Vmware

You’ll notice that all of these VMWorld posts are always up a day after the fact - that would be because there is a severe shortage of free time here. Even when you sit down at the bloggers table, it’s extremely hard to get work done because you have tech legends standing around you talking, sometimes even talking TO you. Anyways, a recap of yesterday: VMWorld kicked off their first hackathon to push forward their DevOps initiative. I didn’t spend any time over there, but from where I sat in the hang space it looked like it had pretty good activity for the first year of the event. I attended the vExpert Panel on Hyperconverged Infrastructure. The takeaway there is that HCI is definitely a use case scenario, and one of its biggest drawbacks is that you have to scale everything linearly (i.e. If I need more storage, but not as much compute, there isn’t a whole lot that can be done). Overall it seemed that about %20 of the audience either had implemented or will implement HCI in the next 12 months … Interesting stat. I was lucky enough to visit Steve Pantol who is the co-author of the excellent Networking for VMware Admins and got him to sign my book. Later on I met Nick Marshall and Grant Orchard, two out of three of the authors who worked on Mastering VMware vSphere 6. Josh Atwell couldn’t make it as he was busy receiving the 2015 VMUG Partnership Award. Incidentally I bumped into him when he joined my group of three folks for beer, and then later again on the street. Both times I was without my book though. I was planning on heading over to the Hang Space when I ran into Ariel Sanchez (@arielsanchezmor) who is part of the vBrownBag community. We ended up heading over together where I was introduced to yet more members of the community. He had a podcast to do (the LATAM vBrownBag) in Spanish, so I took the time to head over to the Solutions Exchange to talk to some vendors. I was back in the Hang Space to watch a live The Geek Whisperers podcast. That was very entertaining to see live. I also watched a talk by John Arrasjid (VCDX001) – that made me feel like I was in the company of royalty. John was super approachable and made sure to talk to anyone who was interested. Plus he had some circa 2003 VMware stickers he was giving out. ...

Yesterday started off with the second keynote of the event, which is traditionally more technical than the first day. The big highlights were: A partnership was announce with Microsoft regarding delivery and management of Windows 10 to end user devices. A new version of Identity Manager Some enhancements for Horizon 6.2 Overall very focused on End User Computing which brought about an interesting remark. CEO Pat Gelsinger was describing his 5 Imperatives for Digital Businesses, one of which was security. He used Edward Snowden as an example of why companies need to look at security from the endpoint up. ...

Day 1 was quit the experience, despite it being a ’lite’ day. Day 2 is when things really get going with sessions getting into full swing and the keynote address. The first session I attended was vCenter Server Appliance as a “first Choice” which was packed. Some of the highlights included covering the migration process from a traditional Windows install to the VCSA. The general consensus seems to be that there really isn’t much of a reason to run the Windows version any more as the appliance version is at least at parity, if not higher, for all of the features and minimums. Of note is that Update Manager still requires a Windows server to run on. In a later session by William Lam (@lamw) it was noted that future updates on the vSphere web client will include VUM functionality (note that you’ll still need the VUM server). ...

After completing my first day of my first VMworld, I thought it would be a good time to recap what my day looked like. Since I am on Eastern time, I was up early which meant that I had no problem getting on the 06:30 bus to Mosconne. That being said, there was a lineup (but quick) for registration despite getting there a few minutes before registration opened. The whole process didn’t take long though and within about 15 minutes I had my badge, bag, and was good to go. Tintri was also having their annual user conference (dubbed Tintricity) which I attended; while there I had great conversations with other Tintri users. Overall everyone seems to be quite happy with their Tintris as a) they just run as they should and b) they really are as simple as they claim to be. By the time I got back from Tintricity, vBrownBag was holding their panels which were kindly hosted by vUnderground. I opted to attend the careers panel which was very candid and had expert advice on all sorts of topics ranging from knowing what you are worth and knowing when to stay or go. This panel could have easily have gone on for twice as long. VMUndergroud had their kick off party which was great. Without even trying I was able to connect with so many folks ranging from vExperts, to VMware employees, and even some speakers. It is amazing how great these community events are. A word of advice: know your limits; if you still out too late you will feel it the next day. Off to day two. ...

In a previous post I mentioned that I am fortunate enough to be heading to my first VMworld, and I also highlighted what I was hoping to gain from the experience. With only a couple of days until the conference kicks off, I thought I would put together a list of some of the essential things to pack for my trip. Chargers, batteries, cables, etc. - Whether you are at the airport, in a conference room, or maybe even in your hotel room, there never seems to be enough electrical outlets. If you are really unlucky you might think you found an outlet only to discover it’s a Electrical outlet sticker. I opted to invest in a portable power bar as I would I use it on this trip and there have been plenty of times when I needed one offsite. The nice thing about this port bar is that it has three traditional outlets, along with two USB slots. No more carrying around multiple adapters or swapping out USB cables on the charging block. I’m also expecting it to become a bit of a socializing tool when folks see me plug it in. Computing device - I have a ThinkPad X220 that I love; it is a bit older, but it is light (for a laptop) and has a good battery life. When you factor in the charging block though, it is definitely heavier than what I want. I was thinking about bringing my iPad which has a keyboard, but it still has some weight to it and it just isn’t as functional as my laptop (I would use VMware Horizon View if I had to connect back to the office, but it’s still not great on the iPad). Luckily I have a Microsoft Surface 3 available for the duration of my trip. I haven’t used it heavily yet, but so far I love it. Its weight is comparable to my iPad with the Bluetooth keyboard, it runs full-fledged Windows, and the battery on it is great. Is it a full laptop replacement? *Maybe* with all the right accessories (docking station, gigabit adapter, video out, etc.), but as something to travel with I don’t think I could do better. I plan on using downtime on the flight to update some documentation (there’s always plenty of that to do). Clothing / footwear – Be sure to review the weather. Yes, San Francisco is in California, but it isn’t necessarily scorching hot. Looking at the weather for the duration of the conference it looks it is going to be cooler than up here (Ontario, Canada) during the day, and cooling down at night. I’ll likely be fine with some long sleeves for the cooler evenings, but I’m going to bring a light jacket as well. Also, footwear - do not bring new shoes. Rather bring comfortable shoes that are already broken in. There is a ton of walking to do and you don’t want to end up with blisters by the end of the first day. US based SIM card - Roaming rates in Canada for US travel is ridiculous. For example, for 50 minutes of voice / unlimited texting / and 100 MB of data, I would be looking at $40. Instead I got my phone unlocked for about $30 and I signed up for Ting - they have tiered plans for texting, voice, and data, and they just charge for what you use. I’ll setup call forwarding from my existing number to the new number, swap out SIM card, and be good to go. Travel Documents / Itinerary - In my case I’ll need my passport, airline info, hotel info, party invites, and likely a map of the various areas (hotel, Mosconne, vendor parties, etc.). I have a folder in my inbox where I have been tossing this stuff, but I also started putting it in OneNote so that I can just pull up what I need on my phone quickly instead of wading through email. Another benefit is that I can add whatever I need in there (i.e. a screen capture of a map, links to relevant info, etc.). Which leads me to my last point. Know your route - At least have some idea of where you are going (hotel, convention center, vendor parties, etc.) and how you will get there. San Francisco’s public transit system (known as BART) services a fairly wide area and might be a good option depending on where you are going. Other options are traditional taxis, and of course, Uber. I have never used Uber, but I have setup an account a head of time so if / when the time comes that I need a lift I won’t be stuck filling out details before I can book anything. I’m hoping for a smooth productive trip, and hopefully all of this planning will pay off. If you see me at VMworld, be sure to say hi. I always enjoy talking to like-minded IT folks. ...

This year I was lucky enough to get the go ahead for VMWorld 2015 and as this will be my first VMWorld, and I am quite excited about it. I have been reading a lot of blogs (old and new) with regards to what to expect while I am there. Something tells me that no matter how much prepping I do, it still won’t be enough. There are a few things that I do hope to get out of the visit though (aside from endless marketing emails from vendors): ...

Some interesting news has come out of VMware recently: VAAI (vStorage API for Array Integration) which was recently limited to the Enterprise and Enterprise Plus editions of vSphere, is now available in vSphere Standard Edition. If you aren’t familiar with VAAI, in a nutshell it is an API that offloads a lot of IO heaving tasks to the storage device (assuming the device supports it). A good example would be cloning a VM. Without VAAI, vSphere would contact the ESXi server, examine the VM, read a few blocks from the storage device, then write a few blocks to the storage device, and repeat until done. This had a lot of overhead. ...

I ran across an odd issue this morning whilst doing some maintenance. I pushed out a new vendor patch to one of our ESXi 5.5U2 hosts, but after it came back up it would not reconnect to vSphere. Luckily I have a DRAC on this machine, so I was able to pull up the console. First thing I tried was restarting the management network … no dice. Hmmm, OK, let’s restart the management agents, although that is odd since it literally just booted. When that didn’t work, I gave the machine another reboot as I was running out of options. Hmmm, still nothing … this isn’t looking good. ...