VMWorld Day Three

Today is all about connecting with others.  Sure, I've been talking with people between sessions and when we've been eating, I'd chat with a few folks.  But today I really wanted to strive to meet as many vendors as possible and reach out to folks that I hadn't talked to for a time.

Since there was no general session today, I met up and had an extended breakfast with a former boss and colleague of mine.  We spent nearly 90 minuets catching up on his new team, the ins and outs of working for a different company and of course where I see myself in a few months.  While I certainly won't go into the details here, it was awesome to relive some of our funnier moments over the years since he joined my current employer close to 9 years or so.  Afterward I headed into the hands on labs (HOL) to see the new setup this year since I know one of the principal architects of this completely revamped lab area.  Not only could you take a traditional lab with a two monitor provided PC, but you could also bring your own device or BYOD.  This is actually pretty huge in the tech industry.  Less upkeep for a company means more money in the bank.

 After my lab ended I made my way back to the vendor exchange to really dive into products and people.

Simpana/Commvault juggling act

 As  you can see, tons of pictures, tons of people and tons of products.  They all pack up at the end of day 3, which was 5 pm.

VMWorld Day Two

Day Two General Session
Carl Eschenbach on stage for General Session COO for VMWare
No reason for us NOT to virtualize everything to 100%

NSX Network Virtualization - Not just vmworld-how about NSXWorld?
"Business relies on IT"
"Reduce friction between IT and Business through software."  Great thought here unless the friction is BECAUSE of software, but I get the well made point.

Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) This is a huge buzzworld around this week.
"We need to move from a world of management to a world of automation" Carl Eschenbach, VMware COO
Kit Colbert, Principal Engineer at #VMware, now taking the stage to show a demo of #vCloud Automation Center. #VMworld

ITaaS in action
• Self-service
• Transparent pricing
• Governance
• Automation

Typing today was a bit difficult as I didn't make the tables in time.  That's OK though as it was much more fun to watch and listen to the dialog between the COO and Kit.  (Who sounds like "kid" if you say it fast enough.

This is the mass exodus leaving the session.  People were ready to get out of there and head to some sessions.  I actually found myself staying away from the session today although I went to two of the four I had originally scheduled.  See, the problem is that there are four main buildings.  Moscone North and South which houses the main areas for the vendor shows, hands on labs, testing, hang out space, food and some other areas of interest including the spot for the keynotes.  Moscone West has most of the sessions on the second and third floor.  The remaining sessions are at the Marriott up the street a bit.  No, it's not far, but once you get there, you still need to go down into the bowels of the hotel lower floor meeting area to get to the sessions.  So, if you have 30 mins between sessions in different buildings, you will have quite a time getting there.  Oh, and if you wanted to go to the bathroom, forget it.

I actually spent some time in the hang space.  That is quite the space for us geeks and nerds albeit a bit smaller than last year, we're still able to have a pretty good time relaxing around our peers and unwind a bit.

One of the greatest areas is the #vBrownbag session recording area.  These guys are top notch and hold weekly podcasts right here for your viewing pleasure http://professionalvmware.com/brownbags/.

Here are some more photos from this great place to hang out in and network.  (No LEGO sets this year)

As you can see, plenty of places to play around with some a pretty cool set up.

Just outside of the hang space is plenty of area to sit and enjoy the non-conference food and such.  

Tuesday night is generally the night of vendor parties and while I simply can't get to them all, I did find a few great ones that were happening.  All of these were fairly close to each other. That was a great thing since it's easier to walk around and forget about getting a cab as there's no reason to. 

This list is in order that we attended and we met some incredible folks along the way.

CTO party - At the Old Mint.  A great historical building with plenty of history and plenty of folks to mingle with and chat about the day's events thus far.

Veeam - interesting venue - we didn't stay long because it was way crowded and quite loud but folks seem to be having a good time.

Dell - We actually enjoyed ourselves here as the top floor was less noisy (less people) and there was a great Moroccan Mint Tea and Turkish Coffee stand. (Mint tea was very sweet and warm!)  The food was fantastic and rich to boot.  This was also held in the historic Jewish Museum.  Super appreciate Dell opening up this area for us to visit.

vBacon - This was crazy.  Lots of people crammed into the Cable Car City Pub & Cafe.  There was only a sliver of bacon by the time we got there.  But that's OK!  Great talks with some industry leaders as the night continued. 

Day two was great, but I was beat down tired.

VMworld Day One

The first morning was like any other morning I guess...except that I'm in San Francisco and not Phoenix.  So this morning was nothing like I figured it was going to be.  First off...there was the rush to get some sort of breakfast.  I know lots of folks that have been here over the years choose not to eat the conference food and that's not necessarily a bad thing sometimes.  The first mean of the day brought fruit squares on a stick and breakfast quiche as well as croissants and the typical juices and coffee that you'd expect.  Decided to stick with what I knew and chose the fruit and ONE croissant and hit the coffee because I knew I'd need that for sure on the first day. 

Off to the first general session.  We start off with Robin Matlock, Vice President, Corporate Marketing at VMware. 

She talked about our many diamond sponsors and thanking them for their support.

Then she plugged VMUG (VMware User Group), it's all about the community and that's what drives the company.

Next was the VMworld elite  - all ten years.  These guys have come to every U.S. VMworld.  There are others that I'm aware of, but these guys are not speakers that I'm aware of and seem to be down to earth funny.  You know, part of the people!

On with a bit more... 

We are on a Journey

Phase I CapEx Saving Consolidation - IT Production

Phase II improvements Reliability - Business Production

Phase III Agility Automation - IT-as-a-Service

Is this where we're headed?  The SDDC?  What is what all about?  Need to spend some time here for sure!

A bit of history.  What came out when.

VMWorkstation 1999

ESX 2001

vMotion 2003?  That long ago?

DRS in 2006

Storage vMotion 2007

vDS - 2009

Storage DRS 2011

Pat Gelsinger - CEO of VMware takes the stage.  (The crowd must be a bit sleepy, because the response was not great-he even had to say good morning twice.)  

Social Mobile Cloud Big Data shaping IT today

We have to liberate resources from the Client - Server World >>> Build the Mobile-Cloud World 

Reduce the infrastructure

What do we feel like at work or while we're attacking some of these issue that face us?

Do we feel like we're master of the universe, gods, martyrs, ninjas, dragon slayers, champions?

There are 3 imperatives for IT infrastructure: 1) extending virtualization 2) automation 3) compatible

  

The SDDC - (Again with the SDDC) 

Software defined data Center

Expand virtual compute to all apps

Transform storage by aligning it with app demands

Virtualize the network speed and latency

Management tools give way to automation

First Big announcement 

Announcing vSphere 5.5 and vCloud Suite 5.5 (I think some were hoping for version 6 based on the response)

Mission Critical Apps

App-Aware High Availability

Big Data Extensions

Apps 3> vSphere  (As in APPS Love vSphere) 

vSAN Beta now  available GA should be around Q1 2014

vSanbeta

Martin Casado CTO - Networking Vmware

Network Hypervisor  -NSX is virtual networking (more on that later)

2010 Was when we crossed the 50% line with more virtual machine vs physical

VMWare vCloud Hybrid Service - GA today!

After this first general session, I moved on to a few of my sessions during the day.  I had no idea that the Marriott hotel was a few blocks away.  This is a bit concerning since I have set up back to back sessions in both the Marriott meeting area and Moscone West.  I'll be fixing that as soon as possible.  

Lunch was....well lunch.  Wasn't the worst I've had, but then again when you need to feed thousands (23,000 estimated), you have to cook in mass quantities and not everyone will be happy with the food provided.  

Afternoon session was a bust, huge room, couldn't hear well and left early to meet up with some friends and started to meet vendors.  Looking forward to the @CXI party tonight!  I hear it's legendary for meeting people.

VMWorld Day .5

As it turns out, I wasn't able to sleep at all last night.  (I think that was a song)  I was completely awake at 3 AM in anticipation of heading to to San Francisco for the coveted #VMworld.  Unfortunately after a several hour delay and a quick layover in San Diego, I finally made it.  I certainly would like to thank my taxi driver for taking me one step closer to warp speed than I've ever been.  I'm hoping to save a bit of money on my return trip and either spit a cab or take the BART.  I heard the Bay Bridge is going to be closed so according to my driver, that puts huge pressure on the "other bridge" that is already packed all day long.  Looks like riding the train would be the best option.

http://youtu.be/py2RPix60GI

As most know who are already here registration closed at 7 pm, so I had to make it quick from SFO to Marcone West.  The BART ride is 38 mins and since I got to the airport ground transportation at 630, I wasn't going to make it.  Not to mention the fact that I'd have to wait for the next BART train which would have put me way past 7 PM at my hotel which means I'd be waiting to get my bag and badge in the morning.  I had also read in previous years that this is a bad idea as the majority of folks get in after 7 PM on Sunday night with more arriving in the early AM.  

The bag came with the usual swag of high rollers to get you to their booths first thing in the morning.  I always say I'm not going to succumb to their trickery, but I fall for it every time and visit the big company booths. I do find that the bag has plenty of room and several hidden, but forgettable pockets.  What year is it again?
  

I'm not sure, but I think the bottle looks like a huge flask.  Not that I'm complaining as I do like the design and the rugged feel of it.  The bottle this year doesn't feel flimsy in the slightest and that I could probably drop it a few times at the very least without much worry of damage or denting.  (I'll report and post if I'm around when one drops)

Since I was late today, I didn't get the chance to get into the Moscone center to see everything going on there.  I suspect I'll be up early in the morning so that I have plenty of time to eat and survey the different areas.

VMworld 2013

It's coming!  You can't stop it!  The excitement is building for sure! That's right, this year VMworld is going to be big.

This year is the 10th for this awesome conference that brings users and vendors, from far and near, together in one place.  I'm very excited for this year (being my 4th time to go) because I've actually signed up to be a blogger during the conference.  I'm not even sure what all this entails.  Will I be cornered into a little room where I have to sit and type out some posts before I'm allowed out?  (that would be funny, but not cool) Will I be treated like royalty and set upon the stage of the event?  (highly doubtful)

One of the biggest issue for me is "What sessions do I want to see?" Since there are so many sessions along with I'm sure a ton of labs and not to mention the vendor area and such.  One of the coolest places I enjoyed last year was the hangout space.  There you could unwind and still feel like you were at the conference instead of headed back to the hotel and wasting time walking to and fro.

I'm sure I'll post more as the time draws near, but for now, this will have to be good enough.

In just 25 days from today, the magic starts and maybe a new path for me.

VMUG User Conference 7-11-13

With great anticipation I quickly volunteered for this all day event.  With the lineup of speakers and sessions along with some pretty top of the line vendors and of course, free food, I knew this was one not to be missed.  Great turnout today from our community!  Nothing like handing out SWAG to get the opportunity to meet people.  I had plenty of opportunity to see some familiar faces and remember some names.

We started off with a great intro by the VMUG leaders along with Doug Bear (@dobear) talking about the Hands on Labs (@VMwareHOL ).  Next was Eric Siebert's (@ericsiebert) Keynote - The Top 10 Things you Must Know About Storage for vSphere.  The rest of the day was spent with multiple breakout sessions and vendor mingling.  

Lunch was from 12:15-12:45 (which is late for an early riser like me, but that's OK, it was great food!) Followed up by the afternoon Keynote speaker Josh Gwyther  "VMware's Future, Today". After his keynote there were even more sessions with the closing and giveaways at the end.  Then some even went to the Thirsty Lion for some vBeers and food with @Veeam @TintriInc.  If you missed out, that's OK, there's always next year, but don't miss that one!  For more information headed to http://vmug.com/phoenix , email phoenix@vmug.com or @vmugphoenix #phxvmug.  Our local VMUG chapter has over 1500 state-wide registered members, you could be the next to take us to 1600!  Don't miss out!

Migration from one VC to another using VEEAM

VEEAM, LET'S DO IT!!

The purpose of this entire experiment was to work through the logistics of moving a VM from a 5.0 vSphere to a 5.1 vSphere without shared storage.  Or from one datacenter to another. 

I wanted to use VEEAM fastscp for the transfer as it installs quite quickly and the interface is easy to understand.   Both vCenters are joined to the same domain.

Below is the physical ESXi box.

Below is one of the nested ESXi VMs on my workstation.

As you can see, the interface would be familiar to vCenter users or even those familiar with windows explorer.

Once complete, click new schedule

Click add

Select source folder.

Select destination folder

Continue with the job creation

You'd think it would be as simple as clicking on Finish below, but that was not the case

When I tried both the scheduler and simply copying from one folder to another I received this error:

Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID [5F1555F0-0DBB-47F6-B10B-0AB0E1C1D8CE} failed due to the following error: 800700c1

I then found this fix.

Due the way the COM module are coded, thankfully there is any easy fix:

1) Download the .NET 3.5 SP1 SDK Here

2) Do a custom install and select only the Developer Tools

3) Run the following commands in an elevated prompt:

CD C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin\x64

CorFlags.exe "c:\Program Files (x86)\Veeam\Veeam Backup and FastSCP\VeeamShell.exe" /32BIT+

http://www.techspew.net/2011/06/27/veeam-fastscp-and-x64-windows/

After running that command, the transfer started.

When the copy completed, I browsed the LUN, found the VM and added it to inventory.

Upgraded VMTools, assigned an IP through DHCP, logged on and found a document that I created quite some time ago.  (This was originally sitting on the iSCSI appliance)

Remember, this just copies the VM, so it's still sitting back in its original storage area and the original can be deleted from the source once you have verified that the VM is stable.


Update - I did come across an issue where the datastore was not found or accessible.  I was able to connect to the hosts directly after removing the lockdown mode and opening up port 443.  (Both security risks in some environments.)