Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Blogging

VMworld pre-event post

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We arrived yesterday in Cannes after a very unpleasant ride in the Bus from Nice Airport, note to driver: switch on the airconditioning next time or open some windows. No I’m not going to complain all blog article long, just needed to get this off my chest.

After dropping my stuff in the hotel we registered, there were a lot people standing in line for registration but luckily it went pretty quick. So we headed over to the briefing by Richard, Esther and of course Paul Maritz and Tod Nielssen. Unfortunately I’m allowed to tell you what was discussed but believe me this VMworld will be mind blowing again!

After visiting the Solutions Exchange, which Eric Sloof already recorded, I headed over to the labs. Everyone was working hard to get everything done in time and so will everyone be today. There’s still a lot of work to be done, I hope you all take the time to visit the labs! Some of them contain technology previews, in other words you will be the first to actual play with the upcoming products! I’m not sure if you’re allowed to film or take pictures during the labs so be sure to ask one of the VMware employees before you do.

Next stop was the Veeam Party. Veeam was so kind to send me VIP pass, in other words I could get unto the boat at 19:30 instead of 20:30. It was a great party. Met up with Jason Boche, Gabe and his girl, Eric Sloof and of course the famous VMDoug. Had some great conversations with Veaam about the future of their products and actually about a new add-on they are developing at the moment.

Funny thing during several conversations is that some people didn’t know I’m from the Netherlands. Some even thought I was a US citizen, thanks for the compliments I guess. Also had some great feedback and compliments on my blog, thanks guys I’m flattered.

Something else that people asked me a lot is where do you find the time. Well that’s an easy question: I normally only sleep for 4 or 5 hours. And besides getting little or no sleep it’s a matter of priorities. Eric Sloof for instance skipped dinner last evening so he could get his first video online. I think it’s also a passion for virtualization and technology in general and for me at least it’s a hobby.

Now I need to headover to the conference center, I’m already late as it is. By the way VMware isn’t the only one announcing new products or product updates this week. Most of  you probably already seen it, but Citrix announced that XenServer will be available for free. That includes Xenmotion and more, it doesn’t seem to include HA though. I think I will have a chat with the Citrix guys to find out what’s included and what’s not. Great move of Citrix, and I’m wondering what Microsoft and VMware will do to counter this.

VMworld Europe 2009, here we go!

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It’s almost time to go to the airport, VMworld 2009 here I come! I plan to do a daily blog article on the announcements and the atmosphere etc. But this of course heavily depends om my schedule. If you want to meet me be sure to join the “Meet the VMTN Experts panel” at the Community Lounge on Tuesday and Wednesday at 13:00!

I’ll be manning the Community booth together with Tony Dunn and try to be at the SRM Labs as much as possible. If you can’t make the VMTN Experts panel you’ll know where to find me. I hope I can find the time to do extensive blogging, but I’ve got a gut feeling that I will be running around all day and evening and probably be to tired to write anything down. But don’t worry, my guess is that Gabe and Eric will be publishing a whole bunch of blogs! Be sure to keep a close eye on PlanetV12n if your not visiting VMworld Europe.

VI:OPS

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I’ve recently added VI:OPS to my rss reader. The amount of high quality documents/articles released over the last couple of days really amazed me. For those that don’t know VI:OPS:

If you look at the existing forums and resources, they are very focused on the products and technology from VMware with most users being VCPs / VMware administrators. However, there are some topics that aren’t covered in the existing forums (such as Availability) and the purely technical focus of the existing topics is not relevant to a whole other field of professionals that have different challenges with virtualization, like the Operations team.

To bridge this gap, we created VI:OPS to widen the discussion beyond pure, deep technical by adding five topics that VMware staff, partners and customers talk about all the time but where there is no online collaboration facility for these topics.

In short, VI:OPS focuses more on procedures and processes. A great example is this article by Rob Ford: Implementing ITIL V3 Capacity Management in a VMware environment. This is were VI:OPS clearly differentiates from the VMTN Community. I guess you could say that VI:OPS guides you towards operational readiness where VMTN is more educational in terms of technology and troubleshooting.

One of the best articles this week was written by Rodney Haywood aka Rodos. Rodney wrote a great VI:OPS article on Migration Methodologies. The document outlines all necessary steps for a successful migration from physical to virtual. It even includes a description of several migration tools including VMware Converter and Platespin Powerconvert.

Another great read is definitely Steve Chambers document “Initiating the deployment“. This document is still under heavy construction but already contains a wealth of information for Architects, VCPs, Project Leaders and even Managers. It describes the various pre-stages of a virtualization project ranging from Financial Justification to a Project Charter.

And what about these two posts, a library of VMware Visio Stencils and VMware Icons and Diagrams in PPT form. A must have for everyone documenting VI3 or Designing virtual environments.

Now head over to VI:OPS and start reading and of course contribute!

Reminder to come see the VMTN Experts at VMworld Europe 2009

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If you’re seeking answers for your most difficult VMware related questions, you really should pay a visit to this year’s VMware community lounge. The following experts are at your service:

gabrie Gabrie van Zanten, – Owner of gabesvirtualworld
jason Jason Boche, – VMTN Moderator, Minneapolis Area VMUG president, and owner of Boche.net
alan Alan Renouf, – Owner of Virtu-Al, Powershell Enthusiast
steve Steve Beaver, – Tripwire, VMTN Moderator, and contributor to Virtual Black Hole
scott Scott Herold, – Quest, owner of VMGuru.com and accomplished Author
thomas Thomas Bryant, – VizionCore and VMTN Moderator
vitoolkit Wil van Antwerpen, – Owner of vi-toolkit.com
eric Eric Sloof, – VMware trainer and owner of ntpro.nl
tom Tom Howarth, – VMTN Moderator and owner of PlanetVM
duncan Duncan Epping, – VMware Senior Consultant and owner of Yellow-Bricks

Don’t forget to put the following dates in your agenda: Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th  from 13.00 to 14.00, VMworld Europe, The Community Lounge! Be there!!

Gabes VMworld teaser movie

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I’ve seen a lot of cool teaser/ preview movies over the years. Especially Eric Sloof has a great reputation with teaser movies for VMworld and short video interviews. But this year Eric will have a lot of competition cause VMware gave the bloggers attending VMworld a nice gift, The Flip.

Gabe, of Gabes Virtual World, just posted an awesome teaser for VMworld Europe 2009. Especially those that spend some time on twitter will love the inside jokes. Can hardly wait to see all the videos that will published during VMworld.

I guess this years motto will be:”What happens in Cannes ends up on YouTube.”