Category: vmware

Get Ready for the vHunt at VMworld with some bonus prizes

I am very excited this year for VMworld. As is tradition there will be an In-n-Out run. More details on this as my calendar is more packed in previous years. It might need to be a late night run.

One other thing I am excited about is this years vHunt twitter game. In addition to all of the fun prizes EMC will be providing (a new iPad for one). I will be carrying out at the show some very special prizes thanks to VMware Press.

20120824-111946.jpg

  • Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator by Cody Bunch
  • The Official VCP 5 Certification Guide by Bill Ferguson
  • VMware vSphere 5 Building a Virtual Datacenter by Eric Maille and Rene-Francois Mennecier
  • Managing and Optimizing VMware vSphere Deployment by Sean Crookston and Harley Stagner
  • Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.0 by Mike Laverick

    • While supplies last and if you find will need to find me OUTSIDE of the EMC Booth to get the prize. Once you find me tweet a picture with me and your new book with the #vHunt hastag and copy @VMwarepress.

    Cisco – EMC Webcast: … An Optimized End User Experience

     

    No matter what you do to accelerate, optimize and transform your desktop environment (physical or virtual) if the presentation is sub-par, no one cares. The common message from any vSpecialist when it comes to EUC (End User Computing, VDI is so 2011) is focus on the end user experience. Make it easy to access my data and applications from anywhere at any time and I am a happy user.

    This is something I really believe in. Having delivered VDI (or TS) solutions in the past, starting as a Citrix Metaframe XP administrator. So when I noticed this webcast I wanted to be sure share it with everyone. EMC is a huge place and there is ALWAYS something going on, but I wanted to take special notice when Cisco, EMC, VCE and VMware team up with a focus on getting the end user experience done right.

    Save the date and sign up! August 22, 2012 11:00 AM EDT / 8:00 AM PDT.

    So sign up now here: http://bit.ly/vdia22

    What to expect?

    When it comes to EUC there are so many “best” practices out there many times you just need someone to tell you what works. I will take a few seconds to detail the high level bullets I always share with customers when speaking about EUC.

    • From the EMC perspective it often relates to putting the right data in the right place. When using Flash drives to lower cost and footprint knowing how VDI I/O works is very important.

     

    • Also from the EMC realm is the amazing impact FAST Cache can have on these deployments vs. trying to account for all unexpected I/O with spinning media. This additionally lowers your cost and spindle count. That is right, someone at EMC saying buy less drives.
    • Use the money you save to put more RAM in your Cisco UCS B – series blades. Memory being the second bottle neck after storage when it comes to your VDI role out.
    • Speaking of memory make sure you use the best hypervisor for consolidation and memory management. vSphere 5 is still years ahead of even the promised products from the other guys. The TCO picture for hardware is ONLY part of the story, so make sure you get every last drop out of those Cisco UCS blades.
    • Lastly, if you want to deliver this in a tested and proven manner AND you realize your time to market is critical, EMC VSPEX and VCE Vblock take the world’s best components and software and make it work for you. No more testing for 9 months before pushing the go button.

    Get to the WEBCAST Already

    Once again, if you are exploring, testing, POC’ing, or running in production VDI in any way shape or form. Join the webcast on August 22 and see when EMC and Cisco have in store.

    Save the date and sign up! August 22, 2012.

    So sign up now here: http://bit.ly/vdia22

    More on VSPEX

    More on VCE and End User Compute and FASTPATH

    EMC Reference Architecture -one of many…

    From the Cisco Site <-Cisco UCS / EMC VNX RA

     

    Book Review: Automating vSphere with VMware vCenter Orchestrator

    So to be 100% honest I have had this book on my desk for several months. Just staring at me. Calling my name. VMware press provided this copy to me along with Mike Laverick’s SRM book and so I am finally going to review the first one.

    Cody Bunch does an amazing job of breaking down one of the most mystifying yet powerful products hidden in the VMware portfolio. VMware vCenter Orchestrator is almost mythical in the promises of automation of typical tasks of a vSphere administrator. While you can bang your head against the wall for weeks trying to figure out how to properly setup the vOrchestrator server and client I was able to use Cody’s guidance to have to operational and running test workflows in just a few hours (I am a slow reader).

    I can’t stress enough the need for automation and orchestration in today’s virtual machine environment. The business is demanding more and more from the Virtualization team and in order to deliver vCenter Orchestrator is a good start since you probably already OWN it.

    Hopefully soon there will be an update with information on the vApp version of Orchestrator. Check it out here on Amazon or your favorite book reseller.

    Thanks again

    The VMWorld 2012 Voting Post

    I decided to wait a couple of days after the posturing/begging/campaigning died down. So that I could start it up again!

     

    Shameless plugs are not usually my thing. I have been learning from @vTexan so here goes.

    Make sure you sign in here to vote http://www.vmworld.com/www.vmworld.com/cfp.jspa

    There are literally 9 Billion entries this year. So here are a few I like:

    By the way I am stoked for a joint EMC / NetApp Session that doesn’t have Chad and Vaughn (no offense guys).

     

    Finally, my title didn’t make the cut (View 5.1 and Storage so Awesome you’ll slap yo Mama OR Things only Ninjas know, behind the scenes with View 5.1 Storage Architectures) but here is my session on View 5.1 and Storage Deep Dive with EUC Ninja Mark Ewert.

     

    Title: 

    		  

    View 5.1 Storage Features Deep Dive 

    Subtracks: 

    		  

    Desktop Virtualization 

    Tracks 

    		  

    End-User Computing

    Technical Level 

    		  

    Advanced Technical

    Area of Interest 

    		    

    Abstract: 

    		  

    Presented by VMware and EMC, this session will provide an in depth exploration of the new View 5.1 features related to storage optimization including the View Storage Accelerator (CBRC) and View Composer Array Integration (VCAI). The discussion will also provide detailed results of a joint VMware / EMC study quantifying the benefit of these new storage features and their resulting impact on virtual desktop density and the EMC VNX Storage Area Network used in the testing. To enable attendees to perform their own analysis, an overview of the LoginVSI virtual desktop benchmark system and test methodology used to obtain the results will also be provided.

     

     

    So remember to Vote. Do it for the Children!

    View Client on iPad with Bluetooth Keyboard

    I was very excited to try out my View desktop using my new ZaggFolio Keyboard case. I did not have a chance to try out the View Client with the keyboard until today. I was sad to find out the keyboard does not work very smoothly. So I would like to point this out:

    20120508-200728.jpg

    First you have to tap the keyboard icon in the top menu. Not sure why this exists, but it would be great if the keyboard fully worked. The keyboard fully working would be great because using the on screen keyboard it uses the half of the screen.

    Anyone else think this is kind of weird?

    Some Reality for us Infrastructure Peeps or Apps are cool too

    Don’t’ you just love double titles?

    For many years I have been an infrastructure guy. I really liked how the cables, and processors and Memory and blinking lights worked. Applications were often the necessary evil tolerated so that I can play with cool technology. During my own journey toward learning about the cloud it becomes increasingly important to consider the function of the application. Six years ago me would totally punch me in the face right now. Traitor. J

    1 – Don’t get your App messed up in my resource buckets of awesomeness

     

    So the reality check to the Infrastructure geek in me is this: The application teams really think of what you do as the network. That is why when anything is ever wrong it is always “the network’s” fault. What we love to do is getting abstracted more and more. I will still contend that is very important and very hard to do. Whether you are building reference architectures or deploying a converged infrastructure appliance almost no one but us cares. They just want the data to do their jobs. So while we have really great discussions about speeds and feeds, the guy in the picture below just wants the app. From the hypervisor down we need to design with the application in mind or we will risk becoming like that goth dude locked in the server room on IT Crowd.

     

    2 Honey badger don’t care about FCoE

    My next post will get into what I have been researching regarding what is out there and hopefully help us (infra. peeps) understand our App/Dev brothers better.

    You are probably an Infrastructure person if:

    1. You read this blog.
    2. You work mainly with Virtualization
    3. Storage Admin
    4. Network Admin
    5. You like to make fun of DBA’s

     

    Atlanta vBeers – March 12, 2012

    Next week besides the already large numbers of Virtualization and Storage experts in the Atlanta metro there are a few more people coming to town. Don’t really need a better excuse, and with all the people based in Atlanta (we should do this more). Monday March 12, 2012 a #vBeers will be occur at the Taco Mac near the Perimeter mall. Five to 8 or later if you prefer.

    Steps to Enjoying vBeers

    • Leave your sales pitch in the parking lot.
    • Get a beer or a Coke (in Atlanta it’s Coke)
    • Come meet new people
    • Come excited about some tech, Virtualization, Storage, Networking, App/Dev, Cloudy Cloud Cloud.
    • Share what you know, but also listen. There is so much to learn.

    Taco Mac Perimeter
    1211 Ashford Crossing, Atlanta, GA 30346
    (678) 336-1381  (404) 378-4140 (Mobile)

     

     

     

     

     

    Extents vs Storage DRS

    I was meeting with a customer today and had to stop for a second when they said they were using 10 TB datastores in vSphere 4.1.

    At first I was going through my head of maybe NFS? No they are an all block shop. Oh wait yeah, extents. They were using 2 TB -512 byte luns to create a giant Datastore. I asked, why? The answer was simple, “so we only manage one datastore.”

    I responded with well check out Storage DRS in vSphere 5! It gives you that one point to manage and automatic placement across multiple datastores. Additionally you actually can find which VM lives where, and use Storage Maintenance mode to do storage related maintenance. Right now they are locked into using extents. If they change their datastores into a Cluster the gain flexibility while not losing the ease of management.

    I wanted to use the opportunity to list some information I think about Extents with VMware.

    1. Extents do not equal bad. Just have the right reason to use them, and running out of space is not one.
    2. If you lose one extent you don’t lose everything, unless that one is the first extent.
    3. VMware places blocks on extents in some sort of even fashion. It is not spill and fill. While not really load balancing you don’t kill just one lun at a time.

    An extent with a datastore is like a stack of luns. Don’t knock out the bottom block!

     

    Some points about Storage DRS.

    1. Storage DRS places VMDK’s based on IO and Space metrics.
    2. Storage DRS and SRM 5 don’t play nice, last time I checked (2/13/12).
    3. Combine Storage DRS with Storage Policy and you have a really easy way to place and manage VM’s on the storage. Just set the policy and check if it is compliant.

    A Storage DRS cluster is multiple datastores appearing as one.

    Some links on the topics:

    Some more information from VMware on Extents
    More on Storage DRS (SDRS)

    In conclusion, SDRS may be removing some of the last reasons to use an extent (getting multiple lun performance with single point of management). Add that to being able to have up to 64 TB Datastores with VMFS and using extents will become even rarer than before. Unless you have another reason? Post it in the comments!