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I’ve spent the last few years working at a service provider working on client facing VMware projects, rolling out out a VMware vCloud environment, and helping shape how VMware can be leveraged internally. One of great things for me professionally was a chance to get my hands deeper into VMware’s product catalog from about every angle imaginable.
It was awesome getting a look behind the curtains at how a really great datacenter and internet company works to constantly deliver solid solutions to their customers. With this year drawing to a close soon, I’m eagerly looking forward to new projects and new challenges to tackle.

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There has been a significant lack of writing in the last few months. Not for a lack of stuff to write about either! I’ve been meaning to do some brewing related posts, as well as a couple of techie oriented ones. It’s always time for writing, so it’s time for me to get moving!

While I’m at VMworld this year, I’m planning on heading over to BrewCraft. I’ve been to SFO to many times to have not visited this homebrew store. If you’re in the area for VMworld and want to head over there with me, find me, and let me know!

Here’s a great piece from an article I had sent to me from a friend a few months ago. If anyone knows where it’s from, please let me know so I can quote /attribute it appropriately.
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What everyone already knows

Working out is important. This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. If you’re in the midwest, and you’re around a Farrell’s gym, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s amazing. No matter where you work out, the issue is you’re only really in a gym for an hour or so a day. It’s the other 23 hours that are harder to focus on.
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What does the Atkins diet (mostly all protein) and the Japanese diet (Mostly all carbs) have in common? They both work, and they’re both low in fructose. Dr. Lustig debunks 30 years of dietary study in 90 minutes. Can’t recommend watching this enough.

Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public [7/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 16717]

So this is as far off the beaten path for me that I’ve gone. If you’ve met me in the last few years it will certainly be shocking that I’m even venturing into the realm of a “fitness” postings.
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It all started with this tweet, (at least the banana bread madness) but it ended with Ed Saipetch (Blog here) shipping off banana bread goodness to roughly 10 folks. With all of the iPad unboxings going on I thought I’d put something out there worth unboxing…..and then eat it.

Two thumbs up Ed, this was top notch.
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Work has been keeping me busy. That’s a good thing. An update, I’ve been with “The Company” for a while now, and it’s been a real eye opener. I’ve never actually met my boss face to face. Or most of my coworkers. This is a big company, and it’s REALLY spread out. (50+ countries) It sort of congeals in a few places, not surprising one of those places in NYC. There’s a sizable location on the other side of the river too, in Hoboken, NJ. That’s where I’m headed. Hoboken NJ.

I’ve been asked to deliver the opening remarks and slides for the “WTF are we all doing here? and how are we going to correctly consolidate and leverage vmware?” slides. I don’t really deliver slides in a sort of stuffy big company delivery method, I’m interested in seeing how it’s received. (Turns out it wasn’t received at all, my slide deck was cherry picked by PMO)

The interesting thing that we’re seeing is the reason I was told I was brought on.

“How do we fix VMware?”

This isn’t my first dance card, and I’m sure it’s not yours either. One of the most interesting things happening (at least to me anyway) is that companies of all sizes, have moved from the “what widgets do we need” to the “wait a second, this is REALLY going to muck up policies, procedures, and a host of other things we tolerate around here”.

Like any big enterprise, “The Company” has a way of handling virtualization. First it’s treated as sort of that “sure no big deal we can throw some servers out there and consolidate a few boxes, this is nothing!” Then usually the engineers start tackling the widgets angle of virtualization. This $STORAGEDEVICE does X and Y really neat! Look how it ties into my $SERVERPLATFORMOFCHOICE, or $SHINYBOLTONVMWAREPRODUCT is pretty cool, we should deploy this because it would solve $RANDOMTECHNICALPROBLEMTHATHASBOTHEREDADMINS.

The scope and success for the long term of any virtualization effort within most every sized company can be determined by the following questions.

Identifying the key components however are difficult for most engineering shops without close coordination with the operations group. For whatever reason, the size of the rift between the two organizations usually has a noticeable impact on the success of this effort.

With no coordination, it’s common to see an implementation that doesn’t account for complete monitoring, or proper capacity planning.

The next steps always determine how long it takes for an enterprise to move forward. Hopefully at this point the engineering teams involved are paying attention and say get the environment the proper planning, care, and feeding it needs. Usually this happens when you’ve got a business sponsor that’s driving the project, or a really sharp architect with history on the business side. The issue with relying solely on the administration or engineering teams, is that the bigger picture issues are often not addressed.

“Here’s the servers we’re using, here’s our storage, here’s the network gear, here’s what version of software we’re running” none of this data by itself will drive a successful virtualization project in an enterprise. It needs to be addressed as an entire platform to manage.

The idea, “we’re not deploying servers in a datacenter, we’re deploying datacenters within our datacenters” should start creeping in at this point.

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I never finished this article.. The company didn’t have business sponsorship…. I moved on when I was told it wasn’t going to get it either.

First, let me say thank you to some of the great sponsors that pitched in this year to help. This was a crazy event, and it wouldn’t have been possible without all of your support. A loud and and resounding thanks also goes out to the Thirsty Bear and in particular to Mari Ramirez. She helped make sure all the pieces fell into place getting this off the ground.

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