15 Top Paying IT Certifications for 2012 by Randy Muller, Global Knowledge Instructor, MCT, MCSE, MCSA, MCDST

And it got me thinking, other than the clear difference of opinion MANY of the readers had to feel about it, and the subjective thoughts around how much money people we’re being paid (Is that reflective of specific markets?)  As someone who regularly hires, recruits, and mentors for others I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring around what I see are the Top Paying Certs and Skills as I’m hit up regularly by recruiters (internal and external) looking for candidates.  I’ll try to break this up by section and I won’t go into the details of money because frankly I have deep insight into what people get paid, so I know just how relative it all is :)

Disclaimer: You may feel there is vendor bias in a lot of the choices of Certifications to be included, Let me just tell you, this isn’t just ME saying this.  This is countless hiring managers inside and outside of the industry looking for these certifications, so I want it to be clear if you have THESE Certs, your LinkedIn will EXPLODE with Job Opportunities. Seriously.

Top Certifications for the low-mid levels

• MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional)
• CCENT (Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician)
• VCP (VMware Certified Professional)
• A+, Network+, Security+ (Okay, seriously, ANY CompTIA Certification)
• EMCISM (EMC Information Storage and Management)

If you’re just getting started in IT depending upon the cross section you’re focused on, these certifications help build some credibility and skill-sets which are definitely to be required as you move up the stack.    For the most part, short of being “Product” specific in some sense, they each provide a decent “Administrative” foundation for the Microsoft, Networking, VMware Virtualization, etc.   Oh yea, and in light of NOT having these certifications, having an adequate foundation to fall back on of these skill sets work as well.    FYI: If you have the skills, just go take the test so you won’t have to prove yourself at every avenue.

Top Certifications for the growth-mid levels

• ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library )
• MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) [Technically doesn’t exist anymore refer to next line]
• MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional)
• MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist)
• CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)
• VCAP (VMware Certified Advanced Professional)
• EMC Specialist (EMC Certified Expert:Multiple Paths)
• PMP (Project Management Professional)

So you’ve been in IT for awhile and you’re looking to go to the next level, or advance your career or want to focus maybe a little more in a different direction.   These certifications really give you that foundation to take the next step, further enhancing your credibility.   Some of you may be wondering “Why is the PMP included in this section?!” Honestly? The PMP is sort of the defacto standard for a Project Manager, and most PMs are in that growth-mid level.   If you want to find yourself evolving to the next level and moving up the chain to making more money, taking on more responsibility and potentially doing even less work [Read: Less Administrative, more strategic]  these are those foundations.   Oh, and I do want to call out ITIL Specifically for a moment.   Let the record show, I absolutely despise and HATE ITIL. (Yea, that’s going to be well received with a LOT of you! ;)) Okay. Let me clarify, I don’t hate ITIL per se, I am NOT an administrative/operational guy, thus I do not want to DO ITIL related activities.    I like the objective outcome when implemented correctly though.   That being said however, ITIL is a HOT BED of opportunity.  You want a job? Get ITIL Certified.  You want to always have jobs thrown at you? Tag some ITIL to that.  Okay I’ve said that particular piece because EVERY DAY I’m being asked “Do they have ITIL?” So take it as is ;)

Top Certifications for mid-architect levels

• CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional)
• EMCCA (EMC Certified Cloud Architect)
• EMC Expert (EMC Certified Expert:Multiple Paths)
• What?! No VMware Certifications here?  Yea, we literally JUMP over this right into the next section! grin

Honestly, I originally didn’t even write this section in but felt it had to be broken out as there are numerous certifications which sit very clearly here in the middle which need to be called out.    I won’t go into too many specifics, but a lot of these sit in that odd space between clearly operational and clearly architectural.   Each of these certifications help further cement that foundation which solidifies your path up the stack and to the next levels.   Or to clarify, as a hiring manager I EXPECT you to have at a minimum the skill-sets in the previous 3 sections before I am confident you are the clear lead in the next section.

Top Certifications for Architect and above levels

• MCM (Microsoft Certified Master)
• MCA (Microsoft Certified Architect) [This Program started to be overshadowed by the MCM…]
• CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert: Multiple Specialties something many don’t even realize!)
• VCDX (VMware Certified Design Expert)
• CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)

I chose to differentiate this area a little bit establishing Architect credentials because frankly that is what it is.   The first two sections were VERY tactical, operational, on-call 24×7 type of certifications and roles, the third section started to combine those roles a bit.  If you’re reaching this point, you’ve had some time in the game and you’re either looking to get paid VERY well, absolutely LOVE what you do, and want to advance up that stack.    A lot of these Certifications in fact do not have hard $$$ associated with them because they carry with them the ‘assurance’ of a level of expertise, years of experience, etc.  That being most of these are difficult to ‘fake’ there’s a pretty good chance if you hold one of these pedigree you MIGHT know what you’re talking about. :)

Certifications Summary

Certifications are not the end-all-be-all, and I know some of you are staunch certification opponents. “I KNOW EVERYTHING, AND I’M HAPPY WITH MY NON-EVOLVING JOB SO I DON’T EVER NEED TO CERTIFY”. yea guys, go back to your mainframes, but seriously.   Certifications do the work for you to help validate your capabilities and grow your potential salary.   Without them you may be fine, but if you are like me (and so many others) who do not do their job because it pays the bills, but because you enjoy it greatly and it takes you to the next level of your career and life evolution; well, certification should be PART of that transition.  Note: Part of that transition and not the only vehicle.   There comes a time when you don’t want to Certify anymore and you need to find other ways to differentiate yourself.   Which brings us to the next section!

Specialist Skills which are ripe with opportunity!

Note: I didn’t mention ANY Developer, Database specific or similar certifications in the previous sections for a few good reasons.    First of all, there really aren’t a whole lot of mature certifications out there worth mentioning, and secondly these are really entirely skills based.    However, when it comes to what skills people are CONSTANTLY hiring for that you should either have, further develop, or invest in for the first time?  Yea, I’ll call those out here.   Anything I mention here, there is DEMAND for.   Don’t phone it in certainly, but there are lots of companies and partners hiring for these skill-sets, period.

• vFabric, Spring Framework, CloudFoundry
• Java Developer Space environments (Flexible enough to leverage the vFabric/Spring Framework)
• SAP SAP SAP.   Seriously, you has SAP skillz, you has SAP Job. It’s as simple as that.
• Vblock or similar *Storage, UCS, Cisco stack capabilities and offerings.
• Orchestration tool and Workflow skills.  Don’t pigeon hole yourself into only knowing BMC, or CIAC, ITO; Learn them all and you are #win
• I’d say Oracle, but seriously there are way too many damn DBAs out there who really don’t cross train, but that leads me in to
• Hadoop skills.   If you can start to spell Big Data and everyone seems to be coining that from us these days, there be mad skillz and jobs y0! ;)
• Scrum/Agile is really a foundation for any dev careers, so have/know that and you’re cool.
• The “Year of Sharepoint” has been over for quite some time, sure there are jobs but I wouldn’t say you’d be unique if you pursued that path.

So that covers the bulk of general skills which hiring managers truly cannot find the right skill sets for.   A little investment goes a LONG way.

Top skills and capabilities for top paying jobs!

Whoa whoa whoa! What’s this?!? Skills?! Capabilities?!   What is this, the guidelines what separates a transition from Job to Career or from Customer to Partner/Vendor?   Hmm, maybe.

In most customer focused environments, unless you are an absolute rockstar who is also a master negotiator you are not very likely to be paid what you are worth.   I feel it fair to be honest with you because it’s just a fact, customers TYPICALLY don’t pay at the top of line, hell hardly the mid-line.   And while you’ll become an expert in your own environment it is just that.   So if you happen to love working on a single project which at completion will prepare you for the next project in your particular company which can often be ‘comfortable’ to ‘highly stressful’ depending upon where you transition throughout the stack and often ripe with reduced opportunities for advancement (entirely depending upon the business) let’s lay out some skills which are applicable in EVERY environment.  The true set of skills which differentiates you from your peers and the competition respectively.

• Consulting Skills.   Whether you’re a consultant or not, being able to be ‘consultative’ will not only differentiate you, but also open the doors to more opportunities than you can imagine.    The only thing equally as valuable as that is …
• Sales Skills.   I’m not saying you need to ‘be a sales guy’, I mean cmon, how many of us are? (Those of you who are, great for you!:))   But it takes a certain set of Sales type skills to be the ‘trusted advisor’ which earns you credibility in your business, in the industry and in your career.    Think of it like trying to give a child medicine they don’t want.   A lot of customers, business units, etc don’t WANT to do what you’re suggesting even though it NEEDS to be done, so your ability to make it palatable even with the objections can differentiate yourself.   Oh and that separates and Admin from becoming an Architect, and an Architect from becoming CIO.   
• Project Management Skills.   I’m not saying OMG BECOME A PMP RULE THE WORLD. Quite the opposite.  The best projects are executed well because the entire team has a good foundation of how to manage a project and their portions of it.   A Project Managers job is to make sure you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing, quite frankly few of them have a clue what the hell it is you do, it’s just that you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do.   When I get a GC over to build a house, he’s not watching his guys to make sure they level an area before they pour concrete; you just expect it to be done.   Get your work done and your projects will run a lot smoother. ;)
• Presentation & Speaking Skills.   Hey, have you heard of Toastmasters?   Do you say ‘uh’ ‘um’ ‘you know’ ‘like’ ‘so’ and many other things often in your presentations, speaking, etc?   Listen to your leadership, do they? (Often times they will)     What will differentiate you from your competition is the ability to cooly, calmly and collectively deliver your thoughts in a comprehensible fashion that is understood by your audience.    If you can do that and even avoid conflict.  Wow.   You’ll put yourself head and shoulders above the competition, your peers and even your leadership!
• Confidence and ability to reach consensus.    Did you know that if you believe in what you’re saying, chances are others will too?   Oh and from a recent conversation at #VMwarePEX, the shared thought was, “It’s not what you know, it’s what other people think you know”.   It’s very true and can set you apart from others if you can share that knowledge in such a way others have confidence in you as well.    That eases reaching consensus, which is further compounded by one very poignant point.    Asking the ask moves things forward.   Meetings which end with no clear action items may as well not have happened.    So, always have something to walk out of the room with, off the call, oh whatever.  You’ll be seen as a leader because you’re taking charge, even if you’re not taking any of the action items yourself to work on; just asking is enough.

Take the skills above, combine them with the certifications relevant to your skills and your prospective career path and you can double your salary in 2-3 years.   Oh yea. I’m serious about that.   If it makes you feel any better a combination of the skills above across the spectrum result in salaries ranging from 30k-450k [NO THAT IS NOT A TYPO] (Oh and above, but you gotta have a little time invested to go above those numbers).

Clearly you can see why I was befuddled from the original post about the salary figures projected because WTF?! :)

As always, I am here for your commentary, any certifications I missed you’d like to share in the comments, and of course feel free to share job opportunities present in your own companies you’d like people to know about.    While researching this for anecdotal points, I noticed that EMC, that tiny little tech company has 1820 job postings. WTF? IT’S A RECESSION, HOW DARE YOU HAVE NEARLY 2000 JOBS POSTED!. Yea. Seriously.   We’re hiring like mad.  So let’s roll with this! ;)

Several curious questions often come up among the community, friends, peers and associates.

• WHERE ARE YOU GOING ALL THE TIME?
• Why haven’t you been writing about the things you’ve been working on!!!
• When are you going to come to MY city?! I am a (Customer, Partner, Community Member, Friend, Ninja)
• What do you listen to while in the air?!
• Why don’t you stay at Hilton, I LOVE it there (Okay, no one actually says they LOVE it ;))

So in an effort to honor all of your questions and beyond, here goes! :)

WHERE ARE YOU GOING ALL THE TIME?!

That’s an EXCELLENT Question!   I’ll work my way backwards for your benefit, starting with where I am right now.   At the moment I’m on a flight from Chicago to Vancouver for a 2 day workshop with a customer.  Exciting stuff, right?   Yea, it is exciting! This is actually a project I got involved with my FIRST week on the job, and it’s finally coming to Fruition! [And you know how us vegans like Fruit! :)] I won’t go into details of exactly what we’re doing, but it’s all about Architectural and Business Transformation which will have impacts far reaching above and beyond the data center. So pretty exciting, right?!

Just a few weeks ago I was involved in a pretty transformational Vblock related discussion while in LA which will involve a combination of tools you’ve heard Chad and others (including me) discuss in the past, so I won’t digress too much, but it’s going to be pretty damn exciting!

Jump to the week before and a rockstars dream of an EBC, which kicked off with Go-Kart racing [Resulting in me winning… Oops! Picture is on Facebook ;)] and then a full day of IT Transformation discussions; I don’t even have to tell you just how exciting those kinds of conversations tend to get.   Fortunately while out in Hopkinton I got to spend a little time with Chuck Hollis where we discussed our pasts, futures and something which will be the fodder for not only an OMFG YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME blog post, but also a book which I know ALL of you are asking for; Publishers get at me and you can get first right of refusal ;)     That very same week I headed off to NYC (Hey, I was like, 5 minutes away!) for some internal meetings followed by what were GOING to be customer meetings.   Unfortunately the unnamed customer I was going to meet at… was severely impacted by the Occupy Wall street Movement making it effectively impossible to have that meeting happen.  I guess you can call that #OWSFail ;)

I didn’t travel during the week of Halloween, because I’m not CRAZY. Who does that to themselves?!   However, that is also because I was just returning home after some insane amount of time on the road between the Alpha class of the new ITaaS Offering, the trip to India [blog post coming;)] and Singapore.    So, I was a little tired and justifiably so! [Honestly, months later STILL working on getting over my Jet Lag which has been keeping me up til 6am every day!]

And then heading all the way back to September, on the heels of VMworld in Vegas, I spent a lot of time in Memphis, and a little time in Detroit and LA for Customer meetings.   In all though, it was quite the way to kick off the new role if you ask me!

So in summation; for those wondering, where am I going?  Almost exclusively, to meet with Customers (Like you)    I am Geo-Preferred so I do like to visit as many customers at a time in the same proximity if I can accomplish it!   If that’s you, let me know… Let’s transform your sHtuff ;)

Why haven’t you been writing about these things?!?!

Well, if there’s one thing you should know about me is certain activities wax and wane.   But the real truth of the matter is; I’m still collecting it all to come to some ultimate OMG moment to share with you.   You can read the tweets if you want to know what is going on Interactively.  But when it comes to something you’ll derive some awesome value from; yea, that is where the blog posts will ROCK it out! :)

Also, another reason I haven’t been writing the blog posts is because I’ve been busy playing Starcraft… err, I mean I was finishing writing my first book on Virtualization – VMware vSphere 5 Administration Instant Reference, with Co-authors Van V. Van Noy, and Andy Daniel.    Now that it is done, I’m not saying I have “more” writing time, because I’m also currently working on VMware vSphere 5 Performance: Solving CPU, Memory, Storage and Networking Issues, so … a cats work is never done! ;)   Oh, and did I mention I’ve been traveling a bit?!?! :)   You’ll get a massive dump of material so much you’ll be wishing I went dark for longer ;)

One additional thing is, I also spend the time between the time working on my plans for 2012, and the constant moving target it may become, so bear with me, it is all for the good, and even more for the best! :)

When are you coming to MY City?

I don’t know.  When am I?    Honestly, you can always reach out to your Account Team, CSD, VMUG Leader, vSpecialists, My boss @vCTO, Me (cc’ing many of those mentioned ;)) etc!   Seriously, I am all in favor to work with you on your next transformational journey taking the advantages and discussions I’ve been having with organizations I’m directly changing and beyond and making that level of impact.   I wonder if I can squeeze in a book tour somewhere in there *giggle :)*   But really the keys are in your hands, just ask for it!    You’ll be seeing some major epic things which I’ve been working on with Chuck, the organization and the community which is going to leave you breathless.    So let’s start planning for 2012, shall we? :)

What do you listen to while in the air?

I know you Audiophiles out there are interested in this, oh and the other ones of you who want to stand in judgment of me, no, of me.    To be honest at the moment I’m listening to Avril’s latest album Goodbye Lullaby; Ironic as I travel up to Canada right? I mean it was potentially going to be Bare Naked Ladies ;)

Though in no particular order, what I will listen to *a lot* and pretty much on every single flight, and often in the hotel is

• Taylor Swift’s Speak Now Album
• Various tracks or entire albums of Taylor Swifts
• Pink Floyd
• Molly Marlette
• Katy Perry
• Erasure (I have the entire discography so it’s random)
• Bare Naked Ladies
• The Smiths and some Morrissey on occasion

My playlist isn’t too comprehensive as far as what it sync’d to my iPhone/iPad, the rest of the musics I enjoy while on the ground via Pandora with such classic stations as

• Matchbox 20 Station (Which plays a lot of good parallel stuff… you should definitely check it out!)
• What the Hell radio (Many influences of Avril, Demi Lovato [Who I gained greater appreciation and respect after she came out of Rehab!]
• Kelly Clarkson Radio
• Weird Al Radio
• 80’s Dance Music
• Lady Gaga (For some Gaga and Britney!)

And ofcourse I’ll watch all of my various TV shows like Gossip Girl and other things I regularly catch up on! But I think that’s enough of that! :)

And out of the kindness of my own heart… I will not share the Epic Hilton fail with you… At this time.

But I hope this helps give you a little hint and highlight into the adventures I am pursuing in this wicked wondrous game of helping IT Transformation take it’s hold upon the Enterprise, the Industry and our very own beings.    Like I said… you’re going to be BLOWN AWAY by some of the blog posts I have queued up to show you!  So stay tuned! :)

It is with no further adieu however, that I inform you I am currently *3* years into my 5 year plan, and I am ON TARGET and ON PATH!

Disclaimer: While I am indeed 3 years into my 5 year plan, I am –4- months into my new role, yea this post was LONG waited ;)

Introducing my new role: Global Cloud & Virtualization Lead, EMC Consulting

Disclaimer: I just call it Global Virtualization Lead because Cloud is waaaaay over used! :)

I know some of you might be saying the following:

• Err, I thought you were already doing that.
• DONT YOU WORK FOR CHAD?
• I THOUGHT YOU WERE A vSPECIALIST
• CAN YOU HELP ME WITH MY COMPUTER IT DOESN’T BOOT WHEN i BARK AT IT.

Yea, or something to that effect. I get that; but the fact of the matter is, I have recently changed roles (August 1st to be exact) and I’ve been busy planning things like #CXIParty and working in the role to actually write this blog post.   I didn’t want you to feel left out and I wanted to share with you some details of what this means for me, you, a ninja named gerald; all of that!

EMC has a Consulting Org?!?

Yea,  can you believe it?  More than just a consulting org but one with a fairly extensive portfolio helping drive major transformation in businesses big and small around the world.    Wow that almost sounds like a pitch, but no. It’s not, but THIS IS! (giggle, no I’m just kidding ;))

I am very fortunate to join this organization and to lead a team of some *extremely* sharp architects, engineers, consultants; VERY Smart people who get technology, business and strategy; All the sauce which makes really cool things possible!    Allow me to help break it down for you a little bit, because… I feel like I’m constantly re-figuring some things out at times so I continue to move in those directions of Yay… :)

For the most part, EMC Consulting is broken up into a few key groupings.   

• Application Infrastructure (Things like App Migrations from Notes->Exchange/Sharepoint, AD Consolidation, AppV/VDI
• A2D2 (App/Dev on .Net, Portal Development on Sharepoint, vFabric, Java/J2EE, Windows Azure, App Testing, etc
• CVDC (Cloud & Virtual Data Center is broken up in to several discrete components)
• Consolidation (Datacenter Transformation, Strategy, Migration, Re-Architecture, Decommissioning)
• Cloud and Virtualization [Hey, that’s me! :)] (Virtual Infrastructure Rapid Transformation, P2V Factories, Operational Readiness, Strategy, etc)
• IT Service Management [ITSM] (IT Service Catalogs, Financial Modeling, ITaaS Transformation)
• Network (Network Design and Consolidation)

There are also other groups which I’m not including here (This is not intended to be a COMPREHENSIVE COMMERCIAL for EMC Consulting) but instead focused more so on my team and what *I* do. Yea, I’m vain like that.

Interestingly though across my team within the CVDC we have a series of solutions and offerings which provide significant overlap.  Which means we work together on a *lot* of things, and let me tell you.   These are some total ROCKSTARS to work with.   Both within the Leadership and to the highest and lowest ranks of the organization.   Which if you know anything about me, rockstardom = yay!

That being the case we’re working on a lot of cross-competency overlap items which are huge today and will also be even further transformational come 2012 (For those of you who are not so familiar with what they may be! :))  A popular item which we’ve spent a fair amount of time working is this little tool called Vblock, maybe you’ve heard of it.   But more than simply being a chunk of hardware, we take it to the Nth degree in scary cool proportions.    Think ‘massive chunk of metal which theoretically can transform your organization’ and add to it the whole depth and breadth of refined methodologies driven by experts in industry to Functionalize, Operationalize, Portalize and Deliver with a clear and conducive Go To Market strategy! (Though not Goat to Market!)

This my dear friends is merely the TIP of the Iceberg, but it has been a ROCKSTAR Journey so far and that journey is going to continue WELL into 2012.

Where has this role taken you so far?

I know a number of you follow my Foursquare history among any other number of Services out there where you see WHAT I’m doing and WHERE I am.     Here is a basic sampling of some of the places I’ve been since I took on this new role.  I’ll also try to do this Chronologically. :)   This is also just part of the journey.   This will continue.  Oh and FYI.  With proper justification and good reason…  I could always visit you (if you’re a customer ;)) If there’s a User Group or something you’d like me to attend as well, so long as I can get a meeting in the area I could probably attend! :)

• Hartford, Connecticut
• Las Vegas (VMworld! :))
• Detroit, Michigan
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Los Angeles, California
• Franklin, Massachusetts
• Bangalore, India (With Stopovers in Frankfurt, Germany; and Dubai – but only in the airport)
• Singapore (With a return stop over for an hour in Japan)
• Boston, Massachusetts
• New York City, New York

Where will the future take me? I already know I’ll be going to the following

• Seattle (Well, Redmond) Washington
• Vancouver, Canada
• Kansas City (I’m not sure Kansas or Missouri ;))
• And who knows where else for the rest of the year.

So as you can probably tell … Yea, you’ll see a whole series on “Optimal Traveling tools” and further tips and tricks beyond my recent “Accelerate Intl Travel and Airport tips to avoid getting fondled by the TSA!” post I put out! :)

What to expect from you in this new role

I know that some of you are still waiting for my Career Blog Post, 2012 Predictions, Details on your Book coming out Dec 6th, EMC Consulting Exposed, and any other number of blog posts which you can clearly know and expect.  Yea, that’ll be coming.  As will also my break out to my trip to India where I introduce you to my India Team! And my local North America – where I introduce you to them too! :)

And now, so I don’t have an excuse to PUT publishing this off any more. I’m going to run with it.  You can find out the rest later, Cats off to ya! :)

Disclaimer: The following tool is FREE for 1000 Unfollows PER DAY. It cannot be used for Following FOR FREE.  Which is why I manually follow back using the twitter.com Webpage. It’s monotonous and slow as hell, but it is what I do!   But at least there is an answer to the unfollow!

BEGIN THE MASS UNFOLLOW ON THE TWITTER! :)

It all starts with logging in to the ManageFlitter Website.

These three steps run so inline it’s so simple! Click “Start” choose to “Connect to Twitter” which sets up an Auth against your acct with creds, and then it pulls in the database of who you are following and who is following you.  VERY SIMPLE. Basically mindless.

Then it provides a list of various categories.   If you want to unfollow people NOT following you, then simply select that category (defaulted) and go and CHECK the boxes of people you want to unfollow.   Wow, it’s that simple! Then simple choose “Unfollow selected” and you’re DONE!

BUT WAIT! THERE’s MORE!!!

Twitter “Rules” dictate that they cannot give you a “Check all boxes” option or else this would be so much easier. But in the effort of CHEATING, I advise you download a tool like “CheckFox” which will allow you to Check ALL of the boxes on the webpage [Up to 100 per page] and mass-unfollow those 100.

Then simply rinse-repeat and go from page to page to page until you’ve either unfollowed everyone you want to, or you’ve hit your 1000 limit for the day.

Either way, this has MASSIVELY cut what it takes to unfollow. Yay, right?   But it’s not limited to who isn’t following you.  You can choose people who’ve NEVER tweeted if you want, or who have no profile picture, or are TOO Active or INACTIVE. (I’d fall into the  “Too Active” category! ;)

There isn’t a whole lot more to add to this.  It’s clear, succinct, and straight forward :) If you know of OTHER tools like this which are as easy and free, mention it!   And if you have follow-back tools, mention them! I’ve stopped looking!

Links:

How to mass follow and unfollow on twitter FOR FREE?!?!?

How to mass follow and unfollow on twitter: over 10k club!

How to mass unfollow or follow people on Twitter .. and more!

So knowing he has a tendency to travel, as I know a number of you do as well, I asked if he was familiar with the “Trusted Traveler” program.   And as more and more of you are not familiar with Trusted Traveler or the GOES Program, I think it’s time to shout it out from the mountain tops! Time for the scoop!

Welcome to Global Entry

You ever re-enter the US after a long time away, or even only a few days and you get to the Customs and Immigrations lines and it looks like that photo above.   It’s a pretty normal sight, it HAPPENS, and now for the next 30-60 minutes you’re going to stand in line to answer a few questions so you can go pick up your bag from the baggage claim and then have to enter ANOTHER line looking almost identical to this one!

Well, On my recent return to the US from Asia… this is what I was awaited

“What?! Seriously!?” Yes. Let me walk you through this.    I walk down this long path and line with a bunch of people all categorizing themselves into various lines, and instead of going into those lines I walk up to a computer terminal like this.   I put my Passport on the thing to read, and press firmly 4 of my fingers onto the Biometric scanner.   Then I answer several Customs form type questions as presented on the screen and I’m presented with a piece of paper to bring to the Immigration line.    If my print-out had an “X” on it, I’d have to go through special screening at the check point, but if it doesn’t (usually) then I simply go to my line which has NO ONE in it, hand them the paper and my passport and walk on through to pick up my luggage.

I know what you’re saying “WTF?! YOU JUST WALKED ON PAST?!?!?” Yea. but wait, there’s more!    At this point, I have to wait for my luggage to come out of the baggage claim (If I was traveling in a short amount of time I’d carry on everything but this was Asia so I checked a massive bag for my 2 week trip)

This was the part which totally SOLD me on this!   With my bag in hand, I go and to the “Global Entry” line, which is right next to the line where Pilots and Stewardesses stand in.  All around me are lines with hundreds of people back, and my line is ME. Where they take me BEFORE THE PILOTS! OMG OMG OMG right?!?   And then.. I’m done! I’m home free! YAY!!!!! What happened there? I shaved anywhere from 30-90 minutes off of my time spent standing in lines and dealing with trouble.   And it could be even MORE time depending upon how many flights get in at the very same time!

What does it take to JOIN the Global Entry Program?

Allow me to walk you through what it took for me to get into this program!   I was in Los Angeles at a meeting when I first heard about this program and all of the various successes of it decided to go check it out!   I went online to the Global Entry website and clicked “Apply Today”  I filled out this lengthy questionnaire of various facts about myself, things I needed to confirm and validate (Passport # was a challenge since I didn’t have it with me, but I found my PP# saved in an email from getting VISAs) So then I finished all of the steps involved, and paid $100 for the application.  This is a non-reimbursable amount, if for whatever reason I was rejected [Block against me as a citizen, seen as a threat, felony or warrants, etc] I’d basically lose that $100 bucks!

About a week later I receive an email that I was ‘approved’ in the background check it offered and to schedule my in-person Interview.   Initially I book my interview for a Friday morning in Boston (Because I was in Boston and heading back to Chicago) but not knowing my way around that airport I decided to reschedule it for the following afternoon in Chicago.    Oh, when I rescheduled it was 3hrs before I was flying to Frankfurt, so I not only was I going to be going out of the country but having this ‘benefit’ would totally rock when coming back INTO the country. What happened next surprised even ME!

The Interview Process

I arrive at my Interview in the Homeland Security Office of CBP (Customs Border Patrol) at the O’Hare International Airport.   I’m early, they do not take me early though.  My appointment is for 3:00PM (I arrived at 2:30PM) They take me at my appointed time.    Taken back into the Interview area, it’s me and a Homeland Security officer.   She asks me questions about information I filled out in my application, and validates it against information I have.    The paperwork says I need to bring paystubs and other proofs of address and residence.  In this case, my Passport and my Drivers License were good enough, so my other pieces of information went unused.    The questions are in no way incriminating and are VERY straight forward.   She takes my passport and places a CBP sticker in the back of the passport book.   This lets the CBP know who I am, and approves me for entry.   The RFID tag inside of my Passport is cataloged into the system, and then they take a picture of me for Nexus/SENTRI (The card of which says “Trusted Traveler” on it).  During this process she takes my finger prints using this digital fingerprinting device.   After all of that is settled, she takes me over to one of those computers like I have in the pictures above, and I test it by answering questions just like I’d normally encounter when entering the country.  It properly scans my passport and confirms my finger prints are mine and not someone else’s.    And then it prints out a piece of paper and I’m done!    She informs me that I should receive my Nexus/SENTRI card in the mail but that is only for GROUND Transport, but once I return back into the states I’m done and can proceed through the Global Entry lanes! OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

Takeaways

• I paid $100 for an online application process
• This handles background checks, categorization and validating you are in fact not a ‘threat’.  Most business travelers fall into this category
• Within a week I was able to schedule an interview
• IMMEDIATELY following the Interview I was registered and available to RE-ENTER the country under Global Entry (Valid for 5 years)
• This INCLUDED the NEXUS/SENTRI Program with it “Free of Charge” the Entry into CANADA still requires an interview there, but you’re half the way there, so embrace that and now you don’t hold up the entire process for re-entry into our fair country :)
• Details about getting Denied from the Trusted Traveler Program

What about my Civil Liberties?!?!

First thing I know you’re going to ask is this: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT READ YOUR FINGER PRINTS?! i DONT WANT THE GOV HAVING MY FINGER PRINTS!” Yea. It did.  I know a lot of you will stand up and say “I WILL NOT STAND FOR THE GOVERNMENT HAVING MY INFORMATION!” What I really enjoyed about this initially is that, this is not the TSA but instead if the CBP.   However some things are coming out of this program entirely.    There is a “Trusted Traveler” program which is currently in pilot phase in SOME Airports and SOME Airlines (AA and Delta at the moment) which allows a vetted “Trusted Traveler” to be able to do the following when it comes to the TSA and Domestic Travel (And more details here!)

• Keeping shoes on
• Keeping 3-1-1 compliant bag in carry-on
• Leaving laptop in bag
• Leaving on light outerwear/jacket
• Leaving belt on

So, what I’m seeing here is the potential to not only go through a FAST Lane, similar to that which Service Members, Pilots and Stewardesses do, but I also don’t have to deal with so much crap going on with my bag?! Whoa! Where do I sign up?!? (Apparently, you’re pretty much OPT’d in with Global Entry ;))

Does this mean you are exempt from special screening? Not in the least bit.  People are still ‘randomly’ chosen to have the respective pat down or special screening, but at the least, especially if you’re a real traveler, or go through multi-multi airports a week like I do, adoption of this program will be a GODSEND! OMG! SERIOUSLY AND REALLY!  So the concern of ‘Terrorists’ using this to exploit the system is less-so, and in the respect of Airport Security I won’t go into details about why this is definitely not the avenue to pursue (or even discuss in this forum :))

I’m a Permanent Opt-out Anyway!

Whether you knew this about me or not, this is something I started when I took a traveling role for the community (and for my own health).   I officially became a permanent opt-out, in that if I am not offered the Metal Detector I ALWAYS Opt-out and receive the Pat Down.   And I usually tweet about the results of it, and the respective happy-ending or lack thereof! :)   I’ve received ~30 or so ‘invasive pat downs’ all across the country and have yet to personally experience any major pains, qualms or problems with it.  I’ll share some of my experiences on what I think made it easier.

• I inform them this Opt-Out is about me, not them.   It’s nothing personal, I’m not trying to hold up the lines of ‘prove a point’.   I don’t want to receive the back-scatter because I travel through hundreds of airports and don’t really see the need to do it. Thus establishing myself as a human and not a rebel.
• Usually by them having knowledge that I HAVE been through this before, it tends to go VERY smooth.  I received more than one times “Oh, you’ve been through this before?” I stress that I know they’re doing their job, and I’m just doing mine.    Again, no problem whatsoever yet!
• I try to make them laugh.  Hey, I like to laugh, and at the very least, if you can break through their shell of angry passengers day in and day out, what’s the worst that can happen? :)   I do advise them very firmly I except a good massage because I’m paying for this! And I’ve yet to have a hand go up more than half-way up my thigh.   So apparently I’m doing SOMETHING Right!
• I don’t be a dick about it.    I’ve seen those guys and girls who are total dicks to them.  Guess who TSA tends to deal with a lot? Uppity dicks who try to bring A BELT MADE OF BULLETS THROUGH THE LINE. Day in and day out.  If I’m not a problem for them things can go by VERY smoothly.

What have been some of the results of this ‘experiment’ so far? (An experiment I’ve been documenting EVERY encounter and experience of incase anything goes ‘wrong’)

• My time spent during the pat-down process is usually less than a minute. Yes. Seriously. I get through it faster than people going through the body scanner.  It is LITERALLY that FAST!
• I get a very brief but firm massage (I am a man, and you only get same-gender pat downs ;))
• They’re only doing their job.  And as a business traveler I’m also just doing my job.

Let’s sum this up and rock and roll!

For those of you who follow my exploits know that I went from basically not traveling at all.  To traveling almost every single day, and I’ll tell you.  I enjoy that.  I enjoy my job, I absolutely LOVE my customers and any barriers or roadblocks I can find to help enable that and make it easier I’ll take.

Adoption of these programs does require you to ‘give up your information’, but lets be honest.   Unless you’re a drug trafficker or someone who runs a sketchy investment fund you really shouldn’t have a whole lot in your life to worry about.    Especially if you work for any Fortune 1000 companies, I’d hope your background check doesn’t reveal anything too troubling you wouldn’t be accepted into the program.   And from that point, as you travel you can save yourself a lot of time, heartache, trouble and do what you do best; travel and service your customers and community like a rockstar!

Who do I suggest should check this out? Any of you big time travelers who do even remotely a little Int’l Travel, I mean seriously. $100 to save several hours? Yea, that’s worth it to me.    And once Trusted Traveler takes off and you don’t have to be fondled nearly as much by the TSA? That right there is worth the price of GOLD!    So EMCers, folks in Global Roles, Your frequent and Infrequent travelers, and all of my peers, partners and competitors!     Check this out and see if this is right FOR YOU.   Some of you won’t be able to get past the ‘civil liberties’ parts. I respect that, but please don’t be offended when I blow past you in the ‘fast lane’ and don’t get my junk handled ;) <3 <3 <3

Please share your experiences with this or other programs, or violations by the TSA as well! I’m always constantly vetting and analyzing this data because I’m WAY too much of a geek.   Also if you find GOES and other programs to be successful for you, rock star, and let us all know so we can grow together!

But seriously, the matter of VM Disk Alignment is a very serious one which should not be ignored!    Up until this point the means of correcting it was driven around due diligence, and annoying steps to correct existing VMDK, VHD, etc file types.   Well, through the power of UBERism, Nick Weaver rockstar has turned this problem on its side!

In his recent blog post: Straighten up with a new UBER tool : Presenting UBERAlign he outlines, details and takes you through *everything*, Okay seriously my first impression of this?   I saw this originally mentioned in an internal email announcing it, and as I read the high-lights in the email I teared up a little bit (oddly, I’m doing it again!) Why? This is a seriously OMG moment for those of you who have suffered through this problem!   If you don’t know if you suffer from VM Disk alignment? Then, chances are you do. It’s actually that simple ;)   If you know you’ve taken very specific steps to correct alignment, then and only then can you almost ‘ignore’ this, but still I encourage you to check it out!

Some of the highlights and features I’d like to mention! (Stolen directly from Nicks Blog Post, so Nyah! ;))

• Allows for fast alignment checking of virtual machines with detailed logging.
• Can perform alignment to any offset you want. Even the crazy ones that you shouldn’t choose.
• Works with both Windows 2000/XP/2003/2008 (NTFS) and Linux Distros (EXT2/EXT3/EXT4).
• Is able to work on NTFS boot drives perfectly. It does this by rewriting NTFS Metadata (the right way).
• Auto detects Windows 2008 and Windows 7 native installs (alignment not needed). Will not touch a System Reserved Partition (important for Windows 2008).
• Preserves all Windows drive mapping (AFAIK only one to do so). This means no having to remap drive letters and complete support for non “C:\”system drives with some Windows builds (some Citrix stuff).
• Doesn’t trash the NTFS and Boot mirrors like other tools.
• Handles Primary and Extended partitions like it is no big deal on both Windows and Linux.
• Has the ability to handle multiple disks for a VM.
• Multiple disks + Multiple Partitions + Multiple types (primary, logical) + Multiple file systems (NTFS, EXT#) =  no problem
• Also allows for optional Space Reclamation on both NTFS and Ext! That’s right: you can choose to do space reclamation at the same time as an alignment or as a option to itself. This means you can retrieve space no longer used on Thin VM’s using UBERAlign.
  

AND OMG MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE!!!!! Yea seriously!

This is the kind of tool which dreams are made of. Yes, those kind of dreams which often cost a serious amount of money to solve for a problem too! WOWMG FREE?!?! Yea baby. If I’m mistaken there, let me know.. :)

UBERAlign Console 1.1.1 – FTP

UBERAlign vAligner OVA (~500 MB) – FTP 

I highly encourage you check out the original blog post Straighten up with a new UBER tool : Presenting UBERAlign so you can get ALL the details including the videos walking through the use of the tool!    It’s pretty damn exciting, and quite a major epic scale accomplishment!   From Nick’s videos alone you can make walk-through screenshot tutorials on how to do things too! I would, but seriously! Just check out the videos.  If there is enough demand for it… I’ll do that, but hey, you’re lucky I’m writing a blog post in the first place! ;)

Let’s be realistic and practical. Not everyone in the world is GREAT at finding out who is hiring, and on the same sense of it, it can be a great challenge to identify the right resources to transform your organization, or even to find people with the right skills you’re looking for because lets face it, I’ve only met a handful of recruiters who know WTF they’re doing.  A HANDFUL. If you disagree; yea lets be serious, you DON’T disagree :)

That said, lets skip the BS and go right to the hiring managers and the candidates, get down to brass tacks; or AKA: Lets CHEAT!

The hiring managers way to cheat in recruiting – Tips for #CXIParty

I had this idea WHOA, WOULDN’T IT BE COOL IF

• People put an “H” on their name badge if they’re a hiring manager
• Put an “H+” if they’re a hiring manager and have REQs open
• Put an “H-“ if they’re hiring but do not have REQs open yet?

Whoa, I didn’t just oversimplify and CHEAT THE SYSTEM.  Yea that’s right bitches! It doesn’t have to be complicated.   But you might ask “Why go through this form of parlance? Why not simply let people engage in conversation” Oh, I encourage that, but please allow the following scenario to play out.

You are attending VMworld with your CompanyX you may be traveling with co-workers, your management, whatever.   You’re officially or unofficially looking to change careers, companies, whatever.   Do you walk up to people and go OMG I LOVE YOUR COMPANY I WANT TO WORK HERE. Yea, you’re talking to a guy who will never have a REQ in the history of REQs. Seriously. You pass your resume to him, and he hands it off to some clueless recruiter who ignores all of the good candidates and sends them to a heaping pile of crap.   Oh do please stop me if I’m wrong.   But the difference between a GOOD recruiter and a BAD recruiter is the ability to pick up the phone and send an email. Bad Recruiter… I think they’re busy trying to find their next job. #grin

Okay, taking a step back from the little Recruiter tirade (it’s true, and it’s honestly frustrating :))   Imagine how much easier that would be! What I’d typically ask people who DO have REQs are where they are in the chain, how serious they are, and what kind of skills they’re looking to fill (also what travel is involved) not because *I* am looking but because I know a lot of you (okay, most of you) and I talk with you regularly about your careers; it’d be nice to help out the two of you [hence this blog post as well ;)]

So I encourage you hiring managers attending VMworld and attending #CXIParty to put a H and/or H+ on your badge… you might just find yourself filling reqs like mad y0! :)

The hiring managers way to cheat in vetting a candidate!

Now that you’re being hit up by various people noticing the H on your badge, what next?  You find a nice guy or girl who seems to have some passion, some drive, some interest; they expressed an interest in talking to you about your company that’s encouraging right? Sure it’s a good start. But let the vetting begin!   One thing you’ll find is the case at someplace like #CXIParty is.. a lot of us KNOW each other. And if we don’t know each other it’s a good way to hit it off.    So lets say you find a candidate you’re interested in; you can get LIVE REFERENCES [omg, right!?] but what if they’re not someone who is known by everyone, don’t fret!   One thing you’ll also find is… OMG WE’RE GEEKS. Okay, not all of us are, but a lot of us are, and if put into a situation to show off our mad street cred around something like virtualization it’s a good way to determine how one would respond and react to the situation.   Sure you can ask them HOW MUCH RAM AND HOW MANY vCPUS CAN YOU SUPPORT. Wow, I couldn’t figure that out from a Google search, but force them into a deep heated conversation around architectural considerations of an obscure environment and how they’d go about deploying and designing a self service provisioning architecture driven by a portal… or something…. And you’ll see JUST what kind of candidate you’re getting.  It’s not WHAT they know, but how they react and think on their feet.   If you’re looking for your rockstars, your architects, your OM-vG That’s a good way to work it out.

Yes that was a long paragraph (hah, more like novel! :)) but the added point is, after you get the ‘candidate’ to engage in that conversation with various vetted or unvetted members of the community… you’ll all have made some great friends and it’s a chalk full of win! :)

OMG I TOTALLY WANT TO WORK AT COMPANY ‘X’

Screw the damn man, am I right?! Err, wait what?! :) Yea.. this is for you the non-hiring manager, the guy who works for the public sector looking to go private, or the admin who wants to get into more of an architectural role.  The partner looking to go Vendor; the vendor looking to change vendors.  Factually it does not matter so much why you’re looking for a new opportunity, just that you’re prepared when that time comes!  Here are some tips!

• Be a rockstar.   Yea, that totally means throwing a TV out a window, err.. no. It means be yourself. Be confident in WHO you are, even if WHO you are is not confident the least you can do is be you. :)   I mean you’re looking to change roles right? You should have an idea of who you are and what you want to do/be [It’s okay if you don’t…. a lot of people don’t, let me know and we can work on that! ;)}
• Get to know other people.   You don’t have to be a social butterfly.   But you also need not be a social outcast or do something to make a fool of yourself (unless that works for you, I’m cool with that.  Side tip; wearing cat ears is not a fools game ;)
• BRING BUSINESS CARDS.   This will delve into some sub-topics because I’ve discussed this extensively with some folks.
• “Should I have business cards made up with my own name and not my companies”
• Lets say you work for a major company, like ACME.   ACME carries with it a well known brand and image of making great weaponry, traps and explosives which are almost certain to work [with some roadrunner based exceptions]   You’re doing yourself a disservice with disassociating yourself with the company.   Having a business card says “Hey, look I’m employed! but please contact me at my personal email address” It also says “Hah! I got some fool to hire me, so you can’t do MUCH worse right!?!” ;)
• “What about making up my own cards not-associated with my company”
• Absolutely, it has its place.   Some examples;
• Free-lancers who have/currently working the Consulting gig land and that’s how you get your business; Respect.
• People with a brand who may or may not work for a major label company
• People who are unemployed and thus do not have company business cards.   Nothing wrong there, but it’s important they know the difference.  I can usually tell these ones because the business cards are made on paper stock; thin as flash paper!
• Oh and did I mention to Bring Business cards? (Yea, you should totally do that ;)) Also good to enter contests like at #CXIParty
• Show your Passion.    Why are you passionate about your job? Are you? Are you passionate about another job but not so much what you’re currently doing?  Please don’t let the jaded bits leak into things.   You’re in the craziest city on earth for the show… surrounded by the top minds in virtualization and the best businesses transforming the future of IT.    Show your passion. BE that Guy/Girl!
• Be honest.    Be honest about who you are, about who you want to be if you’re not there yet.   You’re not a VCP because the class is too expensive? Totally understand that.  But don’t be this guy; “I’m not going to learn anything new unless my company invests in me to do that” Yea. I don’t want you, and neither will a lot of hiring managers because you become the guy who gets a LITTLE bit of training and jumps ship.    There is value in being opportunistic but invest in yourself and it will pay in loads.
• Don’t lie / Tell the truth.    These are tips I’d usually provide to people going through the interview process when I do my career counseling.  They do sound SO similar, but they’re so different.     Here are some examples:
• Don’t Lie:
• Oh yea I totally invented the internet. GO AHEAD AND SEARCH FOR MY PATENT.
• I interviewed that guy.  (No it was something else, and NO we couldn’t find his damn patent!)
• I designed and architected environment x and was the project lead.
• I remember that interview well.   And then one of our interviewers asked him details about WHY he named the environment they way he did and specifics about it.  He couldn’t answer those questions. Why… Why can’t you remember some simple details about an environment you designed and architected? It couldn’t possibly be because the INTERVIEWER had actually been the one who designed and architected the environment before leaving the company and joining us.  Yea, so seriously? Seriously, don’t be THAT guy who’ll lie about the work you did :)
• Click my link to learn how to get a zillion twitter followers!
• Okay, that’s not very specific but it’s intended to focus on a broad assessment of accounts. Basically saying most of these people who share these links tend to have 0 or fewer followers.   So don’t just make any blatant lies, the truth is a lot easier to remember (unless it’s wikipedia… then we can just turn it into the truth! :))
• Tell the Truth:
• “Have you worked with vCloud Director before?”
• Hey, tell the truth. “No, WTF is vCD?” or “I was a lab manager guy but our ELA blah blah blah, we never got to play with vCD” “I wanted to play with it in the lab but couldn’t get the code” “I hate vCD and all it stands for, TIDAL AND NEW SCALE FOR THE WIN!” err, whoa, we’re getting ahead of ourselves but seriously :)  This can apply to almost any/all technologies and scopes.   Tell the truth and be honest with yourself.     Here is the WRONG answer to most questions: “No”.
• To provide some color on that. Answering with a simple Yes/No gives no recourse, it doesn’t let either of you know if you’re capable of willing to learn a new technology or coming back to the previous points of investing in yourself.
• “Always… I mean never, forget to check your references” – Special prize for anyone who can give me the source of the quote ;)
• You know what I hate on peoples resumes? “References available upon request”  Use that space you’re wasting to put something else useless… Preferably funny.  maybe “References are for wimps” or something like “I know Chmod” but please don’t waste our time on your resume!
• A verbal reference will win hands down every time.
• If you have someone who can vouch for you, and they’re within an ear-shot, you’re on your way to winning.   If you don’t.   Get to know those people, make friends, grow, learn, enhance, blah blah etc :)
• Please know what you want, or why you want it.
• Get to know who you are, what you want and what you’ll get out or changing companies or roles. If I could ask you to come up with answers to the following questions you’ll be FAR better off.   Hopefully you can come up with answers on any/all of these.
• Do you want to travel / Are you okay with travel / How much travel (20%, 50%, 80%, 100%)
• FYI: Figure out what EACH of those mean.  80% travel usually means you’re traveling Mon-Thurs with Friday to catch up.
• What motivates you
• Is it money? Is it a challenging environment? Is it doing the same shit every day at a different place? Is it the people you work with?  Figure out some of that.   What happens if you lose your motivation? How do you get your mojo back?
• How much money do you feel you’re worth?
• While some companies have a ‘range’ they’re willing to pay.  What are you worth?   What do you REQUIRE to survive and what will allow you to be comfortable. Etc figure those things out, base pay, bonus, what matters to you
• “What do you do”
• This is a question I would ask of people. It’s not what you do day in and day out, it is more akin to who you are.   Example: Regardless of what my JOB is, I’m solving problems, sharing knowledge and innovation and helping others to advance while trying to automate things so we don’t have jobs; freeing us up to do other jobs.   Figure out what you do, what you’re most passionate about, and what drives you and you’ll be WELL on your way to winning!
• Have you ever fought a bear?
• I mean, a small bear is still a bear, so you should be able to talk to this point.  What size of a bear are you willing to go toe to toe with give the circumstance.  Would you require it to be a fair fight? You prefer the two of you wear gloves in an open ring? Trained bear v wild? You have a particular species of bear, I mean Polar bears are nice but they tend to carry bottles of coke around with them and if you’ve ever had a bottle of coke broken on you it’s PAINFUL, OMG. I have scars still.
• Err, WTF was that bear question?
• … I didn’t say anything about a bear.
• Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
• Celebrating the 5 year anniversary of you asking me this question! (Is how I HAVE answered that question, thanks to the late Mitch Hedberg) but seriously.  Do you have any kind of a plan? Where do you want to be, what do you want to do? (I’m 3 years into my current 5 year plan, and after my next blog post you’ll see just WHY I’m WELL on target! :))
• What is your “Objective”
• “Seeking a position in blah blah blah in a challenging environment” While all of that may be true.  Getting an idea of what your actual objective is.  Allow some further colour on this.  I’ve talked with people who simply say “I want to be challenged” WTF does THAT mean.  Without something tangible around that I can challenge you by making you deal with a crazy political environment which will leave you in tears daily trying to figure out how to navigate change management requests.   But is that what you REALLY want to do? :)    Sure if you make it too specific you can lock yourself out of opportunity (likely to be opportunity you REALLY didn’t want in the first place ;) but I digress)  
• Be specific.    If this is an objective you’re interested in “Advancing a career in virtualization by transforming an IT organization through efficiencies, cost effective strategies and learning new skills; ultimately to advance me from an individual contributor to providing leadership to evolve and transcend the business”  … I just came up with that off the cuff, I’m sure some of you will say YES EXACTLY THAT. Sweet.   But try to come up with something tangible. Be your future, don’t just HOPE for it.
• Buy a lottery ticket.
• There is this old tale of a man who would pray every day asking to win the lotto. “Oh please let me win the lotto, oh please let me win the lotto” And there he lay on his deathbed, moments before his death, his creator appeared before him to take him away; with his frail and weakened breath he says “Oh being my creator, why were my prayers not answered” and in his infinite wisdom, his creator said “Buy a damn ticket already!”
• Maybe that story resonates with you, it may insult some of you? (hey it’s from a joke! ;)) but the point is.   You’ve heard of the secret right? “Put it out to the universe and it will return to you?” Yea, I have a little secret for you. INVEST IN YOURSELF. You’re likely to get a greater outcome.   Don’t assume someone is going to send you to training and don’t assume you’re going to know things you didn’t invest in yourself to learn.    You know one of the best ways to FIND a job too? Is to say “Hey, are you hiring?” Step up, get serious and put things into your own  hands.   If you want to ‘put it out there for the universe’ I’ll be honest.. that server isn’t going to P2V itself, so hop to it and start P2Ving yourself to the next level. :)

Hopefully you found some of these various tips useful, not too offensive and valuable/useful.  If you’re looking for a new role comment in the post; if you’re hiring, let it be known! Virtualization is still very strong and shows like #VMworld show that to be so true.    Hopefully some of you adopt the H and H+ model.   Good luck and see you at #VMworld and #CXIParty :)

VMworld Tips, Tricks and Prize winning #vmworld

#CXIParty at VMworld hosted by @CXI and @NexusMN – After Welcome Reception

Here is a mockup I made ORIGINALLY. It is important you READ THE WORDS I’m about to say and not just focus on the text in the picture. Because words are important! :)

Yea worst photoshop ever!  So.. I laid this out a loooooong time ago, when I only had a total of 4 suites and there were only around 200-300 attendees.  However in my infinite wisdom, I decided to make sure Fire Code wouldn’t be an issue and support the ability to basically accommodate the majority if not ALL of you at the party; so what does/did that mean?  We’re not looking at 4800SQ Feet, sorry! No, we’re looking at over 11,000 Square Feet.  Instead of 2 of those suites you see on the right. No… there are 6 of them, for a total of 8 suites.  Yea I’ll figure out how I ‘break things up’ because it’s my party and I can cry if I want to. Logistics dictates I’ll likely have the ‘dedicated’ bartender in the master suite (as seen above :))

I’m still waiting to hear back from my guy at the hotel on the EXACT location of the suites (which I’ll basically be traversing between them, and I support you doing the same to see a different ‘scene’ and what have you) ultimately it’s going to rock in ways like no other.   There are special things going on I cannot publicly share yet but for those who have an idea *Hint: It involves your ability to manipulate paper* you’re going to have an AMAZING time :)

OMG CONTESTS?!  I ENCOURAGE you to bring a business card to enter in to drawings.   I know some of my sponsors will have some types of prizes for you to win!  But on the same token, *I* Also will have some prizes for you to win! I know I know.. You rock, and yea I have to dip into my own personal budget for these things, but that’s because I love and care for each and every one of you! you know… and stuff. :)

OMG PRIZES! OMG PRIZES! OMG PRIZES! (Tip: If you’ve read my VMworld Tips, Tricks and Prize winning #vmworld) Your chances to win are WELL Increased!

Some ground rules: For the prizes I control, I also control the rules on how one goes about winning; whether it is by drawing a card or some type of skills based challenge (see above re: paper ;))  That said, this contest is FREE GAME to ALL Contenders to win.   There is no purchase required blah blah blah or any of that other legalese. Just come, enjoy and most importantly, MAKE SURE YOU’RE PART OF THE GAME TO WIN! So… with no further adieu what can you win?!

I believe it was @lynxbat who introduced me to these bad boys.   Anyone who uses bluetooth headphones will find themselves drooling over this going OMG WANT. So you have that going for you! :)

After massively popular demand, because apparently we’re a bunch of geeks? I’ll ALSO have this for use..  Why yes.. I will OPEN one of them to field-test at the party, and one of you will win the used version (and the non-used version also ;)) Caveat: I just put the order in for this, so it better damn show up before I leave or you’ll all be disappointed! :)

Whoa! WTF? WHAT IS GOING ON @CXI THATS NOT AN IPAD! Yes. Yes it is an iPad2. 16g Wifi because I’m not insane, nor rich!

Like I said, you’ll find out how you can win, but the only way to win is to play the game. SO PLAY THE DAMN GAME! Err.. or something :)

I know some of you asked about Ears, and especially with all the talk about high-heeled cheetah crocs we’ve had as of late, I provide some of the following options for you to wear! (This is how they might look being worn! :))  I’ll probably be in my professional cat ears (a simple black/white) but those might by my street cat ears for other parts of the show! :)   These will be on a first come – first justified basis since what you see is my entire collection :)

So look forward to your mail for the final update on logistics (and even if you don’t see/hear it until the day OF – Just know you’ll be looking for a rockstar (possibly wearing ears ;)) in the lobby of the Cosmo and you’ll get well on your way up to the party suites, for some of the most rockingest sights, sounds, conversations and more that you’ll encounter in Vegas and at VMworld!   Also at this point, I am STILL accepting small sponsorships if you’re looking to help out pay for even more alcohol (I should have enough drink for ~1000 people or ~500 heavy drinkers.. ;))   I did mention before there will be minor snack-type foods, so I encourage you to eat as much as you can/want at the vendor events prior to showing up because well… they have a much larger budget for food! (their budgets are typically 20-50x larger than mine, but they lack this thing called… you ;))

Please do your bit to thank the sponsors and if they offer something you’re interested in, get in touch with them (or I can introduce you) These people help make this a lot more consumable and possible!   Look forward to my next blog post as well on a very important subject for VMworld… :) oh and my OTHER blog post well delayed on my new role (Yea, lots of excitement going on around here! :))

OMG ITS NEXT WEEK! See you in Vegas :) [For those of you who have offered to help out – I’m fully game for you to help out, feel free to tweet, email or txt me ;)]

See you there! – Christopher

This blog post comes out less than a week after I published the invitation for #CXIParty!

Let’s take a look at at the statistics as it stands so far!

Those numbers when you count them up come to the metrics of 346!  Wow, and there’s only a handful of tickets left!   But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the game… so be sure to get yourself on the wait-list when that opens up as well! There’s always opportunity to come on down one way or the other!

I’d like to thank my paying sponsors so far!   This list will update when I get updates from my OTHER sponsors :)

Spousetivities

Special thanks to @StorageWTF for being the Bartender Sponsor!

While this is the slide which I tossed over to Chad (and he presented in his Chad’s Pre-VMworld Webinar) for those of you who do know what to expect, let me tell you the history of #CXIParty and give you a little idea of what might go down ;)

• Attending #EMCWorld or #Interop be sure to attend the VIP #CXIParty too! Hosted by @CXI Mon May 9 2011 at 9PM!!!

• Post EMCWorld Apocalypse! #CXIParty Recap and OMG VCE?!?!

Earlier this year as I was preparing to attend EMC World there was an internal contest to win some ROCKING suite, in which all you had to do was produce a video to enter!  I wont be embedding the video because it is LONG {~9mins} and won’t submit you to that unless you’re interested in the VNX. It wasn’t a BAD video, just a long one.. but I did win!   And win absolutely I did!

If you read those earlier blog posts.. you’ll see I won this OMG BEAUTIFUL AMAZING SUITE.  I was effectively a ‘VIP’ as a result, and let me tell you something. I love things to be overly dramatic, massive in proportion.   But on the other hand, I absolutely LOVE sharing and I don’t need a lot for myself, thus if I’m going to be treated as a VIP… you’re ALL going to be treated as a VIP!   Thus was borne #CXIParty a VIP Party FOR the People, BY the People! [Enabled by my Sponsors who came together in the 6days I planned this whole event]  

#CXIParty wasn’t like some crazed and wild frat party where you won’t remember anything the next day and it’s all a haze.  It turned out more so to be like a group of your closest friends getting together to drink and be merry.   Unlike other Parties which go on at conferences, the relationships which come out of this are lifelong and permanent, yea baby that’s what I’m talking about! No, but seriously.  It was great, my bouncers didn’t have a lot of work to do and everyone had an absolutely amazing time!   

So, what you can expect from part deux to #CXIParty is something VERY similar, just with more people here at VMworld, oh and even BETTER VIEWS!     Yes the venue is going to be slightly bigger, and there’ll be one or more bartenders, but the logistics will be roughly the same [getting up to the room will STILL be somewhat of a hassle, if not less so than before] and there’ll be so much rocking fun you’ll leave in a daze of how cool this is!  Probably more giveaways too (I leave that in the hands of my sponsors… and respectively… sponsors funds ;))

While there are less Tickets available for #CXIParty today, there will be more opening up as we get closer to VMworld.  However for you hardcore guys you know I love you, I’m opening up a special batch of tickets for those of you who actually read this blog post, thus feel free to use the “I found this ticket on PKGuild” to register! – Also, please leave some comment in “where you heard about this ticket” just so I know you READ this ;)

Tips

• BRING BUSINESS CARDS
  1. It goes without saying, but seriously I’m going to say it AGAIN and AGAIN. [I have 1000 cards on order just so I have some…]  Bring business cards! You’re going to meet and network with a lot of people.  Oh yea, and there are some contests which for some reason will want your business card instead of using a scanner… so bring business cards, you’ll seem semi-professional and you can ‘exchange’ cards that way! oh yea and BRING BUSINESS CARDS!!!
• Leave your laptop in your room
  1. Exceptions: If you are going to be live blogging an event, bring your laptop.   If you are going to be live video streaming an event, bring your laptop.   If you unfortunately have to WORK during the show and need to VPN or Webex into something, bring your laptop.  If you are going to a session where you know for a FACT you’re going to / need to take notes which require you to use your laptop, then bring your laptop.   Otherwise.  Leave your damn laptop in your room!  It’s cumbersome, it’ll be heavy, and it’s one more thing to have to watch out for / get lost (which none of us want that!)
• Wear Comfortable Shoes
  • I know you want to look sexy in your sexxxxxxxy shoes! We all do!    But if you know you’re going to be walking on Concrete that day or do a LOT of walking and standing… maybe there is a better time and place to sexxify yourself! [Yes… on some days *I* will be wearing these… which are my sexy+business shoes, but other days, I’ll be wearing my marathon running shoes because it IS a marathon out there.

• Always Carry Water with you! [As suggested by @Texiwill]
  • Albeit we WILL be in Vegas but this applies anywhere, even when you’re NOT in the middle of the desert!   So do bring water, your body will appreciate it when trying to hydrate and stay fluid in your ability to remember, retain information and… keep going!   I would often carry a number of un-opened bottles with me incase someone else was thirsty, cmon spread the love around!
• Don’t worry about what you wear
  • You might say ‘Oh no, should I wear that one wacky t-shirt or the other wacky t-shirt.   Unless you’re interviewing at the show or looking to be on the market [Some T-shirts will promote that ;)]  Just wear something comfortable.  I personally half the show will be wearing a suit. …. with cat ears.    So seriously. Just get out there and enjoy ;) [Except for the shoes, wear good shoes!]
• Try to take swag you want, your kids want, your coworkers want
  • Swag is a rare commodity, did you know that? It can build or destroy relationships [bringing home 2 balls when you have 3 kids… yea destroy ;)]   There is also a FINITE amount of SWAG between T-shirts, random balls and squishy things, [there are infinite pens so don’t worry about that] or iPads.   Just because they’re offering up something think about who will want it at the end of the day.  I personally will end up NOT taking home a lot of swag because I can’t fit this crap in my luggage! So I choose wisely.
  • The T-Shirt rule doesn’t apply to you guys who intentionally pack NO shirts so you can wear swag shirts every day. Good for you!
• Car Pool in Cabs to and from the airport or to Hotels or Parties
  • Seriously, don’t be the guy who takes a cab solo.    For one thing you’ll pay the full bill, for another thing there are a finite number of cabs even if it seems infinite.    Make some new friends, car pool if you’re all going to the same place [TIP: IF PEOPLE ARE WEARING A BADGE… THEY’RE ALSO THERE FOR VMWORLD ;)]  So Car pool away! It’s good for the environment and the economy!
  • Car pool in cabs from the airport, I need to call out specifically.  The cab line at the airport to get to the hotels is FRICKING LONG OMG.   So do yourself a favor and lump yourself together with a bunch of other geek looking guys, it’ll save you a lot of heartache and you’re bound to make a friend along the way!

Tricks

• Bring a Portable Charger with you [Also acceptable, bring a plug-in charger for your mobile device]
  • That device I speak of is called a ‘friend maker’.  If you have an iPhone charger and someone has a dead or dying iPhone [Let’s be serious, everyone’s iPhone is immediately starting to lose charge the instant you take it off the outlet ;)]   This will let YOU survive to find what’s going on where, as well as help someone ELSE survive as well!  The same could apply for various Android and their ‘standardized’ connections across vendors.    My portable kit would support every type of connection!
• Enter contests to WIN!
  • Obviously you’re entering the contest to win, right?  No.  You’re not.   Contests at Tradeshows are a very unique science and if you’re looking to win you need to enter to WIN it!    A few tips for the wonderful sponsors, vendors and exhibitors on the show floor.    These guys out there have three ways to draw your attention.    Having good technology which really draws you in to want to talk about it.   Something shiny or pretty which lures you over long enough to enter into a conversation about it.  Or a prize which brings you over which you’d otherwise ignore their booth entirely!
  • I *only* accept shirts I will actually wear or happen to look really cool [see prior statement] but I’ll enter to win an iPad from ANY booth, I mean I deserve it right? [and so should you :)]    With that said, do not hesitate to enter into ALL of the drawings to try to win!   I mean after all we’re all winners right?  But what I’ve also learned over the years, if you want to increase your chance of winning take heed of the following few tricks.
    • When they have ‘must be present to win’ and it’s done by a random raffle number or drawing which has no distinction of WHO entered other than an arbitrary number, your chances of winning are in the clear!
    • If a smaller exhibitor has one of these must be present to win contests. BE PRESENT AND WIN.  I was in one of those last year with –4- people who showed up. Yea I didn’t typo that, and no WTF I didn’t win?! 1-4 and I didn’t win?!?! but seriously consider that, your odds can be AMAZING as opposed to just being another name in an excel spreadsheet :)
    • Bose headphones are crap!  Okay, seriously. I’ve won –17- of these Bose headphones over the years, WTF is that! And I just give them to someone to sell because I really like my $5 headphones which rock it out [though I may be replacing them soon, and/or having a contest at #CXIParty for these badboys!
    • There is no shame in simply telling them that you have no interest in their product and just want to win their prize, but do give them the benefit of the doubt they may have some new technology they’re going to introduce you to!   They’re real people too! Oh and sidebar. I love Intel and all, but their games of ‘talk to 5 people and you could win a pen’ sorry guys, that is annoying to no end, do not play their games ;)
  • I look forward to each of you winning an iPad or whatever happens to be the ‘toy’ of the show this year.  Maybe some kind of Android tablet [yea, as if! ;)]
• Visit the EMC Booths to WIN
  • Disclaimer: This not a shill to get you to visit EMC booths
    • *I* Cannot win prizes from EMC it’s sad but I cannot, *shakes fist in the air* but YOU can.   There’s one thing I’ve noticed from attending conferences like VMworld or EMCworld where EMC has a large presence, and that is OMG EMC GIVES AWAY A LOT OF SWAG.   If they have 10 booths giving away iPads, that’s –10- different chances to win an iPad, OMG SERIOUSLY!?!  Yea you can imagine my dismay that I am unable to win one of those.  But you… you still can.   Which is why I encourage you to visit the hell out of these booths “Run a lab, enter to win an iPad” “Listen to us talk jibber jabber, enter to win an iPad” “blah blah blah, win an iPad” I mean seriously!   GET IN THERE!  I clearly won’t be doing that because *I* cannot win one being that I work here, but you have that opportunity like no other!   I would call out OTHERs who do this, but no other vendor has this vested interest in Apple Products as much as we do, so take advantage of it :)
• Don’t be afraid to ask if you can attend the Party
  • You ever go to ~10 Parties in one night? It can be exhausting.   My Party going started a looooong time ago while attending Microsoft TechEd conferences.  You know how I found out about the parties originally? I asked.   Just ask, and don’t hesitate to ask OTHERS if they know of any good parties going on.   I personally will see someone standing at a trade show looking like a lost lamb ready to be consume by wolves and will say to them, “You look like you don’t know there are any parties going on!” Typically they won’t, and I’ll hook them up with various parties.  Why?  Because you deserve to go to a damn party!
  • You know how the parties work [In spite of how this is operated by the Marketing People of these orgs which is a total fail]   Typically they will invite CUSTOMERS to their parties as an appreciation for them being a customer.  But you, you’re not a customer yet are you.  No, you’re not.  You may not know enough about the product, hell you may know everything and are signing off on it next week, but they don’t know that… No… they’re planning to invite customers because they don’t know the prospects.   Well, every single one of you can ALWAYS be a customer, and damn straight you should attend a rocking party as a result!
    • Caveats: Community Parties like VMUG parties or #CXIParty don’t care if you’re a customer, partner, competitor or ninja.   So ask, or if you’re afraid to ask, find me and I’ll ask for you.   Many of them will have ‘full venues’ but that has never stopped me before, grin.
• OMG I WANT TO ATTEND THESE 3 SESSIONS ALL RUNNING AT THE SAME TIME.
  • You guys know that the sessions are available after the fact in video+PDF format, right? Seriously? You know that right?!?!  Don’t kill yourself to attend a session which is full or 2 1/2 miles from where you are that you forgo eating just to get there on time….
• What sessions to attend EVERY time!
  • I know my friends who are presenting the sessions are going to hate me for this… but hey, that’s why this is a ‘trick’ and not a tip ;)
    • If you KNOW or are fairly certain to believe there will be ‘interaction’ during the session. SHOW UP.  You cannot get interaction from a recorded version
    • If the session has something EXTREMELY applicable to something you’re doing right now, and also YOU have specific questions you want to ask about it, Definitely show up.  Hitting up a speaker after a session can make the difference between success and OMG WTF WHERE IS THE NUMBER FOR SUPPORT!!!
    • If the session has something you can win?! [yea that happens sometimes] … I encourage you to show up ;)
    • If the session has total a ROCK STAR presenting like Scott Lowe, Duncan Epping, Chad Sakac, or Dave McCrory – Run do not WALK to get to those sessions and make sure you’re signed up early for them!
• Sit with people you don’t know during lunch, and talk
  • WTF is this blasphemy!  Okay fine, sit with maybe ONE friend and a whole new table at lunch.   How often do you get to meet ‘likeminded people’ who clearly share a mutual interest.  No this isn’t some cruel and sick speed dating thing, this is VMworld where people are clearly there for a lot of the same reasons.  Take advantage of that and talk to them about what THEY’RE doing. It may be the same, they may be doing something OMG so cool you’ll wonder why you’re not doing that!   You know… fun stuff like that!    So talk, talk, talk!   These might be the only opportunities you get to meet these folks, in this informal setting because talking during sessions is impolite!
• Make 5 new friends
  • A charter I have for #CXIParty is you must make 5 new friends.   You’re at a conference with LOTS of people who share your same interest, the least you can do is MAKE A FRIEND.   It’s not that hard, it’s a true bonding experience and a great opportunity to build lasting relationships!   And if you cannot forge a solid friendship out of it, the least you can do is meet some new folks, maybe have a new ‘acquaintance’ that’s cool right? Don’t want to infringe upon your strict ‘no friends’ policy! I know how GRC works! ;)
• …What do you mean people there are HIRING?!?!
  • If you’ve read anything I’ve written in the past, surprisingly for as popular and fun as Virtualization may be… there are still LOTS of opportunity for people with those skill-sets.  Oh, and did you know that many of them will be HERE at the show looking to HIRE or network with those folks to hire later? yea, crazy, right?   Also if you’re in that market looking to BE hired, let me know and I can hook you up.  I personally know MANY of the folks looking to hire people so I can make sure those doors are swung open, maybe you can even interview there at the show! [Please refer back to dress-code as it applies to interviewing then ;)]
• Only carry what you need
  • This is a general ‘pick-pocket’ city rule.     If you have a wallet with ‘x’ number of credit cards, pick the ones you need MOST and leave the rest somewhere safe [At home, or in the hotel/safe]  To re-enforce that, let me give you an example of things you NEED and things you DONT need
    • NEED: Credit Card, Cash, ID [Passport, State ID or License, not ALL three with you though] Insurance Card, BUSINESS CARDS, Players club card from the Casino! – Just give them your ID and they’ll make one for you…  If you’re going to be playing at ALL get one ;)
    • DON’T NEED:  Library Card, Membership card to some arbitrarily local thing which doesn’t apply here, blah blah blah
  • Now I want you to seriously think about it.  If you lost your wallet how many of these items would it HURT to lose and how many would be ANNOYING to lose.  Losing ID sucks as does losing credit cards and cash, but losing the wallet normally makes that happen.  The other misc don’t need items is just insult to injury in annoyance.   Ride thin and keep only what you need on you.
• Write your name in something you own
  • Once upon a time [okay a few months ago] I got a phone call from the Las Vegas airport asking if I had lost my Notebook there.  Having not been to Vegas in some time, I did not.   They had found a notebook which had MY business card in it!   I knew there was an internal VMware meeting going on that week and I knew who I had given my card to, so I took down the information and tracked down who the notebook belonged to.    If his name was WRITTEN in the notebook or similarly on whatever item it was, they could have contacted him directly.   The point is… take ownership of what belongs to you and you have a vested interest in :)
• Enjoy yourself!
  • This conference is about you.  Not the Partners/Vendors/Sponsors [As much as they may want to think it is] nor even the speakers because if they had no one to speak to, they’d just be people on a podium!   Get out there, ASK the questions you want to ask because people do want to hear from you.   LEARN what you want to learn, WIN what you can win :)   And Enjoy yourself!

See you at #CXIParty and throughout the entire show! Be sure to come say hi of course! :)

#CXIParty at VMworld hosted by @CXI and @NexusMN – After Welcome Reception

But it is time to get serious now.   John is often portrayed in the community as Chewbacca, but unbeknownst to popular belief he is actually a tad more related to John Solo.    Although even through this brief history of time, I’d like to share with you my impressions of John over the years, how I’ve seen him and the community grow to foster what is today one of the most well formed and well knit communities on the globe.

John Troyer – The Man, the Legend

In the beginning.   There was investment into social media by VMware.    Yea that is how I remember it.  The first time I saw John Troyer was there were these little live interviews going on at VMworld broadcast to the world via uStream.   It was a very adhoc activity… not officially or formally planned, very thrown together, filled with problems, antics and everything you might expect, but all at the same time, amazing!   Everything really seemed to come a fold in 2008 (Maybe VMware decided to really start investing in the community in 2008… or make John went full stream ahead, either way, VMworld Videos, VMware Communities Podcasts, everything started to unfold from there)

All of a sudden.    VMware had a face.   An adorable face, a human voice, someone who can roll with the punches of trying out new things have problems with people flushing toilets on live recorded podcasts and STILL come out of it stronger! [BTW John, it doesn’t classify as just doing your job especially when you do it so well :)]

John Troyer – Just doing my job

As we got to know John just like we got to know VMware we became to notice various similarities.    WOW [VMware/John] helps me do my work easier!  I no longer feel I’m alone because I suddenly know of others out there just like me! A true sense of community started to form with John as the catalyst.     A little backstory. *I* [CXI] have been working with Virtualization [VMware and others] since VMware was founded as a company.   And honestly, it wasn’t until you got involved John that it went from just being ‘Technology’ to actually having a ‘Community’ If that is just doing your job, point 1: Well done! but it didn’t stop there.    It’s one thing to be responsive and reactive to someone within the Virtualization communities needs, but time and time again you would go above and beyond.    In fact it almost felt like ‘above and beyond’ was the defacto norm; and that is definitely true because of what a total Rockstar you are, character, personality and beyond.    I’ve seen more lives change as a result of interaction with you than you may ever realize [Though hopefully you’ll get to glean and learn some of stories out of these blog posts :)]

Where your Job ends and where John Troyer begins

3 Tips you’re doing your job well

• The virtualization community continues to grow and prosper
• Through education and awareness the mission of VMware focused virtualization is spread
• VMware initiated go to market strategies are executed on

3 things John Troyer has done instead

• Built and fostered not just a community, but a family of virtualization focused overlays; bridging the storage, networking and security communities to Virtualization, even in spite of your own efforts it continues to grow!
• Encouraged individuals and created through no fault of your own [though highly influenced] not only a huge stack of bloggers and often self-made rock stars, but Authors.   Helping foster some of the largest publisher stake investment and drive in a technology ever.
• Brought together the industries best virtualization experts under the guise of vExperts – which the program itself would never have gotten where it is today without your Guidance, Direction, and Brand ownership.   [Some might say that’s a VMware success, but without you in the seat, it could just have easily fallen off like similar programs under other company offerings]
• Side bar: The vExpert Program continues to receive industry recognition and is seen as a OMG MUST HAVE Accolade.    And that accolade is DIRECTLY changing the lives of those in the virtualization community.  Feel free to do an analysis of just the careers of those who hold the designation and what directions and impact it has made on them as people and their future [I’ve done the analysis. Result: John you rock! ;)]

So, when I would have discussions with you and you’d be saying “Oh, I’m just doing my job”.  Yea I too am just doing my job, and we all work when we’re desperately under the weather and our voices get so low and deep we can rock it out with some Barry Manilow Karaoke.   But merely ‘doing your job’ ‘doing a great job’ and where the “John Troyer” effect come into play make the difference between Lightning and Lightning Bugs!

The John Troyer Effect

I want you to know John that I’ve put a lot of time and research in to this and you are an absolute rock star.  The virtualization community would NOT be where it is in strength, numbers and closeness today if it were not for you.   This is not just some mild passing idea or concept, this is a FACT.    Virtualization will come and go, but John Troyer, the connections you foster and grow, the way you enable others to prosper and grow on their own.   Your going above and beyond and BEYOND the call of duty (All claiming it to be in the name of just doing your job)   You my friend ARE Virtualization and the Cloud.     You Life vMotion simply admins and architects and bring them to a transformational journey where they come out of it a better person, a stronger communitarian, and they begin to continue to pay it forward carrying the cycle above and beyond again.

So on behalf of the virtualization, storage, security and cat ears wearing community.  We love you John and we cannot thank you enough for every single thing you do each and every day!    Keep up the OMG amazing everything and have a Happy Birthday!

And last but not least a few words in the heat of the storm.

A pleasing view, esp. one seen through a long, narrow opening:

Isn’t that stunning… beautiful. If a word could describe something so sincere, so true, so… Elegant.   Unfortunately, THAT was not the definition that Mac OSX LION resembles.  Instead it describes the recently more appropriate and updated definition of Vista.

A software release leaving you to WTF how Performance and Operational considerations from your audience are thrown in the gutter.  One clearly defined and described by how much better performance you will get on the SAME hardware with a future bulkier version, restoring functionality you stripped from our cold dead hands.

Whoa! Why all the hatred?! THIS IS THE BEST RELEASE AND VERSION OF OSX EVER, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, IT MAKES MY MACBOOK JUST LIKE MY IPHONE. Yea. Thanks. Really wanted THAT functionality.    Do you know why I have an iPhone? It’s portable and I use it on the GO.  Do you know why I use my MacBook in Pre-LION terms? Because it lets me do things like THIS:

I had just come back from a reboot so I clearly didn’t have ALL 16 of my windows activated.  Oh and for you Forum Douches who say “WHY DO YOU NEED 16 WINDOWS”. It’s not my fault you can barely find a use for a single window.   I did find the adoption of 16 separate isolated instances a lot more efficient to having DEDICATED machines to do my work [What I would have to do previously]  So Apple first of all I want to thank you for taking this Primitive concept of 3D-ish worlds aligned to matrices and replacing it with this clearly ‘evolutionary’ serial mode.

I’m not even getting into how various members of us have.  Performance problems like cited in the fine Louis Gray’s article Lion’s Big Bite Took the Air Out of My Sails. Nor how when you scroll from side to side you get this weird visual redraw rendering problem which for some of us has been causing severe headaches.   Yea, really.  Thanks for that.   I do miss my FAN turning off when I’m doing a lot of things, vs right now where it’s on with LITTLE application running time… thanks for that too!   You know what’s great about Mission Control though? the clear ability to disseminate between what is going on in ONE window vs ANOTHER window.  Yea I’m glad we got rid of Spaces because the clarity it brought to my productivity made me work too well and get too much done.

I know there are a lot of Great Write-ups about how LION is Amazing and how Mission Control is great. Usually written up by people who clearly use ONE window at a time and at best will run 3 applications simultaneously.   For those of us with on average 12 of our 16 windows busy, and find that we’ll hit the memory wall WAY before the CPU wall, LION is a serious piece of crap.

Here’s to hoping we get numerous Patch Tuesdays to resolve this Vista-like experience. Thanks. WTF. SERIOUSLY. WTF.

Oh and feel free to hate. Or even encourage suggestive ways how I can resolve issues and experiences I have had here.  I’m game to resolve these things.  However I know I’m not alone. :(

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  * Twitter handle (if you have one)
  The Rules
  There aren’t too many rules, but there are a few, they are:
• 1. The contest is open to anyone in the world, however, the air fare is only covered up to $500 US dollars.
  2. You must be able to attend VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada (conference pass only valid for the US conference). I don’t want this pass to go to waste.
  3. Only one valid entry per person.
  4. Contest entry must be received by Sunday July 24th 11pm EST, no entries will be considered after 11pm EST.
  * The winner will be randomly drawn Sunday July 24th, notified via email and announced Monday morning July 25th on vDestination.com.

So, whoa, wait, what?! What is Greg doing? He’s giving you a chance to go to VMworld all expenses paid ?! OMG HOW DID HE DO THIS?!

I feel it appropriate to call out All of the Sponsors who helped make this a reality for Greg and for you (the impending winners!)

The Sponsors and The Details

Symantec stepped up to sponsor the full conference pass to include both breakfast and lunch, the Solutions Exchange floor, lots of great sessions and more. This will mean the world to the winner, we can’t thank them enough!

Veeam generously offered up one of their rooms for 5 nights, starting Sunday August 28th and checking out Friday September 2, incredible, thanks Veeam!

Xsigo contacted Greg immediately upon hearing about my idea of paying it forward, and offered to cover up to $500 for air fare to Las Vegas, thank you so much Xsigo, this is the cherry on top!

As one extra added point – Those of you who win/attend will get a guaranteed ticket/place at #CXIParty on Monday night, the most raucous self-hosted and randomly sponsored event at VMworld you’ll ever experience ;)   So go to THIS BLOG POST at vDestination.com and GET YOUR ENTRY IN, AND WIN!

I look forward to seeing you at VMworld in Vegas!

Ooh.. and here I’ll put in quotes the … “Marketing Slick” type of things how they perceive it to be.. and of course I’ll give you my honest impression following that as well, just to keep it real! :)

EMC Forum 2011: Cloud Meets Big Data
Chicago – Hyatt Regency O’Hare
Tuesday, July 19, 2011; 8:00AM – 4:30PM

Learn more & register here

Join us at the EMC Forum where you’ll learn how cloud computing is transforming IT and discover new ways to accelerate the journey to your cloud for increased IT efficiency and greater business agility.  You’ll also learn how Big Data is transforming business and changing the world.

 

 

• Learn about the latest trends and developments in information infrastructure including cloud computing and big data.
• Understand the new roles and processes required to drive lasting change in your organization.
• Discover market-leading solutions that combine hardware, software, and services to meet the needs of any size business.
• Connect with leading cloud and big data experts and network with your peers.

Make your plans now to join EMC and our partners along with other IT and business leaders.  Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how you can transform your IT organization, transform your business, and accelerate your career.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Sujal Patel, Founder of Isilon® and President of EMC Isilon Storage Division

In 2001 Patel founded Isilon with the vision that big data would soon necessitate a shift away from traditional storage architectures and toward a new, scale-out paradigm. Today this vision has become a reality as scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) has emerged as the de facto storage platform for big data. Patel continues to lead Isilon’s business in enabling its customers to turn big data challenges into even bigger opportunities.

My Honest Take

I’ve been to these things in the past, and let me tell you they know how to hit it out of the park!  Whether through direct engagement (Conversations with peers, partners, vendors, friends) Attending sessions (expertise, the Q/A, others experiencing your same kind of problems) or just taking it all in; you will walk away from this event with a lot more than you came to it with!   Personally, I would find myself engaged in so many conversations on every topic under the sun (Or Cloud?! … Bad pun! :)) that it’d take me literally hours just to walk a few feet.    I honestly look forward to this level and type of engagement when it comes back around, fun times are had by all, and the raffle prizes? I cannot win them, but they’re pretty sweet! Definitely play the game ;)

I encourage you to attend, and at the very least you can say hi to me! (Whoa! Vanity ploy! giggle :))  I’m always happy to discuss…   frankly any topic :)

Learn more & register here

Disclaimer: I try to quantify the scenario which leads up to this particular version of the error and a quick and hearty resolution.  If your situation does not meet this particular criteria.. you may want to go back to searching and trying the other options! Unfortunately, this has hit me too many times for me to let it go unpublished! :)

As with most things, I try to be as SPECIFIC as possible so you can get to the point and solve (even with this verbose dialogue ;))

Standard Operation

There you are, just sitting along using VMware Fusion with whatever your VM type happens to be, and then either you close the lid on your mac, or your VM starts to suspend itself [Or you manually suspend it, doesn’t matter]   But wait.   The VM gets to 99% or so, but never officially ends/closes/suspends.   You cannot “resume” a VM which thinks it is still suspending, so you’re forced to do the following:

Killing VMware Fusion

Well, that seemed straightforward enough! Wham BAM! Process Killed, am I right?! [No. I’m not right ;)]

Internal Error

   You re-launch VMware Fusion, go to open up your VM and OMG IM GETTING INTERNAL ERROR WTF IS GOING ON HERE!

Some of you, first action you’ll take is to go into the VMware Fusion Package and start to remove .LCK files and everything under the sun because you’re panicked! AHHH PANIC!   Well, panic no longer!   There is hope!

What causes Internal Error

If you open up Terminal and take a look at your /var/log/system.log you’ll find the following is happening {cat /var/log/system.log}

Jun 24 12:15:29 CXI [0x0-0x86e86e].com.vmware.fusion[47446]: VMware Fusion Error:
Jun 24 12:15:29 CXI [0x0-0x86e86e].com.vmware.fusion[47446]: Failed to get exclusive lock on the configuration file. Another VMware process might be running using this configuration file.

Recovering from Internal Error

There are two quick ways to get out of this.   One is a reboot [lame!] And the other is to kill the running instance using kill

Use PS to find the process in question [ps –axwww | grep vmware]

Then use Kill to kill the process in question! [kill –9 ProcessID]

Post-Mortem

Hopefully you found this useful and if not… I’m sure I’ll run into this situation AGAIN and forget how I solved it, and come back to this blog post of my own in order to correctify the situation! :)  If you find this useful at all, let me know so I can gauge just how many of us experience this kind of pain :)

Take care and Good Luck! :)

Okay, on to the show! OMG THERE WAS A LOT ANNOUNCED! I know some of you were like ‘How do you follow up that whole Record Breaking thing earlier in the year with 40 some odd announcements. (I forget the exact number… it wasn’t 42, which would have made sense ;))”   Yea, and I’m not looking to basically do a repeat of what was already done and said elsewhere; often quite well in delivery.  No.  This is going to be a very unique perspective on a few things which happened at the show.   For the sake of vanity (Because I’m clearly so vain ;)) I’ll do a little coverage of the most rockingest party #cxiparty, absolute rockstar!   But also, a little message which may have gotten lost in the gist of things, and what I see as an internal AND external direction going forward, citing me to refer to 2011 as OMG YEAR OF THE VCE!

OMFG #CXIPARTY OMFG

Did you attend?   If you did, I’m sure you’re left saying OMFG THE VIEW. or ZOMG THERE WERE SO MANY COOL PEOPLE THERE. or WHY IS CXI TALKING ABOUT SHOES.     Yea baby.  That’s what this was about! Networking, and primarily shoes… :)

So for you naysayers out there who say “Whoa, how can a vegan who doesn’t drink throw quite possibly the BEST PARTY ON THE PLANET”  That’s damn straight! For those of who you could not make it (I received your apologies, due to sickness, other conflicts, etc) and the rest of you; truly missed out on an EPIC and LEGENDARY event.  Relationships were formed which will last forever!   Everyone had a great time and I made some great friends with the exception of the AVNET guy who was BLITZ I think even before he got there! Hey what can you do!    (I guess I could throw a follow-up party at #VMworld ;))

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my sponsors who helped make this possible though!  Nexus IS, Oxygen Cloud, and Storage Staffing!

Between Keith Norbie @keithnorbie from Nexus, Julia Mak @juliamak from Oxygen Cloud and Shelton and Joe from @storagestaffing I was able to provide you with refreshments which made the party that much more enjoyable!  Be sure to check them out, especially if you attended the party!   Oh, as a side note, I’d also like to call out some good friends of mine who helped bring some added cred to the party!

• Rockstar SQL GOD Denny Cherry @mrdenny
• OMG Super Star Chuck Hollis @chuckhollis
• PHD God of FCoE J Metz @jmichelmetz
• NerdHerd Crew – Sean Thulin @sthulin, Luigi Danakos @nerdblurt and Matthew Brender @mjbrender
• The one the only Brian Deloria @storagewtf
• Big Data king Koset Surakomol @koset
• Truth in IT madman W. Curtis Preston @wcpreston

If you are not included in this list, it doesn’t mean you don’t matter; it simply means I finished the list and you still do matter very much! That’s what the ‘who attended’ list looks like in regard!  If you attended and enjoyed it, please provide feedback! I’ve considered doing a surveymonkey on ‘what worked well, what didn’t work well’ etc sort of details.  You let me know either way, as I have complete and total plans of doing the EXACT same thing at VMworld in a few months; so just consider that ;)

OMG VCE!!??!

Okay, at this point if you’re a customer you probably don’t want to read what I’m about to say.  This content is really written to be positioned towards internal sales people, field sales and partners.   I’m not going to STOP you from reading it, but bear in mind you are not my audience! ;)

Hey guys! I think we’re alone.   WOW OMG DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID? In the event that you missed it. Just wow.   The kind of traction, currency, what is available today and what is coming tomorrow (incremental in existing investments) in what VCE is offering.  Wow, just an unequivocal WOW!

I’ve ALWAYS had intimate knowledge of what has been going on; (Past, Present and Future) but what is already public domain knowledge and how things stack up against what I’ll refer to as “competitive converged infrastructure solutions” so as not to call any one out in particular.  Our stack from end to end, from engineering on the floor (I wish I could get you some videos of the actual building process, Sigma whatever all that stuff and the serious hardening and baking it goes through)  and to the point of delivery on your customers floor.  If you are NOT positioning or being able to find a use-case for the VCE – Vblock with it’s magical EMC, Cisco and VMware combo ; you’re doing something fundamentally wrong!   I encourage you then to reach out to me directly (I do NOT work for VCE mind you, or a team which is focused exclusively on Vblocks, but the message is so simple, we can knock it out!)

So the lessons to walk away from this is; 2011 is NOT the year of Converged Infrastructure.   It IS the Year of VCE.    No question, no doubt about it.   You will see things shift, shape, mold and beyond in the coming months; no that doesn’t mean there are more things coming that you need to wait for, quite the opposite.  It’s there.  Start working with the tools available to you today.  I don’t see a reason you shouldn’t be able to grasp that!  Get out there and do whatever it is you do! ;)

Sales, Partners, whoever you can stop reading now! And the rest of my audience feel free to come back!

While that was a little vague, to tell you the truth… I want to get this published, and I should just do a video/audio recording of the whole messaging around this because I don’t want to type it up right now, the OMG passion really comes out when spoken (At least when I speak it ;))  Time to finish this up as I’m in a rocking VPLEX session with a VP! Later guys, and see you at VMworld ;)

Okay, so if that wasn’t bad enough… I even created an Eventbrite Invite for this event! Check it out at http://cxiparty.eventbrite.com/

Let’s get the lowdown, the lay of the land, the scoop as it were; I’ll quote from the invite briefly, and then go into the REAL Details! :)

Are you going to be at EMCWorld and always hear about all of these amazing parties which are either full, or you have too many to choose from and not sure where to go?  Well, look no further; in my eyes, you are ALL VIPs and I’m hosting a VIP Party at this years EMCWorld!

Theory has it I may also be having a SWEET VIP Suite for this event, and if I don’t.. I’ll still have a pretty damn sweet suite (say that three times fast!)

I called the hotel.  I HAVE THE ROCKING SWEET ASS SUITE!!!

With that said, YOU ARE INVITED, OMG LETS EXCEED MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY! Yea, that’s the plan.

Sit down, eat, drink or whatever and talk with some of the best and amazing folks of Industry (food/drink will be organized based upon number of attendees)

Oh, Interop folks? Yea you’re invited if you ask ;)

The where and the when?

This will be at the Cosmopolitan hotel – Exact room number to be determined when I get on the groudn and check into the hotel.

MONDAY MAY 9TH 2011 – COSMOPOLITAN HOTEL

Follow #cxiparty hashtag for more details as to the exact WHERE and the WHEN – Please do sign up for ‘tickets’ so I have an idea of what our occupancy looks like.

Feel free to invite a guest, colleague, customer, whatever.

This is a networking event or something to that effect, so come enjoy yourselves! Let’s make the first official day of EMCWORLD a VIP Experience for all to enjoy!

Oh, FYI: If you want to "sponsor" which is a nice way of saying buy drinks, food, or even demo your tech/gear/whatever; let me know and everyone will GLADLY appreciate that, and I’ll be sure to make gracious mentions of you, and who knows… countless video interviews, etc :)

And if you need to reach me, feel free to email, twitter or txt me.

christopher.kusek@pkguild.com
@cxi on twitter
630-362.1320

See you there!

We are going to be partying in this damn nice looking suite which will more than accommodate most of us if not all of us… Yea that’s the ticket! ;)

1200 SQ Foot, with 480 SQ Ft Private Wrap-around Terrace, Panoramic views of Las Vegas Skyline; and the top minds in industry :)

So, if you’re looking to talk to some of the finest of the finest, enjoy yourself in a relaxed yet hectic atmosphere with some absolutely amazing networking, fun and adventure, the party doesn’t stop at 11 but I needed to figure out ‘some’ time claim it ends.  You’ll make connections which will stick with you for your entire life.  So come on down, enjoy yourself and let’s rock this out!

Vendors are highly welcome, customers especially.  #Vendors are also welcome to Sponsor and pay for food/drink and everyone wins ;)

This Monday night is all about YOU the attendee, so come on down, promote, share, so on and so forth and be sure to sign up at #CXIParty so I know who is coming! Guests are allowed!

FUD means FEAR, UNCERTAINTY, DOUBT

Although there is often a ‘spin’ on that whereby the person delivering the data isn’t “Lying” but also isn’t telling the whole truth, that version of FUD I refer to as:  FACTS Usually Deceptive

With the very recent topical discussion in my most recent blog post here comes a breakdown of how you can tell FUD is in play if you’re not sure.

FEAR

“If we don’t do it, the terrorists win!”    Yea, that quote comes up at times.    It’s simply saying you need to take action because you’re afraid of a possible outcome, it doesn’t have to be a LIKELY outcome, just one which MIGHT be possible often reinforced by soft words, because soft words are feeling words and fear is a feeling (often gutteral and one our instincts leap upon)  The old adage “no one ever got fired for buying IBM” is driven out of not wanting to lose your job so just buy IBM.  That term has been replaced over the years with “fill in blank of popular company name” and it stands true, typical FUD tactic.

UNCERTAINTY

What do you mean by uncertainty? “They’re a small company! They might not be around when YOU need support” or “Are you sure it works the way they say it does?” When these statements are in fact TRUE, absolutely staunchly support and stand by it, a perfect example, being worried about an earthquake taking down your datacenter in California is a real concern and falls in line with certainty, but fearing that same earthquake affecting your NYC data center or somewhere NOT on a major fault line?  Yea, push that Uncertainty in!    Don’t let it get the best of you, uncertainty like the rest of the FUD principles will often involve soft language of ‘are you sure’ followed by “no really… are you sure?” only the real veterans can be comfortable saying “Are you certain?” because I don’t know about you, but if I say 8000 LUNs are supported… I want to be CERTAIN of that FACT and be able to talk about it, and not “Oh yea, as many as you want! yea sure whatever you need!”    It’s important that not only are you CERTAIN your vendors are telling you the truth, but you are also confident and certain about what your needs and capabilities are.    Which brings us to…

DOUBT

Doubt springs eternal focused around lack of confidence, being unsure and uncertain, often leaving things suspect.   If you’re not afraid of it, and you’re not unsure of… you might be doubtful of it!    And by putting just a little doubt in your mind you’ll start to become unsure, and maybe, just maybe… be afraid and fear usually brings about action!  They don’t call it Fight or Flight for no particular reason … (Is that a flight of the conchords reference?!)

Do not find yourself all-consuming falling pressure to the effects of FUD.   I’m a big fan of FACTS, often validated and cited which can be backed up by references as well, as opposed to “Yea I totally got this paper from this guy” or “I read it in a one-off blog post which is otherwise irrelevant”  While these are all EXCELLENT sources of data sometimes… they’re downright lies, or are just wrong – But bad data can breed bad decisions, so make your decisions and trust is king as well.    Keep the FUD out!   This has been a public service advisory on keeping our streets FUD Free! :)

So I thought “Well Hey! I’d like to understand the challenges associated with NetApp’s Deduplication! Let’s get down to business!”

I click the little link which takes me to THIS PAGE where I fill out a form to receive my “Complimentary White Paper” ooh, yay!   And let me tell you, other than the abusive form (Oh lovely… who makes people fill out FORMS for content.. yea I know, I know..) this thing looked pretty damn sweet!   FYI: By sweet, I mean it looks so professional, so nice, like a solid Marketing Group got their hands on this and prettified it! I mean look at it!

Tell me that doesn’t look damn professional! Hell, I’d even at first pass with NO knowledge, take everything contained within that document at face value as the truth, I mean cmon let’s cover the facts here.

1. This whitepaper looks SWEET! It’s all logo’d out and everything too!
2. It’s only 8 pages; that speaks of SOLID content including not only text, but pictures and CITING evidence! Sweet right?!
3. And you said it; right there on the first page is says “BUSINESS WHITE PAPER” Tell me that does not spell PRO all over it.

So what I’m thinking is, clearly this has been vetted by a set of experts who have validated the data and ensured that it is correct; or at least within the context of the information consider the footer of this document claims to have been published January 2011.  So this CLEARLY should be current.

Yea… No. Not Quite.  Quite the opposite? I guess it may be time to explain though! But before I go there, Disclaimer time!

HP’s Disclaimer at the bottom of the document:

© Copyright 2011 Hewlett?Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

My Disclaimer for what you’re about to read:

I do not work for HP and I have nothing against HP.  I do not work for NetApp and have nothing against NetApp.  Yea I work for EMC – Wait, aren’t you the competition?! WHY ARE YOU RAGGING ON HP FOR THEIR POORLY WRITTEN PAPER?! I think that falls in line because, when *I* Publish something attacking NetApp’s deduplication I do the homework and validate it (Except for when I quote external third parties… Yea I don’t do that anymore because… you end up with a mess like this document that HP has released ;))  OMG Seriously?! Seriously HP!? You’ve spurned me to write this because you upset my competitive nature.   With that said, let’s get down to brass tacks.     Secondary Disclaimer:  I had forgotten I read this originally when this post came out HP Launches an Unprovoked Attack on NetApp Deduplication and you know what? between seeing it circulate AGAIN and having me fill out a form… yea Sean following bad data with bad data is #fail either way.    Tertiary Disclaimer; a lot of the ‘concerns’ and ‘considerations’ addressed in the HP Paper which they’re claiming StoreOnce is the bees knees can solve, are actually readily solved with Industry Best of Breed Avamar and Data Domain, let alone leveraging VNX Deduplication and Compression, but I won’t go there because that is outside of the boundaries of this particular post :)

The paper has been broken down into the following sections; “Challenge #, blah blah blah, maybe cited evidence, Takeaway” I plan to… give you the gist of the paper without quoting it verbatim (that’s like the paper itself!) but also not removing the context, and sprinkling commentary and sarcasm as needed ;)

Challenge #1:  Primary deduplication: Understanding the tradeoffs

This section has a lot of blah blah blah in it, but I’ll quote two areas which have CITED references;

While some may find this surprising given the continuing interest in optimization technologies, primary deduplication can impose some potentially significant performance penalties on the network.1

Primary data is random in nature. Deduplicating data leads to various data blocks being written to multiple places. NetApp’s WAFL file system exasperates the problem by writing to the free space nearest to the disk head. Reading the data involves recompiling these blocks into a format presentable to the application. This data reassembly overhead mandates a performance impact, commonly 20–50 percent.2

I particularly love this section for two reasons; one it’s VERY solid in its choice of words “can impose” not will impose, but it’s like “maybe?!?” This it not a game of “can” I have a cookie vs “may I have a cookie”, this is a white paper right? Give me some facts to work off of guys.   Oh, I said two reasons didn’t I.  Well, here is Reason #2 – Here’s the citing! [1 End Users Hesitate on Primary Deduplication; TheInfoPro TIP Insight, October 21, 2010]  I’ll chalk up to the possibility that I am clearly an IDIOT but I was unable to find the “Source” of this data.  So… soft language… inability to validate a point, sweet!

But wait, let me discuss the second citing for a second, yea let me do that.    I won’t go into WTF they’re saying in how they’re citing this as this is not an extensive and deep analysis of how WAFL and Data ONTAP operate but I decided “Whoa excellent backing data! Let me checking out that citing shall I?!”  So I go to the source [2 Evaluator Group, August, 2010] and I find… I can pay, $1999 to get this data!   Excellent! First idea which came to mind, “I should write stupid papers and then sell the data at MASSIVELY high costs.. nah I’ll stick to factual blog posts”   Yea, so I’m 0 for 2 in being able to “Validate” whatever these sources happen to be sharing, I’m sure you’ll be in the same boat too.    Oh but the best part? Let’s take a moment and read the Take Away, shall we?!

Takeaway – Deduplication is often the wrong technology for data reduction of primary storage.

OMG SERIOUSLY? THAT IS SERIOUSLY YOUR TAKEAWAY?! It’s like a cake made up of layers of soft language, filled it with unverifiable sources.   And it’s not like this is even very GOOD FUD, it’s just so… Ahh!!!!!! A number of us (non-netappians) got so pissed off when we read this, I mean SERIOUSLY?!?

Relax.. Relax, it can’t get any worse than that right?

Challenge #2: Fixed vs. variable chunking

Wow this reads like an advertisement for Avamar.  But seriously, this for the most part only discusses the differences between Fixed and Variable chunking, more educational than anything.  Not a whole lot for me to discuss other than noting the similarities in their message to the Industry Leading Avamar.

Takeaway – Using variable chunking allows HP StoreOnce D2D solutions to provide a more intelligent and effective approach for deduplication.

Wow Christopher, you’re getting tame.. you let them slide on that one!

Challenge #3: Performance issues and high deduplication ratios

NetApp suffers performance issues with high deduplication ratios; something NetApp engineers said on a post to the NetApp technical forum.3

NetApp is so concerned about the performance of their deduplication technology that Chris Cummings, senior director of data protection solutions for NetApp told CRN customers must acknowledge the “chance of performance degradation when implementing the technology” should they turn on the technology.4

Okay, sweet! Let’s rock this out! Not only do they have CITED sources of this data (You know I love it when I have data to refer to!) but they even provide embedded links so I can click to go directly to the data! (WOOHOO!)  And like any good detective… I did visit those links.   It was upon visiting those two links that two things came back to me. “Hmm, Chris Cummings quote from 2008.   Hmm, Forum conversation from 2009…” … Yea I was still AT NetApp during those two periods, OMG SERIOUSLY HP YOU’RE QUOTING DATA FROM 3 OR MORE YEARS AGO?!?! How can you NOT expect me to put that in caps?    Let’s take a little journey down almost ANY product or dev company for a moment… I’d like to visit VMware in this particular scenario.

“VMware is great for Virtualization applications, Oh, but not Mission Critical Applications, it’s not stable for that.  Do not virtualize mission critical applications”.   Yea.  you can almost QUOTE me as having said that. When would I might have said that? Maybe when VMware had GSX out (Pre-ESX days) and our computers were run with the power of Potatoes.    Yea, if you have NO dev cycle and you do not invest in development [Oh no you didn’t make a slighted attack on the MSA/EVA! … No I didn’t ;)]   But if you STOP development all things we’re discussing can absolutely be true! #WeirdAnecdoteOver

So, while I firmly agree in 2008 and 2009 there WERE Performance concerns the likes of which were discussed in those forums.  Very viable, Deduplication in general was maturing, I’m sure every product out there had similar problems (Data Domain which scales based upon CPU – with 4 year old CPUs probably couldn’t perform as well as it can today with our super Nehelem’s etc)    You need to realize it is 2011, we’re in an entirely new decade.  Please stop quoting “Where’s the beef” or making “Hanging Chad” references like Ted Mosby in How I met your mother because while true at the time, not so applicable today.

Takeaway – HP typically finds 95 percent duplicate data in backup and deduplicates the data without impacting performance on the primary array.

I almost forgot the takeaway! (Hey! I’m verbose… You should know that by now!)   So… what I’m hearing you say is… Because HP doesn’t have a native Primary Storage Deduplication solution like NetApp or EMC… there is no performance impact on the primary array! Hooray! Yea… WTF SEAN?  I mean, I guess if I wanted I could repurpose most of this paper to position Avamar which seems a LOT more versatile than HP StoreOnce but okay, let’s move past!

I’m going to lump Challenge #4, #5 and #6 together because they have little to no place in this paper.

Challenge #4: One size fits all
Takeaway – Backup solutions are optimized for sequential data patterns and are purpose built. HP Converged Infrastructure delivers proven solutions. NetApp’s one?size?fits?all approach is ineffective in the backup and deduplication market.
Challenge #5: Backup applications and presentation
Takeaway – NetApp does not provide enough flexibility for today’s complex backup environments.
Challenge #6: Snapshots vs. backup
Takeaway – Snapshots are part of a data protection solution, but are incomplete by themselves. Long?term storage requirements are not addressed effectively by snapshots alone. HP Converged Infrastructure provides industry?leading solutions, including StoreOnce for disk?based deduplication for a complete data protection strategy.

I’m sorry, this is no contest and these points have absolutely no place in a paper educating on the merits and challenges of Deduplication with NetApp.  This definitely has it’s place in a whole series of OTHER competitive and FUD based documents, but not here, not today.

In summary…

Sean… (Yes I know your name!) You wrote this paper for HP right? As a Technologist and Technology Evangelist for that matter, I would absolutely LOVE to learn about the merits, the values, the benefits of what the HP StoreOnce D2D solution brings to market and can do to solve customers challenges.    But honestly man, this paper?   I COMPETE with NetApp and you pissed me off with your fud slinging.   I know *I* can piss off the competition when I sling (FACTS) so just think about it.  We’re a fairly small community, we all know each other for the most part.  (If you’re at Interop in a few weeks, I’ll be at EMCWorld, feel free to txt me and we can meet up and I won’t attack you, I promise ;))    Educate, but please do not release this kind of trash into the community… Beautiful beautiful trash mind you I mean everything I said about how amazingly this was presented, honestly BEST WHITE PAPER EVER. But that has got to be some of the worst most invalid content I’ve encountered in my life. (As applicable to how I stated it :))

I guess I should add a little commercial so someone doesn’t go WTF – I mean what I said above not only about the technologies which were discussed.    If you think StoreOnce is a great solution, then you’ll be floored by Avamar and Data Domain.  They’re not best of breed in the industry without good reason.

Feel free to comment as appropriate, it’s possible this has been exhausted in the past but SERIOUSLY I don’t want to see this again. ;)

Step one you say we need to talk, He walks you say sit down it’s just a talk, He smiles politely back at you, You stare politely right on through.

Disclaimer:  The following information is not under NDA, is not one persons opinion but rather that collected from others through interviews, emails, discussions under which none of us are sharing any proprietary data about the Class or the Exam.    I tread the line closely so read on!

Okay, I normally only Post-Mortem or expose an Exam, or a Class, but not too often do I get the liberty to expose the two together! With that being the case I want to start by educating you a little bit about this designation, certification and beyond so you don’t feel the need to go to multiple sources to learn it!

Okay this little chart stripped from the Brochure basically tells you:

• To prepare for the E20-001 exam you should take the Information Storage and Management 5 day course # MR-1CP-STF
• To prepare for the E20-018 exam you should take the Virtualized Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure 5 day course: MR-1CP-NPVICE

At this point I’d like to give you a little color on these particular courses and the respective requirements around them, etc.     First of all, unlike the VCP or other similar type exams, these courses are NOT required in order to sit the exam.   I wanted to make sure you understand that you CAN sit the exam cold.

(Yes I did sit the E20-001 Exam cold and passed – Industry experience has its advantages)

There is an AMAZING book which covers the content of the E20-001 course and exam – the ISM Book I’m not sure if I have a copy at all but I’ve heard from those who have used it is an excellent learning and educational aid!  So if you’re a self-studier this is definitely an EXCELLENT tool for you to use.

Because the E20-001 is a pre-requisite to sit/pass the E20-018 exam I wanted to ensure it got a little coverage, which I think is sufficient at this point :)   For what it is worth, if you have been in the industry a fair amount of time working with SANs, NASs, and other Information Storage Management stuff you should do fine, but ensure you are prepared, E20-001 is the cost of ENTRY beyond that comes the BIG GUNS!!!

Tell us about the Virtualized Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure course

Okay, okay guys I will.   Here it goes, the full in depth analysis of the VDC and Cloud course.    (Education folks, watch out this isn’t all from me either;))

I want to start by telling you very clearly and concisely that there is some GREAT content in the books, material, and other information provided both in the written as well as the lecturer (Your results may vary depending upon instructor)  Though irrespective of who your instructor is, the content in the book will stay the same and will be relevant to the Class, Cloud, VDCs and the Exam.   With that said, I need to differentiate a few things with the course pre-reqs

• According to the course materials we strongly recommend you have the following Certifications or knowledge/experience:
• Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA) – I bet CCNA would apply as well but I think that’s focused in the other exam/course
• VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
• Certified Information Systems Security Practitioner (CISSP)
• The EMCISM is required for the EMCCA Certification – I mentioned that above, so that’s not a surprise.
• Oh, and ITIL/PMP is NOT mentioned but those of you who are will find yourself wondering why not ;) (Not for content, but for presentation)

With THIS particular data points expressed I’d like to break you down into two groups:

Generalist/Novice/Acolyte:

If you fall into this area, maybe you have one or more of the certifications above or work in various cross-disciplines.  The courseware will VERY much apply to you.  You will want to pay attention, take rigorous notes; really get the best out of the networking, the instructors, the homework, read, read again, even do some labs to ensure you not only UNDERSTAND it, but you are fully committed to the material you are learning.   For what that is worth, the information is VERY general to the industry, Best Practices with a ‘little’ emphasis on some specific EMC technologies, but otherwise 70%+ of the material on the exam is of a VERY general nature.  The book should be your best friend and will be the answer to your success when it comes time to sit the exam and in life! :)

Guru/Expert/Ninja/Buddha/#IWroteTheExam:

Hey guys, how are you doing.   You know who you are.   You hold all of the certifications above or really have the information down solid.  Heck, you might have taken those exams 10 or more years ago; or even written some of the exam material in those times.   You also happen to be the same kind of folks who have helped write and spec the standards for where we are today; Chances are I know each of you personally. (grin).    Yea…  You won’t last in the class.  I’m sorry.   I’m totally supportive of you, completely in fact (You probably wrote your own internal cloud strategy for your business which is inline with the exam, or for your consultancy)  Definitely not going to survive in the class room.  You’ll say “Err, this is just lecture, I can read the book myself… err, I can write this book while I’m at it!)   I’m not being negative, I see your kind every day…. leave the class because you’re bored, not learning anything and at this point just want to ensure that you have what is REQUIRED to sit and pass the exam.    Good luck guys, you will DEFINITELY want to read the Exam section because that’ll make the difference of success and WTF?!?   

Whoa! Wait a minute! Isn’t that a massive generalization? Either you’re a student or a teacher? … No not really.   Seriously.    If you find yourself arguing with the teacher that they’re wrong and you cite evidence often referring to a presentation you’ve given at a conference? Yea… You’ll do fine :)

Now, I’d like to segue way a moment to some of the directly shared thoughts from an attendee of the course.  We’ll call him B (Not like B from Gossip Girl!)

B’s take on the Virtualized Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure Course

“B” is a Technical Manager in mid-size enterprise.   Experienced in implementing VMware over the years with EMC Storage, HP Servers, Cisco Networking.   Longtime expired member of the CCNA/CCDA club and recent VCP and EMCISM credential holder.   With the stated pre-reqs B felt it might be a stretch from his qualification but not too much of a concern  (If this sounds like you, you’re in good company!)

• Class started with going over pre-reqs, with CISSP added to the list; was surprised ITIL wasn’t there as discussed earlier
• Two classes were merged so each section was alternated between two instructors.   As the course is 95% lecture didn’t feel that mattered.
• The volume of content for the class is 2” thick of slides which unfortunately restricts discussion time available over 5 days.
• Module 1 leads you into an Introduction to Cloud Computing  – If you instructor reads this module to you verbatim – STOP THEM!!!
• Module 2 covers the VCP, ISM ad CCDA related material – Very much a review of the Pre-reqs – should be consolidated to focus on goals
• Module 3 kicked off VDC Design – This is where the meat of the course is, requires proper time to digest and discuss properly
• Module 4 focused on Governance, Risk and Compliance (Interesting Chapter) but due to time was rushed as was Managing Virtual Environments
• Module 5 focused on Cloud Services and Summary modules (Had to leave early so missed it)
• There is nothing earth-shattered in the course but there is a lot of GOOD Material!
• The labs are too vague leaving you spending more time trying to figure out what you’re supposed to do instead of discussing solutions

B’s Summary of the course

In summary, it’s a good course to show EMC’s "journey to the cloud".  I’d prefer less focus on the pieces (modules 1-2) and more focus on how to put the pieces together (modules 3-6).  The labs need refined to give more guidance so we can spend more time applying the knowledge rather than wondering what the designers of the course had in mind.  Given that this was the first class (I believe), I’d love to see how it changes over the next few sessions.

Well guys, what do you think of B’s take on the course?   I think his assessment was fairly accurately representation of what was going on, and equally what you might expect out of the class in its early stages.   To tell you the truth it can ONLY get better from this point.   I only briefly paraphrased what B had to say to preserve the original message but also not to call him directly unless he wants to be named :)  

Curious what the course looks like on the other side of the fence?   Here is the summary and breakdown from “Jerome” who’s been doing this for awhile!

Jerome’s take on the Virtualized Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure Course

I had the chance to attend the "Virtualized Data Center and Cloud Infrastructure" course put on by EMC this week.  Below are my thoughts.

Certification Track

This course is part of the EMC Cloud Architect track – EMCCA.  This course specifically is designed to prepare for the E20-018 certification test, which is a Specialist level certification.  The Expert level material and test have not yet been released, and are expected later this year.

Focus

The EMC Cloud Architect Track is designed to help enable customers adopt a cloud maturity model.  This consists of a move from physical data centers to Virtual Data Centers (VDCs), from VDCs to full Operationalization of virtualization, and from there to IT as a Service.  This course was specifically focused on the physical to VDC phase of the transition. 

Material and Presentation

This course is a lecture only course.  There was no hands on material or lab time.  What labs were included in the course were small group discussions only.  EMC has tried to make this a "generic" cloud course that is "open" to all technologies, but it is heavily slanted towards their view of the world.  The course uses the following outline, I have added the EMC translation in parenthesis:

• Virtualized Data Center and Cloud Introduction (Private Clouds and ITaaS model)
• VDC Architecture (V+C+E products, convergence)
• Designing for Virtualized and Cloud Environments (Best Practices for Virtualization – VCP stuff)
• Governance Risk and Compliance (RSA and Archer)
• Managing Virtualized Environments (IONIX)
• Cloud Services (Service Provider models)

Exam

The exam is a 60 question test, with 63% required for passing (38 correct answers).  The practice exam on the EMC Education website is decent, and a good barometer of your chance to pass the exam, though the practice was about 20% easier than the real exam.  I would say that the real exam questions were written fairly poorly, and were often difficult to understand.  They would describe a scenario, but then it seemed they would give up half way through and ask only a tangentially related question.  I think that it was a result of attempting to keep the exam mostly generic, rather than focused on EMC technologies.

Recommendation

In general, I found the course to be very much in alignment with our message and focus, and as a result I felt it was a very easy set of material.  The only new sections to me were a few of the VDC maturity definitions and the GRC models.  Because of that, I felt the instructors moved much too slow.  I also found that the instructors were professional trainers, not SMEs on cloud computing, so they offered little value other than moderating the course.  I ended up leaving mid-way through the second day, and just reviewing the course material on my own, and was able to pass the test on Thursday, even though the course runs through Friday.  If you feel you need a little more preparation, I would recommend the VILT, rather than the full course. 

Okay, no his real name is not Jerome I decided I would use that name as a tribute to Jerome from Flight of the Conchords, especially how Jerome was being so constructive with his feedback So what this is providing you is two assessments of the course; FWIW.. I agree with both, grin :)

CXIs take WTF?!?

Yea, I think I made it fairly clear in the earlier points.    But if I had a few things I want you to do and know; KNOW the material, if you’re confused read it again, understand it, deep.    Focus on your weaknesses in the areas which are defined in the class and be true and honest to yourself, because albeit Rihanna and Eminem may love the way you lie… well the Exam will NOT be so nice.  . . . Speaking of which!

Tell us about E20-018 Virtualized Infrastructure Specialist Exam for Cloud Architects!

Okay, Okay, you begged enough!   Firstly, let me tell you I cannot tell you what is ON the Exam, what is IN the exam or anything ABOUT the exam. We cool? ;)    Yea, but just because I cannot provide you those specifics and by now I think you know a few things about me…. here is what I can tell you.

Remember what I said above about PREPARING.  KNOWING the content from the Class, Books or material LISTED as being on the exam?  Yea, I wasn’t messing around.  Seriously! DO THAT. KNOW THAT. DO IT ALL!   But what would this matter or mean if you didn’t take a few sliding comments from those of us who have taken the exam.    I talked to Jerome after he took the exam to see how he felt about it; his take?

Jerome: The test was very hard, but that was only due to the language of the questions and the structure.

Me: Hated that test.

Whoa Whoa Whoa! Christopher! That isn’t very constructive! What about being constructive with your feedback?!?! Yea, hi, I’m still here.. I’m still WRITING THIS! ;)     I don’t remember if I’m supposed to say this or not but since the exam is already out, published and I’ve taken it… I’ll go out on a limb thinking I can talk about it.   Yea, I’ve seen SOME of the content before the exam came out.  I reviewed the questions for validity, truth, honesty, integrity… The kind of standard I started to see so wonderfully come out of Microsoft (I know the entire Microsoft Learning Team, so I know the commitment they have to Exam Integrity THESE days instead of days gone past where questions were insane)   I’d like to say that this exam took the PAGES upon PAGES of comments I’d have on a few word question to heart when it came time to publish the exam to stand behind as backing for the questions.   Yea, I thought that for OTHER exams I would EXTENSIVELY provide EXTREMELY constructive feedback on. [I’m not shy about telling you what is wrong, why it is wrong, how others will perceive it, and what steps you can take in order to correct….]   Also sometimes there are release schedules… or my voice isn’t LOUD enough, or I didn’t cover enough of a user base of questioning to make an impact outside of my SME area I was initially focused on reviewing.    None the less, to Jerome’s point of the language of the questions and the structure; how things were poorly worded, or to quote me “I hated that test”  

I’m VERY good at taking tests (I teach classes on how to take exams ;)).  I’ve passed more exams than most will in their lives, and respectively I’ve probably failed more exams than most people will take including their entire academic career ;)     I can wholeheartedly say that you better STUDY for this exam.   KNOW your material and know how to cut through the treacle which is going to be offered up as questions.   The answers are right, the questions are a little confusing and the ones which are not can be VERY specific.    I prepared for the exam by using the Practice Test – I was getting 100% consecutively and I felt confident.   Yea, once that exam started up that melted away!    Definitely study, study, study! Prepare! 

Summary on Class and Exam!

For the first Industry Certification focused on Cloud with an Exam AND a course; that is a major undertaking to start with, and honestly to tell you the truth I think EMC did a great job of it.   Obviously you may take some of my comments above as extremely critical (Hey, I’m extremely critical!) but it’s because I care.     They’re definitely taking things to new levels, I’m not even sure what other organization in the industry could assault such an undertaking other than Microsoft (And that would be HEAVILY MS biased, Hey I love you but it’s true) and most “independent” third parties, well we all know that their Exam would come out looking like absolute trash and they wouldn’t really have the vehicle or mechanism to go about delivering and driving it successfully.   No definitely considering all of that and what we expect so heavily from ourselves, and our industry, EMC has done an absolute bang up amazing job!   

Hopefully I haven’t scared you away from taking this course and the exam.   If you know your stuff, you better prep, if you are new to the whole game you’re going to learn A LOT OF MATERIAL.   In a way the course will take you through a compressed CCNA/CCDA/VCP/CISSP/EMCISM courseware all compressed into a few days of time and then you need to assimilate that into your head and go take a test!    If anything you should have an honest reflection of what to expect (I highly encourage your feedback if you agree, disagree or WTF on anything I’ve said)   Together we move mountains, so let’s not make mountains out of molehills, that’s how the Cloud works.   Together. :)   Oh and Good Luck, I don’t say this often on exams, but you will NEED it. *love* :)

Well, it got me thinking (Hey, I do that occasionally) Why aren’t there any Women’s holidays?  Now I know you Nay-sayers will say YEA WHAT ABOUT MOTHERS DAY?!?! Yea… Allow me to slightly redirect emphasis on the fact that is dedicated and focused on MOTHERS, not WOMEN.

Even taking it a step further looking at a definition of Mothers Day, I got this;

Mother’s Day in the United States is annually held on the second Sunday of May. It celebrates motherhood and it is a time to appreciate mothers and mother figures. Many people give gifts, cards, flowers, candy, a meal in a restaurant or other treats to their mother and mother figures, including grandmothers, great-grandmothers, stepmothers, and foster mothers.

So as you can clearly see… this is for mothers, a matronly focused holiday which doesn’t differ much from Father’s day but does not focus on WOMEN.

So looking past that, hey we live in a massive nation with a lot of holidays no different than the series of holidays hosted across the world.    Who DOES get a holiday if not women?

• New Years get a Holiday, celebrating an entirely new year.
• Jesus, or Presents, or Candles get a whole series of holidays in the winter season
• Hell, even the moon and sun get their respective holidays depending upon the Solstice in question..
• Kids and Candy get holidays with Halloween
• Bunnies, Eggs, – Rock it out on Easter!
• Dead Presidents of all varieties get a holiday as well as the veterans who have served our country
• Wait what’s that you say? FLAG DAY? Yes, even FLAGS get a day dedicated to them.

Okay, now you fascists out there are saying “Yea, there aren’t any men dedicated holidays” yea… whatever, that’s every fricking day so lets seriously not get off on that tangent!

But I know some of you, the sideline folks are going to stand strong, staunchly and supportively say “Yea… What about March 8th – International Women’s Day! HAH I GOT YOU!”

Yes indeed you did get me.   You and the other 3 people who have heard of this holiday, yea I know you searched the internet to even FIND that “UN” sanctioned and created “Holiday”.   And let me just stand strong for a moment and say, anything that the UN Sanctions and stands for, yea that definitely has a LOT of value here in the US….. No, but seriously, I’m sure more than 90% of you had never even heard about that; which honestly is actually marketed and messed a LOT more outside of the US than it is inside of the US.    Yea but it’s a holiday, right?

Did you know that in 2011, we’ll call this the year of the women, and account for the US having roughly a 50% Women Population (Call that 150mil for the sake of argument) there were a whole 300 events this year dedicated to “International Women’s Day” Yea, great job America way to kick it up a notch.   I think there are more Flag Day related events each year, in each STATE alone let alone across the US than anything recognizing or contributing to the growth and development of Women.

So, while clearly the whole United States is behind this almost non-existent “Event” which occurs, it is up to us as the Internet, the world frankly to really kick it up a notch.  I’m not advocating driving further traction on an otherwise March based holiday (Seriously?! March?!), it is up to all of us to let the women, girls and general female population in our lives know that we love them, we care for them and that they matter; even if there isn’t an official “Holiday” promoting that.    Maybe one day there will be a holiday which will gain adoption, drive and initiative behind it, but until then I expect each of you to do your part.

This will take you to not only the rules of engagement (which I’ve hijacked here…. ;)) but takes you through each of the steps of what you need to DO TO WIN!!!  I definitely encourage you to do it.  I mean cmon, one of the best conferences of this year in VEGAS OMG VEGAS and you could WIN! Start EMC World as a winner, and I won’t make any Charlie Sheen references (I refuse to!)  So, act now or forever hold your peace! :)

Win a FREE CUSTOMER PASS to EMC World this year

Rules of engagement

• Contest is open till end of day 22nd of April
• A winner, randomly picked from the pool of entries, will be announced on 25th April, 2011
• The winner will be contacted by a Unified Storage community administrator
• This offer is not applicable to EMC Employees
• EMC World Pass is non-transferrable and cannot be redeemed for cash. This does not include travel, expenses and hotel accommodations.

HOW TO ENTER

     1) Become a registered member of our Unified Storage EMC Community Network and answer this simple question on our discussion:

What are the top 3 sessions at EMC World that you will attend if you win the free pass?

To access agenda of sessions at EMC World, visit www.emcworld.com

• Answering this question in the discussion tab, will get you FIVE entries into this drawing
  

FOR THREE ADDITIONAL ENTRIES

     2) Become a fan of our VNX and VNXe Facebook page  

• Liking our Face book page, will get you ONE additional entry into this drawing

     3) Follow VNX and VNXe on Twitter

• For theTwitter accounts you follow, you will get ONE additional entry each into the drawing
  

Maximum entries into the drawing per participant = 8

Sponsored by!

OMG THATS RIGHT! Yea, wow, I’m a tad overzealous! But hey, the SECOND EVER API HACK DAY IS COMING TO CHICAGO! That’s right! Stick it to the man! 

What is API Hack Day though you wonder?!?

API Hack Day brings developers together for an all-day coding fest focused on building apps and mashups with APIs. Developers of all experience levels can share ideas, collaborate on existing projects, start new ventures and find out about great tools and new APIs to play with.

Free admission, food and drink provided!

Hackers will also hear from some of the country’s top API-focused companies on tips, tricks and tools for building the next big app. At the end of the day, teams and/or individuals get a chance to present their work to a panel of judges and win great prizes.

API Hack Day Chicago will be held at the offices of event sponsor Morningstar, home of the Morningstar Tech Talks.

Brought to you by SimpleGeo, Twilio, SendGrid, Apigee & Mashery.

When

Saturday, May 28, 2011 from 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM (CT)

Where

Morningstar – Chicago, IL

22 West Washington Street

Chicago, IL 60602

Tentative Schedule as it stands!

• 8:00 – 9:00 Registration / Breakfast
• 9:00 – 9:15 Intro / Welcome / Kick-off
• 9:30 – 10:00 API Workshops
• 12:30 – 1:30 Lunch
• 6:00 Submission Deadline
• 6:30 – 7:15 Presentations
• 7:15-7:30  Judging
• 7:30 – 7:45  Awards

Sign up here!

http://apihackdaychicago.eventbrite.com/

That’s not all!

But wait… this sounds like a Press Release for an event, not at all the sort of thing I’d expect to find here! That’s damn straight! – You’ve seen what is COMING! Now through the power of the WAYBACK MACHINE… Oh and Context.. I’ll show you what you can begin to expect and what has happened!

They came.  They saw. They hacked!

They ate, they voted and they won?!?!

San Francisco – October 2010

• FIRST PLACE: Mootup by Zain Memon and Sha Hwang. An interface to explore upcoming meetups happening around the city, so users can discover various events without having to sign up for a group first.

• SECOND PLACE: Push’d by Sherman Lee, John Milinovich, Jayant Sai and Parth Shah. Push’d empowers developers and consumers to push important online information to mobile phones in a format that can be accessed from anywhere.

• THIRD PLACE: VeePark by Brennan Novak and Daniel Erickson. Air BnB for driveways. Rent out your driveway to people that need to park. Renters can use sms to find the nearest available driveway.

Yea, that’s right! Their hacking not only was rewarded with food and drink, but there were prizes! Props to the winners, and you too could be that winner!

Now, I know you guys know me from attending other events at one point or another in the past – So if the interest is there – I will not only LiveTweet the event on my beloved @cxi twitter ID, but I’ll also do the best of my ability to live-stream it (uStream?) , live-handle questions, and at request, handle one-off video interviews (in HD goodness) which we can throw on up to YouTube – It really is up to you the community to decide just how FAR I’ll go!

So, get your registration on! Get your hack on! And keep on keeping on!

Through a series of events, I ended up recording this video.  For your reference: This IS a first draft, in an infinite style of regularly updating my style for delivery.  [This was done using a little camera and a tiny mount on not a whole lot of space on a whiteboard… if I went Pro for the next one… you’ll be all OMFG :)]

Initially, I had drawn up some notes of how I’d present this.. so in the effort of WTF and Full disclosure (You know me all too well ;)) These are those preliminary whiteboard/notes.

I did have some other pictures which showed bits and pieces.. but I’m sure you get the gist of it!  So what exactly am I saying with this video, with these whiteboards.. with this.. you know, whatever it is I’m doing here. :)

Three things actually.   One of the cool things about the VNX is that it provides you with:

• Ease of Use – With simplicity of management using Unisphere, vCenter Integration, Single Pane for all arrays
• Maximum Efficiency – With FAST-VP, You can go Thin, and use the right tier at the right time with auto-tiering
• Consistent Performance – The magic of EFDs, QOS, FAST Cache, Wide-Striping, Consolidate and guarantee SLAs

I know what you’re saying “OMFG CHRISTOPHER, ARE YOU IN MARKETING?” No. And I usually stand by that, because I get things done ;).  Yes, I intentionally chose fitting points which happen to coincide with the acronym EMC, you know why? Because for one thing it’s easier to remember. :)  Not to mention, things should truly be easy to work with, and enjoyable; all the while providing an accurate picture of the story at hand!

Look forward to some future series where I actually go into the guts of the system and show you (from my perspective) the how’s and the why’s of these things [Time permitting ofcourse ;)]

So, for now, I leave you with this video.  Take it with a grain of salt, it IS a first-draft cutting room floor version.  As soon as I get my new mbp (April 1st?!) You should see some far better *Perhaps Annoying* videos coming from me ;)

And I know that some of you love me in videos sometimes… so for those of you who want to see me unplugged in an off-the-cuff impromptu interview (No, I’m not drunk), here is the infamous “I’m CXI, I’m from the Internets!” video!

I hope you enjoyed that.   Now, I’d love to hear your feedback. Where you say “Wow, I never thought of it that way” Or, “OMG You’re a total tool!” Yea, I’m game for either of those – Whatever you have to offer up, constructive or otherwise!

Oh, and I also submitted this for an internal contest (Which if I win.. will give me a sweet wrap-around terrace suite at EMC World [Yes, you can all come hang out in my room ;)] So, support away in every way possible! :)

Watch this space for more stupidity, err I mean great content in the future!

Are you a Hacker? Interested in HTML5/Javascript Mobile based apps, or even looking to transcend beyond that?  Located in the Seattle area (or want to travel to this OMG event?!) Then look no further!  This event is nearly SOLD OUT! So it is best to act now!

So what is this exactly?! I’ll steal little snippets from the official site and registration site!

Mobile App Hackathon (@mobilehackathon) is a hacker event for new and experienced developers working on mobile apps. Experienced coders can show off their mobile apps while new app developers will learn from the best.
The hackathon is the first in a series of mobile development events brought to you by the AT&T Developer Program and will include talks from members of the PhoneGap and AppMobi platform teams, Sencha and Apigee. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to show off your app or learn how to create great ones.
To keep up-to-date on AT&T Developer Events, please sign-up with the program here.

Wow, that sounds pretty cool right? At a high level it can be summed up as:

Hacking. Mobile. Good food. Awesome prizes.

Yea, but let’s not over-simplify things, I know you verbose types want to know some of the HARD details! Like…

Presenters!

Jesse MacFayden	Joe Monastiero	Sam Ramji	Jeff Barr	James Pearce
PhoneGap	AppMobi	Apigee	Amazon	Sencha
Jesse MacFadyen is a senior software engineer at Nitobi, specializing in presentation layer programming for Rich Internet applications. Jesse has developed large scale applications in PhoneGap, JavaScript, Flash/Flex/Air, .net, and Silverlight. As a major contributor to the PhoneGap open-source project, he is passionate about bringing device level functionality to multiple mobile devices through simple web-tech APIs. Jesse has also created the open source project GloveBox to enable the use of fixed positioning and touch scrolling on iOS + Android devices Click here for Jesse’s Blog	Joe Monastiero is co-founder and vice president of business development for AppMobi, bringing with him 20 years of management experience. Prior to AppMobi, he co-founded Intervideo, where he was responsible for sales, marketing and business development activities and helped drive over $30M in software revenue in three years.	Sam’s spent over 15 years working across enterprise software, product development and open source strategy. Currently VP of strategy at Apigee & board member at the CodePlex Foundation, Sam works deeply within the developer, open source and social app communities to create a healthier, more productive ecosystem. Prior to Apigee, Sam led open source strategy across Microsoft and was a founding member of the AquaLogic product team at BEA. In his spare time, Sam enjoys the great outdoors, spending time with the kids, and bacon.	Jeff Barr is a senior web services evangelist for Amazon Web Services. Jeff is focused on furthering awareness among software developers of the opportunity to innovate and build businesses using Amazon Web Services. In this role, Jeff travels, speaks, blogs, and conducts virtual events.	James is a technologist, writer, developer & entrepreneur who has been working with the mobile web for over a decade. He is Senior Director of Developer Relations at Sencha. Previously he was the CTO at dotMobi and has a background in mobile startups, telecoms infrastructure and management consultancy. He speaks extensively on the topic of mobile web development, and has written books for both Wiley and Wrox.

As you can tell, that’s very possibly a major Formatting Fail.. but that’s okay – It definitely gives you the gist of things :)  But by now I’m sure you know, few things are more important than.. the Agenda!

Agenda!!!

And let’s not forget, after the Hack-A-Thon is over, everyone will demo what was worked on, gather feedback and hand out prizes for audience favorites!

Whoa! This sounds cool! So where do I sign up?!?!

I don’t think it can be any clearer than that, right! Hooray! But I guess it may be important to have the rest of the details in one place:

• When: 
• Saturday, April 16, 2011 from 9:00 AM – 7:30 PM (PT)
• Where: 
• F5 Offices
  401 Elliott Avenue West
  Seattle, WA 98119
• Who:
• Hackers, Mobile App, Developers, Ninjas, Gurus
• Why:
• Because it rocks! And you’ll enjoy it! (Oh, and did someone say NETWORKING?!??! :))
• Where do I sign up?
• Sign up here!

Well, there it is, the whole scoop and ready for you to rock this out! I hope you get in a slot before it fills up! Enjoy it, it’ll be a blast!

OMG! It is THAT time of year again! Are you going to EMC World?  This is definitely the MUST attend event of the year!  (Seriously, you have no idea :))

However, my first call to action for you guys.. is to try to make sure you’re getting hooked up with the FREEBIES if you know you’re going to be going anyway!

A basic chart breaking down what you’re looking at when it comes time to register:

Conference Registration Rates and Breakdowns:

So I decided to take as best of a dive as I could into what these “Special Gifts” are, just to get an idea of what incentive you have to book early (and often?!)

Early Bird Registration Gifts:

Booking your hotel:

Within the Venetian Resort you have the option to select your room to be within the Venetian Tower or the Palazzo Tower. Both towers are equal distance to the conference center. To secure a special conference rate be sure to reference EMC World if you chose to make a phone reservation. All room blocks expire on April 14, 2011.

I cannot emphasize enough because I know a lot of you guys… wait until the day OF the show to book your hotel rooms :)   All Room blocks (at these two hotels) will expire on April 14th, 2011 for this rate.   So just take that to heart when it comes time to book and buy your tickets :)

This is going to be quite the OMG WTF AMAZING EMC World on record, far greater than you can imagine.  And it will ALSO be in Vegas, so if that means a lot to you, further mad crazy times – But in all seriousness, the type of content, the audience, the community, EVERY instance of the value which will come from this event.. this is a MUST attend EMC World.  You think records were broken at our Launch Event on January 18th?  Well, you haven’t seen nothing yet? (Is that grammatically correct?!? :))

What, who, why, Justify to my boss! –

What – (2011 Conference Topics and beyond!)

• Backup, Recovery and Archiving
  Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
  Cloud Computing
  Content Management and Archiving
  Enterprise Applications and Databases
  Mainframe Platforms
  Partner Solutions
  Security and Compliance
  Storage and IT Management
  Technology Directions and Innovation
  Tiered Storage and Automation
  Virtual Infrastructure

Who – (Meet, Greet, Network, Learn)

• Learn directly from EMC engineers, customers, and partners at 500+ breakout sessions. EMC World’s comprehensive agenda includes keynotes, lectures, live demonstrations, hands-on workshops, and birds-of-a-feather sessions.

Did I mention I’m going to be there?! :) And definitely seek me out and I can hook you up with other like-minded individuals, or others who are either doing what you WANT to do, or have already done it and you can share best practices (No, not marketing fluff, but actual real customers, engineers and beyond, networking seeds networking! :))

Why – (Content, Content, Content)

• Challenge your expertise with offerings including tutorials, business tracks, technical training, and developer sessions ranging from novice to expert.

Are you a novice looking to seed your knowledge? Excellent.  Are you an expert, guru, ninja, and you find that no one understands you? Go yell at engineers! (That’s what I do ;))   This is the perfect opportunity whether you’re at the top of your game or just getting involved in the industry.   No stone unturned, you will be able to enhance your knowledge, take things to a new level and become an even greater champion than you already are today! (Champions ARE made just by attending EMC World)  Literally, seek me out and I’ll make sure you’re getting the MOST out of your entire experience – I do it at every show I attend. ;)

Justify to my boss – (Whoa, this is in Vegas, my boss won’t approve that!)

I haven’t seen an official write up ‘slick’ on this yet, so I am writing this FOR you.  I’ve had to do this in the past for past events (VMworld, Microsoft TechEd, Past EMC Worlds, TEC, etc)   You go to your management and you scream “I want to learn, I want to educate myself in order to better drive value into the environment, I need to network with my peers, and see the up and coming and be PART of the future instead of waiting for us to eventually get there”.   Yea, but this is what your management sees. “Jim wants to go to Vegas for a week, blah blah blah conference”  

Do you find yourself in this situation?  If so, let me know (And let others know) I’ll try to make sure you have the right resources to help PROVE this out in your environment.  Whether you’re an EMC Customer today, or one in the future; this will be the value of a life time.   If you spent the entire time in sessions never meeting a single person you will gain benefit and an experience which will pay dividends in your home environment; step outside that shell a little bit and all of a sudden you will become a champion unlike that you’ll ever have seen!  

Do not hesitate to educate! I’ll personally call your management if you’d like and help them understand the value (I’ll get whoever your local account team is involved just to make sure I’m not blindsiding them ;))   But seriously, now is the time to SAVE, as well as to LEARN!   Hop to it!

So, good luck, enjoy and lets all meet up in Vegas for what will be an experience of a life time, this is ground breaking in every possible fashion!  

• VNXe: Cherry Bomb! (StorageZilla Mark Twomey)
• Introducing The VNX Family (Chuck Hollis)
• VNXe (Steve Todd)
• VNXe = incredible things.. in tiny, transformer-like packages! (Chad Sakac)

Well, as typically promised.. here is my EXPOSE’ Or however you want to look at it, because I try to see these things through your ever careful eyes to wonder behind the scenes just EXACTLY what may be going on!

Disclaimer: I’m not sure how much of this I’m supposed to share, so I’ll deal with the fall-out and you enjoy the content :)

Let’s Get Physical [Physical Specifications]

This looks pretty straight forward – It’s VERY clear on exactly what is going on with these systems (Well, sort of)  I want to draw your attention to a few things so we’ll all be on the same page!  

• Note the different drive enclosures between the VNXe3100 and the VNXe3300 – 12×3.5” in 2U and 15×3.5” in 3U
• The CPU/Memory is PER Controller with each model able to support up to 2 controllers [VNXe3300 is 2 controllers by default]
• It’s not covered in these Physical Specifications; but I feel it important to call out Max # of drives and DAEs
  • VNXe3100 Single Controller 48 drives, VNXe3100 Dual Controller 96 drives; VNXe3300 120 drives

Are you Flexible? [FLEX IO Module Options]

Also fairly straight forward right! – Only thing I’d like to point out is the support for 10GBe on the VNXe3300!

It’s a DISK DAE! [Supported disk Add-on Enclosures (DAES) – Supported Disk Drives]

Here it breaks it down for you, the differences between the DAEs available (You’ll note that these are all 15K or 7.2K [other than the Flash] – The VNX has a 2.5” DAE which supports 10K drives but not in the VNXe – Just so you don’t go “whoa! Where are the 10Ks at?!” :))   – There are more details and more located in the Specification Sheet: EMC VNXe Series Unified Storage Systems

Save More with Packaging! [EMC VNXe Series Software Packs]

I spent some time last week going through simulations on cost benefit analysis (blah blah blah) of building configurations with the Suites (and packs) and with simply requesting each item on their own – to see what the pricing would look like: Truth be told; OMG THE PACKAGES WORK – It’s actually EASIER to simply choose a suite than it is to play games and say “I’d only like the potatoes but please leave out the application protection suite”  So, make it easier on yourself and try to build the full package into your future instead of trying to piecemeal together a configuration and a solution, your data will be happier for it! :)   There are more details on these packages in the Data Sheet: EMC VNXe Series Software Packs

Hopefully this helps you get a better understanding of some of the details you frankly REALLY want to know when it comes to understanding this platform a little better.    If you’re looking to go even deeper, let me know and I’ll take the conversation there in a future blog post!    Thanks! Hope you find this useful!

Here are some rocking VNXe documents!   (Powerlink required – If any links do not work… Yea, I wasn’t supposed to share that then :))

• Data Sheet: EMC VNXe Series
• Data Sheet: EMC VNXe Series Software Packs
• Data Sheet: EMC VNX Series Total Efficiency Pack
• Specification Sheet: EMC VNXe Series Unified Storage Systems
• Customer Presentation: EMC VNXe Series
• Top 10 Reasons Why Customers Deploy Microsoft Applications with Hyper-V on EMC VNXe
• Top 10 Reasons Why Customers Deploy Microsoft Applications with VMware vSphere Essentials on EMC VNXe

Oh and I’d be remiss to mention the MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT which has been long awaited for so long – The announcement of the VNX and VNXe systems!   But you’ll find out more in due course I’m sure! (I’ll be sure of that!)

I couldn’t wait to share this with you though.  You guys have seen Unisphere right? (I’ve talked about it in the Past for managing Celerra) But now is the motherlode as it were – Taking the Management experience to an entirely new level!

I totally stole this demo – But I couldn’t hold back from sharing this with you! 

I don’t know about you, but I hate arid (Yes, DRY) demos which feel so over produced you lose the content in the rhetoric, But this demo truly seems to exceed that.   Watch this demo and you will not only find yourself saving time using this tool, frankly.. you’ll even find yourself get younger, reclaiming those lost years spent in ugly and mismanaged ‘management tools’.   This truly works FOR you instead of against you!

I love you VNXe Unisphere :)

This place is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I was there on Opening night (for those of you who saw me, I definitely said hi! and I’m sure I missed others!) This photo is of the interior, it’s definitely a site to see!   But that aside, there is some cool news and coming events to speak of!   Let’s discuss the matter of the November 18th (Thursday) CWUG meeting will be HOSTED at this Microsoft Store location! (OMG I know right?!)  The details are below of course, including where to register and the address/location [I personally find that parking by Pottery Barn and walking through it is the fastest way to get to the store!]

The Chicago Windows User Group has moved our suburban location from the Microsoft Downers Grove office to the Microsoft Store in Oakbrook Center! 

Our first meeting will be held there this Thursday (November 18th). 

Please RSVP by following the link here:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/65NFKSP
https://store.microsoft.com/StoreLocations/Home.aspx/Index/Oak-Brook-IL
49 Oak Brook Center
Oak Brook, IL 60523
Phone: (630) 288-3420
There will be a tour of the store, information on Windows Phone 7 and an opportunity to reach the Chicago land technical community in new and exciting ways.  Hope to see you there!
The CWUG Crew

This video happens to have a brief overview of what “A” Microsoft Store looks like, which honestly looks VERY similar, so give it a whirl if you want to check it out and will not have the opportunity to make Thursdays meeting!

Though so you don’t feel all lonely of what is going on, here is an ACTUAL Photo I took while going into the store recently too (Yes, it was taken from my iPhone, don’t hate the player!)

One of the cool things you should know about this store (Which I learned from their Community Manager, Ashley Trueblood [OMFG Yes she has a rockass name and rocks as well] ) Is that the store regularly runs training and sessions on:

• Windows 7
• Windows Phone 7
• Xbox
• Windows Live ID
• Windows Live Essentials
• Movie Maker
• ….And more!

So, whether you can make it to this weeks Chicago Windows Users Group meeting, or in general, check it out in the future! (I was just looking at their calendar of events.. Xbox Live Tournaments on Fridays?!? WTF?!?!? Yea it’s fricking cool, check it out!)

Oh yea…  I did mention Windows Phone 7 a little, didn’t I?   Okay, fine I won’t leave you hanging!  While I was at the store on launch day I also had the opportunity to run into Dave Bost (I’ve talked about Dave before, absolute rock star that he is, who also happens to be a Windows Phone Champion, rockstar, right?!) A shame you missed the demo’s he was doing in store days following the opening, and before the release of Windows Phone 7!

Nonetheless, I won’t invoke too many spoilers.. so go check it out! and I’ll see you there this Thursday!!!

These are two very SHORT and to the point, giving you the high-lights letting you know what is required to kick things off and something you can hand up to mgmt! So it’s great to not spend a lot of time trying to figure out what it’s saying!

One thing I’d like to bring particular attention on these papers is that these are not EMC Papers, but are in fact co-branded collaborations by Microsoft, EMC and others (the one below was Microsoft, Cisco and EMC, and some of the others involve Dell and Brocade) but either way, Microsoft was directly involved in their creation as opposed to ‘slap a tag on it’

STOP THE PRESS! (vicki vale!) – Check out this paper though!  It is definitely longer! 84 pages!  Filled with raw technical example, use cases, all that jazz! Great must read paper and not just words! Lots of pretty pictures!  Yes it is Hyper-V but that cmon, this was co-branded Microsoft.. :)  And note: Published October 2010! So Vicki Vale did get one thing right!

Okay fine! Here is another paper! This one is a little older but I know you wouldn’t let me get away without giving you some VMware love! So here is one, with less pretty pictures!

Alright, one more then! This one was from August – not a whitepaper only a basic Reference Architecture, but I found it to be pretty damn cool looking!

Okay, enough of these (albeit amazing papers!) With no further adieu I’d like to introduce you to Dustin Smith! I’d tell you all about him, but Brian interviewed him here so you can find out all about how he’s an MVP, MCM and so many other things!

So, Dustin has his own blog where he talks almost exclusively about Exchange (okay, I think it’s all about Exchange, but whatever! this is MY BLOG! ;))

Exchange In the Private Cloud is definitely a must check out blog if you care anything about Exchange, or have to deal with it!

I’d like to highlight a few of his blog posts here for you to check out:

• Yes, Exchange Server is being virtualized!
  • Within EMC, our entire 40,000+ user infrastructure is virtualized on Exchange Server and the organization as a whole is moving towards virtualization of most all applications. Most all of the infrastructures we design and showcase within our Proven Solutions are geared toward virtualization, either with VMWare vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V. See my previous blog post on what we recently did with the Tested Exchange Solutions Program case with Cisco and Microsoft where we showcased 34,000 users on Microsoft Hyper-V with Cisco UCS blade servers and EMC Unified Storage.
• EMC Whitepaper, Exchange Tested Solutions Program
  • What we are showcasing in this whitepaper is a result of our joint solution development with Microsoft and Cisco that was deployed and tested in Microsoft EEC labs in Redmond. In the whitepaper you will find the reference architecture for 32,400 users across a three site Exchange DAG scenario leveraging Microsoft Hyper-V, EMC NS480 Unified Storage, and Cisco UCS B-series blade servers along with analysis of testing results and key best practices on virtualizing Exchange Server 2010 on Hyper -V on EMC Unified storage and Cisco Unified Computing System.
• Exchange 2010 Backups? I don’t need any stinkin backups?!?
  • I think overall, the backupless/Exchange Native Data Protection option certainly brings a new element to the Exchange 2010 architecture discussions and different options for providing recovery when bad things happen. VSS based options (hardware and software based) are  still heavily used options to protect Exchange data that have been popular since the Exchange 2003 days and have increased with features and functionality into Exchange 2010.
• Getting Exchange Server 2010 into the Private Cloud
• Yes, EMC can do Exchange for SMB too

So, there are some teasers there of just some of the content that Dustin is putting out (There is obviously more.. but I’ll let you do the reading up on it! It’s definitely worth reading! – How so though, I just discovered Dustin TODAY and I’m sharing him with you a few hours after that point, So, yea I consider that to be pretty compelling :))

I want to leave you with links to all of the resources I mentioned above, so you can forth to gain access to the WP’s I mentioned and others I didn’t include pictures for!

• Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange 2010 with Confidence
• Business Continuity for Microsoft Exchange 2010 Enabled by EMC Unified Storage, Cisco Unified Computing System, and Microsoft Hyper-V
• Microsoft Exchange 2010: Zero-Data Loss Virtualization and Replication
• Microsoft Exchange 2010 Efficiency, Flexibility, Performance, and Availability at Scale Enabled by EMC Symmetrix VMAX, Virtual Provisioning and VMware vSphere
• EMC Virtual Infrastructure for Microsoft Exchange 2010 Enabled by EMC Symmetrix VMAX, VMware vsphere 4, and Replication Manager
• 15-Minute Guide – Extending the Capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server

There are so many more than just these links alone – I actually was surprised on how much content there was at www.emc.com/exchange ! – So check it out, and as always let me know if I can help you in a particular way :)

Yea, that’s right.  In those days there were gold-seekers, the “49’ers” who were all seeking out a few pretty little gems, heck! Even some ugly gems would be worth it, right? Dirty gold is STILL gold!    Now, let’s fast forward 160 years to today’s Present.   (Okay, enough of the analogies that GOLD IS WORTH A LOT! You’re right! IT is! ;))  Today, the Gold-seekers.. Those 49’ers (A lot of which happen to reside WITHIN California) are the businesses! The Cloud Providers, the mega-corporations, the EMC’s, Cisco’s and VMware’s of the world, all vying for the GOLD of Virtualization! Human capital!  -  You guys are the gold, and virtualization is the rocket which will enable you to soar!

Where is the proof in this though you might ask?! (Yea, I know I’m gonna give you some proof alright!)

Disclaimer:   The following list is from a ‘point in time’ and is not reflective of ALL of the opportunities which exist.  I contacted numerous companies heavily invested in Virtualization, Cloud and other, and some of those companies requested I do not share their data (So don’t get critical if you think I’m intentionally not mentioning a company) This is for YOUR benefit, which I hope every one of you Virtualization kings take advantage of this! (Even the serfs, paupers, princesses and queens of Virtualization too! – /end disclaimer! :))

EMC

Yes, I do work here, but hey, we have some of the best guys in the world! And with that note, we’re still looking to find, recruit and hire the best!  No one leads this champion cause any better than Chad Sakac! Who has gone to the extents to actually publish this More than 200 open positions at EMC, EMC partners and VCE  and the recent UPDATE for this! But let me quote the following from that blog post at its time: (Wow, over 100 positions mentioned!)

The EMC vSpecialist team is hiring 97 people.  The right people for this role love technology.   It is ideal if you are technical customer-facing type or a freakishly technical sales type, and want to work at a great Fortune 500 company that is at the center of the virtualization and cloud wave (that being EMC).  The team has a crazy work ethic – you’ll work your buns off, but will be part of something fun.  You will play with EMC, VMware and Cisco technologies, and be exposed right on the bleeding edge wave of a lot of stuff.  

The EMC Consulting org is hiring 14 people.  The right people for this role have a world view where you think that it’s less about technology and products, and more about services, people, and transformative projects (oh, and you love technology too).   There are Cloud roles, Virtual Datacenter roles, and Risk and Security roles.

The EMC SI/Al team is hiring 9 people.  These are people who are blends of the vSpecialist Sales/Technical type (roll them into one :-), and are focused on EMC partners like Deloitte, Accenture, Wipro, TCS, HCL.

Obviously, there is a LOT of opportunity over here at EMC (In fact, feel free to get in touch with me if you’re interested in more insight as well – If you wonder what it’s like working here at EMC, refer to my previous posts on the very subject; Joining EMC and transitioning from “Job” to “Career” tips for new hires and expats! – So good luck and let me know how I can help!

#Update to include other opportunities which Chad had just posted!  More VMware, Cisco, EMC, and VCE and Partner gigs…

Search for Careers at EMC here! (click apply now :))

Cisco

Whoa! This is Cisco, the networking company! What does this have to do with Virtualization and Cloud?!?!  Yea.. baby, that’s right.  We are ALL fighting for the same resources, the same gold! Everyone everywhere! :)   Cisco has opportunities across the stack with Servers (UCS) Storage networking (MDS and Nexus) Virtualization (Rocking it out with what we said above) and more and beyond!   I did not vet EVERY single entry on the Cisco site (Hey, I’m not the one LOOKING for the job! but these options do quite exist ;)) For what it’s worth, a search of “vmware” and a search of “Cloud” as separate search terms returned results in the 150-200 range.   Wow! That is a lot of jobs with a single keyword.  Maybe there are only 50 or 100 quality jobs let’s say.   – Or put another way.. Wow, there are 50-100 quality jobs at the champion of industry Cisco! 

Search for Careers at Cisco here!

VMware

You don’t get much closer to Virtualization than this!   I did a general search of all open-req’s returning 683 open positions! When I cut it down to “Support, Technical, Technical Marketing” etc kind of limiting the scope to remove the “HR and Legal” type postings, I still ended up with 105 open positions!   VMware is a rockstar environment to work at and they have a great culture!

Search for Careers at VMware here!

Acadia

If you missed all of the announcements from last year (and continually growing since) Acadia is a joint venture, founded by Cisco and EMC to further capitalize on the investments of VMware and Intel! The venture was established to help partners and customers accelerate the transition to pervasive virtualization and private cloud. – Okay, enough of stealing that stuff from their site..  Nonetheless, this lets you work with a converged-ness of all of these companies and really get to do some COOL stuff, across numerous roles!  (FYI: I know a whole bunch of the recruiters who are now over there… Just saying.. ;))   On a full-purpose search of Acadia I came across 315 open positions (Wow! That’s a damn lot! Lots are home based mobile too?! WTF!? cool! :))

Oh and hijacked from Chad’s blog;

VCE is hiring 100 field people and 17 solutions people.   These people are part of Acadia (the EMC/Cisco Joint Venture).   The Acadia mandate is both expanding, but also becoming more focused under Michael Capellas.   VCE has done much well, but people are recognizing certain things (single SKU, single order, ship as a unit) need to happen faster. 

1. The field folks would support the vSpecialists and the Cisco Datacenter field folks, as well as VCE partners.    The profile of these field folks (both Sales and Technical) are the same core profile as vSpecialists.   In fact, they are planning to call the Technical roles “vArchitects” a nice homage to some of the success we’ve had :-)
2. The solutions folks would be more happy in the lab than out in the field, but still customer focused.   They will be churning out more solutions on Vblocks, but then a subset of them would be taking the results out into the market via the vArchitects and vSpecialists.

Search for Careers at Acadia here! (click browse open positions)

Dell

So, when I first started working on this (over a month ago) I reached out to various other champions of industry – My good friends at Dell said the following (at the time) – One guy said there were over 80 positions across the country, but then said check with this other guy! He reported back with “There are 342 Virtualization related positions (sales, marketing, eng and services) worldwide.   Whoa! That’s pretty damn cool!  Obviously your mileage and time may vary.. those numbers may have increased or decreased, but the fact of the matter is.. that’s a damn lot of VIRT specific jobs available in the business (translates into WIN)   So, lest you think your options are limited, they may appear limitless across the stack and businesses!

Search for Careers at Dell Here! (They are great for locality of reference!)

HP

Hey now! You’re taking this competitive appreciation a little too far! Err.. Wait, no I’m not! But I am trying to give you an accurate picture… and hey, we’re all friends (except during the close giggle ;))   But yea, I got the hookup from my friends over at HP as well!   And what did they say (at the time, again.. could have gone up or down!) “238 Virtualization positions came up”

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Another massive stack of Virt roles?! Yea that’s right baby, all across the stack!  Looks like every vendor has a need which needs filling, oh my!

 Search for Careers at HP Here! (Interesting search site.. good luck :))

CDW

I’m not mentioning these guys just because I drive by their corporate headquarters all the time.  No.. They’ve built themselves up from a ‘warehouse’ store of sorts to a fully packaged interactive delivery machine (with open jobs ;)) They only have a handful [relative to the other companies] with req’s around Virtualization, but the opportunities are there!

Search for Careers at CDW here!

Veeam

I want you to know that these guys do not get a mention because they throw amazing parties at events and I practically know (and have known) nearly the entire company since they started.  No…  These guys NEED Virtualization guys, and they are some of the bread and the butter which helps drive this whole Virtualization world! (Cmon, Get your gold here!)

I cannot say just how many open req’s there are – but talk about opportunities across the entire stack! Sales! Support! Marketing! Technical! There’s no going wrong, and win win win!

Search for Careers at Veeam here! (And I can always introduce you to the right folks there as well!)

Citrix

Hey now! I thought this post was all about VMware! Next thing you know you’re gonna talk about Hyper-V?!? (No.. I’m not… Microsoft’s site is VERY challenging to search through, so they won’t be included, that and they have a trillion jobs so it’s hard to break it down to SPECIFIC to Virtualization ;)) But might I add on a separate note, weekly I get mails from recruiters asking me if I have any candidates (for vendor or for customer side) with Citrix knowledge/expertise/etc.   I imagine a lot of those guys have been…. moving around, causing some rifts of sorts!   So the opportunities are ripe if you love the Citrix stack! (Hey, I’m Metaframe and Winframe certified… and current today too.. so I’m no stranger to Citrix ;))

Search for Careers at Citrix here!

Thin Clients (Wyse, 10zig, Pano Logic, nComputing)

Okay, I’m not going to lie to you.   There aren’t really any Virtualization positions at these top Thin Client type companies (But when you think of Virtualization and VDI… you think of thin clients right? …. You better?;)) But they do have a handful of careers among the group of them (numerous high level jobs too!)  So, don’t disregard the opportunity they provide, just note; they’re not looking for virtualization as much as others, FYI :)   – For ease.. the hot-links in the Thin Clients heading will take you to their respective career pages!

HyTrust

Okay… I talked to and interviewed these folks at VMworld 2010 (Well, Roger Lund did I think I recorded it, either way!) these guys are a virtualization startup, they are hiring light [as any startup should] but definitely should be someone to watch! And if you’re looking to join a start-up to take the world by storm… Yea, check it out :)

Search for Careers at HyTrust here!

Rackspace

Whoa, why are these guys on this list?!?  Hey, I wanted to high-light them…  they definitely fall more into the Cloud Stack which has a strong effect on Virtualization and (blah blah blah, won’t he shut up about Cloud?) Seriously though! You bettah recognize! I hear about Rackspace all of the time from all over, so may as well invest in your career there if you see it fit :)  [It doesn’t hurt that someone I care about tells me how cool they are too, so why not make sure you know too ;)]

Search for Careers at Rackspace here!

Apigee

In the spirit of gold rushes, Apigee the API’s of the Internets is also dealing with it’s own API Gold Rush, so I thought it relevant to include :)  This is something I’ll likely be talking about more in the future and the importance of open API’s as we transcend and interoperate within Clouds and Virtualization – so may as well get the insight first and foremost!

Search for Careers at Apigee here!

So my peers, colleagues, friends and beyond, where does this leave us? (Other than at 5am still up from medicine to correct my lung infection I have grin)

I’m sure you’ll easily go on record saying “Whoa, this is only a few thousand jobs around a very specific [or even broad] technology!”  Yea, that’s exactly what I’m saying.   I chose a HANDFUL of companies who allowed me access to their insight of their own business needs to reflect on the industry respectively.    I am saying those of you who invested in virtualization years ago? It is RIPE to move up and beyond!  And for those of you who only recently started dabbling in virtualization or even still to adopt it and check it out?  The SAME opportunities exist!  

I figure, there are around 15,000 REALLY good virtualization jobs out there for skill sets at the lowest (and ALWAYS at the highest levels).  However, the sad part is, there aren’t that many skilled candidates out there to pursue these opportunities that do exist, [with or without the drive and passion we all want].  

We are at an EPIC point here in the industry.  Never before have there been so many necessary roles to fill by these gold-seekers.  Seeking you.   My good friends, Virtualization, Cloud, API’s, even SERVERS are Gold!   Don’t wait until it is too late and “Everyone is doing it”.  Do it now.  Invest in YOU today.   Believe me, you’ll be the winner.     Do not hesitate to contact me directly for additional anecdotal evidence around jobs like these across all companies, expectations, thoughts, perspective and why you should pursue something like this.   I’ve been doing x86 virtualization since the beta-dawn of VMware, and so many other things in those days and since.   Please don’t wait until 10 years from today to invest in your future.

If you feel a specific company was not represented adequately or you would like to be represented in this list – Do not hesitate to get in touch, and I’ll do whatever I have in my power to introduce the community to your virtual careers :)  Good luck, and Good future my friends.

What is this community though?  This is the mother load so to speak, YOUR source for Information in the Unified… and it’s available without a login! (Although I encourage a login so you can partake in questions, answers and more!)   So, let’s take this opportunity to take a little tour!

If you look at this massive page with so much to offer… it happens to break it ALL down for you with one key point to start with! – Notice on the right side of the screen..

Wow, does this take all of the effort out of it! Making it so you can get started quick and easy! here are some details!

Getting Started in the Unified Storage community

VERSION 7 

Created on: Aug 16, 2010 3:51 PM by cornwk – Last Modified:  Sep 1, 2010 10:30 AM by cornwk

Thank you for visiting the Unified Storage community.

We hope you will be an active, participating member. But if you just want to view information only, that’s OK too.

Here are some suggestions for how you can get started in this community:

1. To make sure that you can fully participate in this community, be sure to Login (or Register if this is your first visit to ECN).
   Click Login/Register at the top of the screen in the area that looks like this:
   
2. In the Unified Storage community, visit Breaking the Ice and tell us a little bit about yourself.
3. Scan the current discussions and jump in – post a new discussion of your own or respond to somebody else’s question.
4. Have fun!

If this is your first venture into ECN, visit the Quick Tour and learn how to put the communities to work for you!

75 Views Tags: midrange_storage , community , getting_started , welcome

What I particularly like about this Community though, is the fact that is it organic… driven by the community FOR the community!   It’s young right now (hey, it just launched!) and it will only continue to mature!   And I particularly want to thank the infamous  @kcornwall for everything she did to make this a reality and to continue driving this forward!

Now, while it may all be relative because content changes regularly… the current threads out there are WOW ON TARGET! To things I see come up in meetings practically every day  – so I wanted to bring specific light and clarity to them!

Every time I sit down with folks and we discuss Celerra, CLARiiON, and the whole of the Unified stack… they say “I want to know more information about….” and the …. is ALL of these threads!

So, without further adieu, here are some of the hot links here in the community to get you going!

• FAST/FAST Cache – Start Here
• Unisphere – Start Here
• VMware & Unified Storage – Start Here
• Capacity Optimization – Start Here
• Initial data placement when using FAST
• Replication  – Start Here
• Virtual Provisioning – Start Here
• Demo: Using Unisphere to Manage Block Storage
• Demo: Using Unisphere to Manage File Storage

Obviously I advise you to defer to the actual community for new content and more! but I thought I’d high-light what are often heavily discussed items where people say “Hey! I want more info on this!” Not that I’m saying anyone in particular (hi mike! :)) Should check these out, but if you find these useful, and/or your name is Mike… Definitely check it out!

Oh, and if you’re looking into downloading the UBER VSA which I’ve referenced in the past … Definitely here is the link to v3.2! Your best friend in virtualization!

Play it again, Sam: Celerra UBER v3.2

Thanks guys, check out the community… grow, and learn, question and learn…. and communitize yourselves!

UBERTastic : Celerra UBER VSA v3 – Unisphere -  Be sure to click this link here to get to the download links to pull down the OVA or Workstation version!

So, Roxanne… what is new in this version of the VSA? As it appears that I’m practically stealing Nick’s entire post (which I’m cool with… ;))

• DART is now 6.0.36.4
• Unisphere management console (rocks!)
• The Celerra VSA is now 64 bit! This means you can throw RAM at it for bigger setups and it will use it. Over 8GB becomes less beneficial without code changes to simulation services. Future updates will fix this from the Celerra VSA engineering teams.
• The biggest and most difficult change to construct is that the configuration is now adaptive depending on the virtual machine setup. This version is now intelligent in seeing how many resources you have given it.
• The new Celerra UBER VSA uses this intelligence to now allow *Thin* mode. If you give the VSA under 2GB of RAM it will automatically size the memory limits, processes, and management interface settings to allow it to run with as low as 1024MB of RAM. You won’t do replication or host a ton of VM’s but you can use this mode to host a few and fully demonstrate/test the new Unisphere interface on even a 2GB laptop.
• The new VSA also uses this intelligence to automatically allow the configuration of single or dual Data Mover version based on the memory assigned. If you give the VSA more than 4GB of memory you will be given the option to enable an additional Data Mover for use as a standby or load balancing experimentation. This means this single appliance can be a small lightweight NFS unit at 1024MB of RAM or can be a 2 Data Mover powerhouse at 8GB of RAM. All automatically configured on first boot through the wizard.
• Automatic VMDK/Storage additions have been adjusted for new 64 bit OS. This means this still works. Shutoff the VM, add VMDK(s), turn on and you have more space. Automagic
• Since automagic is so cool, I have changed the Data Mover Ethernet binding to be automatic also. The VM starts with 1 interface for management and 1 interface for the Data Movers. If you want more for the DM(s), just shutoff the VM, add NIC cards (up to 6 additional), and turn back on. It will automatically bind the Data Mover (yes it works with the 2 DM mode also) to the new interfaces and virtual slots. Just go back into Unisphere and assign away. This allows scale up for the bigger 2 Data Mover 8GB of RAM versions easily.
• Configuration is now Perl/Bash based instead of just Bash to keep things cleaner and slicker and allow for some coolness later on
• NTP from the configuration portion of the wizard works correctly. It sets both the Control Station and all Data Movers and enables NTP as a running service. Make sure your NTP server is valid.

So let’s summarize:

1. New Unisphere
2. 64 Bit
3. Automatic sizing
4. Thin Mode
5. Optional 2 Data Mover mode
6. Automatic Data Mover Ethernet adding (along with fixed Storage [VMDK] adding)
7. NTP works now

Wow! That’s a whole lot! Where do I sign up to download?!?  UBERTastic : Celerra UBER VSA v3 – Unisphere – No signup required, just go click and download!  Because Nick has so many other vital details about the differences of THIS Uber VSA compared to Uber VSA’s in the past, I am referring you to his page so you can read the ‘technical’ details and stuff!  So go download the UBER VSA TODAY! (I am downloading it right now, literally.. )

I look forward to your feedback… and enjoyment of this tool, I know I’ve been waiting for some time for this myself!

Exhausted from Post-VMworld? Not sure what the status of your Private Cloud has been? Wondering where the Cloud meets the road up in Canada?   Come on down to EMC Forum hitting Toronto on September 9th, 2010!   Register now!

I thought you might find the actual agenda useful of what tracks happen to be available, so here is the breakdown removing all of the other details like breaks and keynotes:

Now.. you know how I love free stuff.. so here is some additional incentive! :)

· EMC Forum Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/EMCForum

· Onsite Facebook “Best Pic” photo contest. Attendees are asked to submit a picture from the event to our Facebook account. The best picture wins an iPad at the end of the event. Check out the best pic submissions on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EMCForum?v=photos

So, I definitely encourage you to check this out and be sure to Register now! before it is too late!

Yea, seriously, this IS a Rap Video! Albeit sure you’re saying “Wow, isn’t that Circa Chicago Bears in the mid 1980’s with the superbowl shuffle?!” And I would go so far as to say.. The bears were rockstars at that time were they not?    This is simply a further reference to just how far these guys go the extra mile, both in their ability to get things actually done (as they say so in there) but a testament what each of these individuals do.   When they’re not busy doing their actual jobs, or studying or taking exams, or writing blog posts, or writing chapters for the next greatest Virtualization book you’ll be buying… or traveling all over the place, OR building out LABS and testing out things in every possible configuration and publishing the results..

Well… when all of that is said… and all of that is done.    They make rap videos! :)

I hope you enjoy it! The Production quality of this is absolutely AMAZING! I saw it on a big screen and I was floored at how well it was done (I always judge for production quality before I even look at content.. and the content is crazy good times ;))

As some of the other prevailing events have gotten finalized from a time perspective I’m adjusting the time ever so slightly for this in order to respect the times of registration / etc.

Now, the event will kick off around Noon on Sunday, starting from the W Hotel to head over there (you can meet us at (Lucky Foot Massage) or walk/public transit over with us. 

This will give more than enough time to allow for people to get back to Moscone for Shirt pickup for the VMworld Fun Run (Shirt Pickup runs from 3PM to 3:30PM) This also leaves time open to catch the Busses to the Fun Run at Moscone starting at 3:30PM

Not to mention this provides more than enough time for the MNTweetup and WuPaaS hosted at the Thirsty Bear.

So, hopefully this doesn’t disrupt anyone’s schedule or plans they had around joining vAcupressure! In any event, I’ll likely be there until ~3PM or so anyway (Getting my feet and hand rubbed!)

Don’t hesitate to contact me via txt/call at 630.362.1320 or try to reach me on Twitter! @cxi

See you all tomorrow! (We may do a follow-up on Friday after the con is over because our feet will likely hurt! ;))

I was thinking we’d be looking at around 2:00PM or so, at say.. the W Hotel [Which is RIGHT next to Moscone] (Or a better chosen location) and head our way over to Chinatown!

The location I have in mind is Lucky Foot Massage! – They quoted me on the phone 1HR Foot Massage $25 (We’ll confirm when we’re really there of course ;))

If you’ve never had Acupressure done before, it’s been described as acupuncture without the needles or a nice soothing foot rub (which will hit EVERY button you didn’t realize you even had!)

I’ll be pursuing in the Acupressure hand-rub because I am skilled in acupressure and can rub my own feet (but I lack the two hands to work on my own hands!) – Great for that carpal tunnel!

This is especially beneficial (the timing was chosen because of this….) for those of you also attending the VMworld 2010 Fun Run at 5PM!

So if you are going to join us, come on down! We can have some hardcore Virtual conversations while our feet and hands are PHYSICALLY rubbed! :)

Next week is VMworld 2010 in San Francisco! (oh my!)   Yes that is indeed correct! And as part of a community service (and because I want to do it, damnit!)

I’m going to go around and find as many vExperts (and other experts as applicable) and ask them questions! Your Questions! (My questions) so on and so forth!

I’m not looking to go into a single half hour diatribe response from each person on each question.. but I know there are some hard hitting good questions you have for the vExperts out there, as well as some ridiculous questions you may have … And I’m going to get it all on Video (and sum up all of the responses in txt form as well as applicable when I ask recurring/repeating questions to multiple vExperts)

The vExpert community is filled with some absolute champions of industry – I typically reference this VMware vExpert 2010 Directory as it seems to be the most complete compared to the other instances I can find out there.  

So, please provide the types of questions you’d like to get answered! And if there are specific questions you want asked of specific vExperts (or VMware folks who are not vExperts) or perhaps even if you want me to convince them to sing a song or do some karaoke.. You just say the word… and as a champion vExpert myself I shall tackle this!

Special.. if you want me to ask the SPOUSES of vExperts questions as well (which may help your own spouselife know what the life of vExpert Wives is like… that too ;))

See you at VMworld!

Next week is VMworld 2010 in San Francisco! (oh my!)   Yes that is indeed correct! And as part of a community service (and because I want to do it, damnit!)

I’m going to go around and find as many vExperts (and other experts as applicable) and ask them questions! Your Questions! (My questions) so on and so forth!

I’m not looking to go into a single half hour diatribe response from each person on each question.. but I know there are some hard hitting good questions you have for the vExperts out there, as well as some ridiculous questions you may have … And I’m going to get it all on Video (and sum up all of the responses in txt form as well as applicable when I ask recurring/repeating questions to multiple vExperts)

The vExpert community is filled with some absolute champions of industry – I typically reference this VMware vExpert 2010 Directory as it seems to be the most complete compared to the other instances I can find out there.  

So, please provide the types of questions you’d like to get answered! And if there are specific questions you want asked of specific vExperts (or VMware folks who are not vExperts) or perhaps even if you want me to convince them to sing a song or do some karaoke.. You just say the word… and as a champion vExpert myself I shall tackle this!

Special.. if you want me to ask the SPOUSES of vExperts questions as well (which may help your own spouselife know what the life of vExpert Wives is like… that too ;))

See you at VMworld!

Next week is VMworld 2010 in San Francisco! (oh my!)   Yes that is indeed correct! And as part of a community service (and because I want to do it, damnit!)

I’m going to go around and find as many vExperts (and other experts as applicable) and ask them questions! Your Questions! (My questions) so on and so forth!

I’m not looking to go into a single half hour diatribe response from each person on each question.. but I know there are some hard hitting good questions you have for the vExperts out there, as well as some ridiculous questions you may have … And I’m going to get it all on Video (and sum up all of the responses in txt form as well as applicable when I ask recurring/repeating questions to multiple vExperts)

The vExpert community is filled with some absolute champions of industry – I typically reference this VMware vExpert 2010 Directory as it seems to be the most complete compared to the other instances I can find out there.  

So, please provide the types of questions you’d like to get answered! And if there are specific questions you want asked of specific vExperts (or VMware folks who are not vExperts) or perhaps even if you want me to convince them to sing a song or do some karaoke.. You just say the word… and as a champion vExpert myself I shall tackle this!

Special.. if you want me to ask the SPOUSES of vExperts questions as well (which may help your own spouselife know what the life of vExpert Wives is like… that too ;))

See you at VMworld!

Thanks to Donors like Scott Lowe, David Davis and Eric Siebert – vDestination.com is enabling you to win THIS!

* A signed copy of Mastering VMware vSphere 4 from Scott Lowe
* A signed copy of VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference from Scott Lowe
* A signed copy of Maximum vSphere from Eric Siebert
* A copy of VMware vSphere Pro Series Training vol. 2: Site Recovery Manager (SRM), Veeam Management Suite, VMware Data Recovery,
Power CLI and vSphere Advanced Features from David Davis
* A vDestination.com t-shirt (XL only), bumper sticker and mouse pad
UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE! 8/19
* Just added to the list of prizes, a generous donation from Mike Laverick*
**A signed copy of Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager 4.0
**A signed copy of VMware vSphere 4 Implementation

I’m fortunate to call most of those items inclusive in my own library – and if you enter the contest which ENDS this Thursday August 26th.. So can you! :)

Rules are pretty simple… be alive to start.. and then..

Contest Rules:
Beginning today August 8th, 2010 (coincidentally, my birthday!), registration is open. Here’s how:

1. You must log on to twitter and follow me. Easy enough.
2. You must post only one (1) comment/reply to this blog post below. The comment must include the following:

a. Your first and last name
b. A valid email address
c. A short bio about yourself and how you use VMware
d How you plan on putting these prizes to use
e. What you are looking forward to learning from these prizes

So what are you waiting for?!? Time is running out! Get out there and join this contest!!!

You could win what very well may fulfill your destination!

And you guys tell me.. if you want I can throw in a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate into the mix as well? That’s entirely up to you (Yea, it’s not virtual.. but whatever! ;))

How to mass unfollow or follow people on Twitter .. and more …

How to mass follow and unfollow on twitter: over 10k club!

But then it all went away.. until NOW! (Again ;))

Featuring Twitter Mutuality!

I decided to give this a try today – Why not (I had hit an odd condition where I had a bunch of people I was not following but should have been!) so I decided to give it a try.

First I used three of my test accounts in order to ensure that it would actually function/work, and if it didn’t or my account was compromised I’d be able to simply change the password and move on.    It seemed to function and operate as expected… so I took it to the next level.

Lo and behold, BAM!  It worked! It not only worked though.. it worked VERY well, VERY fast and extremely efficient.  All for the major price of $0 (Wow!)

Is my account compromised? Will they use my credentials for evil? (This does not use oAuth for verification, so it’s VERY possible they’re storing your credentials in some database for major exploitation.   My advise there – Use the tool if you want and then change your creds… Until I get confirmation one way or the other of how safe and legit this may be (I seem fine for now) you can take advantage of the tool and move on.

In the past I’ve discussed tools which had limits for having over 10K followers/following.  This tool does not seem to be even phased by my 16k followers, so take that to heart and take advantage of this! If this works for you and you like it, be sure to let me know in the comments or on twitter @cxi :)

How did this all start you might say?!? Well, contrary to popular belief, I am a STAUNCH NetApp FUD dispeller.  What that means is, if I hear something said about NetApp by a competitor, peer, partner or customer which I feel is incorrect or just sounds interesting; I task it upon myself to prove/disprove it because well frankly… People still hit me up with NetApp questions all the time :) (And I’d like to make sure I’m supplying them with the most accurate and reflective data! – yea that’s it, and it has nothing to do with how much of a geek I am.. :))

Well, in the defense of the video it didn’t go EXACTLY like that.   Here is a little background on how we got to where that video is today :)   I recently overheard someone say the following:

What I hear over and over is that dedupe rates when using VMware deteriorate over time

And my first response was “nuh uh!”, Well, maybe not my FIRST response.. but quickly followed by; “Let me try and get some foundational data”  because you know me… I like to blog about things and as a result collect way too much data to try to validate and understand and effectively say whatever I say accurately :)

The first thing I did was engage several former NetApp folks who are as agnostic and objective as I am to get their thoughts on the matter (we were on the same page!) – Data collection time!  

For Data Collection… I talked to some good friends of mine regarding how their Dedupe savings have been over time because they were so excited when we first enabled it in the first place (And I was excited for them!)   This is where I learned some… frankly disturbing things (I did talk to numerous guys named Mike interestingly enough, and on the whole all of those who I talked with and their data they shared with me reflected similar findings)

Disturbing things learned!

Yea I’ve heard all the jibber jabber before usually touted as FUD that NetApp systems will deteriorate over time in general (whether it be Performance, whether it be Space Savings) etc etc. 

Well some of the disturbing things learned actually coming from the field on real systems protecting real production data was:

• Space Savings are GREAT, and will be absolutely amazing in the beginning! 70-90% is common… in the beginning. (Call this the POC and the burn-in period)
• As that data starts to ‘change’ ever so slightly as you would expect your data to change (not sit static and RO) you’ll see your savings start to decrease, as much as 45% over a year
• This figure is not NetApp’s fault.  Virtual machines (mainly what we’re discussing here) are not designed to stay uniformly the same no matter what in accordance to 4k blocks, so the very fact that they change is absolutely normal so this loss isn’t a catastrophe, it’s a fact of the longevity of data.
• Virtual Machine data which is optimal for deduplication typically amounts to 1-5% of the total storage in the datacenter.   In fact if we want to lie to ourselves or we have a specific use-case, we can pretend that it’s upwards of 10%, but not much more than that.  And this basically accounts for Operating System, Disk Image, blah blah blah – the normal type of data that you would dedupe in the first place.
• I found that particularly disturbing because after reviewing the data from these numerous environments… I had the impression VMware data would account for much more!   I saw a 50TB SAN only have ~2TB of data residing in Data stores and of that only 23% of it was deduplicating (I was shocked!)
• I was further shocked that when reviewing the data that over the course of a year on a 60TB SAN, this customer only found 12TB of data they could justify running the dedupe process against and of that they were seeing less than 3TB of ‘duplicate data’ coming in around 18% space savings over that 12TB.    The interesting bit is that the other 48TB of data just continued on un-affected by dedupe.   (Yes, I asked why don’t they try to dedupe it… and they did in the lab and, well it never made it into production)

At this point, I was even more so concerned.   Concerned whether there was some truth to this whole NetApp starts really high in the beginning (Performance/IO way up there, certain datasets will have amazing dedupe ratios to start) etc. and then starts to drop off considerably over time, while the EMC equivalent system performs consistently the entire time.

Warning! Warning Will Robinson!

This is usually where klaxons and red lights would normally go off in my head.    If what my good friends (and customers) are telling me is accurate, it is that not only will my performance degrade just by merely using the system, but my space efficiency will deteriorate over time as well.    Sure we’ll get some deduplication, no doubt about that!  But the long term benefit isn’t any better than compression (as a friend of mine had commented on this whole ordeal)    With the many ways of trying to look at this and understand I discussed it with my friend Scott who had the following analogy and example to cite with this:

The issue that I’ve seen is this:

Since a VMDK is a container file, the nature of the data is a little different than a standard file like a word doc for example.

Normally, if you take a standard windows C: – like on your laptop, every file is stored as 4K blocks.  However, unless the file is exactly divisible by 4K (which is rare), the last block has just a little bit of waste in it.  Doesn’t matter if this is a word doc, a PowerPoint, or a .dll in the \windows\system32 directory, they all have a little bit of waste at the end of that last block.

When converted to a VMDK file, the files are all smashed together because inside the container file, we don’t have to keep that 4K boundary.  Kind of like sliding a bunch of books together on a book shelf eliminating the wasted space.  Now this is one of the cool things about VMware that makes the virtual disk more space efficient than a physical disk – so this is a good thing.

So, when you have a VMDK and you clone it – let’s say create 100 copies and then do a block based dedupe – you’ll get a 99% dedupe rate across those virtual disks.  That’s great – initially.  Netapp tends to calculate this “savings” into their proposals and tell customers that require 10TB of storage, that they can just buy 5TB and dedupe and then they’ll have plenty of space.

What happens is, that after buying ½ the storage they really needed the dedupe rate starts to break down. Here’s why:

When you start running the VMs and adding things like service packs or patches for example – well that process doesn’t always add files to the end of the vmdk.  It often deletes files from the middle, beginning, end and then  replaces them with other files etc.  What happens then is that the bits shift a little to the left and the right – breaking the block boundaries. Imagine adding and removing books of different sizes from the shelf and making sure there’s no wasted space between them.

If you did a file per file scan on the virtual disk (Say a windows C: drive), you might have exactly the same data within the vmdk, however since the blocks don’t line up, the block based dedupe which is fixed at 4K sees different data and therefore the dedupe rate breaks down.

A sliding window technology (like what Avamar does ) would solve this problem, but today ASIS is fixed at 4K. 

Thoughts?

If you have particular thoughts about what Scott shared there, feel free to comment and I’ll make sure he reads this as well; but this raises some interesting questions.   

We’ve covered numerous things in here, and I’ve done everything I can to avoid discussing the guarantees I feel like I’ve talked about to death (linked below) so addressing what we’ve discussed:

• I’m seeing on average 20% of a customers data which merits deduping and of that I’m seeing anywhere from 10-20% space saved across that 20%
• Translation: 100TB of data, 20TB is worth deduping reclaiming about 4TB of space in total; thus on this conservative estimate you’d get about 4-5% space saved!
• Translation: When you have a 20TB data warehouse and you go to dedupe it (You won’t) you’ll see no space gained, with a 100% cost across it.
• With the EMC Unified Storage Guarantee, that same 20TB data warehouse will be covered by the 20% more efficient guarantee (Well, EVERY data type is covered without caveat)   [It’s almost like it’s a shill, but it really bears repeating because frankly this is earth shattering and worth discussing with your TC or whoever]

For more great information on EMC’s 20% Unified Storage Guarantee – check out these links (and other articles I’ve written on the subject as well!)

• EMC didn’t invent Unified Storage; They Perfected it
• EMC 20% Unified Storage Guarantee: Final Reprise
• EMC Unified Storage Capacity Calculator – The Tutorial!
• EMC 20% Unified Storage Guarantee !EXPOSED!
• EMC Unified Storage is 20% more efficient Guaranteed!

I won’t subject you to it, especially because it is over 7 minutes long, but here is a semi funny (my family does NOT find it funny!) video about EMCs Unified Storage Guarantee and making a comparison to NetApp’s Guarantee.   Various comments included in the description of the video – Don’t worry if you never watch it… I won’t hold it against you ;)

Be safe out there, the data jungle is a vicious one!   If you need any help driving truth out of your EMC or NetApp folks feel free to reach out and I’ll do what I can :)

SPOILERS!!!

You didn’t think I’d leave it that easily!   I definitely encourage conversation and engagement and absolutely want you to; some of you are you going to read what I said (or completely disregard or gloss over it) and say “I GET AMAZING DEDUPE RESULTS TODAY LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE!” or “MY ENVIRONMENT IS DEDUPING X Y AND Z AT J PERCENT” etc.  No, I get it, I do.   You had BETTER be seeing massive deduplication space savings in your VMware environment.  In fact, I hope you are seeing 10-20% savings in your SQL environments which you’re not compressing by default (Why are you deduping SQL? Yea I know we’re crazy, lets get past that!) and your file data, you’ll be seeing what.. 35-45% deduped there per volume you have allocated or broken down into your CIFS or NFS structures?   I know for the most part exactly what type of space savings you SHOULD see out the gate, and at a fairly decent level what you would typically be seeing over the span of x months, years (etc rate of change period, etc).  Not to mention that I personally love the algorithm which is employed, I think it’s really cool functionally and understand it far more than most people should.   Though this is not the panacea of all things.   And with that in mind I want you to be combative if you are defensive about the savings you’ve gained; ESPECIALLY if you are questioning where that may bode for the future.   I hate nothing more than making a promise “Look! You’ve saved 80% today, so it can only stay at 80% or above for the future right?” only to find them shattered because there honestly wasn’t enough historical data let alone usage patterns to dictate what the future would look like.    

As I always have, I encourage you to question, confirm, validate and question again.   I drive a Prius and NetApp is a little like a Prius in a number of ways.   In optimal conditions you can get an expected MPG, and pretty much assume you’ll get it.   Unless you go up hill, or down hill, or it’s too hot out or it’s too cold out; though otherwise you can pretty much expect to get this same MPG! (Even if my MPG deviates by as much as 30% given any number of conditions)     EMC has always been conservative.  If they say you’ll get ‘x’ you have the expectation, nay a guarantee that you will be obtaining ‘x’, that’s something they’ve always been very good at which is why EMC is where information lives. :) (bad tagline reference… ;))

“Ooh! What’s that playing on the radio! Wow, let me see… (Pulls out iPhone4, loads up search and types in shaz – Select Shazam and select “Tag”) [listening… listening… listening…]

?!?!?WTF?!?!? I’m limited to 5 per tags per month?!? Okay fine.. sure that was a complete surprise, but I’ll download the pay version and finish tagging my song there. 

HI IM SHAZAM AND EVEN IF YOU PAY YOU STILL GET ADS – JUST LIKE CLASSMATES.COM  Seriously?!   Yea, #fail multiplied by #fail equals me going to look for another solution.   And it was then (that I complained about this on Twitter) that @jeffcoffee suggested I check out SoundHound!  

Okay, let me first off set the disclaimer:

There is a ‘5 per month’ limit on the Free version of SoundHound as well, but I was already in the market for a new product which clearly was NOT Shazam.

So, I load up the app and I get splashed with this screen

First of all, let me just say.   Whoa!  I decide to click “Tap Here” and I proceed to sing the Beatles “The Yellow Submarine” (I did consider filming me doing that… for your sake, I didn’t ;))

Lo and behold shortly into the song, BAM! It recognized it from my very own (at this point out of tune voice)  Wow! I should share this feat with someone shouldn’t I!? Ooh! Twitter and FB integration!  Yea, that’s the cost of doing business though.    But what if I don’t know the name of the song… all I can really remember is an artist…

With the ease of knowing ‘words’ I simply say a song name or an artist name by clicking on the “Title or Artist” section and bam! I’m presented with Michael Jackson!

And while it is very nice that they have the settings easy enough to configure inside of the Settings section… the following is something I tested (both from my iPhone and my iPad) Something I had wished Shazam could do.. but never did, and frankly I don’t care if they ever support it at this point!

Suppose the following situation exists:   You’re listening to a song out of iTunes/iPod on your device, or even listening to something on Pandora! And you’re saying “Man, I wish I had the lyrics to that song, or knew what album it was off of, or other details” etc etc..  So you go and launch Shazam and immediately all sound CEASES to operate.  WTF?!? That’s kind of dismissing!

I welcome you to this feature in SoundHound called “Now Playing!”   Yes, this screen shot is from my iPad because it looks soooooo much cooler in that sense ;) But it works JUST as well on the iPhone (I guarantee :))

And the last thing I’d like to share from my playing with this, is the “What’s Hot” “UnderPlayed” and “Just found by Users” options.  As you can see the iPad version looks a lot sweeter than the iPhone version… :)

And last but not least, I’d like to share some of the ‘highlights’ mentioned from their actual website which incase I missed any of this, you have it here! :)

	Free Version of SoundHound Now Available for iOS and Android Highlights Blazing fast music identification Sing & Hum recognition Voice-directed music search In-app lyrics Special on iPad: Big, beautiful lyrics and music videos The SoundHound Ticker
Version 3.3.1 for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad Version 2.0.1 for Android - SoundHound (free): 5 IDs per month Available on the App Store - SoundHound ?: unlimited Available on the App Store

Oh, and let’s not ignore the one feature (which seemed to be overlooked in too many ways in the features…)

Instantly launch a Pandora Station!!!

Okay..  I think that is enough… I’ll let you tell me your favorite functions, features and otherwise.   If you found this useful at all, and if you kick the ‘”Shazam” habit, let me know.  If you’re from Shazam I’d love to hear your feedback as well. :) 

So, in the effort of full disclosure and thanks to my good friend Stuart Miniman, I’m publishing this post here, containing everything you actually care about!

Published in this lovely slide share; Converged Networks: FCoE, iSCSI and the Future of Storage Networking is a beautiful slide like this, but the real core and important bit is.

Orange Fiber Cable DOES 10g, but only up to 82m

Blue (Aqua) Fiber Cable is ALSO 10g, at lengths of up to 300m

By the looks of things though, when it comes to the days of 40g or 100g, Orange cable will not exactly be your best friend in those scenarios; a good problem to have at that point.

So, when you’re going through your datacenter and doing short-haul in a cabinet and saying “doh! we need to rip out all of this orange so we can to 10g”.. Don’t.   If you’re running long haul or to a cabinet pretty far away, sure make sure it’s blue all day long but you will be fine in the short term if you’re doing short runs.

Hopefully you found this useful (let me know if so) because I’m sick and tired of trying to remember what this is and end up at a million pages telling me EVERY detail but this! :)