Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

vmworld

VMworld – Day 1

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I am dead tired so it will be a brief overview of my first day at VMworld. I had two sessions planned today and attended another 2 sessions. (Besides other meetings of course)

We started the day with #VSP1682 aka “vSphere Clustering Q&A. The room was packed to our surprise, you never know what you are up against at 08:00 on a Monday morning… It took off slowly but after the first two questions the questions keep on coming. There were some excellent questions. No need for me to write all of them down as Scott Lowe attended and man can he type fast judging by his session transcript! Thanks Scott for attending and for writing this great summary. Everyone else who attend thanks, much appreciated that you took the time to visit this session on a Monday morning at 08:00 in Las Vegas. If you have the time provide feedback, I just checked our feedback and it is looking excellent right now… although someone had a complain about our accents, but hey Frank and I are Dutch not much we can change about that :-). Hopefully it wasn’t too bad.

The second session of the day was on I attended, #VSP3116 by Frank Denneman and Valentin Hamburger. This session was titled “vSphere Resource Management Deepdive” and I thought it was good. Frank and Valentin explain all the caveats around Resource Pools, Limits, Reservations and DPM and there was a good interaction between them. Andrew Miller from Think Meta blogged most of the slide content, if you want to get an impression of what was discussed in more depth, check it here! Yes I agree with his summary, Frank is a Rock Star and Valentin really knows his stuff!

Next up was #vsp1956 aka the ESXi Quiz Show… I was one of the people who organized this and to be honest we didn’t know what to expect, it was something completely different and new and I thought it was cool for a first time. Yes I realize we had some difficulties and my apologies for the poor audio quality. Anyway, it seemed to me that many people enjoyed themselves and that was our goal for this session… entertainment, nothing less / nothing more. The vPredators managed to beat the vRaging Bulls in the pre-qualifying rounds and in the finals they beat VMware’s own vRaminators… Great job guys and once again thanks everyone for attending.

The last session I attended today was the General  Session. What can I say about it that you haven’t already read on twitter or all the other blogs. First of all was that intro great or what? I don’t know who’s responsible for creating these but they manage to surprise me every single year. The graphics were amazing once again, and especially on those big screens really impressive. Rick Jackson was up first and there were two things that stood out for me…. the VMUG leaders that were recognized and the fact that VMworld 2012 will be in San Francisco again next year August 27th until the 30th. Paul Maritz than came up spoke about the strategic direction of VMware for the upcoming years and how recent acquisitions fit in. I always enjoy listening to him. Especially the story around how the applications will evolve and how the world will look like 3 – 5 years from now. I guess what was exciting was vFabric Data Director, there’s a press release to be found here. vFabric Data Director is a self service database provisioning and operations solution which in the first release supports a virtualization optimized version of PostgreSQL. The cool thing about the vFabric Postgres is the fact that it is optimized for memory and snapshot management in a virtual environment.

After that we walked around at the solutions exchange… it is huge this year. I bumped in to the folks of HyTrust, Tintri, Veeam, Mozy and more… Definitely worth checking out!

Now it is time to get some sleep to wake up on time for the General Session by Steve Herrod. After that I will be manning the VMware Storage Booth for a couple of hours (until 11:30) so if you feel like it stop by and say hi.

PS: I spoke with the people at the VMworld Bookstore and our book is the number 1 selling book this year! How cool is that?!

Experts 1:1? Want to sit down with me for 15 minutes this week?

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Well this is your chance, schedule it and we can discuss anything (if you own one of my books bring it and I’ll sign it, if you don’t pick it up at the VMworld Bookstore). Not only can you sit down with me, but there’s a whole bunch of top VMware employees available to talk to you at the Experts 1:1 sessions. Keep in mind that you can pre-register right now and I expect that they will fill up quickly.

I have 2 “sessions” booked, each limited 4 slots:

Wednesday: EXPERTS-08 Knowledge Experts One-on-One – 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Thursday: EXPERTS-12 Knowledge Experts One-on-One – 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM

If you have some time left, schedule it. We can discuss anything you want to discuss. It’s not just me, there’s a whole team of experts available like Lee Dilworth (SRM/BC-DR), Chris Colotti (vCloud Director), Kit Colbert (VC Ops), Charu Chaubal (Security), Massimo Re Ferre (vCloud) Cormac Hogan and many more.

Schedule it now and see you Wednesday or Thursday!

(Where? If you see the solutions exchange on the right go through the doors on the left!)

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: vmworldswitchtour@switchnap.com. 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!

#VMworld is going to be E P I C!

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If anyone is overly excited about VMworld it is me. Although my schedule is completely overbooked and I expect to be running around like crazy every single day, I cannot wait for VMworld to start! Here are 10 things why I am excited about VMworld, in no particular order:

  • Networking
    No I am not talking about Distributed Switches here… I am talking about meeting various types of people and organizations. I suggest you try sitting down at a table with people you don’t know and start a conversation. I bet you will have a lot of things in common and in some scenarios can benefit from their expertise or the problems that they might have faced and solved. I’ve always enjoyed this and believe this is the most valuable part of the show.
  • The Killers
    Yes I know that some of you have never heard of this band before, but this is truly an amazing band. I’ve seen them live multiple times and it has always been well worth it, great performance and great music. It is probably the first time that I actually am looking forward to the VMworld band! If any of the VMworld folks are reading this, VMworld EMEA: Editors or Arctic Monkeys would be nice 🙂
  • Experts One on One!
    This is one of those great opportunities to meet up with some of the top knowledge experts within VMware. I am humbled to be part of a session (Experts-08 Wednesday at 11:00 – 12:00) and am joining people like Chris Colotti (vCloud), David Overbeek (vCenter Config Manager) and Venky Deshpande (vSphere Networking). Other sessions feature people like Kit Colbert, Lee Dilworth, Mike DiPetrillo, Massimo Re Ferre and many more. Check these sessions out, great opportunity to ask these guys the questions you always wanted to ask!
  • Keynotes
    I don’t know if others enjoy it as much as I do, but I love watching the keynotes. Paul Maritz’s talking about VMware’s strategic direction and his vision on IT/Cloud/Virtualization in the upcoming years are priceless! Last year Steve Herrod’s session was amazing, especially when Steve Herrod and Eddie Dinel were racing across the stage on their scooters. I expect nothing less this year!
  • VSP3205 – Technology Overview: vStorage APIs for VM and Application Granular Data Management
    This is one of the reasons I love attending events like VMworld. Satyam Vaghani hosts this session and happens to be one of the key engineers with regards to our low level storage initiatives. He was one of the people who developed VMFS and I can ensure you that a session hosted by Satyam will knock you out of your socks. I know they have a demo planned for this one and I know what you can expect… don’t miss out!
  • Solutions Exchange
    I always spent several hours just wandering around at the solutions exchange randomly stopping at booths and just checking out new technology. Every single year I find some new cool tool, new storage device, new hardware platform or just new relationships which were well worth spending the hours walking around. This year I plan on at least meeting up with the Tintri and Nutanix folks, but I definitely plan on stopping at others booths as well. If your kids love flashy / shiny / blinking things, I bet they will love you when you get back home.
  • VSP1956 – The VMware ESXi Quiz Show
    Do I need to say more? Will Chad Sakac beat Vaughn Stewart? Is Scott Herold able to slaughter Eric Siebert? Will the VDI Warrior Tom Howarth be able to exterminate Jason vTerminator Boche? We will see what happens, we will see who will take on VMware’s own vRaminators team! Death to Powerpoint, Hail the Quizmaster! Sign up, witness it! (**don’t take this too serious, we’re all friends, it it about having fun**)
  • VMUnderground Party
    I love these types of community events. I know the tickets sold out in literally seconds and people are still looking for tickets, if your not planning on attending give them to someone else. Before you give them away, I heavily recommend attending! These are always fun and there’s a high community presence. I know Frank Denneman and I will be there for sure, stop by and say hi! (Yes I know it collides with vOdgeball and that’s a shame indeed)
  • VMworld Fun Run / Bike Ride
    I started this tradition in 2009 and we had roughly 200 participants, since then the VMworld team took on the responsibilities of this event and it has returned in 2010 and of course in 2011. I am glad that they also kept it close to the original idea, just a fun event but with a serious touch… donating registration fees to a local charity foundation, this year it is Friends of Red Rock Canyon. Unique Event, be there!
  • VMworld Labs
    Most of you read my coverage of the VMworld Labs last year. I’ve not been as closely involved as last year but I know these will be well worth your time. The Labs team have worked really hard to get all Labs ready in time and to get the environment up and running in the vCloud! Last year we had people taking every single lab out there, queues outside at 07:15 well before the labs opened up… be there!

I am confident that VMworld will be epic and I hope all of you are as excited as I am. Once again, if you see me walking around don’t be shy and say hi!

See you at VMworld!

vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive available at VMworld

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When self-publishing you face a couple of challenges and one of those is to get your books available in bookstores and at events. Frank managed to get our book available at VMworld and it will be sold at the VMworld Bookstore. If you haven’t picked up your copy yet this will be your chance to do so and you might even be able to get it signed at the show! (We are considering a book signing session if people are interested, reply here if you are!) Be warned, as far as we know it will be the only vSphere 5.0 book available at VMworld so we are expecting that it will sell out fairly quick.