Yesterday, VMware unveiled its vExpert Pro program. For those of you who aren’t aware, VMware runs a program called vExpert. Despite its name, this is not a technical accreditation. Rather, it is an invite-only program (although nominations, and self-nominations are open) and is intended to recognize individuals who give back to the “vCommunity”. The exact criteria for entry are kept confidential, to avoid folks gaming the system. However, for reference, you’ll find that a lot of vExperts regularly blog, present at conferences or user groups, and just generally try to help folks. Along with the title, there are some great perks. Things such as a Pluralsight subscription, NFR license keys, and access to the vExpert party at VMworld. ...

I recently sat and passed the VCP6-NV exam, and I figured since I spent a lot of time reading about other people’s exam experience, I would share mine as well. An important note is that there are two versions of this exam (as of this writing). The older exam is based on NSX 6 and was retired on April 30, 2017. This is noteworthy because a lot of the study material out there is based on the older exam. The general consensus online seems to be that it won’t hurt to review it, but if newer material is available, you might as well use that. ...

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to present at VeeamON 2018. The topic in question revolved around the numerous restore scenarios that Veeam Backup & Replication offers. More specifically, I wanted to highlight some of the lesser-known methods. These methods largely came about through conversations that I had with folks, usually at my SWOVUG events or VMUGs. Yes, the conference was back in May, and it is now (barely) July. Firstly, I wanted to check with Veeam first to ensure that I could share the content. Secondly, with the new job, things have been a bit busier as I try to get back into the swing of things. This also explains the infrequent blogging as of late. ...

Late last year, I wrote up some goals and intentions for 2018. I’ve often felt that actually writing things like that down holds you accountable, and at least for me, it tends to make the likelihood of it coming true much higher. One of those points revolved around career and making a change, whether it be a shift where I am currently or moving on to somewhere else. And that is where this post comes in: a change is in the winds. ...

With HPE Discover 2018 all wrapped up now, I’ve spent some time thinking over some of my key takeaways from the show. I was invited as a blogger, which came with the privilege of being in sessions with various leaders at HPE. So although we didn’t get too technical, we did have some great insights into where the company is headed. One big eye-opener was the amount of innovation going on at HPE Labs. We all hear about companies that spend money on R&D, but after hearing the labs mentioned many times in many different conversations, it is clear that this is a huge initiative. ...

In my previous post, I covered off a lot of the hands-on activity at Camp Rubrik: Insiders Edition. That was only one item on the agenda. Rubrik packed a lot into what was really only a few hours of the day. To their credit, we still managed to keep things mostly on time, despite seemingly going over for almost every agenda item. The entire day was initially meant to be free of NDAs, but that changed. We were fortunate to hear from Bipul Sinha, Co-Founder & CEO, and he gave us a good glimpse of behind the curtain. Unfortunately for anyone not there, his session turned NDA. What I will say is that I was impressed with the openness and willingness to share information. That holds true for throughout the day. ...

On May 17 I had the fortune to attend an invite-only event held by Rubrik at their Palo Alto offices. The event, dubbed Camp Rubrik: Insiders Edition, was aimed at industry influencers and bloggers. Going into it, I didn’t know what to expect. I’m not a Rubrik customer, nor am I a partner. Aside from some great conversations with various Rubrik staff over there years at events like Tech Field Day or VMUGs, I really didn’t have much exposure to Rubrik. Luckily, I found out that I wasn’t alone in the regard. ...

As a long time Veeam user, I was extremely happy when they introduced Veeam Backup for Office 365. With a lot of organizations moving to the cloud, it is all too easy to forget about protecting the data in there. For instance, we have a third party email archive service at work. If someone accidentally deletes some email, we could pull it back from there. The downside is that it doesn’t restore metadata with it. For example, I can’t restore it back to the original mailbox folder or see if it was forwarded at any point, or maybe see if it was marked as read or unread. ...

At VeeamON 2017, Veeam announced support for AWS workloads via a partnership with N2W Software (founded in 2012). Earlier this year, in January 2018 specifically, Veeam announced that it had acquired N2W Software. What better way to ensure a fantastic experience with a partner than to buy them? While at VeeamON this year, the first session I attended was “Backup and disaster recovery for AWS”. With more and more workloads moving to the cloud, having a risk management/data availability strategy is vital. Whether it be application specific (e.g. compute), or storage (e.g. EBS), the data needs to be protected. So, how is this accomplished? ...

I recall when I first saw Mirage a few years ago. I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. It hasn’t exactly been a popular tool since, which hasn’t helped with folks understanding what it is. At the time I saw it as a bit of a software distribution tool. However, in effect, it is actually more of a backup tool that can restore various points in time to endpoints. ...