Random short take #103. Want news? You’re probably not in the right place. Let’s get random.

• My employer announced the general availability of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 this week. There’s a handy blog post that covers what’s new here.
• Speaking of VCF 9.0, Frances Wong put together an excellent post on configuration drift and how it’s being handled now. You want the community’s view? Check out Christian Mohn’s article on what it’s all about.
• Speaking of product releases, Preston de Guise put together a great post on what’s new in PowerProtect Data Manager 19.19. Yes, I know it’s been out a little while now.
• And continuing the theme of linking to people I’ve meant in real life, Chris M. Evans has put together an interesting post on NetApp and its foray into cloud. You can read more about that here.
• Switching gears slightly, a nice gentleman on the Internet reached out with information about a storage company called Sycomp and what it’s doing with Google Cloud. Check it out here.
• In other press release news, Hammerspace announced an interesting collaboration with Animationsinstitut a little while ago. I frequently wish I knew more about the media and entertainment infrastructure industry than I do.
• Jeff Geerling posted an interesting article on his recent experience with YouTube and a video he posted about self-hosted media. It’s great to see that modern media and platform companies have gone down the same path as their predecessors. Perish the thought we change our approach to keeping the corporations satisfied.
• Joey D’Antoni put together a great piece on in-person user group meetings. It made me think about how some of the VMUG meetings I’ve been to over the years were great, particularly compared to the virtual ones I had to put together when we were in the midst of COVID. It’s tough to pull off, but when it comes together, it’s amazing.