Wow, this year is flying by and before you know it VMworld will be here! Until then, and all of the great things EMC has planned to show you, you should definitely check out these upcoming webcasts, including Chad’s Choice which is guaranteed to be jam-packed with great things all focused on virtualization.

Click here to register now!

Performance and Provisioning for Virtualized Oracle
Thursday, June 9, 2011 - 8 am PT / 11 am ET / 16:00 BST
Hear from EMC and VMware Solutions Architects on how to leverage server and storage virtualization to greatly improve Oracle performance as well as accelerate and simplify provisioning of new Oracle environments.
Hosts: Sam Lucido, Solutions Architect, EMC and Vas Mitra, Solutions Architect, VMware

Accelerate Your Journey to a Virtualized Data Center
Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 8 am PT / 11 am ET / 16:00 BST
Learn how EMC’s Ionix Unified Infrastructure Management, a leading cloud infrastructure management solution for Vblock, can help you deliver IT services 5 times faster and 80% more efficiently with full compliance across your virtualized infrastructure.
Host: Tom Hayes, Senior Manager, Ionix Marketing, EMC

Automate Virtual Machine Recovery in VNX-based Vblock Environments
Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 8 am PT / 11 am ET / 16:00 BST
Discover how EMC RecoverPoint, integrated with VNX in Vblock configurations, delivers comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery for virtual data center deployments.
Host: Rick Walsworth, Director, Product Marketing, EMC

Chad’s Choice - Virtually Any Virtualization Topic!
Thursday, June 30, 2011 - 8 am PT / 11 am ET / 16:00 BST
Find out the latest virtualization topics from Chad Sakac, VP VMware Technology Alliance, EMC. Get key updates on new technologies, hear honest answers to your most demanding questions, and see intriguing technical demos.
Host: Chad Sakac, VP VMware Technology Alliance, EMC

Click here to register now!

Posted under EMC, Good Reading

Today VMware announced the intent to release vCloud Connector before the end of Q1 as a free download to it’s vSphere customers. So what is vCloud Connector you ask? Well, it is a huge leap forward in making the Hybrid Cloud concept a reality. vCloud Connector is a plug-in that you install into your vSphere Client, it will allow you to easily move your virtual machines from your local/trusted/secure datacenter (Private Cloud) to the dynamic/scalable/on-demand Public Cloud while never leaving the vSphere Client, in fact you can still manage those virtual machines that moved over!

VMware vCloud Datacenter Services are available now through US-based BlueLock, pan-European service provider Colt, and via beta from global service provider Verizon. VMware vCloud Datacenter partners Terremark (soon to be Verizon) and SingTel offer cloud services based on VMware technology today and are developing vCloud Datacenter services as well.

So there you have it people, The Cloud is now going to be closer than ever! Now with that said, wouldn’t you want to run your Private Cloud on the same architecture that the Public Cloud providers are using? Many companies are looking at Vblock powered solutions for their own Private Clouds because they know that a lot of the Public Cloud offerings being brought on-line are also running on Vblock technology. Learn more about it here.

To the cloud! (haha sorry, just had to do it…those new Microsoft ads just make me laugh because of how confused their making consumers - just like this guys wife in the commercial)

Posted under Cloud

Wow, where has the time gone? It seems like it was just yesterday that I was dabbling with VMware GSX to give some extra workstations to application developers, that was over 7 years ago. Now I’m working for a Fortune 500 company doing what I love more than anything, talking about wickedly cool stuff!

2010 has been an amazing ride, probably the best year of my life and it’s just the beginning. Beautiful brand new home, a new job working for the best company with the best people in the industry, a new addition to the family (our puppy Chloe), good health and overall happiness.

The holiday season is a great time to reflect back and to be thankful for all that you have and have done. With that I’d like to thank Chad Sakac, Wade O’Harrow and Jeff Thomas for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime. I’d like to thank my beautiful partner Mandy for putting up with me and things we’ve dealt with this year (home-ownership, traveling for business and for just putting up with me :)). And finally I’d like to thank my readers, for continuing to visit the website and for sticking with me even though the amount of content has dwindled - I promise, one of my Resolutions for 2011 is to change my ways and get some more quality content online!

With that I feel I must follow in year-end blog tradition and post my thoughts on what’s to come in 2011.

• 2009 2010 2011 will be the year of Virtual Desktops (VDI)
• The way we think about networking will change (OTV, FCoE)
• The way we think about storage will change (Storage Pools, Auto Tiering, HUGE Cache footprints)
• The way we deploy virtualization will change (Vblock)
• Mixed workload deployment (Private and Public Cloud)

Those are some high level thoughts and frankly I could dive deeply into each one of those things, but to some things up I’ll try to make it really simple. Things are going to get really easy for administrators and end-users alike and things are going to get real dynamic. We’re moving back to the mainframe days, there will be datacenter administrators that manage our virtual infrastructures which consists of compute, storage and network. Each one of these pieces inherently will simplify as well (flat converged networks, automated tiered storage and web portals for public consumption just to name a few). However, we will not leverage this internal (private) cloud for everything, some things can sit out in the external (public) cloud in an effort to be more elastic and cost effective. Then at the end of this is end-user accessibility (or mobility), in terms of VDI we’ll see the adoption of many different end-points (thin, thick, mobile, tablet, etc) giving access to a centralize desktop from anywhere. Because in the end the world is full of consumers who want what they want, when they want.

So there you have it, simple consumption, simple administration, simple design and even simplicity in deployment through complete stack offerings like the Vblock. Hopefully I’ll get some time to deep dive into each one of these things individually as they really are all amazing technologies.

With that I’m going to shut ‘er down for a few days and enjoy the holidays. May you and your family have a happy and healthy holiday and New Year!

Posted under Good Reading

I’m truly honored to be part of such a great team and organization. On February 1, 2010 I joined EMC as a vSpecialist working within Chad Sakac’s organization and I couldn’t be happier. Our team is made up of some awesome rockstars, people like Scott Lowe and Nick Weaver, we battle in the trenches on a daily basis spreading our love and evangelizing to the masses about VMware+EMC as well as VMware+Cisco+EMC. We work hard and we play harder.

Our team has grown significantly over the past year andwe’re continuing with that trend and are looking for talented people that have the passion….people that love virtualization and people that love to talk about it. Here are some details taken from Chad’s blog;

vSpecialists are EMC employees who’s fundamental job is to make sure that EMC wins overwhelmingly on our own merits whenever Virtualization is the context.   We do this for both VMware/EMC (bring your own server), and also support VMware/Cisco/EMC (the VCE go-to-market).

The team is now 150+ strong already, and with a full year under our belt, there’s structure.   There’s a structured onboarding process.  There’s structure roles and coverage models.   Those craving a total lack of structure (in every sense of the expression – both good stuff and bad stuff), but a similar personality profile – check out the VCE roles below.

This team’s credo is that we say “yes” to every challenge.   It is a LOT of fun, and leading that squad is the best gig I’ve ever had in my life. (mine too Chad)

The technical vSpecialists are expected to know everything (which is impossible) and so need to be perpetually be learning.  Technical folks have their VCP4 at least, VCAP-DCD and VCAP-DCA are bonus.   VCDX is a huge upside.   EMC Proven is a huge upside.  Cisco certs are a huge upside.  (As Chad states, VMware experience/knowledge is a must - EMC+Cisco is a HUGE plus but take a 2nd/3rd ranking) The right positive can-do attitude (throw me in front of any technical challenge and I can figure it out) is mandatory.   Diversity is VERY desirable – while we have a mix of backgrounds, we share a love of tech.  I’m disappointed that more women haven’t applied.

With all of that said, there are four active positions I’m personally trying to fill. Two in the Pacific Northwest, one in Los Angeles, CA and one in Houston, TX.  There are a number of other positions open, these are the four that I’m focusing on so if you are interested and are up to the challenge, PLEASE get hold of me!

UPDATE — There are also openings in Chicago, Minneapolis, the Carolinas and Florida….in addition to my openings in the Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles and Houston. Please contact me if you are interested!

Posted under Good Reading

VMware, EMC, Cisco, VCE, Intel, Acadia….whew! what does it all mean?! 

VMware, Cisco and EMC created a new marketing ploy called VCE (Virtual Compute Environment), this will provide technical innovations as well as integrated pre-sales services and support.

What is the product? vBlock.  Think of vBlock as the plug and play data-center solution, it will consist of Cisco UCS/Nexus/MDS, EMC Storage and VMware Virtualization all within a pre-designed and built rack solution - simply drop it in your data-center, plug it in and deploy virtual machines.  This is not really any different than purchasing HP Servers, NetApp Storage and VMware licenses separately. Ultimately it is the same solution, but now with a single SKU that partners will be able to sell.

I can’t say that VCE is really innovative, but it is brilliant from a business standpoint.  It will allow partners to sell a single source solution quickly and easily - no longer will VARs need to bring in multiple vendors to sell the entire design.

Click Here to Learn more about VCE from the CEO’s of Cisco, EMC and VMware.

OK, so where does Intel come into this? Well with some venture capital from Cisco, EMC and Intel a new organization called Acadia is being formed.  Acadia will bring the vCloud into the private data-center.  In a phone conversation today, Chad Sakac informed me that Acadia will provide a pay by usage solution for Enterprise users that aren’t ready for the public cloud. The solution will be completely supported and provided by Acadia and the customer will only be billed for what they use.  Pretty much a vBlock will be dropped into the customers data-center, the end-user will have a self-provisioning utility to create virtual machines and then they’ll receive a bill for actual utilization.  So no capital expense at all, your data-center now turns into a full 100% operating expense.

I didn’t plan on writing a full explanation on who/how/why. Chad Sakac covers all of these topics extremely well on his blog and I invite you to check out the following links;

VCE-An Insiders Take

VCE-Technology Innovations

VCE-Integrated Sales/Service/Support

VCE-Acadia

VCE-Partner Ecosystem

Posted under Good Reading