Mike D’s Blog

This year as in years past we’re running the VMworld Labs again. This year there are 30 different hands on labs that you can go through. There will also be various deep dives on some of the labs presented throughout the conference. It should be a really good experience to get your hands on software that you may be researching to use, don’t have the equipment to setup yourself, or something that you’re just interested in playing with.

The lab setup all runs on a cloud infrastructure built by VMware specific for the labs. The labs themselves consist of several different VMs. For example, in my vCloud API lab I have a total of 7 VMs running just to mimic the various setups and pieces of software that you’ll be testing. To help with the performance we like to “pre-populate” a certain number of these setups in the cloud so users don’t have to wait for the VMs to deploy and startup.

The VMworld Lab Survey is designed to judge the interest in each of the labs so we can figure out a starting point for the pre-population of the labs. The “pre-pop” numbers get tuned over the course of the week as we see which labs really are getting used. It’s a rather slick interface to do this.

Anyhow, go and take the VMworld Labs Survey and vote for your top 10 labs that you think you would take at VMworld and help us make VMworld Labs the best experience you could ever hope for.

Tags: VMworld

For those of you that can’t quite get to VMworld this year you still may like to watch the general session keynotes. There will be two of them this year as in years past.

The first is with Paul Maritz, VMware CEO. Paul always gives an excellent talk on what’s really happening in the world and what you can and should do about it.

The second is with Steve Herrod, VMware CTO. Steve always gets to talk about the fun, geeky things so make sure you also tune into his talk.

You can register for either session here.

Paul’s talk: Tuesday, August 31 – 9:00 am PT

Steve’s talk: Thursday, September 2 – 9:00 am PT

Tags: events, VMworld

This year there are a TON of labs at VMworld. Right now we’re set to offer an even 30 hands-on labs at VMworld where you can play with nearly every product VMware offers. There will be plenty of seats this year as well – over 450. We’ll also have extended hours at the labs.

The reason I’m writing this post is to let you know about the vCloud API lab that I’m the captain of. There’s been a lot of talk and activity around the first cloud API submitted to the DMTF for standardization. This lab is your chance to get your hands dirty with the API. You don’t have to be a programmer to get through the lab so everyone’s welcome.

Of course if you are a developer then there’s a lot more than just the vCloud API lab to go through. There are 4 different API labs so you can learn how to programmatically work with all of the VMware products. What’s more is we also have a technology exchange for developers running concurrently with VMworld. It’s sort of a mini-conference within a conference with sessions strictly for developers.

To find out more about VMworld or to register so you can get in the labs just go to the main VMworld website.

To find out more about the Technology Exchange for Developers see their site.

Here’s a full listing of the hands-on API labs that will be at VMworld. As you can see, we have some heavy hitters as captains of the labs.

LAB16 – VMware vCloud™ API

The VMware vCloud™ API is the key to VMware’s story around federation and ecosystem with the cloud. In this lab we will introduce you to the API and what it can do. You will use real world scenarios to explore the API and figure out when and how to consume the API with several different programming languages. If you are building a cloud then eventually you will need to know about the VMware vCloud™ API and this lab will get you ready for that. No prior programming experience is required although you will definitely benefit from general programming concept knowledge (methods, functions, etc).

Lab Captain: Mike Dipetrillo, and Mike Haines

LAB26 – VMware vSphere™ PowerCLI

This lab will provide hands on training for scripting a VMware environment. The goal is to provide all the tools needed to automate, integrate, and extend VMware vCenter™ for your environment. Attendees will use the Microsoft PowerShell based PowerCLI for scripting VMware vCenter™ and ESX. They’ll walk away from the lab with a better understanding of VMware Infrastructure, resources for using the toolkit, and a variety of scripts for performing common administrative tasks. Exercises will cover performing tasks based on VM attributes, performing actions on many VMs at a time, and exporting performance data. This lab does not require programming or scripting experience.

Lab Captain: Alton Yu

LAB27 – VMware vSphere™ Web Services SDK – C# (.Net Developers rejoice)

This lab will provide hands on training for using the C# SDK in a VMware vSphere™ environment. The goal is to provide an introduction to the key concepts in using the SDK to automate and extend VMware vSphere™ functionality. Attendees will use the SDK to connect and perform tasks against VMware vCenter™ and ESX. They’ll walk away from the lab with a better understanding of VMware vSphere™, resources for using the API for performing common administrative tasks as well as extending the product functionality. Exercises will cover performing tasks based on VM attributes, performing actions on many VMs at a time, and exporting performance data etc. This lab does require some scripting/programming experience.

Lab Captain: Alket Memushaj

LAB28 – VMware vSphere™ Web Services SDK – Java

This lab will provide hands on training for scripting a VMware environment. The goal is to provide all the tools needed to automate, integrate, and extend VMware vCenter™ for your environment. Attendees will use the Java Web Services API against VMware vCenter™ and ESX. They’ll walk away from the lab with a better understanding of VMware Infrastructure and resources for using the API while performing common administrative tasks. Exercises will cover automation based on VM attributes, bulk actions on multiple VMs, and querying performance data. This lab does not require programming or scripting experience.

Lab Captain: Gilbert Lau

Tags: VMworld

This news is big. Just 5 days ago I was talking about how important license mobility is in the cloud environment. Today, VMware and Novell announced that VMware will offer full support from VMware GSS no less for SUSE Linux. You can call VMware’s toll-free number and get support for the OS and the virtualization environment in one stop. What’s even better is this announcement also makes it so you can transfer your SUSE environments from your enterprise to a VMware powered cloud without having to worry about licensing constraints. That’s huge on all accounts.

As part of this partnership VMware will also begin to standardize the appliances we’re shipping on SUSE Linux. Previously a lot of the appliances that went out the door were on CentOS because of the rather generous redistribution rights. With the new VMware-SUSE partnership we can now standardize on a more main-stream Linux distribution that’s supported throughout the enterprise.

Good news all around. I just hope we continue the push with other Linux vendors that are out there or they at least follow suit with the license mobility aspect of this announcement. You can read more about the announcement on the VMware News site.

Tags: Licensing, Linux, Support

It’s that time of the year again – time to prepare for VMworld. This year some things have changed. First, we moved VMworld Europe to be just after VMworld in the US. The content was about the same for both events so we decided to just put them together rather than trying to come up with entirely new labs every 4 months. I think this will be a good thing. There will still be slightly different content but a lot of it will be the same.

The next thing we’re doing differently this year is allowing people to vote for which submissions they’d actually like to see presented at the show. I think this is a fantastic idea. There’s still some vetting by internal committees but the popular vote does count for a substantial amount.

So, if you’d like to vote for who you want to see at this year’s VMworld(s) (US and Europe) then head on over to the communities and cast your vote now! Hurry, the deadline to vote expires soon.

Tags: VMworld

I worked several hours at the VMware booth and the Genius Bar at VMworld Europe the whole time staring at this huge cell phone showing off the new VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). The VMware team was on hand showing off the new software at the show. Below is a demo. This technology will have a huge impact on client virtualization and go a long way towards anywhere, anytime, anything (AAA) access. Enjoy the video!

Today starts what will surely be a wrath of postings about VMworld Europe. For those familiar with VMTN or people that just want to hear a group of really smart people speak don’t miss this event. Duncan over at Yellow Bricks posted the official details of the VMTN Meeting the Experts event.

Okay, the dates and time have been set for the Meet the VMTN Experts session. We are still looking for an official name for the session but just write down these dates and times and be sure to be there:

Tuesday 24th – 13.00 – 14.00
Wednesday 25th – 13.00 – 14.00
Location: Community Lounge on the solution exchange

Who will be there:

Jason Boche – Boche.net + VMTN Moderator
Thomas Bryant – VMTN Moderator
Steve Beaver – thevirtualblackhole.com + VMTN Moderator
Eric Sloof – NTPro.nl + VMTN/VMUG Contributor
Scott Herold – VMGuru.com + VMTN Contributor and author of VMware ESX Server: Advanced Technical Design Guide
Wil van Antwerpen – vi-toolkit.com + VMTN Contributor
Gabrie van Zanten – gabesvirtualworld.com + VMTN Contributor
Alan Renouf – teckinfo.blogspot.com + VMTN Contributor
Tom Howarth – PlanetVM.net + VMTN Moderator
Duncan Epping – Yellow-Bricks.com + VMTN Moderator