provide Palliative care for cancer patients.

I will join Team 243 to run from Paris to Rotterdam in a relay fashion next year (May 2024). We will be running with two groups of four people, each group will run in a relay fashion for 4 hours and will then have a 4 hour break, each runner will do 2 kilometers per repetition until the 4 hours has passed. This means it will take roughly 3 days to get back from Paris to Rotterdam. It is my goal to collect as many donations as possible to help cancer patients enjoy life when still possible, every contribution, small or large, is appreciated. I know I have helped many people over the years through my blogs, product feedback, videos, demos, books, and podcasts and many folks have asked if they could return the favor in the past. This is your chance to do so. Again, small or large, it does not matter, all help is appreciated!

All proceeds will go to charity! Please share, repost, and donate, all help is appreciated!
Folks from the Netherlands Holland please use: https://www.roparun.nl/fundraisers/duncan-epping
Folks outside of the Netherlands please use: https://www.gofundme.com/f/living-life-despite-cancer

Witness resiliency feature with a 2-node cluster

Duncan Epping · Oct 9, 2023 ·

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a customer about a large vSAN ESA 2-node deployment they were planning for. One of the questions they had was if they would have a 2-node configuration with nested fault domains if they would be able to tolerate a witness failure after one of the node had gone down. I tested this for a stretched cluster, but I hadn’t tested it with a 2-node configuration. Will we actually see the votes be re-calculated after a host failure, and will the VM remain up and running when the witness fails after the votes have been recalculated?

Let’s just test it, and look at RVC at what happens in each case. Let’s look at the healthy output first, then we will look at a host failure, followed by the witness failure:

Healthy

    DOM Object: 71c32365-667e-0195-1521-0200ab157625 
      RAID_1
        Concatenation
          Component: 71c32365-b063-df99-2b04-0200ab157625 
            votes: 2, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: true
          RAID_0
            Component: 71c32365-f49e-e599-06aa-0200ab157625 
              votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: true
            Component: 71c32365-681e-e799-168d-0200ab157625 
              votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: true
            Component: 71c32365-06d3-e899-b3b2-0200ab157625 
              votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: tru
        Concatenation
          Component: 71c32365-e0cb-ea99-9c44-0200ab157625 
            votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false
          RAID_0
            Component: 71c32365-6ac2-ee99-1f6d-0200ab157625 
               votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false
            Component: 71c32365-e03f-f099-eb12-0200ab157625 
               votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false
            Component: 71c32365-6ad0-f199-a021-0200ab157625 
               votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false
      Witness: 71c32365-8c61-f399-48c9-0200ab157625 
        votes: 4, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false

1 host down, as you can see the votes for the witness changed, of course the staste also changed from “active” to “absent”.

    DOM Object: 71c32365-667e-0195-1521-0200ab157625 
      RAID_1
        Concatenation (state: ABSENT (6)
          Component: 71c32365-b063-df99-2b04-0200ab157625 
            votes: 1, proxy component: false
          RAID_0
            Component: 71c32365-f49e-e599-06aa-0200ab157625 
              votes: 1, proxy component: false
            Component: 71c32365-681e-e799-168d-0200ab157625 
              votes: 1, proxy component: false
            Component: 71c32365-06d3-e899-b3b2-0200ab157625 
              votes: 1, proxy component: false
        Concatenation
          Component: 71c32365-e0cb-ea99-9c44-0200ab157625 
             votes: 2, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false
          RAID_0
            Component: 71c32365-6ac2-ee99-1f6d-0200ab157625 
              votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false
            Component: 71c32365-e03f-f099-eb12-0200ab157625
              votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false
            Component: 71c32365-6ad0-f199-a021-0200ab157625 
              votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false
      Witness: 71c32365-8c61-f399-48c9-0200ab157625 
        votes: 1, usage: 0.0 GB, proxy component: false

And after I failed the witness, of course we had to check if the VM was still running and didn’t show up as inaccessible in the UI, and it did not. vSAN and the Witness Resilience feature worked as I expected it would work. (Yes, I double checked it through RVC as well, and the VM was “active”.)

VMware Explore 2023, my personal top recommended sessions!

Duncan Epping · Jul 13, 2023 ·

This year I wasn’t planning on creating a list with my personal favorite sessions at Explore, it just takes so much time to go through the agenda, read the outlines and then pick what I feel would be interesting for me personally. However, this week I had a handful of people asking if I was going to post a list again as they typically share the list with their customers. So I figured that I would go through the exercise again. First, let me share the three sessions that I will be part of:

Tech Deep Dive: vSAN 8 ESA–Performance and Resilience Without Compromise [CEIB1101LV]
Pete Koehler and I will be diving deep into all things vSAN 8 ESA, and will make sure to bring some demos as well to this 45 minute break out session. This just may include some details of … well I can’t talk about that really.
Increasing Availability and Resilience with VMware vSAN Stretched Clusters [CEIB1099LV]
Vivek Pamadi and I won the People’s Choice Award, and as such we get to present on the topic of vSAN Stretched Clusters at Explore, and in this session we will not only cover the current, but we will also reveal some potential future capabilities which will make your life as a stretched cluster customer easier!
Career Advancement Panel Discussion: Tips for Success from Tech Leaders [VIB2845LV]
I submitted a personal/career development session, but as the number of speaking slots is limited I was asked to join this panel session to talk about my experiences within the IT industry.

Those are the three sessions I will be part of, and hopefully, you will sign up for these. The vSAN sessions historically have been packed, usually repeated, so sign up early before they fill up!

Now, let’s list some of the sessions I am going to try to attend personally, that is if they are not full. Yes the list is focussed on areas I am interested in, and is not necessarily a representation of the broad diversity in terms of topics discussed at the event. But I am sure a few others will produce a similar list at some point.

Technology Innovation Showcase [K2906LV]
This was one of my favorite sessions in 2022, Kit Colbert and Chris Wolf will be talking futures/innovation and VMware. This means they will be sharing insights on what our R&D teams are currently working on and exploring. In my opinion, this is a must see!
State of Alaska: Rapid Cloud Migration from the Last Frontier [CEIB2447LV]
I do not know this speaker, Niel Smith, but the first sentence of the abstract just caught my interest: “If you think you can’t use public cloud because of latency, old applications, storage performance, network constructs, firewall policies, and backups, think again.” And I love to hear good customer stories.
State of Union for VMware Home Labs [CODEB2757LV]
William Lam will be talking for 45 minutes extremely fast on the topic of Home Labs. You all know his name, you all know his blog, and you all know his passion for home labs. This will be good, and I would encourage all the lab geeks to join this one!
Cloud Data Infrastructure: Strategy and Product Portfolio [VIB1643LV]
My former manager, Christos Karamanolis, is hosting this session and talking about the Cloud Data Infrastructure strategy. Last year they introduced Project Moneta, will be interesting to see what we can expect in the upcoming year(s)
Cyber Secure Storage and Data: VMware’s Next Storage Frontier? [CEIB2594LV]
I am very intrigued by the title, cyber secure storage and data, hosted by Sazzala Reddy and Vijay Ramachandran. I’ve seen some previews of the content, I suspect that this will be one of my favorite sessions this year. I am very excited about what is going to be shared.
Scaling and Deploying ESXi at the Edge with Desired State Management and GitOps [VIB2169LV]
Last year Project Keswick was introduced by Alan Renouf (listen to the UT podcast on this topic), it seems that this session is the follow-up to that, how to deploy ESXi at the edge at scale. Alan Renouf will be hosting this session with Sadaat Malik and Elliott Davis
Unleashing vSAN ESA – An Exploration of HCI and dHCI Deployment Options [CEIB1777LV]
Kris and Kalyan are diving deep into the world of disaggregated HCI in this session, with a focus on how vSAN ESA has evolved this space for VMware, and will continue to evolve.
NSX Security Mindset: The Architect’s Forum Part 1 and 2
Chris McCain (and friends) is hosting a two-part workshop where they will be talking about securing your environment and how to respond to attacks. This is on top of mind for many organizations out there, and although these sessions are lengthy (90 minutes each), I highly encourage to attend these.
Balancing Risk and Performance for Sustainable ICT Networks [CEIB2839LV]
Sustainability is on the radar of most CIOs and CTOs these days, but what can YOU as an architect or administrator contribute? Frank and Valentin are going to be discussing exactly that!
45 Minutes of NUMA – A CPU Is Not a CPU Anymore [CODEB2761LV]
This session has been a top-rated session for years, and for a good reason, Frank Denneman and Yu Wang will dive deep into CPU architectures and discuss how you can get the most out of your infrastructure by understanding the CPU architecture and NUMA topology!

Six fundamentals for advancing your career (Virtual VMUG Keynote) recording!

Duncan Epping · Jul 5, 2023 ·

I recorded this keynote presentation for the Virtual VMUG which was in June 2023. In this presentation, I discussed my career path at VMware and my personal journey in the world of IT (and computers in general) and share with you the six fundamental learnings which accelerated my personal development and career growth. I didn’t see the recordings shared more broadly so I figured I would share the video through my blog and on youtube. Just go to youtube and watch it over there. If you have any comments/feedback just leave a message on my blog, youtube, or on any of the social media platforms you can find me on.

PS: I have always felt uncomfortable sharing my career journey and learnings, I am not a career or personal development coach, nor have I had any education or training on this topic, this is purely my experience and I am sharing this with the broader audience as the VMUG team asked me to present on this topic twice now. I hope this is useful.