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This will be last of the primers for the upcoming Tech Field Day 12 event. Some of you may notice that I have not covered off Intel - unfortunately they have had to cancel their appearance due to a scheduling conflict on their end. Too bad as their sessions in the past have been quite informative. So, let’s talk about Dell EMC. Unless you have been living under a rock, you likely heard about the Dell and EMC merger that was finalized earlier this year. From the time it was announced (October 12, 2015) to the time the merger closed (September 7, 2016) there was a lot of speculation as to how things would look after the completion of the $67 billion deal. Things are still very much in a ‘settling’ phase, but the new behemoth is still moving forward. ...

I’m definitely excited to see Docker present at the upcoming Tech Field Day 12. I had meant to sit in on their exclusive vExpert demos at VMWorld 2016, but I, unfortunately, had a conflict at the time and skipped it (boo). I was bummed as I don’t know a ton about Docker, but I definitely want to learn more. For background, Docker Inc. was founded in 2010 after it was split off from dotCloud, which originally developed the container technology that became Docker. As it stands, Docker Inc. has had $180 million in funding across 6 rounds, and it has helped change the landscape of traditional application deployments. ...

There are several tasks that I find myself doing often enough (not necessarily daily), to warrant automation. But even more so, it is those tasks that I don’t necessarily do often where I really appreciate the automation. Part of it is because of the time savings, but even more so, if it is automated, there are a lot fewer steps that I need to remember. A good example of this is employee terminations. A simple, but typical workflow that I see is along the lines of: ...

Today I was fortunate enough to present at the Toronto VMUG. That’s two talks that I’ve given at the TO VMUG this year - not bad considering I only started ‘participating’ in the vCommunity earlier this year! As always, I see these opportunities not only as a way to give back to the community but also as a way to practice and develop my own skills. I am constantly trying to improve my public speaking - I have found that the key for me is to be able to turn my presentations into a conversation (admittedly it is a one-sided conversation). It still takes me a bit of time to ‘slip into’ that mode, but I’m definitely getting better at it. ...

Something that I think is often over looked when it comes to backups is security. I’m not referring to physical security (e.g. locking the media up in a vault), but rather making sure that the backups aren’t being abused. There are plenty of horror stories kicking around about folks who have their backups wiped out. This might be due to a malicious admin, bad hardware, or (more and more common) something like Cryptolocker. ...

Rubrik will be presenting at Tech Field Day 12 on Day 2 (November 16th, 14:00 PDT), and I’m quite looking forward to hearing more from them. I had a chance to chat with some engineers from Rubrik in the Solutions Exchange at VMWorld 2015, and a couple of times at local VMUGs since. At the time the product struck me as unique in that it seems to revolve around simplicity, flexibility, and efficiency. ...

I’ve been having some discussions within my organization as of late with regards to how IT can help the business outside of the traditional break/fix scenarios. In the past our IT has been involved with all sorts of non-typical projects including (but not limited to) installing communications gear on-site at jet fuel line install at a major airport, assisting in environment monitoring in a skyscraper, and being involved with a window replacement project (glass windows, not MS Windows). ...