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Hampton Roads VMUG June 6 Meeting

June 8, 2012 in vHersey, VMware

The Hampton Roads VMware Users Group (VMUG) is a group of IT professionals that meets quarterly to network and discuss how they are leveraging VMware products and technologies in their businesses. If you want some more information on the Hampton Roads VMUG checkout the VMUG workspace (VMUG registration required) at http://www.vmug.com/p/co/ly/gid=99. If you are in the Hampton Roads area and you use VMware it is worth checking out.

The Hampton Roads Area VMUG held a quarterly meeting Wednesday, June 6, 2012 in Norfolk with speakers from EMC and Endurance IT.

EMC vSpecialist, Rich Barlow, gave an AWESOME (just ask him) presentation giving a peek into the future of infrastructure monitoring. All kidding aside it was a fantastic presentation that gave us a peek into the future of not only what EMC has planned for the next 3-5 years but also how our jobs as IT professional may evolve. Transform IT roles “from plumbers to architects” – less time managing and fixing – more time creating services that provide value.

Just a few highlights from my notes:

  • There are new technologies coming soon – faster than flash!
  • Data warehouse work is the future. Changes to help you monetize the data you have.
  • Local EFD storage that is still managed by the array.
  • Auto tiered storage
  • Spend less money/time maintaining and more time moving forward (plumbers to architects)

Favorite quote from Rich’s presentation: “A bad experience with an executive usually starts with the phrase I went to a trade show and…”. How true is that?

Cory Sutliff, a Sr. Infrastructure Engineer with Endurance IT, gave a great presentation on some different options available for monitoring a virtual (and physical) infrastructure.

There was a bit of discussion about VC Ops licensing and current promotions currently being offered by VMware. More information on the product, the promotion, and a free 60 day trial of VC Ops can be found here (or contact your VMware sales rep or partner).

Great Hampton Roads VMUG meeting! Hope to see you at the next one.

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Passed my EMC ISM (E20-001) Exam

October 4, 2011 in Storage, vHersey

ITN-213, Information Storage Management, is part of the Virtualization Career Studies Certificate Program at TCC. With enrollment in the course you receive a 1/2 price voucher to take the EMC ISM Exam. A few weeks ago I scheduled the exam and started studying. I sat for the exam this past Monday and passed.

I thought the exam was pretty fair. I did not find it to be extremely difficult but I feel I was really well prepared for the exam. Besides the class materials, I studied the Information Storage and Management: Storing, Managing, and Protecting Digital Information book from EMC Education Services from cover to cover. There was not a single question on the exam (at least not on my exam) that was not covered in the book.

My exam consisted of 66 questions and I think I had 90 minutes to complete them. I felt this was plenty of time. I finished in right at 40 minutes. The test is similar to other certification exams I have taken in that it lets you mark questions for review at the end of the test. I think I had marked 9 questions. I went back to them but did not change any answers. I passed the exam with an 87%.

One thing I did like about this exam is that it gave you a break down how you did in each section. Giving you the number of questions from each section, the number you answered correctly, and your percentage score for the section. I scored highest in storage systems (93%) and storage network technologies and virtualization (95%) – no surprise here. I scored lowest in business continuity (78%) and storage security (71%) – again no real surprise there either. I think this is important information especially if you plan to continue to expand your knowledge.

All in all a good exam on some fairly challenging technologies.

More information on the EMC ISA and other EMC certifications can be found here: http://education.emc.com/guest/certification/

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VMware Forum 2011 in Washington DC

May 8, 2011 in vHersey, VMware

A couple months ago I received a VMware marketing email about VMware Forum 2011 in Washington DC.  Not a lot of buzz about it on Twitter or in the VMware communities but the agenda looked interesting and the registration price was right on budget (FREE).  So I submitted the registration, received travel approval from my employer, and made the arrangements to attend.

The Forum was held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center just a block or so off the National Mall.  As with just about every other building in DC security was a bit of a hassle in the morning, but other than that it was a pretty good venue.

Registration was quick and then it was on to the partner pavilion.  I checked out the VMware vCenter Operations demo and the iPad VDI demo, pretty cool stuff.  Wyse and Panologic were there showing off their thin and zero clients.  EMC had a demo of their vCenter plugin.  Coffee, pastries, and breakfast sandwiches were available.

vKernel was showing off their Monitoring, Optimization, and Capacity planning product, which really got my attention.  I use to be a vKernel customer but replaced them with a different product a couple years ago.  I have not been 100% happy with the replacement and have recently abandoned using it.  After seeing the way the vKernel products have matured I will be giving them another look.

The keynotes were good but I did not take any notes during them.  One thing that I did take away from it was the concept of “show back”.  In cloud usage it is usually referenced as “charge back”.  You guys that work in a smaller environment know that using the word “charge” can scare the hell out of folks.  I really like the concept of “show” – showing your internal users/departments the resources they are using along with the operational costs associated with those resources.  There is also a bit of a shift from focusing on public cloud and more emphasis is being placed on the building of your private cloud.  Lot of mentions of/references to the Amazon cloud failures of recent weeks.

The first session I attended was Automating Infrastructure and Operations Management.  This session was basically an overview of the vCenter Operations product.  I had hope for a bit more technical how than product marketing.  Even though most of it was an overview of features (and features to come) there was some good information on operations management.  Unfortunately no real discussion on automation – except for alarming and patching. Here are my notes from the morning session: Session 1 – Automating Infrastructure and Operations Management – vCenter Operations

EMC sponsored a box lunch and the partner area was open during lunch.  I had planned to seek out the live lab during the lunch break but I ended up chatting with the folks at the lunch table about VMware HA.

After lunch I attended the NetApp partner session. This session was actually pretty good.  My shop is pretty much HP, Cisco, EMC, and VMware but I like to see what other vendors have to offer.  I enjoyed this session and my notes can be found here: NetApp – Your Roadmap to the Cloud

The afternoon session was great, specifically the panel discussion.  The panel was comprised of the following folks: David Young, Jason Langone, Jad El-Zein, and Devin Henderson. Lots of good information on VDI planning, Zero and Thin clients, local mode, and VoIP support (currently not officially supported but it can/does work).  This was the best part of the forum for me. Here are my notes from the afternoon session: Session 2 – Optimize and Secure the Desktop

Overall VMware Forum 2011 was a pretty good event.  There was a great turn out, a lot more people than I expected see there – VMware reported 1400+. I did not come away with anything really new or ground breaking but I did gather a lot of good information on VDI and cloud computing.  It is always good to hear what and how other people are doing things. I had hoped to get to the live lab, but I just never made it there.  I heard there was a good lab/demo on VDI installation and configuration.

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