Category Archives: VMware

VMware – vExpert 2021

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I’m very happy to have been listed as a vExpert for 2021. This is the ninth time that they’ve forgotten to delete my name from the list (I’m like Rick Astley with that joke). Read about it here, and more news about this year’s programme is coming shortly. Thanks again to Corey Romero and the rest of the VMware Social Media & Community Team for making this kind of thing happen. And thanks also to the vExpert community for being such a great community to be part of. Congratulations to you (whether this is your first or thirteenth time). There are now 2100 of us in over 40 countries. I think that’s pretty cool.

Brisbane (Virtual) VMUG – March 2021

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The March 2021 edition of the Brisbane VMUG meeting will be held online via Zoom on Tuesday 16th March from 4pm to 6pm. We have speakers from Lenovo and VMware presenting and it promises to be a great afternoon.

Here’s the agenda:

  • VMUG Intro (by me)
  • Lenovo Presentation – XClarity and VMware Day 0 – 2 operations, covering the ThinkAgile VX appliance, what comes in the box, how does it work with vLCM, XClarity modules and what they plug into, vRLI, vROps, vRA, etc.
  • VMware Presentation – Cloud Foundation and Tanzu
  • Q&A

The speakers have gone to great lengths to make sure this will be a fun and informative session and I’m really looking forward to hearing what they have to say. You can find out more information and register for the event here. I hope to see you there (online). Also, if you’re interested in sponsoring one of these events, please get in touch with me and I can help make it happen.

Random Short Take #47

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Welcome to Random Short Take #47. Not a great many players have worn 47 in the NBA, but Andrei “AK-47” Kirilenko did. So let’s get random.

  • I’ve been doing some stuff with Runecast in my day job, so this post over at Gestalt IT really resonated.
  • I enjoyed this article from Alastair on AWS Design, and the mention of “handcrafted perfection” in particular has put an abrupt end to any yearning I’d be doing to head back into the enterprise fray.
  • Speaking of AWS, you can now hire Mac mini instances. Frederic did a great job of documenting the process here.
  • Liking VMware Cloud Foundation but wondering if you can get it via your favourite public cloud provider? Wonder no more with this handy reference from Simon Long.
  • Ransomware. Seems like everyone’s doing it. This was a great article on the benefits of the air gap approach to data protection. Remember, it’s not a matter of if, but when.
  • Speaking of data protection and security, BackupAssist Classic v11 launched recently. You can read the press release here.
  • Using draw.io but want to use some VVD stencils? Christian has the scoop here.
  • Speaking of VMware Cloud Director, Steve O has a handy guide on upgrading to 10.2 that you can read here.

East Coast (Virtual) VMUG – December 2020

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The East Coast VMUGs are hosting a virtual event on December 10, powered by the Melbourne VMUG. The event starts at 4pm AEST (5pm AEDT). Details as follows:

 

MVMUG Leader Update – Jeremy Drossinis

  • recent changes to the MVMUG Committee.
  • announcement in regards to MVMUG’s end of year function.
  • updates from the Brisbane and Sydney VMUGs.
  • 2020, the year that was

 

Sponsor Session by Michael Lang, Solutions Architecture Manager, NVIDIA

Accelerated VDI Desktops

Virtual Desktops in 2020 with Windows 10, Office 365, a variety of browsers as well as video and conferencing tools, created unprecedented challenges around scale, performance and of course a great user experience, and with increasing adoption of Work From Home, the challenge for IT has never been higher to deliver.

Come and find out how a vGPU accelerated solution can help you deliver a high quality Horizon desktop anywhere, any time and delight your users.

What workload elements make a modern VDI desktop and what are the challenges?

  • How does vGPU accelerate the Horizon desktop and ensure a good UX?
  • HW and SW elements of vGPU.
  • Sizing and deployment considerations.
  • Some example use cases (Education and FSI)
  • Q&A

One attendee will win a prize draw of an NVIDIA goodies, consisting of an NVIDIA Star Wars branded , a  (great for office bragging rights) as well as a PC care kit with stickers, webcam cover and cleaning cloth.

 

Please note to enter the prize draw by NVIDIA the following apply:

  • You must attend the virtual meeting
  • In order to be in the running, you must complete a short sign up form, which will be shared by NVIDIA during their presentation.

VMware Session – to be announced!

NVIDIA has gone to great lengths to make sure this will be a fun and informative session and I’m really looking forward to hearing all about vGPU. You can find out more information and register for the event here. I hope to see you there. Also, if you’re interested in sponsoring one of these events, please get in touch with me and I can help make it happen.

Random Short Take #46

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Welcome to Random Short Take #46. Not a great many players have worn 46 in the NBA, but one player who has is one of my favourite Aussie players: Aron “Bangers” Baynes. So let’s get random.

  • Enrico recently attended Cloud Field Day 9, and had some thoughts on NetApp’s identity in the new cloud world. You can read his insights here.
  • This article from Chris Wahl on multi-cloud design patterns was fantastic, and well worth reading.
  • I really enjoyed this piece from Russ on technical debt, and some considerations when thinking about how we can “future-proof” our solutions.
  • The Raspberry Pi 400 was announced recently. My first computer was an Amstrad CPC 464, so I have a real soft spot for jamming computers inside keyboards.
  • I enjoyed this piece from Chris M. Evans on hybrid storage, and what it really means nowadays.
  • Working from home a bit this year? Me too. Tom wrote a great article on some of the security challenges associated with the new normal.
  • Everyone has a quadrant nowadays, and Zerto has found itself in another one recently. You can read more about that here.
  • Working with VMware Cloud Director and wanting to build a custom theme? Check out this article.

ANZ VMUG Virtual Event – November 2020

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The November edition of the Brisbane VMUG meeting is a special one – we’re doing a joint session with a number of the other VMUG chapters in Australia and New Zealand. It will be held on Tuesday 17th November on Zoom from 3pm – 5pm AEST. It’s sponsored by Google Cloud for VMware and promises to be a great afternoon.

Here’s the agenda:

  • VMUG Intro
  • VMware Presentation: VMware SASE
  • Google Presentation: Google Cloud VMware Engine Overview
  • Q&A

Google Cloud has gone to great lengths to make sure this will be a fun and informative session and I’m really looking forward to hearing about Google Cloud VMware Engine. You can find out more information and register for the event here. I hope to see you there. Also, if you’re interested in sponsoring one of these events, please get in touch with me and I can help make it happen.

Random Short Take #44

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Welcome to Random Short Take #44. A few players have worn 44 in the NBA, including Danny Ainge and Pistol Pete, but my favourite from this list is Keith Van Horn.  A nice shooting touch and strong long sock game. Let’s get random.

  • ATMs are just computers built to give you money. And it’s scary to think of the platforms that are used to deliver that functionality. El Reg pointed out a recent problem with one spotted in the wild in Ngunnawal.
  • Speaking of computing at the edge, I found this piece from Keith interesting. As much as things change they stay the same. I think he’s spot on when he says “[m]anufacturers and technology companies must come together with modular solutions that enable software upgrades for these assets’ lives”. We need to be demanding more from the industry when it comes to some of this stuff.
  • Heard about Project Monterey at VMworld and wanted to know more? Pensando has you covered.
  • I enjoyed this article from Preston about the difference between bunkers and vaults – worth checking out even if you’re not a Dell EMC customer.
  • Cloud – it can be tough to know which way to go. And a whole bunch of people have an interest in you using their particular solution. This article from Chris Evans was particularly insightful.
  • DH2i has launched DxOdyssey for IoT – you can read more about that here.
  • Speaking of news, Retrospect recently announced Backup 17.5 too. There are some cloud improvements, and support for macOS Big Sur beta.
  • It’s the 30th anniversary of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby“, and like me you were probably looking for a comprehensive retrospective on Vanilla Ice’s career. Look no further than this article over at The Ringer.

Random Short Take #43

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Welcome to Random Short Take #43. A few players have worn 43 in the NBA, including Frank Brickowski, but my favourite from this list is Red Kerr (more for his commentary chops than his game, I think).  Let’s get random.

  • Mike Wilson has published Part 2 of his VMware VCP 2020 Study Guide and it’s a ripper. Check it out here. I try to duck and weave when it comes to certification exams nowadays, but these kind of resources are invaluable.
  • It’s been a while since I had stick time with Data Domain OS, but Preston’s article on password hardening was very useful.
  • Mr Foskett bought a cloud, of sorts. Read more about that here. Anyone who knows Stephen knows that he’s all about what’s talking about what’s happening in the industry, but I do enjoy reading about these home projects as well.
  • Speaking of clouds, Rancher was named “A Leader” in multi-cloud container development platforms by an independent research firm. You can read the press release here.
  • Datadobi had a good story to share about what it did with UMass Memorial Health Care. You can read the story here.
  • Steve O has done way too much work understanding how to change the default theme in Veeam Enterprise Manager 10 and documenting the process so you don’t need to work it out. Read about the process here.
  • Speaking of data protection, Zerto has noticed Azure adoption increasing at quite a pace, amongst other things.
  • This was a great article on open source storage from Chin-Fah.

Random Short Take #40

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Welcome to Random Short Take #40. Quite a few players have worn 40 in the NBA, including the flat-top king Frank Brickowski. But my favourite player to wear number 40 was the Reign Man – Shawn Kemp. So let’s get random.

  • Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager 19.5 was released in early July and Preston covered it pretty comprehensively here.
  • Speaking of data protection software releases and enhancements, we’ve barely recovered from the excitement of Veeam v10 being released and Anthony is already talking about v11. More on that here.
  • Speaking of Veeam, Rhys posted a very detailed article on setting up a Veeam backup repository on NFS using a Pure Storage FlashBlade environment.
  • Sticking with the data protection theme, I penned a piece over at Gestalt IT for Druva talking about OneDrive protection and why it’s important.
  • OpenDrives has some new gear available – you can read more about that here.
  • The nice folks at Spectro Cloud recently announced that its first product is generally available. You can read the press release here.
  • Wiliam Lam put out a great article on passing through the integrated GPU on Apple Mac minis with ESXi 7.
  • Time passes on, and Christian recently celebrated 10 years on his blog, which I think is a worthy achievement.

Happy Friday!

Brisbane (Virtual) VMUG – July 2020

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The July edition of the Brisbane VMUG meeting will be held online via Zoom on Tuesday 28th July from 4pm to 6pm. We have speakers from Runecast and VMware presenting and it promises to be a great afternoon.

Here’s the agenda:

  • VMUG Intro (by me)
  • Runecast Presentation – Predict, Upgrade and Secure your VMware environment proactively with Runecast
  • VMware Presentation – Deploying Tanzu Kubernetes Grid with vRealize Automation with Michael Francis
  • Q&A

The speakers have gone to great lengths to make sure this will be a fun and informative session and I’m really looking forward to hearing what they have to say. You can find out more information and register for the event here. I hope to see you there (online). Also, if you’re interested in sponsoring one of these events, please get in touch with me and I can help make it happen.