Quick pro tip for large hotel A/C systems. #vExpert

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

So I read somewhere that many hotels don’t actually let you set the temp above or below certain thresholds. Unless… you are a VIP. I googles for a while a found that most systems will allow you to reset your hotel room wall digital thermostat into VIP mode with the following steps:

 

  1. Hold down thee Display button. Keep it held down till the end of the proceedure.
  2. Press the Off button and release it.
  3. Press the Up button and release it.
  4. Now release the Display button.
This should put your thermostat into VIP mode and allow you to get your room temp down to a cooler temp if you like it that way. When I am in Vegas especially during the summer for shows like VMworld I can never get enough cool air around me. So far this seems to work.
 
If you find something other than these steps please let me know and I can add this to the blog page.
 

VMworld Day 2 – General Session

By | | ,
Leave a comment

As the day kicks off at VMworld today here in lovely hot Las Vegas tons of people are filling the VM Village hang space area around the giant screens.

One of the most interesting quotes from Pat Gelsinger was that “Today is the slowest day in technology for the rest of your life.”  The rate of change in our lives due to technology will continue to increase and speed up.  Very true Pat!

What vSphere/ESX was for the first decades of VMware, NSX could be the same for the next decade.”

There was a long demo of the VMware Cloud on AWS and the integrated products using the “Elastic Sky Pizza Company”

News

VMware, Pivotal and Google Cloud, today unveiled Pivotal Container Service (PKS), which will enable enterprises and service providers to deliver production level  Kubernetes on VMware vSphere and Google Cloud Platform.  It will provide compatibility to Google Container Engine (GKE). This new product will be available later this year in Q4 of calendar year 2017. It will be a standalone product that will work with the Pivotal Cloud Foundry® (PCF). This was all jointly announced by Pat Gelsinger (VMware), Michael Dell (Dell/EMC of course), Rob Mee (CEO Pivotal) and Sam Ramji (Google Cloud). It was interesting the cultural differences seen on stage with the four executives.  Three had sportscoats and dress shirts/slacks on and one had a T-shirt and blue jeans.  Can anyone guess which company was the blue jeans style company?  Let me Google that for you… Yes it was the Google exec.  Now one concession to the Pivotal exec was that he was wearing tennis shoes with his slacks.

NSX, Kubernetes, vRealize Automation, Wavefront telemetry will all be in working in this environment together.

Pivotal and VMware were announced as Platinum Members of the Cloud Native Foundation (Home of the Kubernetes).

There may be additional announcements later in the day.

 

VMworld Day 1 – kickoff

By | | , , , ,
Leave a comment

So today was the day of big announcements.  Some things people already knew about and had been waiting for General Availability (GA) and some things that might have been a shock or surprise to some.

  1. VMConAWS – yes that means that organizations will be able to consume AWS services/API stacks running on VMware vSphere. Sewn together with NSX and some other magic sauce. I will have to dig into this further to see how this is provisioned, consumed, managed and what caveats there are. What will be the pros and cons with this. 
  2. VMware announced the release of AppDefense a new model to protect your apps running on virtualized and cloud environments. This will leverage virtualized infrastructure to monitor running applications and report deviations and correlations from known good states.  This was previewed last year at VMworld 2016 as Project Goldilocks. 
  3. Products also getting a new version were vRealize Network Insights, VMware Integrated Openstack, a new vSAN offering and a new product called: vSphere Scale-Out which will enhance BigData and HPC environments.
I will be digging into these new items further down the line.  
 
For me today was a pretty big day in that I took and passed my VCP-NV exam for VMware NSX.  This was a big step in getting back to the basics.  I hadn’t taken a vendor Professional level exam in almost 2 years. In fact the last exam I took was my VCAP-DCA5 exam at VMworld 2015.  I have already started on plans for the VCIX-NV. 
 
This evening I was able to have some time to celebrate and see some vendors at various parties.   Thanks to BigSwitchNetworks, Zerto, and Nutanix for their parties that I was able to attend and also a thanks to Tintri for the invitation but also apologies in that I wasn’t able to make it to your event.  See everyone online tomorrow with more breaking VMworld 2017 news.
 

Pre-VMworld Day 2 – PEX Breakouts

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

Partner Exchange is all about enabling the VMware Partner ecosystem.  Since some of the things during this period are under embargo until released tomorrow (8/28/2017) My focus has been EUC and NSX and thus this will be my schedule today:

  • NSX Assessment-led Selling
  • NSX Advanced Security
  • Business Growth Keynote – Embracing Digital Transformation
  • Business Growth Keynote – The Future of Cyber Security

Depending on the content in each of these sessions I may opt out and head over to the Hands On Labs (HOL) here at VMworld.  During my lab time I am focused on NSX.

Pre-VMworld Day 1 – PEX Bootcamps – NSX LiveFire Bootcamp – notes

By | | , , , ,
Leave a comment

Deep dive on VMware NSX and implementation best practices.

Security considerations – Cluster design – Distributed Firewall rules

Important to remember to create an exclusion for your vCenter and External Platform controller from the Distributed Firewall rulesets being deployed if you have default rules or you may “accidentally” disable access to your vCenter and it’s communication to/from the NSX Mgmt platform.

Policy Policy Policy – This simplifies your network security.

Leverage vCenter objects and especially Security Groups to abstract workloads. This will allow for more dynamic policies and are setup as static memberships or dynamic memberships. Of course by definiton dynamic groups are much more flexible.

Security tags are stored in the NSX Mgr database separately from vCenter tags. These are defined as part of service composer blueprints.

This LiveFire training focused on NSX-v and not NSX-t.

Please excuse any typos as I was typing this on my iPad.

Charlie Doggo’s Thank You pictures for @Spousetivities Sponsors – guest post by @MrsVirtSecurity

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

10 years of Spousetivities! Congratulations!

Jonathan and I thought it would be good to include Charlie in our thank you pictures. because without sponsors even dreaming of Furtivities wouldn’t be possible.

Special Note of 7 years of support:

Thanks to all the sponsors that make these fun activities possible this year at VMWorld.

Charlie has a great life lounging around the house and taking naps. I have a great time with Spousetivites at VMWorld. Thanks again to Crystal and all the great sponsors for making it happen.

Jill

@MrsVirtSecurity

Charlie Doggo’s view of @Spousetivities – guest post by @MrsVirtSecurity

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

Jonathan and I have a white Maltese dog named Charlie. So when a contest came along to show appreciation for Spousetivities, we just had to have Charlie’s point of view. Plus, who can resist a really cute dog?

We called all his activities #furtivities.

Welcome pictures introduced the idea.

We put him in five of the different activities Crystal has planned for this year at VMWorld.

Breakfast and cooking lessons.  He loves Bacon! So does Jonathan.

There are always lots of prizes.

Buffet line issues.

 

Hunt the strip was the next activity for Charlie to imagine. The Minus 5 Bar seemed a good spot, other than the borrowed puffy jacket.

Part of Hunt the Strip includes trivia of the sponsors. (Please see the next blog post to see our Thank You’s to the sponsors.)

After a long day of walking, we all need a little rest.

 

The Helicopter Tour of the Grand Canyon was next for Furtivities.

Off to see Rare Agile Big Horn Sheep.

 

Spa Days are awesome in Vegas!  Charlie doesn’t really feel the same about baths around here.

 

Cabana Days and lounging by the pool.

 

Then a final suitcase picture to say goodbye.

Thanks for following along while Charlie Doggo had Furtivities.  Hope everyone has a great time with the real Spousetivities.

Jill

@MrsVirtSecurity

 

 

 

 

 

2017 VMware vExpert and vExpert NSX 2017

By | |
Leave a comment

Just got confirmation of current status on my vExpert for NSX 2017.  I was in the first group of VMware vExpert NSX back in August 2016.  I had applied for the current 2017 vExpert NSX but somehow my name was overlooked.  Thanks to @vCommunityGuy Corey Romero fixing this oversight I am back in among a great group of people who love NSX and how it will radically change the way you do network.

vExpert 2012-2017

vExpert NSX 2016/2016

@Spousetivities #VMworld – Why it’s important

By | | , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

Ok so let me get this started.  I like conferences.  I am an extrovert and love talking to people.  But… I don’t like being gone for long periods of time without my wife.  So back in 2010 I think I heard about @Spousetivities and how there were sponsored events and activities for my wife to go do while I am “networking” at VMworld.  This was an awesome thing.  We have been in both San Francisco and Las Vegas for VMworld and there are times and places that may not always be the safest.

While she can take care of herself I do worry about other people and worry about her finding things to do that she will like.  Crystal Lowe definitely came up with a solution to a problem that no one realized was there.  In the true meaning of Entrepreneur she found a need and went about filling it.  I am glad that Jill can hang out with all the @Spousetivities bunch each year and get to do some amazing activities.  If you haven’t brought your spouse or significant other along to a conference because they feel like it will be boring to be inside at a hotel or resort all day then go take a look at Spousetivities.com.  There also amazing sponsors who can get your other half into parties with you in the evenings.

I really liked the shirt that Jill came back with a couple of years ago.  She was definitely the #vCutie!!

I would like to thank the following sponsors and people involved for @Spousetivities #vmworld 2017:

@rhipecloud Rhipe Cloud

@TVPStrategy vPractice – TVPStrategy

@veeam https://www.veeam.com/

@myVMUG https://www.vmug.com/ Join this for the VMUG Advantage and get access to licenses for your VMware Home Lab.

@VMWareNSX VMWare Network Virtualization Blog

@datrium https://www.datrium.com/

@actualtechmedia http://www.actualtechmedia.com/

 

Getting ready for VMworld and Partner Exchange 2017

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

Working to clean up my blog and update things to help me live blog/tweet during VMworld 2017.  Looking forward to a bunch of announcements and seeing tons of tweeps/vExperts/VCDX folks and others.  It’s always great to catch up and talk shop with other aficionados.

Personally I am trying to pack lighter this year and be more selective in the Expo Hall floor swag that I get.  There is so much I often end up with that gets pitched when I get home.  How do you feel about the things you get at booths and at parties?  One of the things I really want at parties is some real food.  Something that is not a finger food that leaves me still hungry and does not have enough capacity to absorb alcohol.