Archive for August, 2011

Well, I’ve been busy again. Not content with finishing up my book on SRM 5.0 – and also when that is done working on SRM I will be co-authoring a VMware View 5.0 book. Last week I started a 3rd book!

I had some downtime between submitting the 1st manuscript of SRM 5.0 to the publishers and waiting for the review/feedback. Also, when that stuff comes back its relatively simple matter to implement the corrections and recommendations – compared to writing something from scratch… So in the week or two I had free I started on my new book called simply “Hotel California”.

What’s is Hotel California?

The working title of this new book is “Hotel California”. And no, it’s not got anything to do with Cisco UCS (aka Project California). Although by the time I get fully into working on it  it may well do. This “Hotel California” book is ENTIRELY different from ANYTHING I’ve ever written before. So I want to explain what is and where the inspiration came from. You see, I’m not really sure how long its going to take me to finish it – because truth be told is partly a vanity project.

So here’s the concept. I’m writing what I call a “Technical Novel”. In that the book is part fact (about vSphere5, and the other VMware Technologies) but it is also part fiction. The story is about my central character called “Luke Maverick” (that’s a little bit of spoonerism fun for ya – for fun Maverick even has a blog!) and its done in the style of kind of crime thriller – the kind of sardonic side-of-the-mouth detective fiction for which writers like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett are famous. These writers went on to inspire whole category of film we call “Film Noir“. The idea is to blend fictional story of Luke Maverick with a technical narrative at the same time.

Two weeks ago I wrote the introductory chapter, and last week I wrote a chapter about Maverick’s experiences with doing a scripted install of vCenter5, and using the new auto-deployment feature (aka PXE booting ESX). I’m nearly done with the second chapter, but it still needs some spit and polish. I’m thinking chapter 3 will return to the fictional story, and chapter 4 will be about vCenter Heartbeat Service.

My plan is when the book is completed – is to release it on LULU as paper-book, and also in a digital formats suitable for the iPAD, Kindle and so on. I won’t be approaching a conventional publisher because – well, quite frankly they would laugh at me. There’s precious little market for technical books as there is, but one that is at the same time a  novel at the same time, is somewhat of a radical concept for the publishing industry! Not sure whether I will be giving it away for free, or for a nominal charge. I’m tempted at the moment to do it for charity on a $10 download, or $10 mark-up to the cost price.

What inspired “Hotel California”

The inspiration behind “Hotel California” is many and varied. Firstly, after writing about Vi2/Vi3/vSphere4 (that’s 3 generations of VMware’s “core platform”), I felt yet another book covering the same familiar ground would be boring – mainly for me. I know that what your supposed to do as an author is endlessly rehash previous books quickly to drive the biggest monetary return on your investment of time. But I didn’t want to do that. It would be too tedious, and think I would quickly become disengaged.

Secondly, I thought it was time to move on from the “core platform” of covering ESX/vCenter to Nth degree. Isn’t that old news now? Isn’t that kind of knowledge almost ubiquitous amongst the VMware Community? What I’ve identified is knowledge gap. Many people “know” ESX/vCenter but are largely ignorant of the other technologies in the Cloud Infrastructure Suite. True I’ve dabbled in SRM and View, but I find myself only having passing knowledge of the other products on a kind of WebEX level. The vast majority of them (apart from vCloud Director & vCenter Heartbeat Service) I’ve never even installed. So I want to write a book that is “stack” oriented – that is a survey of the vast array of technologies from VMware, and learn how they integrate (or don’t as the case maybe).

Thirdly, I’ve been looking for away of delivering technical information, in away that both educates AND entertains. There reality is very few people actually read technical books end-to-end unless they are “newbies” seeking to self-educate themselves on a brand new technology. People who have read my books often comment on how they like my down to earth style, practical edge, and humour. In fact, the thing that inspires most emails are the analogies and jokes that occasionally appear in my written work. It seems limiting to me to have to work within the conventions of “technical writing”, and its sometimes a bit stultifying to be stuck in the register/linguistics/dialect of “technical speak”. Somewhere inside me there is a bit of frustrated writer, so in some respects “Hotel California” is opportunity to let my more “creative” side out. The idea being is if I can engage the reader with a fictional narrative whilst at the same time educating them about VMware Technologies, then perhaps they would read my book on the beach. Not least you can pretend to be relaxing, whilst actually your learning more about virtualization and the cloud!

So why “Hotel California”

Hotel California is one of the main tropes in the technical novel. And I was inspired by the CEO of VMware’s reference to the Eagles Song. As you might know there’s line in the song about “You can checkout any time you like,But you can never leave!”. Paul Martiz uses this as analogy to describe the dangers of being locked-in to vendor specific, non open-source cloud computing platform – whether or not VMware represents this is moot. So I thought it would be funny to create a fictional hotel chain called “Hotel California” where my character, Maverick is forced to stay. He works as a contractor for a fictional company called “Corp, Inc”, and is forced to stay in the chain because the company has a corporate account with them. The Hotel California Company has based its reputation for friendliness and customer-services, and the fact that where ever you stay, every hotel is absolutely identical. The idea is create that sense of familiarity that makes you feel right at home. It’s a bit like the McDonald’s concept applied to hotels. Anyone who has been road-warrior like I was, can smile wryly – because you should know what I’m getting at…

Please to announce that registrations are now open for the Irish VMUG which takes place next Thursday at:

Dell Inc.
Raheen Business Park
Building: Auditorium
Limerick, Ireland

The Agenda includes:

11:00 a.m. – Pre-Lab Registration
11:30 a.m. – 10 Stations, Two People Per Station
1:00 p.m. – Non-Lab Registration and Lunch
1:30 p.m. – Introduction and Tour of Facility
2:15 p.m. – VMware Cormac Hogan on New Releases
2:50 p.m. – Storage Virtualization – Equallogic & Compellent – Justin Rohan/Martin Petty
3:20 p.m. – Break/Refreshments
4:00 p.m. – VIS, Mobile Clinical Computing, Connected Classroom Solutions All VMware Industry Vertical Solutions – Tom Maher/Jeff McCann
4:30 p.m. – VMware View 4.6 Reference Architecture – Mike Hayes/Andres McDaniel
5:00 p.m. – Q&A and Refreshments

Click at the graphic to register!

I have two DLAN devices on my home network. They are branded as Orange HomePlug, but learned today they are actually rebrands Devolo dLAN units. A couple of weeks ago they gave up the ghost and stopped communicating.

I have one plugged into my WiFi router at the ground floor of my house, and one on the top floor my house where my home lab resides – because of the logistics these ethernet over power units seemed a better solution than dangling a very long ethernet down the length of the house – and I can’t relocate the wifi unti.

Anyway, after googling (http://www.avforums.com/forums/networking-nas/1161996-homeplug-issue.html), led me to download the Apple Mac utility for handling the devices – and also the driver update. The Apple Mac utility basically allowed me to re-pair the two plugs together by setting a secure password for them communicate. This is something the would normally do out of the box with no manual intervention. So basically this utility was used as a frig to get them talking again.

The first adapter it found on the network…

and the second had to be added in by its unique ID printed on the plug itself…

Once they had been found and new password had been set they began to chat with each other. Intermittently. I noticed on the Devolo site there was firmware update, so I decided to apply that. That was a little bit tricker. Firstly, the update only works in Windows. So I had fire up my Windows VM in VMware Fusion, and then plug the plug directly into the Ethernet connector on the MBP. Then using Fusions network controls, I turned off autodetect option to make sure the only thing the Windows VM could see was the on-board MBP nic, rather than the WiFi. Applying the update was nothing more than running the installer…

Since then these unit have begun working again without any glitches for about 2hrs. It’s all very odd given there was no problems for about 3-months, and then they stopped working altogether. I’m wondering if some sort of power problem caused them to pack up. We did have dodgy kettle trip the main fuse to the house – and perhaps that power outage had upset them somehow…

Last week it was my pleasure to take part in my first ever vSoup podcast hosted by none other than Chris Dearden, Ed Czerwin and Christian Mohn. We discussed the following topics:

• VMware User Groups
• VMware SRM
• VMworld 2011 Band: The Killers
• vBeers
• vSphere Storage Appliance

Recorded before VMware’s recent up dates to their vRAM licensing policy, we took the opportunity to speculate prior to the announcement on what those changes would be, and analyze the situation.

To listen or subscribe pop along to the vSoup website – http://vsoup.net/2011/08/vsoup-a-man-after-midnight-13/

It’s my pleasure to announce the date for the very first UK wide VMware User Group Conference. This has been in gestation for sometime, and its basically a user group of user groups. With all the main user groups in our region coming together for the very first time. This is very much like the one-day regional summits or conferences that I have been attending this year in the US.

Registrations are now open (click at the graphic above!). The steering committee members are building out the agenda and gathering the sponsors, ably supported in this effort by the Global VMUG. So register – and fix the dates in your diary. It starts on Thursday, November 3, 2011 and will run from 8am to 5pm. There will be multiple tracks to chose – that will suit all different types of interests – and some notable keynotes as well, along with Labs. It will be held at:

National Motorcycle Museum
Coventry Road
Bickenhill, Solihull, West Mids, England B92 0EJ

So along side some very interesting sessions, I’m hoping to find time so see some legends of the road!

I’ve agreed to speak and take part in a possible panel session – as well as spend the rest of my time in the “experts/genius bar” too!

I’ve also heard that Joe Baguley, VMware’s new Chief Cloud Technologist for EMEA has agreed to speak at the event too..

I’ve been meaning to have vKernel on the vendorwag for sometime (well, months and months actually). Back in June I had chance to hear them present at the Boston TechField Day arranged by Stephen Foskett. So it was an opportunity to become reacquainted again. On top of watching them present at the TFD, I made a point of doing a private webex with Bryan as part of the prep for this weeks vendorwag. To be honest it has more of a chinwag feel – as we dispensed with the PowerPoint-Elevator-Pitch/Demo, and just launched in to the QA directly.

Firstly, a bit about Brian:
A 15+ year high-tech veteran, Bryan has spent the last 8 years working in server and storage companies focused on virtualization technologies. Semple comes to VKernel from NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) where he was the general manager of the storage virtualization business unit. Under his leadership, the group experienced record growth, expanded engineering operations to India, and built global awareness for NetApp’s industry leading storage virtualization solutions. Prior to NetApp, Bryan was VP of Marketing at Onaro where he established the company as a leader in storage management software and built the marketing processes that supported the company’s profitability and successful acquisition by NetApp in 2008. Before Onaro, Bryan was the VP of Product Marketing and Strategy at server blade virtualization pioneer Egenera. At Egenera, Bryan worked with early adopters of infrastructure and server virtualization technologies in the financial services industry as the company scaled from one to several hundred customers. Early career experience includes various sales and marketing management positions at FairMarket, Trellix and Sybase. Bryan holds a BS in Systems Engineering from the US Naval Academy and an MBA from Stanford University.

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

If you want to see the video in hi-resolution and full density – you can open it here.

Anyway, here’s my list of questions:

Q. At the techfield day you demo’d the “VM Reservation” feature – can you explain what it does, and how it came developed over time…

Q. Recently, whilst I was the San Deigo VMUG I had chat with a member there, about his over specified VMs from a P2V that was done some years ago. How does vkernel find wasted resources and recoup them so they can be used else where (Good chance to mention waste finding, zombie VMs, and abandoned VMs)

Q. What barriers are you seeing to the take up of chargeback?

Q. Some folks seem overwhelmed by the alarms and alerts in vCenter – what are you doing to help them…?

Q. How do you see what vKernel does in relation to the cloud – what sort of information do you think cloud consumers will want to see – should they even care?

Q. What’s your take on VMware vRAM licensing – I see you wrote an article all about it?

Podcast Video Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (10)

In case you don’t know the deadline for submissions for the “Best of VMWorld 2011 Awards” is TODAY. Yes, today. Better get your skates on!

Hosted by TechTarget and SearchServerVirtualization.com, the Best of VMworld 2011 Awards will take place during VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas. The awards ceremony will take place from 2:30 to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, August 31 in the Solutions Exchange Theater.

A team of expert, independent judges will evaluate the nominations. The deadline for submission is Friday, August 5. If you submit multiple products, complete one form for each product; provide only one entry per product. Only products that have shipped between September 2010 and August 2011 and are generally available will be considered for categories other than New Technology. Products due to ship between September 2011 and December 2011 are eligible for the New Technology category.

http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/feature/Best-of-VMworld-2011-Awards-Nomination-form

There are six catagories to choose from including:

1. Business continuity and data protection.
2. Security/compliance and virtualization.
3. Virtualization management.
4. Hardware for virtualization.
5. Desktop virtualization.
6. Private cloud computing technologies.
7. Public and hybrid cloud computing technologies.
8. New technology.

For more details see: http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/VMworld-2011-awards-criteria

Ah ha, I thought that would get your attention. A shameless attempt by an inflammatory title to draw your attention to a plug-in… Perhaps I should worked for a tabloid red-top…

Sadly, its not exactly true. There is however, a new VMware Fling on VMware Labs that allows to add non-VMware Hypervisors to vCenter. Currently, that’s VMwareSpeak for HyperV, because there’s not yet support for Xen or KVM. But perhaps this casual one-night-stand, might develop into a more loving relationship with other virtualization platforms. Who’s to say – Flings are meant to allow VMware Engineers to take flights of fancy, and develop their own tools and software – and that has resulted in some (not all) of them become part of the core management platform. Anyway, this plug-in to vCenter is called “XVP Manager”

Anyway, for how toos, and screen grabs – Read on McDuff…

Yes, I know “floating anonymous users” brings forth this image of total strangers hovering over cubes in the offices trying to login to your system. It’s actually a turn of phrase I picked up on when I was last at Citrix offices in Dublin last year – getting my head around how XenApp, XenServer and XenDesktop worked. I guess in essence another way of looking at “concurrency” licensing models which you see in more “session” based virtual desktop/server-based systems…

Read on…

That’s a bit of pun the adverts our IRS in the UK run to remind folks to hand in their self-assessment forms (Actually, the IRS in the UK is “Her Majesties Revenue & Customs” or HRMC for short was recently slated for gross incompetence by our MPs). It’s popular to call licensing models a “tax”, as the recent vRAM debate has shown. I prefer to regard its a companies making a profit to secure the long term future of their business, and the approval of shareholders and the board. Quite when folks started thinking that Microsoft and others are charities run for the benefit of its customers I’m not sure…

Anyway, things have moved on a lot since Microsoft started to adopt its own virtualization platform, and that’s been reflected in improved licensing models designed to make it easier to virtualize Microsoft technologies. Perhaps Oracle should take a leaf out of Microsoft’s books?

Read On…