Most companies have and average of 2.4 online copies of their data plus backups. Could this be done more efficiently?
All the details on the Podcast Blog at http://apacvirtual.com
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
As you will know from my past blog posts I have hooked up with HP’s social media people and been invited to a couple of blogger briefings. These are a great way to get access to the inside information on some of HPs products and initiatives.
As an HP customer or partner a great way to access a massive amount of HP’s information is through the HP Discover conference. HP Discover runs June 4th to 7th in Las Vegas. There are quite a few tracks since HP is a truly massive company. The track I’d be most interested in is the Converged Infrastructure track and it’s Virtualization Solutions sub track, which has over sixty sessions by itself.
If you’re going to HP Discover and haven’t yet registered then you can use this link to register and the Registration Code “BLOG” to get a $300 discount on the fee.
If you do go to HP Discover and learn something great then please share, maybe join me on the APAC Virtualization podcast to help others who can’t make it to Las Vegas.
Disclosure: I won’t be at HP Discover in Las Vegas this year, but if enough of my readers use the link above to register then I might get costs covered to go to another HP public event. Also HP are giving some prizes to bloggers who participate in this promotion. The opinions expressed here are (as always) my own.
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
The next vBeers in Auckland is scheduled for 16 May from 6pm at the Bluestore Room. Come along and talk with other virtualization people.
All details at vBeers.org
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
It is published, the project I have been working on for the last month or two is live.
The AutoLab is a quick easy way to build a vSphere environment for testing and learning using a single desktop or laptop PC and VMware Workstation, Fusion or ESXi. The whole lab runs in VMs on that one PC, even ESXi runs in a VM and can then run it’s own VMs.
Take a look over at ProfessionalVMware for details of how to get started with building your own vSphere 5 AutoLab.
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
I have taken up an offer from Cody Bunch at ProfessionalVMware to start publishing my technical articles on his site.
In the future this blog will be much more focussed on things that are relevant to the APAC region, vBeers, VMUG, local upcoming virtualisation events and the like.
The technical articles that have an audience beyond the region will be on ProfessionalVMware.
As I start to publish on ProfessionalVMware I will put notices up here, but I’d suggest that if you don’t already have the feed in your RSS reader that you add it today.
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
This week’s session of the podcast will be all about the topic of building a lab for familiarizing yourself with vSphere and related products.
All the details on the APAC Virtual blog
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
I’m looking forward to a return to Wellington at the end of this month. I’m scheduled to teach a vSphere 5.0 Install Configure Manage course which looks to have a few friends on it so should be fun.
While I’m in Wellington it’s definitely time to meet with other vFriends and have vBeers. The announcement is up on the vBeers.org web site. We will be at the Malthouse on Courtney place from 6pm on Tuesday May 1st.
Tell your friends. This is a great place to meet and chat with people who work in virtualisation.
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
I am honoured to have been returned to VMware’s vExpert program this year. The program recognises and rewards people who promote and evangelise VMware products above and beyond what is their day job. For me it is my blogging and podcasting activities, Michael probably the same. For my friends Mark and Craig it is for leading VMUG organisations in their cities. For others it’s participation in the VMware communities discussions.
For me the biggest benefit of vExpert membership is just that, being a member of a community of people who are passionate about virtualisation. I find these people interesting and fun to be around, that’s why I take part in the wider virtualization community. Hopefully this year I will be able to be as involved in the big and little community events as I was last year.
The full list of vExerts is at http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2012/04/announcing-vexpert-2012-title-holders.html and I’m expecting a lot of twitter chat and blog posts from those who are in.
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
One of my little projects for the Easter break has been playing with the Windows 8 consumer preview. I installed in on my netbook, an HP Mini-311 which has an Atom CPU, 2GB RAM and a 128GB SSD. This is my laptop for travelling light and fast but the netbook is pretty slow, with Windows 7 installed there is a lot of waiting.
I won’t go into Windows 8 too much, suffice to say that start-up time is awesome and I’m pretty impressed with Metro as a basic UI. I’d like Metro to allow smaller non-live tiles, without touch I don’t need what are essentially large icons.
The problem I have is that most things I use aren’t Metro apps, so there is the jarring switch to the desktop when they are launched. The switch is so jarring that it feels like moving to a different computer, much like moving to a VDI session. So I’m testing the VMware View client from the Windows 8 netbook back to my Windows 7 pool in my datashed. Right now the View client runs in the Windows 8 legacy desktop mode rather than native metro. When VMware release a metro enabled client the experience could be very good. Imagine having a live tile on the home screen that showed a miniaturised screen from the desktop, or better yet pushes notifications from the desktop into the tile.
It starts me thinking about what applications I want locally on the device and what applications I want in my VDI desktop. The VDI desktop is always Internet connected and is a powerful machine. The local device needs to operate disconnected and sync data. In the end the main things I need when I don’t have an Internet connection is Evernote for writing and a document viewer for documents, synchronized with DropBox. I’m not sure I need to have Office on my local device, complex document editing needs a powerful processor, lots of RAM and fast disk. I’d be happy with a review and annotate application that syncs with my editing machine. The main thing I’d do with the local machine is what my iPad does well, reading books and newspapers, watching movies and keeping up with social media.
For me the main thing that stops me from taking only my iPad when I travel is the inability to use an external mouse, particularly when I’m accessing a VDI desktop. Apple are happy to have a keyboard attached to an iPad bat a mouse is too PC like. If the new high definition iPad had mouse support then I would have stood in line all night when it was released.
Now I get where Microsoft is going with Windows on ARM (WoA). An iPad like portable device that is good for consuming media and viewing local copies but which allows me to connect to a remote full desktop for content creation tasks and enterprise applications. All day battery life plus peripheral device support, lets hope the delivered devices match the promise. Will WoA devices have high resolution screens? I hope so and I will be shocked if they don’t support external keyboards and mice.
Less that 24 hours after installing the Windows 8 preview I’m looking forward to the devices it will bring, colour me surprised
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
Today is the fifth birthday of this blog! Around 150 posts have gone up here and it’s grown from nothing to around a hundred subscribers and hits a peak of 1500 page views per month.
The last couple of months I’ve been quiet on this blog, not because I have less to say, no chance of that. Rather because I’ve been saying more in other places I’m writing for other web sites, so far I’ve had five articles published by TechTarget and I’m hoping to start writing for some other web sites soon. The articles are linked of my Other Publications page, since they are paid articles you will need to go to the original location to get the content. I’m enjoying writing for the different audience with TechTarget, which is more management and decision maker focussed, while this blog is about making life better in the trenches for the implementer.
I’m also working on a community project that is aimed at making it easier to setup your own vSphere lab, mostly for training and certification preparation. I’m pretty excited about this, I think it will be a big help to a lot of people. Setting up a lab to test in or train on is very time consuming, there are a lot of Yaks to shave before you get to the real work. Part of this project is a “Yak Shave-O-matic” for vSphere lab setup, I’m planning a beta with some friends soon followed by a full launch in the next couple of months.
I’ve also put together the content for a few sessions of the VCAP Brownbag series. We’re nearly complete with the VCAP5-DCD blueprint, just in time for the exam to launch. I’m hoping for more guest presenters for the VCAP5-DCA Brownbag series that will follow when we complete the DCD series. This is an invitation to you to take part. The DCA sessions are going to be much more live demonstrations and there’s a huge potential for you to share some experience in operating a vSphere 5.0 environment, let me know if you’re keen to take part.
Keep an eye out for future vBeers events, hopefully I’ll get to Wellington soon to run another one there. Don’t wait for me though, go right ahead and organise your own vBeers event. Choose a time and place and then start telling people about it, that is all I do.
Thank you to everyone who reads the blog, takes part on the podcasts and especially to those who take the time to comment.
© 2012, Demitasse. All rights reserved. This post first appeared on the Demitasse blog www.demitasse.co.nz
