I’ve been extremely busy with the holiday’s and my new job. one of the things on my mind are along the following lines.

Tools, tools and tools. What does one need for VMware Monitoring tools? What tools are needed to cover all aspects of your virtual environment from Test / Dev Lab to View and even to your Main cluster / Clusters. Then assuming you figure how the tools you need, how do you convince and or show management that you or the company needs these tools?

Roger L.

Tomorrow is my last day at my current employer. I start a new roll at Array Services Group which is local here in the St. Cloud area. This is going to be a great opportunity for me, as they are a Compellent shop, as well as other in house technologies. I hope to be a great asset to the team at Array Services Group.  You’ll see me generate more blog posts once this transition is through. Thanks for reading, and your patience.

Roger L.

Tomorrow is my last day at my current employer. I start a new roll at Array Services Group which is local here in the St. Cloud area. This is going to be a great opportunity for me, as they are a Compellent shop, as well as other in house technologies. I hope to be a great asset to the team at Array Services Group.  You’ll see me generate more blog posts once this transition is through. Thanks for reading, and your patience.

Roger L.

VMworld 2010 Europe has fired off this week. I find my self, not attending again for this event.


And without John Troyer giving me a blogging pass in to VMworld 2010  , I would not have made attendance either. Thanks again John, and VMware!


However, I find my self wondering, at what point VMworld, or like conferences will be turning the event into a vConference.


What do I mean by vConverence? Online? No, in the sense of being online only, but online,as in the presence, or people, and interaction. What do I mean? Well imagine if each vendor that had a booth was responsible to provide web enabled camera’s that cover their booths. That when they gave presentations ,  they had camera’s to cover the presentations. That this tied into the Virtual Exhibitor Hall. What if for the Virtual Pavilion had camera’s, and that the session’s had camera feeds, for online attendee’s? What about having area’s for discussion, that have video feed’s. Places people could go in between sessions, or even after hours to discuss. What about having multiple discussion rooms dedicated for VMUG leader’s, and member’s that couldn’t make it.


What would it mean? what would it prove? wouldn’t it be a lot of work? It would show that we can move beyond physical constraints, that people unable attend, could, and possibly could interact. I am not saying it would’t be a chore, and that it would all come together at once. But I think it would allow the community that twitter has fed, to grow into more.


I also think it would allow discussion to blossom into great content, and because of the huge amount of information at these sessions at conferences, some of the great info and or idea’s that is generated is lost, as you attend a new session. 

Picture this, as you walk into a session, you log into the Website, see a video feed of the session, and are able to login to chat, using twitter or facebook login’s. You could then chat live, with the people in the room, or people watching on line. Below the chat is a forum dedicated to the session,   allowing for non disruptive discussion. Then a VMware mod could either ask questions, or respond  later.


Direct video and audio interaction via the VIrutal Exhibitor Hall would allow vendor’s to get a idea of the buzz they are generating, and allow them to generate buzz. 


Now, there is the cost factor, there may need to be fee’s or something to cover this. I am just brain storming here. I just think this could all fit into the world that Twitter, and other online services are developing. Heck, it could even fit in with The evolution of the LAB.


Speaking of that idea, think how a on demand lab could be used by vConference attendees, for each vendor that attends a conference like VMworld, and how it would allow people attending a vConference to interface with a product, not just see it.




Just brainstorming.




Thoughts?




Anyone else care to bring more idea’s to the table?




Roger L.

Today, It seemed all of my workstations on my network were behind a few minutes. After some digging, I found some of my Virtual Domain Controller’s where behind as well. Hmm, I checked the following settings.

I then did some research, to refresh my mind on the way’s to sync time.

Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines 


This is a great complete guide.

Timekeeping best practices for Windows

New Blog Post : View Brainstorm – Looking for Current VMware View Customer’s , first eighteen questions

http://www.vbrainstorm.com/2010/10/view-brainstorm-looking-for-current.html

Roger L.

This year, like years in the past LAB’s where in huge demand at VMworld. VMworld Labs, the aftermath has the numbers.

” * Lab Cloud served up 30 lab topics. In 2009 we had 21 lab topics to select from. We had 480 lab seats, with 44 hours of labs resulting in a total of 21120 total lab hours!
* Every hour Lab Cloud was creating (deploying) and destroying (un-deploying) approximately 4000 Virtual Machines
* Lab Cloud delivered 15,344 labs. In 2009 we delivered approximately 4500 labs in total.
* Lab Cloud deployed a total of 145,097 VMs
”

So with the huge interest of lab’s, it got me thinking. VMware is pushing cloud, Why isn’t there more Lab on Demand access? Why doesn’t VMware, offer customer’s access to on demand labs? Something to show off a product like vCD. Show us what VMware can do via the Cloud. Why can’t resellers that currently offer customer’s lab access in house, offer it via the cloud?

What do I mean by on demand?  I mean a website, listing the labs, with registration, with help available via staff if needed.

People want to try products out, go through the configuration of the products in non Product environments. But budget’s hamper this, and distance makes it hard to vista your local reseller every time you want lab access.

On the other side of things, Think how the VMUG could use something like on demand Lab Access to allow user group members to either shadow a VMUG leader, etc.

Now, what about architecture challenges? Anyone want to come up with some design examples?

What about other vendor’s, is this the year for them to have on demand lab access? I would like to see someone step up the game.

Thoughts all? Please comment.

Roger L.