Archive for September, 2010

The Steering Committee are pleased to announce the next UK London VMware User Group meeting, kindly sponsored by Xsigo is to be held on Thursday 28th October 2010. We hope to see you at the meeting, and afterwards for a drink or two, courtesy of VMware.

Our meeting will be held at the Thames Suite, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 33 Queen Street, London EC4R 1AP, +44 (0)20 7248 4444. The nearest tube station is Mansion House, location information is available here. Reception is from 12.30 for a prompt 1pm start, to finish around 5pm.

Our agenda is below and is subject to change (but hopefully not too much!)

11:00 – 12:00 PowerCLI session with Alan Renouf – optional
11.00 – 12.00 Roundtable Strategy Session with Martyn Storey & Spencer Pitts; Justifying the Business Case for VDI – optional (spaces limited)
12:30 – 13:00 Arrive & Refreshments
13:00 – 13:20 Welcome & News (Alaric)
13:20 – 14:00 Sponsor presentation (Xsigo Systems)
14:00 – 14:30 Invesco (Julian Woods)
14:30 – 15:00 Gabrie van Zanten (http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/) Design Considerations for Virtual Environments
15:00 – 15:20 Refreshment break
15:30 – 16:00 VMworld debrief (Simon Gallagher & Martyn Storey)
16:00 – 16:30 VMware View 4.5 (Spencer Pitts)
16:30 – 16:45 Close
17:00 Pub

Note: If you would like to participate in Alan’s workshop, please bring a laptop, preferably with the most current PowerCLI and PowerShell binaries installed.

To register your interest in attending, please reply to this email address (londonvmug AT yahoo DOT com) with up to two named attendees from your organisation. If you do not receive a confirmation mail, please don’t just turn up since we will not be able to admit you to the meeting. Please separately mention if you intend attending Alan’s PowerCLI workshop at 11.00 or would like to be considered to attend the VDI roundtable strategy session. Content from the meeting will be uploaded to www.box.net/londonug, NDA permitting.

Well, before I begin I should explain that I shouldn’t have been the compare for this open QA-Panel comprising Adam Carter (HP/Lefthand), Eric Schot (DELL), Chad Sakac (EMC)  and Vaughn Stewart (NetApp). The session was originally proposed this year by Tom Howarth. Sadly, for reasons beyond his control, Tom was unable to attend. At some short notice (aka the week before VMworld) I was approached by the event organized and asked if I would step into the breach.

It was some irony that I said yes. Because I think in the previous year (or was it the year before) that I proposed a very similar panel with practically the same cast of contenders. Back then I was writing the first SRM 1.0 book, and I had a email thread going between the guys about storage and SRM, which took a tangent into VDI as well. Sadly, that proposal didn’t get VMware’s backing – and I think its testament to Tom’s persistence and the new voting process introduced this year that it finally did happen. So it was quite bizarre to be chairing a panel I once proposed myself but got turned down – I wish hadn’t come about this way – as it was Tom’s gig after all. Anyway, here’s hoping that vendor politics and in fighting doesn’t stop a rematch in Copenhagen.

Well, with such a crew of erm, strong personalities – and relatively short period of time – it was down to me and Cody Bunch to figure out how to keep the show moving, and stop any particular contender hogging the limelight. We came up with the idea of running it like a boxing match (Super Heavyweights. Geddit?). With each contender getting 2mins to answer a question before the next contender got their “bout”. This worked quite well. With often the speakers taking less than 2mins – it helps focus the mind when you have time limit – with both Chad and Vaughn going down to the wire on their allotted time!

The only down side of the approach is that it tended to discourage back-chat. I’m think if we ever did this again. We do in it a more presidential head-to-head style where after 2mins, each contender would get 1min to rebut any previous statement…

Anyway, the whole thing kicked off with Europe’s “Final Countdown” (That was meant to be Eye of the Tiger sound man!)… me introducing the guys by the boxing name and their weight. Simon Seagrave took unoffical video footage, and my pals from TechTarget also recorded the audio! I tried to find myself a black and white striped referees shirt, and even the folks at FootLocker wouldn’t let me buy the shirt off their backs! We stopped short getting boxing gloves and satin robes for the contenders…

If you want to watch the video you can find it here

If you looking for just the audio you can find it here

This weeks RTFM draw is to win a copy of Eric Siebert’s “Maximum vSphere”.

The draw closes on Monday, 13th Sept 2010 at 5pm GMT. The winner will be announced shortly after on this website… As I’m starting the draw on Monday evening I’m giving folks a whole 7 days to enter.

How do you enter the draw. There’s two ways. Subscribe to RTFM or  follow me on twitter and send me tweet.  All correct entries will be entered into a special virtual “hat” and the winner will be sent the book. I will contact you via email or twitter for your shipping. Simplez!

In the haze that was VMworld 2010, I didn’t get an opportunity to mention that I wrote a lengthy article about VMware’s new vCloud Director (vCD). Anyway, the piece was serialized on TechTarget’s searchcloudcomputing title. You can find each part of the article here:

Part1 Part2 Part3

If you would like to listen to the post narrated, you can listen on the player below. Note this narration which uses text-to-speech software

VMworld 2010: VMware vCloud Director [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1)

Well, I’m here at the book store – signed some books already… But if you here come along and say hi. I’m here until 5.00pm…