Archive for May, 2011

This weeks chinwag is with Dante Orsini of iland.com. I recently hooked up with representative of iland.com in my local city of Nottingham in the UK. It was just an informal cloud chat over a lunch time bite to eat. As ever these sort of informal discussions are always very interesting and fruitful. Heck, the number of times I should have a recorder with me for these sorts of chats is more than I can remember. Anyway, I arrange to chat with the iland.com folks about their vCloud Director offering, and also just talk about cloudy issues generally. This podcast falls into the “chinwag” category, because I asked Dante not to sell iland.com, or its services – but just talk generally about how customers are consuming vCloud Director, and what their challenges were adopting the technology…

Here’s a bit of bio about Dante: “Dante Orsini is the Vice President of Business Development at iland.com, a Premier VMware Service Provider delivering innovative cloud infrastructure solutions from six high-availability datacenters in North America and Europe.  Dante oversees the development of the company’s strategic-channel relationships including sales, partner development, and product positioning.  Dante’s experience provides partners with the creative ability to meet their customer requirements while at the same time providing a leadership conduit to iland.com that effectively conveys the company’s products and services.  Dante  has over 15 years of experience in sales and business development providing enterprise software, managed services, and technology consulting to mid-market and small and medium sized businesses.”

Anyway, here’s the questions I asked at iland.com

Q. You’ve got an offering of vCloud Director – what kind of business is buying the offering?

Q. Do you find the end-consumer is also running vCD, or they just running vSphere…?

Q. Why do you think VMware developed the vCloud Connector?

Q. What were the Storage and Network challenges of implementing vCD in your environment – did the storage & network guys flip their lids?

Q. VMware talk a lot about “Hybrid Clouds” – do think that’s the future? Why do think VMware have taken such a line?

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

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Once again this weeks chinwagee needs no introduction – its Doug Brown of the now legendary dabacc.com website. I first came across Doug’s site when I was lowly Citrix instructor – and I’d often point my students towards his site to check is his “Methodology-in-a-Box” documents that would take you through a step-by-step approach to rolling out a Citrix infrastructure. Of course, he’s not stayed still and dabcc.com is still as massive as every and encompasses a vast array of different technologies.

We discussed a range of questions – including and not limited to:

Q1. Last year I heard you had some woes with the iPhone4, and that Apple even sent someone to you to help you out! That’s quite a coup! What became of that? Are you with Android now?

Q2. I see you recently entered the fray in the spat between Madden & Crosby… Laying that too one side – i see your have some strong opinions on client virtualization – care to share them with us?

[When go on to talk about client hypervisor and other stuff at length! From that we drifted of into security and personal data... ]

Q3. If server-based computing is great, do you think VMware needs to develop technology like XenApp, RDS, 2X?

Q4. Is VDI a tactical solution, rather than a strategic one? Did that happen to Citrix MetaFrame/Presentation/XenApp as well?

Q5. Is the PC and local apps pretty much useless with our an internet connection?

[We drift back to the topic of client hypervisor - and if the future it will baked into a PC...]

Q6. Is VDI just a two horse race, and if where up you what would you pick – are you influence by Gatner style analysis…

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

Podcast Video Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (5)

Well, I guess the word is out on twitter (not that I was given forewarning of the announcement!) but in case you haven’t heard yet – VMware have in partnership with Pearson established their own VMware Press. I’m really pleased they have taken this step – it was something I suggested to VMware back in 2005/6 but at the time there seemed little enthusiasm. I guess that’s kind of understandable – after all VMware is an ISV, not publisher. But time and tide have moved on, and I think VMware realise that there is a major benefit to be had in engaging with the small band of merry authors – of which I am part.

So the next VMware Site Recovery Manager book will be the first to be release for the first time through a formal publisher. Previous editions were self-published by myself, and distributed by LULU and Amazon – and later still in a PDF format. It’s great privilege to be selected this way, and I believe is recognition of my long-term commitment to writing books/content/guides on VMware technologies for which I’ve become international renowned (time to blow my own trumpet, and know that isn’t euphemism) .

So along side including even more storage vendors – by adding Dell Equallogic to the book – there will be detailed coverage of all the new major features which I’m sure will rock your world. Make no bones about it the next release of VMware SRM is going to be significant uplift compared to the 1.0/4.0/4.1 releases. With many of the major roadblocks to adoption being elevated, or even removed altogether.

The other big change is that I will be working with VMware much more closely than ever before – and believe me I close before hand. But this time around VMware themselves have direct stake in validating and checking the content. So I’m hoping that my contacts with VMware will allow this time around a more “under the covers” approach to be taken than was previously possible…

So where do I go after this book. Well, I have big plans for some kind of “cloud stack” book that encompasses understanding how the layers of stack – OEM, ESX, vSphere, vCloud Director and other VMware virtualization management products (vCHBS, AppSpeed, ConfigControl and so on) interact and work with each other. The way I’m looking at it is a bit like this. In the mid-90′s I forage a career based on knowing Windows NT4, and essentially teaching all the “core” operating systems functionality. As time wore on that wasn’t enough – and my students and peer group demand more – until the OS almost disappeared – so focused were we on Exchange 5.5/IIS/Citrix or what ever platform was running. That’s the direction I need to go in, and think the vCommunity needs to go in. Never fear I remain equally committed to understanding that core platform of ESX/vCenter – vSphere if you like. But its time to move up the stack and into new and virgin territory.

Earlier this year I spent a couple of days in Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon. I’ve was the guest of Mountain States Networking who have sites both in SLC & Portland, as well as a presence in Boise and Las Vegas.

Mountain States Networking very kindly paid for me to travel across – so I did a presentation in SLC and in Portland, and in between had back-to-back, customer 1-2-1s. My presentation was all about the “Future of VMware Site Recovery Manager”. It’s a presentation I will be hawking around the US and elsewhere over the next 12 months. I was very kindly given a dispensation from VMware to talk about the roadmap of SRM – the kind of thing you would normally have to keep quiet, or sign a NDA to hear…

Anyway, the guys from mstates.com have come back with some linkedin feedback which is really gratifying! It’s always great to get linkedin recommendations – as is a brilliant way of getting feedback about how you’ve done. Here’s what they said. If you recently worked with someone and it when well, why not find their linkedin and give them a big old pat on the back for a job well done?

We asked Mike to come to our site and do a couple presentations to large groups of customers as well as multiple one-on-one meetings with our key accounts. While these were two very different tasks, Mike performed both with great skill. In large presentation settings Mike engages the audience while relaying meaningful content. Mikes presentation style is personal and makes you feel like the content is directed solely at you rather than the 200 other attendees. All of our customers commented that this was the most worthwhile presentation they had heard in a long time.  In small groups Mike is particularly skilled at discovering the customers issues and problems and then building content on the fly to address their needs. Mike very quickly builds a repore with anyone he is working with, and makes you feel like a long time friend.  Our intent on hiring Mike was to bring in the “world wide expert” on Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. After having him onsite and working with our customers, I know we got exactly what we were looking for. I would not hesitate to recommend his work in any capacity.”

It’s with great pleasure that I’ve been invited to my first ever Gestalt Tech Field Day. It’s very gratifying to taking my place amongst other luminaries in the virtualization community… What’s also especially pleasing is that my place along side the others was secured by the votes of folks within the Gestalt Membership. It’s always nice to know that you have been selected by your peers, rather than some secret committee of the unelected.

This is Gestalt’s first virtualization focused Tech Field Day too. Every previous Tech Field Day event has included lots of virtualization experts and companies, but Boston promises to be something special. We will be focusing on server virtualization for the entire event, with every company presenting on this topic. This unique event brings together innovative IT product vendors and independent thought leaders, allowing them to get to know one another. It is a forum for engagement, education, hands-on experience, and feedback.

I’m not 100% sure of what is expected from the participants – but I understand the idea is that we as group are meant to share our opinons and views via our respective blogs and thru the medium of twitter. This will be aggregated in a single location. They already have a link ready for all the content here – http://gestaltit.com/field-day/tfd6/

Well, I’m just about over the worst of my jetlag. But already my thoughts are turning towards my next speaking engagement in the US.

I will be speaking at the Western PA VMUG User Conference – on the 7th June…

I will be really looking forward to the event – especially for Hans Bernhardt’s session on “Cloud in the Real World”. I met Hans at the San Diego VMUG, and again last week in Palo Alto. He’s a great guy and I’m sure he’s an excellent speaker. All I can say is make sure you bring your rubber chicken along with you!

Registration in the morning begins at 7:30 a.m, and the event finishes up at  5:00 p.m.

It will be held at the prestigious Robert Morris University at this address:

Charles L. Sewall Center
6001 University Blvd.
Moon Township, PA 15108

Registrations are now open – if you want to attend click here!

How to get there: http://www.rmu.edu/web/cms/aboutrmu/Pages/campus-directions.aspx

The last 10 days in the US has also been a bit of an experiment. I decide to take my IPAD out there instead of my Mac Book Pro. Well, actually that’s not strictly speaking true. I decided to take the MBP with me “just in case” as a PlanB in case something horrible happened whilst I was out there with just the IPAD…

TIP. I had planned to take screen grabs of some my points here. But I’ve ran out of time. I’m might just double back. I learned one good tip for documentation. If you want to capture the screen of either an iPhone or an iPAD – press the off and home buttons at the same time quickly…

For the most part I stuck with the PlanA of using my iPAD for most of my daily tasks. It was part of my attempt to test if the iPAD is a laptop replacement or killer. The verdict. No. I did take some notes on my iPAD as my mood took me. I’ve got those notes in front of me on the iPAD as type this post on the MBP… So here’s a couple of my observations…

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These shots were taken by Alan Renouf with my iPhone – the pool is the famous “Turtle Pool” sadly they turtles were in the water and not consolidating themselves as usual.

[Note: For those initiated in the details of US History/Myth. The phrase "The British Are Coming" was allegedly uttered by Paul Revere - as warning that the British Military was on the way to crush those pesky revolting Yanks. Apparently, Revere never said such a thing, but like all good national myths - the story is perhaps more interesting than the historical fact. Anyway, it was also uttered by an actor in the movie "Chariots of Fire" as announcement of the "invasion" of British Film talent in the 80s. The British Movie industry suffered a similar fate as the British Military in the US... Since then I've used it ironically when ever a bunch of Brits are found together collectively in the United States...]

After finishing up at the Charlotte, NC VMUG Summit I popped across to San Francisco. I had the chance to spend the weekend with some friends of mine – both in the City (where I had a burrito the size of a baby’s arm) and out at Half Moon Bay on the coast. On Saturday I had chance to have an informal lunch with John Troyer and his significant other. That was the second time we hooked up because my British pals live in the same area as John. I also got a chance to drive up the coast in my friends new Porsche (yes, its a total mid-life crisis, but that’s what mid-life crisises were invented for weren’t they?) and see the Great Elephant Seals by the coast there.

My main reason for being is San Francisco was to visit the offices of VMware. It was by chance that fellow Brit, Alan Renouf was there too. No, Alan is not French (if he was it would be Alain I imagine!) – and he’s just moved from EMC to VMware to work on all things PowerCLI related.

I was in Palo Alto to attend my first ever “On-Site Beta Workshop” – I found the 3-day event very useful indeed. Not just for getting close access to the product development team, but also to listen to customers concerns and priorities.

Last week I was in Charlotte, North Carolina – I took part in two ways – first speaking about the Future of VMware Site Recovery Manager, and second as the 4th person in a panel about the Cloud – along side fellow panelist – Mike De Prelllo, Scott Lowe and Jason Nash.

Scott Lowe gave a rather interesting – and industry neutral – take on VMware HA stretched clusters – I was very taken with his thoughts, and I’m hoping to have him back on the chinwag to replay those thoughts…

I will be at the Pittsburgh VMUG in June, and the Indianpolis VMUG in July… Here’s my photos from my trip

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This weeks chinwag is with man for which there is no need for an introduction – his name is Duncan Eppying and he works for VMware, and runs the popular “Yellow Bricks” website.

You might also know Duncan by the many books he has written – on both the subject of Cloud Computing with VMware vCloud Director and VMware HA/DRS.

Duncan has number of submissions in for VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas, and as you might know the voting for sessions recently opened. The two sessions that Duncan will hope to present on are:

• TA 1956 – The ESXi Quiz Show
  Join us for our very first ESXi Quiz Show where teams of vExperts and VMware engineers will match expertise on technical facts, trivia related to all VMware ESXi and related products. You as the audience will get 40% of the vote. We will cover topics around ESXi migration, storage, networking security, and VMware products. As an attendee of this session you will get to see the experts battle each other. For the very first time at VMworld you get to decide who leaves the stage as a winner and who does not.
• TA 1682 – vSphere Clustering Q&A
  Frank Denneman and Duncan Epping will answer any question with regards to vSphere Clustering in this session. You as the audience will have the chance to validate your own environment and design decisions with the Subject Matter Experts on HA, DRS and Storage DRS. Topics could include for instance misunderstandings around Admission Control Policies, the impact of limits and reservations on your environment, the benefits of using Resource Pools, Anti-Affinity Rules Gotchas, DPM and of course anything regarding Storage DRS. This is your chance to ask what you’ve always wanted to know!

Anyway, now the introductions are done with – lets press on to the chinwag itself. I asked a number of questions of Duncan across a wide range of subjects. Here’s my list of questions:

Q1. There’s been a lot of traction around large pages and small pages – and TPS… Could you give us your take on this?

Q2. You recently wrote about an urban myth concerning  - thinly provisioned disks and fragmentation – What’s the myth and would care to crush it on camera?

Q3. Does VMFS block size affect SVMotion performance – Why does it affect performance…?

Q4. Tell us about your book – Do you see writing another edition in the future as HA/DRS evolve? Could you give us a sneak-peak at HA futures???

Q5. I recently got confused about the whole use for “Ephemeral” port bindings with vCD – can you set me straight?

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

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