Vmworld

I was invited to attend a session at Tech Field Day Extra recently as part of VMworld 2017. In my case, the session was being put on by Kingston, the storage and memory folks. I wasn’t sure what to expect, given that Kingston has been in the industry for years. 30 years, in fact! There are not too many tech companies that can hold that claim. Over that time, they have managed to remain a private company, and have grown to have distribution in 125 countries. Not to mention that they have expanded to many different market segments - just take a look at the image above. No small feat! ...

While at VMworld 2017, I received an invite to attend a HPE Blogger Briefing hosted by Calvin Zito. The idea was to layout some of the current, and upcoming, goings on that HPE has coming down the pipe. The areas that we covered were primarily storage-focused, which I’ll cover in more depth below. First, however, I wanted to give a quick shout out to the HPE team for not dancing around the question of how their relationship with VMware has changed since the Dell EMC acquisition. The short version is that Dell fully recognizes that competition is natural in the market; along with that, it is also clear that VMware has a neutrality that it needs to keep in regards to partners and solutions. My take away was that Dell EMC and HPE are competitors, whereas VMware and HPE are still partners. ...

VMworld 2017 will be my third consecutive VMworld. I am by no means a veteran or a pro when it comes to this conference, however, I wanted to provide some tips for first-timers. I feel like my first time attending VMworld in 2015 was of massive value, but that paled in comparison compared to my experience last year. I’m hoping that some of the tips below will help first-timers make the most of the conference. Some of these might be too late to plan for this year - sorry about that; VMworld kind of snuck up fast on me this time around. ...

VMWorld 2016 is in the books and now it’s time to decompress. This was my second VMWorld and my first one in Las Vegas, as well as my first time being in Las Vegas. Pros and Cons to SFO vs LAS, but at the end of the day I think I prefer Vegas. It is better suited for large conferences and rooms can be quite cheap, unlike SFO which only has Moscone Center and expensive hotels. Either way, VMWorld 2017 will be back at Mandalay Bay. The downside is that it is ridiculously hot. ...

2015 was my first VMworld and it ended up leaving quite an impression on me. Prior to arriving, I read a lot of tips and advice for newbies such as myself. One of the big tips was a comfy pair of shoes … and I have to say that was good advice. After the week was done I looked at my Fitbit stats and found that I did something like 80KM of walking! ...

Between work and planning my next Southwest Ontario Veeam User Group (SWOVUG) meeting, blogging has been tough lately. The good news is I have about a dozen notes of varying detail on things that I need to do / blog about. So expect a slew of content soon. In the meantime, I had a great chat yesterday about getting a sponsor lined up for my next SWOVUG meeting. Nothing is set in stone, but I am aiming for mid-August, pre-VMWorld. Once we confirm the date and location, I’ll be sure to post more details, but it is shaping to be a great event. The tricky thing about sponsorship for a user group is ensuring they (the sponsors) are relevant to the subject matter. In this case, I’ve found a Veeam Elite Alliance Partner who is excited to help out a community event. I’m looking forward to what they’ll bring to the event … more details to follow soon. ...

This morning I was humbled, honoured, and excited to find out that I made the grade to become a vExpert for 2016. I know there are a ton of posts out there with more or less the same first sentence, but I don’t think a lot of posts go much deeper than that. What does it mean to me? Sure, I look forward to some of the potential benefits (I currently personally pay for VMUG Advantage as well as Pluralsight - both because I believe they are quality products), but more than that there are two things that becoming a vExpert means to me: ...

Me trying to get a glimpse of my future. With only a few days left in 2015, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my year and plan for 2016. In my mind, unless goals are written then they aren’t real, so I figured I might as well put these on the internet to hold myself accountable. First off, there were a couple of experiences in 2015 that really stood out to me: ...

A few of months ago I started receiving emails from VMware reminding me that my VCP 5 was going to be expiring. With the changes that were introduced last year, I definitely did not want my certification to expire as it would result in me needing to not only sit two full exams, but to also attend an authorized class again ($$$). Luckily I’m able to take advantage of the Delta exam (2V0-621D) for existing VCPs. It is comparable to the full exam, except it is slimmed down (65 questions) and I believe there are a couple of areas not tested (although I can’t seem to confirm that anywhere online). The Delta exam was offered as a beta for a while, however I ended up not going through with it - mainly because kids are an incredible time sink, and before I knew it the Beta period was wrapping up. ...

With VMWorld 2015 in the books, I thought I would do a sort of round-up post to collect my thoughts and experiences as a whole. I wanted to wait a week or so to let everything soak in and give me time to reflect on the event. Keep in mind that this was my first VMWorld and I’m sure that there was tons that I missed. This is also based on what I was hoping to accomplish going into this, which won’t be the same for everyone. ...