[Note: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's @Citrixgurl
This weeks chinwag is with Glenda Canfield, who some of you might know as "Citrix Gurl". She is an expert on virtualization in the enterprise and has more than 13 years of experience designing and supporting on-demand data centers. Her experience includes large distributed data centers with concurrent Citrix connections in the tens of thousands. As well as significant experience with VMWare. While not an "expert" speaker [Mike: She is being incredibly modest here by the way!], she has presented at Citrix Iforum, Citrix Summit and Briforum. She also writes the occasional article and has been published by multiple sources as well as quoted in multiple articles.
In our little chinwag we discuss matter relating mainly to VDI and general application delivery. So we chinwag about:
The protocol wars – RDP vs ICA vs HDX vs PCoIP…
Was 2010 the Year of VDI, or are we still waiting for the gravy train to enter the station
Does VDI solve or create a DR problem?
The impact of IT and the Internet at home and on our kids
As ever if you want the MP3 version of the chinwag it’s here – but to be honest it’s much easier to subscribe to the MP3 podcast via iTunes which means the podcast will be download when ever I do them. Alternatively, if you would prefer the videos on your iPAD/iPOD/iPhone – you subscribe to the video version of the Chinwags there (beware they are big!). If you don’t use iTunes, here’s the generic RSS Feed link
In this new article I look back at where VMware is coming from, and where they are going to. I discuss whether VMware is well placed to actually deliver on the aspiration for Cloud Computing.
Now that VMworld US and EU are over – the presentations and sessions are now available online vmworld.com.
My key session was – BC7773 – VMware Site Recovery Manager: Misconceptions and Misconfigurations. I think the recording is of the second session on Thursday at VMworld US
Additionally, I also helped host the Storage Panel together with Cody Bunch. I ended up doing this just because my fellow blogger, Tom Howarth was unable to attend this year.
At last weeks VMworld in Copenhagen I was collared by Simon Seagrave (now a vSpecialist at EMC), and Techhead.co.uk. We did a little video where Simon quized me about the event, social networking and plans for SRM…
All week when I was in Copenhagen I kept on walking past the Tesla Cars showroom. In case you don’t know Tesla – they are 1st two-seater all electric roadster with performance capabilities. They have had the cars on the BBC TopGear a couple of times. Anyway, in the final hours of me being in Denmark, I managed to find sometime to sneak into the show room and take some pictures.
The TopGear Show took the Tesla round the track with “The Stig” and Clarkson did his usual climate change skepticism job too…
I bumped into Chad Sakac in the dying embers of VMworld, as he was heading to do a VMworld-TV slot. Anyway, I managed to arrange meet-up in the shape of an evening meal with Chad. In truth this wasn’t the first time we have got together – our paths have been crossing for a couple of years. I was first introduce to Chad by Mornay Van Der Walt – via my work on VMware Site Recovery Manager – at VMworld 2008 – Las Vegas – and then off and on at various events since then including the North Carolina User Summit.
Chads a great guy, and what I like about him is his unstoppable drive and energy. Does that sound like someone familiar??? So its great to listen to someone who shares my capacity to talk all four legs off an Arcturan Mega-Donkey… The conversation was quite wide ranging, and occasionally strayed into terrirority that isn’t suitable for my blog. But I learn a couple of things that I think I can share with you…
Firstly, as non-developer I hadn’t really understood how important the SpringSource acquisition is to VMware. It’s quite difficult to explain in a blogpost why – but put simply together with some data analyst tools that EMC recently acquired its possible to build applications that can allow us to escape the SQL “Select” way of interrogating data. It’s all about the apps that can be built with this new model. The interesting thing is big companies like Telcos are prepared to spend a lot of money for applications that allow them to get to the real data they need – to answer the questions that remain thorny for them. One of my friends is Java guy, loves SpringSource – and was trying to get his team to adopt it. He recently was made redundant from a defense research company in the UK. He did very well from the redundancy package, and is currently considering his options – but I will be in touch with him shortly to try and convince him that rather than working for some banking the Square Mile – he should seriously look at trying to join SpringSource….
Secondly, Chad (and later myself) managed to correct a misunderstanding on my part. OR put more accurately a total mistake on my part. Earlier this year I wrote a couple of articles for TechTarget around the vSphere4.1 GA – one of them was about Network IO Control and Storage IO Control. At the time I was skeptical about the applicability of these controls in the hypervisor – I saw it to akin to Microsoft adding software RAID to Windows or Microsoft Backup. Indeed some one of my customers expressed the very same skepticism this week as we chatted informally at VMworld.
At the time I felt these controls were better off in the Storage Array, or as the storage and ethernet networks consolidate it would be more appropriate to control the IO via technologies such as UCS or Xiago. NOW. These technologies ARE important and I still believe that virtualized IO is the “next-big-thing” when it comes to managing the connection between the Server (RAM/CPU) to the outside world (Network/Storage) by these systems adding a layer of abstraction between the Host, and its storage/network needs. BUT, this doesn’t necessarily make NIOC and SIOC irrelevant. Here’s why.
When you put controls and QoS into the hypervisor that makes hosts – the source of the IOPS - aware of MANY arrays. EMC and its competitors have done a lot of work to improve the QoS WITHIN the array, but less work has been done BETWEEN arrays. If this intelligence is ALSO in the hypervisor it means a faster and quicker way to get things like Storage DRS being able to move VMs from a busy array to a less busy on. The other upside concerns the cloud. It means that from a cloud perspective the “director” can not only carve up resources pools of CPU/Memory as we currently do – but also carve up the pipe that delivers the other two critical resource – networks and storage. So whilst your IO virtualization helps you manage your pipe from at physical layer in a much more flexible way, the hypervisors capabilities allow to carve up your resources and present those resources to tenants of the cloud.
At the end of our meal, I took the opportunity to ask – how came to find himself as VP in EMC. I won’t go into detail here, as is is not my place to write a biography on Chad. But I was heartened in how working both at start-up and then EMC has been massively accelerated by the growth in virtualization. In many respects I feel in small way, I have something in common with Chad on that. Back in 2003 I was a very capable, but “just” instructor. A perfect storm of luck, social media, blogging and the growth of VMware Virtualization has rocketed me into a position in the community (which didn’t exist at the beginning of the decade) which I never dreamed of. To some degree I feel that sometimes that “Emporer has no clothes”, and that if folks only knew how little I know – that I would be exposed for the sham that I am! A bit like the curtain being pulled back on the Wizard of Oz at the end of the movie. Anyway, coming back from VMworld and talking to Chad – has convinced me that its time to put all that British self-abnegation and false modesty behind me – and make sure that I don’t look any gift horses in the mouth!
So as you might imagine I was feeling a little bit tender on Thursday morning. In fact so tender I had to get off the metro to Bella Convention Center, take some deep breaths and then get back on – in time to make the 2nd presentation I had on SRM.
After that I decide to just gentle potter about and try to do stuff at half the speed I would normally! It was my pleasure to meet up with Jacob Jenson of VMware, who heads up the BC/DR group at VMware. I first met Jacob in London earlier this year, where we briefly discussed my ideas on the future direction of SRM, and then on the flight to San Francisco I finally honoured my promise to write a more formal document on that – and then we met-up again in San Francisco along with Henry Robinson – for an informal chat about all things VMware. Just before I met Jacob I bumped into one of the SRM Developers – and yes, I did try to pump him for information about SRM, but he was very good – and didn’t let slip a word! RATS!
Anyway, it looks like I will be back in the SRM saddle shortly – and Jacob and I discussed how VMware could help me write a better book than the last two on the subject. So once I again I need to go back and think about resources I need and put that together. I’m really stoked that VMware wants to engage with little folks like me from the community!
Later on managed to finally make my meeting with the CloudGroup. They are a service provider facilitator in the area of DaaS (Desktop-as-a-Service), and use a range of technologies including Desktone to achieve that. It looks like I will get a more detailed picture of what they do and how they do it post-VMworld, and it looks likely that they will be on the vendorwag at some stage. The funny was after all the meetings and miss-meetings (caused by my tardiness and partying) the man I chatted to was a certain Ivo Murris. I know Ivo very well from my instructor days, when he used to contract me to deliver training at CDG in the Netherlands…
After that I had some informal chatz. I bumped into Mornay Van Der Walt – who was managing the VMware Lab Team. I’ve known Mornay since SRM 1.0 days when helped me get access to Lefthand Networks VSA – which enabled me to write the first SRM book. I also chatted with Jean Williams who is closely involved with the VMUG programme – and liases closely with the new Global VMUG Team. I’m trying to arrange a schedule of events by which I can come across and speak at various large gatherings in the US – along the same lines as the North Carolina User Summit. Now there is a Global VMUG which is backed by professional events organizer – it should mean the logistics of getting me to these events should be much easier. I had hoped to do more in this direction this year – but a combination of personal issues and diary conflicts made that difficult. Anyway, I figure if I can get some provisional dates in my diary by the end of this year, ready for next – then it will be easier to stop schedule conflicts occurring….
After the TechTarget User Awards, it was time to scurry off and do the 1st of two session on BC7773 VMware Site Recovery Manager: Misconceptions and Misconfigurations. I was pleased with the reception. Although I really stuggle with the timing of delivering a presentation in a fixed time. I’m used to the past with presenting to about 12 people over a 5-day period. Yes, I know sounds like hell on earth for those who submit to it… So presenting to audience in the 100′s in a 1hr time slot is still something tricky to do – as well as making sure I didn’t fall off the speaker podium!
That was especially the case on the 2nd session on Thursday morning. I’d been out partying the night before at the big VMworld Party – and I was not feeling very sharp! As I put it in a tweet – “Mike Laverick is unwell. I think it might have been something I drank”
I arranged a mini-tweet-up of UK folks just before the party, and we kept on getting split up and reforming again in the crowds. Not quite sure if the choice of an ABBA band was a good idea at a party dominated by men. The sight of 50 year old bloke singing “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme – a man after midnight” will haunt me til the end of my days.
Things got a little tricky when one of my party went to order three G&Ts, and instead came back with a bottle of Gin, two vessels of tonic and glass full of limes… Something got lost in translation I think!
Needless to say after all the excess I was feeling a little tender the next day…
UPDATE: My fellow vExpert and Blogger, David Davis – managed to capture some video of the User Awards, together with an interview with the overall winner. Check it out here
On day two of VMworld. I stayed in bed. Yes, I’d been partying hard on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday - and so when Wednesday morning broke – I found myself supine. But I was still productive – I managed to get some blogpost done from the comfort of my room – before getting my proverbial together to help present the Best of VMworld Europe – TechTarget USER Awards. My co-presenter was Jo Maitland from TechTarget…
Both me and Jo had these crazy mics on which were used throughout the event. Every time I had mine on, I felt an irresistible urge to promote my exercise video, and try out my Madonna impression. Fortunately, no video footage exists of me making a berk of myself!
The very last picture shows Simon Gallagher (best in show) stepping up to win his award – a brand new iPAD…
In San Francisco I helped judge the catagories for vendor awards – but in my heart of hearts I was really looking forward to the User Awards – sponsored by VMware – the intention is to recognize exceptional work by customers in the field. It’s the kind of users/customers/community stuff that floats my boat. Vendors are for ever getting recognition for the work, but this was a real opportunity to reward outstanding efforts by the virtualization community.
Myself and Tom Howarth – judged the Private Cloud, Virtual Desktop and Home/Remote Office categories, whereas Gabrie Van Zanten and David Davis – judged the Server Virtualization and BC/DR categories. Simon Gallagher won the “Best in Show”…. and not unsurprisingly Simon is really stoked that he won, and his post has been updated to explain in detail how he built the vTardis….
It always makes me smile when I hear that phrase – I’m sure Simon has a healthy coat, strong teeth and healthy bones!
As VMworld Copenhagen drew to a close – Big John Troyer from the VMTN Communities had me and Simon VMworld-TV to discuss the awards generally, and Simon’s vTardis in particular…
In case you haven’t heard of vTardis yet. Its single box with ESX on it – in turn running 6 “nested” ESX hosts (ESX running inside a virtual machine), and Simon has had upto 60 VMs run on this system. It includes shared storage (OpenFiler as a VM), and firewall (Vyatta), and supports a VLAN configuration to boot! Simon’s vTardis a pun on the popular BBC TV series “Dr Who” where the Dr’s timetravelling machine is larger on the inside, than on the outside. In the same way, Simon gets more servers running side the box, than there are physical servers. Not to rest on his laurels – Simon has been busy improving and upgrading the original vTardis – to include support for VMware’s vCloud Director. Originally vTardis stood for “Trolley Attached Random Datacentre of Inexpensive Servers” (as it was attached to trolley to make it portable), but as time as gone by Simon keeps on dreaming up other names I think its currently ”
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