VMworld Europe 2017 Wednesday

VMworld Europe 2017 Wednesday

Ah, VMworld Wednesday, the show is in full swing. Get past the second morning keynote and the messaging will slowly change to focus on the VMworld Customer Appreciation Party with the Kaiser Chiefs playing. Keynote? The VMTN Community area was once again my first destination of the day, to get settled before the keynote started. However, a conversation with a bunch of the people who had also gathered there meant that during the keynote itself, I wrote 2 words, neither of them in this post.
VMworld Europe 2017 Tuesday

VMworld Europe 2017 Tuesday

So the day has come, the great and the good of the VMware community are all gathered in Barcelona for another VMworld Europe and as much as there’s been a whole bunch of chat, beers, sessions, training, exams and catching up going on (including PEX and TAM Day), the keynote marks the transition from all the “preliminaries” to the actual show proper. More on that soon, but first, the vBreakfast!
VMworld 2017 Monday General Session

VMworld 2017 Monday General Session

Rock and Roll! VR drawings and a Rock/cello mashup before Pat comes out to tell us that we should really be there in person. Well, I’ll seeya in a couple of weeks… A good touch to talk upfront about Hurricane Harvey and asking those watching to consider donating. The intial part of the keynote sees Pat talking about science fact in general, exoskeletons, “teleporting” atoms into space, Genetically modified organisms, driverless cars, even designing your own shoes online.
My Current Homelab Setup

My Current Homelab Setup

As a confirmed Homelab freak and a#vDM30in30 participant, I guess that a post on the content of my lab would be pretty much expected. I’m a permanent member of staff in a large company, so I do have access to a considerable amount of kit on different continents within which I can play around at times, but I’m still of the opinion that having something to mess around with at home is viable.
VMworld Europe 2016 Thursday

VMworld Europe 2016 Thursday

The last day of the show is always the quietest day. Some people are travelling home early, there’s less sessions around, certainly no parties after hours to plan for, the solutions exchange gets torn down and basically, everyone’s knackered. My Thursday was relatively gentle, as a reflection of all of the above. I did have a few sessions booked, but in the end, I ducked most of them, other than the mandatory TAM session, as everything is available online afterwards and there were still some vendors to see, some conversations to have, some people to catch up with, generally some time to be sociable.
VMware Europe 2016 Wednesday

VMware Europe 2016 Wednesday

AKA TAM day 2 for me, I’d got so many TAM sessions planned that it was going to prove difficult to keep the step average up! TAM 3842 – VMware Cloud on AWS Wednesday morning saw me wake up to discover a session which I did not have on my calendar when I planned my sessions, although I was rather pleased to see it there, given that it was about #VMConAWS.
VMware Europe 2016 Tuesday

VMware Europe 2016 Tuesday

This post will focus on the better part of the VMworld Tuesday, from both a time and an enjoyment perspective. Things didn’t start too well, I’d not gone to bed too late, but it seemed that I was party to Barcelona’s loudest ever relationship breakup which took place outside my window at about 4.30 AM, which meant that I failed to get to the vBreakfast for 7AM (sorry Fred, I definitely will make it one year!
VMworld Europe 2016 TAM Day

VMworld Europe 2016 TAM Day

Kicking off the conference in the best way possible is attendance at TAM day (or Partner day if that’s your thing). TAM day is a relatively structured day with a number of sessions and of course, that access to the other parts of VMworld which are open on the Monday. There’s a growing number of people arriving on the Monday who are neither TAM nor PEX attendees, but there’s other conference activities to keep them going too.
New site launch - OpenHomelab

New site launch - OpenHomelab

If you have a Homelab or if you are thinking of constructing a Homelab, if you need to plan on a budget or want to know what everyone else is using, if you’ve wondered if you’re better off with a Cloudlab, but are not sure of the TCO involved, if you are studying for certifications, have a thirst for knowledge or just money to burn, then today sees the launch of a site designed just for you.

Installing a vROps 6.2 Appliance

A post to cover my initial fiddling with vRealise Operations Manager 6.2. Considering I have the vExpert licenses to play with, then installing and configuring some additional monitoring seems like a good idea, especially since the alerting and reporting tools that come baked in to vSphere itself are not that extensive. I’ve heard good things about this version of vROps, so let’s see how easy this is. Installing vROps is not difficult, since like most of the current generation of vSphere add-ons that VMware have released, there’s an appliance to use.