Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

ebook

Black Friday Gift: Free copy of the vSphere 6.7 Clustering Deep Dive, thanks Rubrik (ebook)

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Many asked us if the ebook would be made available for free again. Today I have the pleasure of announcing that Frank, Niels and I have worked once again with Rubrik and the VMUG organization to make the vSphere 6.7 Clustering Deep Dive book available for free! Yes, that is 0 USD / EURO, or whatever your currency is. As the book signing at VMworld was wildly popular, which resulted in the follow up discussion about the ebook.

You want a copy? All that we expect you to do is register on Rubrik’s website using your own email address. Anyway, register and start your download engines, pick up a fresh copy of the vSphere Clustering Deep Dive here!

Recommended Read: The Phoenix Project

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Last week when traveling to China I finally had the time to read a book which I had on my “to read” list for a long time: The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win.

I just posted a review up on Amazon.com and figured I would share it with my readers as well as I felt this book is worth promoting, although many of my fellow bloggers/tweeps have done this already. Let me copy the review for your convenience:

Reading the book one thing stands out is that it is all very recognizable if you have ever worked for a company which is moving in to new spaces and has a business relying on IT. I have been there and many of the situations sounded / felt very familiar to me. I found it a very enjoyable read and educational at the same time to a certain degree. Now here is he caveat, although it is a book about IT and DevOps it is very much written as a novel. This is something you need to take in to consideration when you buy is and when you read it, and ultimately review it. I felt that when you read it as a novel it is an excellent light and easy read with the right amount of details needed to help you learn about what DevOps can bring to your business. After reading the book I am actually left wondering if DevOps is the right term, as it is more BizDevOps then anything else. All of IT enabling the development of business through operational efficiency / simplicity.

phoenix project The book was written by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford and the book revolves around an IT Manager (Bill) who is struggling to align IT agility / flexibility with business needs for the Phoenix Project. As I mentioned in the review many of the situations actually sounded very familiar to what I have experienced in previous roles before joining VMware, so I could relate to a lot of the challenges described in the book, and I think that is why is was also very entertaining. At the same time, it is humorous but also fairly light reading so before you know it you are a couple of chapters in.

In my Amazon review I mentioned that after reading the book I was left wondering whether “DevOps” was the right term as to many sys admins the connotation of DevOps seems to be a negative one. When reading the book, and looking back at my own experience the goal is allowing the development of business for your company and whether that is new business, increase of volume, or a full transformation is besides the point even. Key is that you will only get there when all of IT is aligned and working towards that common goal.

I don’t read too many IT books as typically they are dry and I struggle to get through them. Phoenix Project was the opposite, if you are like me then definitely give this a try. Although it is not a deep technical book, as I stated it is more a novel, I am sure everyone gets something out of it. I read the Kindle version, it was definitely worth the 9.99, but if you prefer a paper copy then you can find it on Amazon for less then 16 dollars which is still a great buy! Recommended read for sure!

Win a free ebook copy of Essential Virtual SAN?

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A couple of weeks ago the electronic version of Essential Virtual SAN was published and this week the first paper copies are shipping! Because of that Cormac and I decided we will give away 4 ebooks each. If you want to win one then please let us know why you feel you deserve to win a copy using the hashtag #essentialvirtualsan on twitter. Cormac and I will decide which 8 tweets will win an ebook, and of course we will favour the ones that make us laugh 🙂

So lets be clear:

  • tweet why you think you deserve the book
  • use the hashtag #essentialvirtualsan

The 8 winners will be announced Friday 8th of August.

 

Essential Virtual SAN book available as of today! (ebook first)

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Yes, the day has finally come… Our pet project, the Essential Virtual SAN book is finally out! Cormac and I decided to take the “e-book first” route which enables us to have it out weeks before the printed copy. Before doing the thank you’s and provide you with some details on what the book is about, I want to thank my co-author Cormac! It was a great pleasure working with you on this project Cormac, thanks for asking me to be part of this exciting book!

We want to thank our technical editors Paudie O’Riordan and Christos Karamanolis, whom spent countless of hours reading and editing our raw materials. We would like to thank the VMware Virtual SAN engineering team for the countless of hours discussing the ins and outs of Virtual SAN. Especially Christian Dickmann and (again) Christos Karamanolis, it would not have been possible without your help! We also want to acknowledge William Lam, Wade Holmes, Rawlinson Rivera, Simon Todd, Alan Renouf, and Jad El-Zein for their help and contributions to the book. Last but not least we want to thank the Pearson team for their flexibility and agility and getting things done, and our management (Phil Weiss, Adam Zimman, and Mornay van der Walt) for supporting us on this journey.!

Cormac and I are also very pleased to say that we have two awesome forewords by no one less than VMware CTO Ben Fathi and SVP of Storage and Availability at VMware Charles Fan! Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule, we very much appreciate it.

What does the book cover?

Understand and implement VMware Virtual SAN: the heart of tomorrow’s Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC)

VMware’s breakthrough Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC) initiative can help you virtualize your entire datacenter: compute, storage, networks, and associated services. Central to SDDC is VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN): a fully distributed storage architecture seamlessly integrated into the hypervisor and capable of scaling to meet any enterprise storage requirement.

Now, the leaders of VMware’s wildly popular Virtual SAN previews have written the first authoritative guide to this pivotal technology. You’ll learn what Virtual SAN is, exactly what it offers, how to implement it, and how to maximize its value.

Writing for administrators, consultants, and architects, Cormac Hogan and Duncan Epping show how Virtual SAN implements both object-based storage and a policy platform that simplifies VM storage placement. You’ll learn how Virtual SAN and vSphere work together to dramatically improve resiliency, scale-out storage functionality, and control over QoS.

Both an up-to-the-minute reference and hands-on tutorial, Essential Virtual SAN uses realistic examples to demonstrate Virtual SAN’s most powerful capabilities. You’ll learn how to plan, architect, and deploy Virtual SAN successfully, avoid gotchas, and troubleshoot problems once you’re up and running.

Coverage includes

  • Understanding the key goals and concepts of Software-Defined Storage and Virtual SAN technology
  • Meeting physical and virtual requirements for safe Virtual SAN implementation
  • Installing and configuring Virtual SAN for your unique environment
  • Using Storage Policy Based Management to control availability, performance, and reliability
  • Simplifying deployment with VM Storage Policies
  • Discovering key Virtual SAN architectural details: caching I/O, VASA, witnesses, pass-through RAID, and more
  • Ensuring efficient day-to-day Virtual SAN management and maintenance
  • Interoperating with other VMware features and products
  • Designing and sizing Virtual SAN clusters
  • Troubleshooting, monitoring, and performance optimization

ASIN: B00LODTZSA
ISBN-10: 013385499X
ISBN-13: 978-0133854992

You can buy it via Amazon.com for Kindle, and it will also be available shortly via Pearson.com for any other ebook format!

Book: Networking for VMware Administrators

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Fellow blogger Chris Wahl just announced the availability of an awesome book titled Networking for VMware Administrators he authored with Steve Pantol. The book is published via VMware Press and is a must read if you ask me. I am going to order it for sure as it is an area that I can definitely brush up on. The book is 368 pages and covers everything from the networking models to switching, but of course heavily focuses on the virtual side and dives in to the standard vSwitch, distributed switch and the Cisco Nexus 1000v!

Knowing Chris this book is going to be worth it, his blog material has always been excellent and I expect nothing less. Congrats Chris and Steve, awesome work and looking forward to reading it.

You can pick the book up here: paper | kindle