Inspired by VMworld 2010 Europe - 2011 : the year of the vConference?

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


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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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


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




Just brainstorming.




Thoughts?




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




Roger L.

View Brainstorm - Looking for Current VMware View Customer's , first eighteen questions

Earlier I had posted about view 4.5 design considerations, I had a couple of replies, so I thought I would widen the quarry.

I want to hear from people running VMware View. I have a ton of questions, but here is the first eighteen I could think of.

Below is my brainstorm off the top.

1. How did you meet your I/O requirements on the storage side?
2. Are you using a Cache card on your storage?
3. Did you go 10GB at the same time?
4. What did you use to get a View I/O estimate?
5. How did you build / Configure your cluster? IE, scale up or out?
6. Did you use blade vs Rack?
7. What version of vSphere are you on?
8. What build of vSphere are you on?
9. What type of consolidation ratio do you have?
10. How could you improve that?
11. What challenges did you face on the AV side?
12. What broker as you using, and why?
13. What desktop / terminal configuration are you using?
14. Anyone using Multi Monitor?
15. Are you using single sign-on?
16. Anyone using view in healthcare?
17. Anyone using IPad's?
18. If so, what challenges are you, did you face?

I am looking for a lot of input, so please reply!

Also, if I am missing questions, please let me know!

Thanks!


Roger L.

The evolution of the LAB, is it upon us?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Thoughts all? Please comment.


Roger L.

Poll - what do you use in your Virtual environment?

 Do you use the following in your Virtual Infrastructure:

• 
  
  Reporting / Monitoring
• 
  
  Optimize
• 
  
  Charge Back
• 
  
  Backup
• 
  
  I am here for the shareware.....

view results
Free vote poll

Random Thoughts

You'll see me post random thoughts, hopefully they make some sense.


Random work thoughts.


Explore Virtual monitoring, reporting, optimization, charge back ( not a provider ).



Random vbrainstorm thoughts.


See above , steps to research, evaluate, discuss and explore the above.

Need to reach out to fellow twitter contacts and blogger's to build content and other view's for site.

Thinking Virtual , moving from 2010 to 2011.

It is 2010, almost 2011. This year at VMworld the message was as much or more cloud that it was in 09. But I often find my self, am I thinking virtual?

Let's back up, what is it to think virtual, by looking at the term as it is defined.

"
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.
The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real. Colloquially, 'virtual' is used to mean almost, particularly when used in the adverbial form e.g. "That's virtually [almost] impossible""

Well, that is no help at all, what I mean in this case, is when looking at a project, or a  problem, do I think phyiscal in the sense, of application, desktop, server, or am I thinking about current methods? ( virtual )

Today, I am running Physical desktop's, when my anti virus needs a subscription update, do I think about the fact that if I deploy view, in the future, I might need to reevaluate my anti virus? When I talk to a vendor about firewall's, do I ask if they have a plans to make a VMware appliance? When I talk to a Security vendor about IPS / IDS , do I ask how it works if my servers are virtualized, or even desktop's?

Are the software devloper's thinking virtual? Are the people making insurance software thinking virtual, banking software? What about Healthcare, are the EMR, EHR developer's thinking virtual?

Without them on board, what kind of challenges does something like vCD in the future?

Maybe, no one else stuggles to shake the troditional Physical world, who knows?

My thoughts are, that to move forward in 2010, and move into 2011, we need to align our thinking, as we align disks in the storage world.

I would like people's commends and views please.


Roger L.

VMware View 4.5 design considerations.

I am thinking about a possible VMware View 4.5 design consideration.

As some of you may know, we run a NetApp 3140, and a shelf 14 FC drives on each filer. One filer has 14 drives of Sata.

How are those of you running view now meeting your I/O Requirements? How did you build your cluster? Did you choose , blade or standard rack servers? Or maybe a scale up model?

I want to know what you are using. Please comment!

Welcome to vBrainstorm

Hello all, I am dedicating this site to both Creative thinking, and thoughts, of technology, as well as direct brain storming with a virtualization focus. I want your your idea's as well as my crazy ones.

Thanks!


Roger L.