Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

labs

VMworld Labs 2011….

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This morning I stopped by at the Labs and the Lab team was working full pace on getting the labs done. They were testing the labs and each and every station to guarantee a great experience. Last year I reported extensively on the Lab as I was one of the Lab Captains. This year I am not a Lap Captain as I have too many sessions scheduled but I do want to inform you about the labs as I feel it is one of the coolest things at VMworld.

First of all lets start with the hours, there’s 50 hrs of Labs this year:

  • Sunday, Aug. 28th  –  2:00pm – 8:00pm
  • Monday, Aug. 29th  –  7:00am – 3:00pm and 5:00pm – 8:00pm
  • Tuesday, Aug. 30th  –  10:00am – 10:00pm
  • Wednesday, Aug. 31st  –  7:00am – 7:00pm
  • Thursday, Sept. 1st  –  7:00am – 4:00pm

So if you are here on Sunday, get registered and get a couple of Labs done before everyone else will. For those who did the labs last year (of before) they made some changes. The labs are not around a specific feature or product anymore they are all scenario based.  That means that it is more real life and less artificial and I am certain you will enjoy it.

Last year we had impressive numbers:

  • 480 lab seat, 44 lab hours, 21,120 lab seat hours
  • 15,344 labs completed
  • 145,097 VMs deployed

This year we are aiming a lot higher:

  • 480 lab seats, 50 lab hours, 24,000 lab seat hours
  • Targets – 18,000 to 20,000 labs completed
  • Targets – 225,000 to 250,000 VMs deployed

Just read that again…. 18,000 labs and 225,000 VMs deployed is the lower-end of the target. That is massive… H u g e!

Another huge difference is that last year we had “Hybrid” Cloud setup. Basically running in the cloud with resources available locally if needed. We never used it and based on that a new direction was taken. This is what we call a geographically distributed Public Cloud model. Terramark, Colt and Switch Supernap are providing the resources required for this environment. The cool thing though about Switch Supernap is that they are based out of Las Vegas and you can actually get a free tour of their datacenter this week. I’ve seen many cool datacenters but the Switch Supernap is probably the coolest I have seen. Check the following pictures for an impression, and if you are interested in the free tour email this adress: [email protected]. They will also provide transportation etc!

Make sure to stop by at the VMworld Labs and get a couple of the labs done. I guarantee you will enjoy it. It is not only a great way to discover products and features but it is just a great experience in general. Be there, and remember that just last like year there’s contest again … The person who does the most labs wins  free VMworld 2012 ticket, last year someone completed all of them and then started doing the ones he liked the most again. If you want to win you will need to start tomorrow (Sunday) and just keep going, have fun and enjoy!

Final lab results VMworld Europe 2010

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I just received the final numbers on the VMworld Europe Labs. I am really excited that the vCloud Director Lab came in as first as I was one of the Captains for that Lab. Great improvement compared to the US where we came in as 4th. Other Labs that went up a couple of places are VMware vShield and of course PowerCLI!

We managed to hit both of our targets and I must say that the Labs were well organized and I was extremely impressed by the fact that all of it was hosted in the Cloud! Don’t let me keep you waiting much longer, here are the numbers:

Total Labs completed: 5,948
Total VMs deployed: 56,435

The Top 10 labs were:

  1. VMware vCloud Director Install & Config (646)
  2. VMware View 4.5 Install and Config (623)
  3. VMware vSphere Perf & Tuning (491)
  4. VMware vShield (364)
  5. VMware View 4.5 Advanced (341)
  6. VMware ESX 4.1 new features (326)
  7. VMware vSphere PowerCLI (290)
  8. VMware vSphere Troubleshooting (286)
  9. VMware ESXi Remote Management Utilities (275)
  10. VMware ThinApp 4.6 (242)

Thanks everyone for attending VMworld and making it a success and hope to see you next year!

it’s a bloggers lab (vm)world

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The labs are filling up, roughly 150 active labs at the moment and more people coming in to get their hands dirty.

I actually managed to spot a whole bunch of bloggers and took a picture to have evidence that these guys are not just here to look cute, but actually get their hands dirty as well. As stated before there are 30 different lab topics available, always something you haven’t looked into and can explore.

Here you go, meet the bloggers…

Gabe van Zanten (gabesvirtualworld.com)

Heino Skov (virtualtroll.com)

Joep Piscaer on the left(virtuallifestyle.nl and Gerben Kloosterman on the right (virtualarchitect.nl)

Maish Saidel-Keesing(Technodrone)

Arnim van Lieshout (van-lieshout.com)

VMworld Labs Europe – Open on Monday!!

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Yes, we will be open on Monday from 13:00 till 18:00! Not only that, but the for the remaining days the labs will open up at 08:00. Some might wonder why the schedule changed, the reason for it is simple the amount of VMworld registrations was so overwhelming VMware wanted to offer everyone the opportunity to get the most out of VMworld. So if you are coming down to the Bella Center on Monday to register stick around and do some labs! There are enough topics to spent your whole Monday afternoon in the Bella Center. My personal favorites definitely are:

  • VMware View 4.5 Install and Configure
  • VMware vShield
  • VMware vCloud Director Install and Configure
  • VMware vCloud Director Networking
  • VMware vSphere Performance & Tuning

But besides these 5 there are about 25 other labs, so enough to get your hands dirty.

VMworld Labs, the aftermath

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Those who follow me on twitter know that I was one of the Lab Captains at VMworld. I was not allowed to talk about the topic of my lab as the product was to be announced at VMworld(vCloud Director). I must say that I have never worked so hard in my life. Days of 14 hrs were considered “normal”, all just to ensure that the quality of the labs would meet your expectations.

It was the first time at VMworld US that it was self-paced labs only, and I guess you can say it was one huge hit. To be honest, I expected nothing less after the successes we had with this concept in Europe.

Many people have asked for the final numbers so I contacted the Lab Cloud team and here you go:

  • Lab Cloud served up 30 lab topics. In 2009 we had 21 lab topics to select from. We had 480 lab seats, with 44 hours of labs resulting in a total of 21120 total lab hours!
  • Every hour Lab Cloud was creating (deploying) and destroying (un-deploying) approximately 4000 Virtual Machines
  • Lab Cloud delivered 15,344 labs. In 2009 we delivered approximately 4500 labs in total.
  • Lab Cloud deployed a total of 145,097 VMs

The Top 10 labs were:

  1. VMware View 4.5 Install and Config (1515)
  2. VMware vSphere Perf & Tuning (1229)
  3. VMware ESX 4.1 new features (1112)
  4. VMware vCloud Director Install & Config (1019)
  5. Basic VMware vSphere Install & Config (829)
  6. VMware View 4.5 Advanced (811)
  7. VMware vSphere Troubleshooting (791)
  8. VMware vCenter SRM Install & Config (789)
  9. VMware vDS & Cisco Nexus 1KV (761)
  10. VMware vShield (734)

I am proud that the lab that I was responsible for, vCloud Director, came in fourth out of 30 topics. Especially considering there were many other excellent labs. By the way, the picture above is the actual dashboard that was used to display how many labs were done, VMs deployed etc…

Although VMworld EMEA will clearly not have 480 seats, I am 100% confident the labs will be a hit again. If you are planning on going to VMworld make sure you reserve time to attend the self paced labs, I guarantee it is worth your time!