A New Hope

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I’m writing this blog from a hotel room in San Jose after spending about 18 hours flying here from Melbourne Australia…

So, why am I here you might be asking and what’s this blog about, well the first blog I wrote was title “in a galaxy far far away” (fitting with all this may 4th stuff going on). That was about me starting down the Blog road and this blog is about next step in this journey…

Its come to my attention recently that there are some big plays going on in the industry around Cloud (surprise), internal IT departments and the future of the industry. Several colleagues have mentioned about moving into Marketing/sales or looking at service providers these both being new growth industries in IT. For me, continuing being an internal IT admin/engineer/architect for a single company is limiting regardless of how good you are at it or how good the opportunities that come from it, I need more introspection…

I started getting more involved with the community, with VMUG, vCatchup and APACVirtual and increasingly I’ve found that due to this exposure I’ve got to know vendors, integrators and customers equally through these endeavours locally and globally.

So after reaching a concensus with family and seeking advice from close friends in the industry I had my last day at work on Friday 3rd May after being there for over 6 years! Got on a plane on Sunday 5th May to start the onboarding process at Nutanix as a Senior Systems Engineer.

I don’t believe I’m joining the ‘dark’ (vendor/integrator) side – I look, smell and feel the same today as I did before I was welcomed aboard by them… So on that, my intention is to continue my quest as a technologist in sharing my experiences within our community through the same mediums I always have.

As far as APACVirtual is concerned I’m continuing this, I do not believe there is any conflict of interest and I’ve been enjoying the Engineers Anonymous series (the first was Engineer2presales interestingly enough).

As far as vCatchup I’d also like to continue this although it may expand out beyond it current scope (separate blog will explain that).

Then there is the VMUG…

If you know me you’ll know how important building this community has been for me, but in my new role I’m note sure VMUG would allow me to continue to lead the Melbourne VMUG, although I don’t see much of a conflict of interest, having a perspective on the different technologies that make up this ecosystem is important. Regardless of what the outcome of this change will be, I still want to be involved in my local VMUG, I guess we’ll have to see how this evolves.

So that’s what is happening! I start onboarding this week, with a day of meeting the founders, followed by 2 days of sales training and 2 days of technical training.

I hope to try and document some of this process and provide you all this some insight into Nutanix as an organisation and the next steps for me.

Exciting times! Here goes…

vCatchup with… Chad Sakac

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My next vCatchup of 2013, is with a very special guest Chad Sakac @sakacc who is the VP, Global SE at EMC and is responsible for virtualgeek.typepad.com blog.

I’d like to thank Chad for taking time out of his busy schedule (I think he only had one day in Melbourne) and agreeing to record this vCatchup.

What is vCatchup?

vCatchup is basically an interview where two people get together and chew the fat about what’s current in the industry, what’s going on in the community and where things appear to be going.  I try and set 5/6 questions to give a framework to the interview.

While the 2012 vCatchup’s we a look back on what had happened in 2012, the 2013 interviews are very much about looking forward and cover topics like predictions, Software Defined Networking and VMUG User Conferences (this was filmed at the Melbourne VMUG User Conference on 07/02/2013).

With the vCatchup it is my intention to seek the opportunity to interview a wide range of people from well know international guests to locals who have already began establishing a community presence for themselves.

This is kind of a disclaimer, as these interviews are the beginning of a journey / introductory attempt for me at interviewing. I have previously been the interviewee on a few Chinwags but not a one-on-one interviewer, my only other experience as an interviewer has been hosting the APACVirtual podcast, so please join me on this road (I’ll get better, I promise).

Enjoy the conversation and please provide some feedback!

You can subscribe to the YouTube channel:

http://youtube.com/user/blograck

You can also subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast and listen to all the vCatchups as they become available:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/vcatchup/id580478667

Or if you’re not iTunes inclined here’s the RSS Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/vCatchup

Here are the raw links to the Audio/Video files:

MP3 (Audio)
MP4 (Video)

Here’s the list of the questions we discussed:

  1. What brings you to the Melbourne, Australia and how do we compared to other countries when it comes to virtualisation/storage?
  2. How do you support your local VMUG and what commitments do you have in store for the virtualisation community in 2013?
  3. What do you think 2013 has in store from a tech perspective, what would you like to see (any predictions perhaps)?
  4. Software Defined Networking (I think this will be a big topic in 2013) – VMware have announced what they’re doing with the Nicera acquisition in the form of NSX – they’ve put together a dream team including Brad Headlund and Scott Lowe – how do you think it’s going to change the virtualisation industry and more importantly how do you think it will impact storage?
  5. Tell us about your home lab, do you ‘get your hands on the tools’?
  6. Tell us about flash disruption + converged architectures, what are EMC working on and how do you see converged storage architectures impact on the market (especially around new DAS technologies)?

Thanks for viewing/listening to this series of interviews, and don’t forget, please spread the good word of the vCatchup!

Around the Storage Block Feature

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Just wanted to reference a recent podcast I did with Calvin Zito (@HPStorageGuy) and Andre Carpenter (@AndreCarpenter) from HP.

I met Calvin at VMworld last year and we’ve been talking about doing a podcast to help raise awareness of the virtualisation community here in Australia.

Anyway, we finally got the chance to have a chat and we were joined by Andre who’s also based in Melbourne!

Thanks for helping me raise the virtualisation community profile here in Australia Calvin, hope to see you at VMworld again later this year :-)

Here’s the link to Calvin’s Around the Storage Block Blog:

vCatchup with… Stephen Foskett

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My next vCatchup of 2013, is with a very special guest Stephen Foskett @sfoskett who as an Independent Blogger is responsible for techfieldday.com and gestaltit.com.

I’d like to thank Stephen for a few things:

  1. Agreeing to record this vCatchup
  2. Coming over to Australia and being part of the User Conferences in Melbourne and Sydney
  3. Hopefully inviting me to participate in a future Tech Field Day event :-) but seriously, for supporting what I’m trying to achieve down under!

vCatchup is basically an interview where two people get together and chew the fat about what’s current in the industry, what’s going on in the community and where things appear to be going.  I try and set 5/6 questions to give a framework to the interview.

While the 2012 vCatchup’s we a look back on what had happened in 2012, the 2013 interviews are very much about looking forward and cover topics like predictions, Software Defined Networking and VMUG User Conferences (this was filmed at the Melbourne VMUG User Conference on 07/02/2013).

With the vCatchup it is my intention to seek the opportunity to interview a wide range of people from well know international guests to locals who have already began establishing a community presence for themselves.

This is kind of a disclaimer, as these interviews are the beginning of a journey / introductory attempt for me at interviewing. I have previously been the interviewee on a few Chinwags but not a one-on-one interviewer, my only other experience as an interviewer has been hosting the APACVirtual podcast, so please join me on this road (I’ll get better, I promise).

Enjoy the conversation and please provide some feedback!

You can subscribe to the YouTube channel:

http://youtube.com/user/blograck

You can also subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast and listen to all the vCatchups as they become available:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/vcatchup/id580478667

Or if you’re not iTunes inclined here’s the RSS Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/vCatchup

Here are the raw links to the Audio/Video files:

MP3 (Audio)
MP4 (Video)

Also, here are a list of the questions we discussed:

  1. What brings you to the Melbourne VMUG 2013 User Conference and what do you think of the ‘User Conference’ format?
  2. How do you support your local VMUG and what commitments do you have in store for the community in 2013?
  3. What will 2013 bring from a tech perspective, what would you like to see (predictions perhaps)?
  4. Software Defined Networking (I thing this will be the big thing of 2013) – VMware are doing some big movements around nicera – recruit Brad Headlund (@bradhedlund), Scott Lowe (@scott_lowe) – how do you think it’s going to change the virtualisation industry?
  5. Can you tell us about Tech Field Days what are they and how can we get involved?

Thanks for viewing/listening to this series of interviews, and don’t forget, please spread the good word of the vCatchup!

vCatchup with… Mike Laverick

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Welcome to the first vCatchup of 2013, and we’re starting off with a BANG! as my very special guest is non other than Mike ‘chinwag’ Laverick @mike_laverick who’s the Senior Cloud Infrastructure Evangelist at VMware.

I’d like to thank Mike for a few things:

  1. Agreeing to record this vCatchup
  2. Coming over to Australia and being part of the User Conferences in Melbourne and Sydney
  3. Being a mentor and great friend and supporting what I’m trying to achieve down under!

vCatchup is basically an interview where two people get together and chew the fat about what’s current in the industry, what’s going on in the community and where things appear to be going. I try and set 5/6 questions to give a framework to the interview.

While the 2012 vCatchup’s we a look back on what had happened in 2012, the 2013 interviews are very much about looking forward and cover topics like predictions, Software Defined Networking and VMUG User Conferences (this was filmed at the Melbourne VMUG User Conference on 07/02/2013).

With the vCatchup it is my intention to seek the opportunity to interview a wide range of people from well know international guests to locals who have already began establishing a community presence for themselves.

This is kind of a disclaimer, as these interviews are the beginning of a journey / introductory attempt for me at interviewing. I have previously been the interviewee on a few Chinwags but not a one-on-one interviewer, my only other experience as an interviewer has been hosting the APACVirtual podcast, so please join me on this road (I’ll get better, I promise).

Enjoy the conversation and please provide some feedback!

You can subscribe to the YouTube channel:

http://youtube.com/user/blograck

You can also subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast and listen to all the vCatchups as they become available:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/vcatchup/id580478667

Or if you’re not iTunes inclined here’s the RSS Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/vCatchup

Here are the raw links to the Audio/Video files:

MP3 (Audio)
MP4 (Video)

Also, here are a list of the questions we discussed:

  1. What brings you to the Melbourne VMUG 2013 User Conference and what do you think of the ‘User Conference’ format?
  2. How do you support your local VMUG and what commitments do you have in store for the community in 2013?
  3. What will 2013 bring form a tech perspective, what would you like to see (predictions perhaps)?
  4. Software Defined Networking (I think this will be the big thing of 2013) – VMware are doing some big movements around nicera – recruit Brad Headlund (@bradhedlund), Scott Lowe (@scott_lowe) – how do you think it’s going to change the virtualisation industry?
  5. You’ve been with VMware now for coming close to 6 months, what’s it like working for a software vendor, can you talk about your experience so far and if it’s meeting your expectations?

Thanks for viewing/listening to this series of interviews, and don’t forget, please spread the good word of the vCatchup!

Australian VMUG User Conferences

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I wanted to remind everyone about this years Australian VMUG User Conferences, we’re in the final planning stages and the events are shaping up to be something amazing for the community in this region.

Please show your interest by registering and attending one of these events now:

Sydney Tuesday 5th February
Melbourne Thursday 7th February

P.S. the agendas are now available for both events and can be viewed in the above links!

This will be the second Melbourne VMUG User Conference, last year we shared the space with Brisbane and this year Sydney will be joining Melbourne!

I’ve always been a big advocate of the all-day User Conferences and it was my original goal to host an event in Melbourne when I first become a VMUG leader, so being in a position where we are organising our second is amazing!

The Melbourne VMUG have some awesome guests attending this years events:

Stephen Foskett, who’s an Independent storage blogger will be one of our keynote speakers, learn more about his blog here, you can follow Stephen on twitter @SFoskett.

Mike Laverick, who’s a regular to your conferences will also be a keynote speaker, Mike recently joined VMware as a Senior Cloud Infrastructure Evangelist, learn more about his blog here, you can follow Mike on twitter @Mike_Laverick.

Michael Webster is a VCDX#66 and works with the VMware Professional Services Organisation, his blog longwhiteclouds.com is a fantastic technical resource and you can follow Michael on twitter @vcdxnz001.

Alastair Cooke is an independent blogger and works as a freelance trainer for VMware, Alastair is a member of the vBrownbag crew you can learn more about his blog here and you can follow Alastair on twitter @DemitasseNZ.

That’s the line-up of guests, now let’s look at bit closer at the Melbourne content specifically:

Keynote Sessions

This year there will be Keynote sessions from both Mike Laverick and Stephen Foskett.

Sponsor Sessions and Solutions Exchange

As well as Sponsor technical sessions, there will be a solutions exchange where delegates can learn more about each sponsors offerings directly.

VMware Technical Deep Dive Sessions

There’ll be some fantastic VMware technical sessions covering: -

  • vSphere Performance
  • Upgrading to vSphere 5.1
  • vSphere Distributed Switch
  • vCloud Networking and Security
  • vCenter Operations
  • Horizon Workspace
  • VMware Mirage
  • Building ITaaS Strategies
  • SQLFire
  • vSphere Technical Comparission.
I’d like to mention Nathan Wheat @wheatcloud, Greg Mulholland @g_mulholland, Todd Davis, Adam Singleton, Daryl Mitchell, Daryl Bishop, Pas Apicella @PasApicella and Steve Gross for their support with these sessions!

Community Sessions

This is something new this year, I got the idea of this from a really good bunch of people who run the LondonVMUG (sorry, imitation is the highest form of flattery). I just wish we had these kinds of people in our steering committee ;-) Anyway a big shout out to @alaricdavies, @Rimmergram, @vinf_net and the rest of the team, hope to meet you all again at VMworld this year!

Here’s the details of the community speakers:

Josh Odgers is VCDX#90 and works as an IBM Virtualization Architect, learn more about his blog here, you can follow Josh on twitter @josh_odgers.

Daniel McIndoe has worked in the IT industry for 12 years, the last 5 as a virtualisation specialist. Originally working through daily management of ESX2.0 and many upgrades over the years and versions, focus is now on architecture and design and delivering a valuable platform for organisations to use to run their business. 2.5 years were spent with VMware as a Technical Account Manager, Strategy and Operations consultant and a technical consultant. Currently working at the Bureau of Meteorology delivering a vSphere 5.1 upgrade and consolidation project across multiple departments and multiple sites.

Adam Selwood is an Infrastructure Architect with experience in the design, delivery and operation of solutions across all levels of the stack. Having successfully delivered a number of major initiatives within Aurecon, Adam now holds the Global Infrastructure Design and Delivery Stream Lead role with responsibility for architecting and implementing Infrastructure services across a rapidly growing and evolving global organisation. Still largely hands on, he is passionate about Infrastructure services and the increasingly important role they are playing in today’s business landscape. You can follow Adam on twitter @adamselwood.

Justin Warren is Managing Director of the PivotNine consulting firm. His particular speciality is in applying evidence backed concepts (SCIENCE!) to boring but important problems like “”why does the business hate IT?”" He’s familiar with the latest business jargon, but prefers to deliver actual, measurable results instead of crapping on about “”leveraging core synergies”". Justin received his Postgraduate Diploma in Management from Melbourne Business School, and is currently studying for his MBA, majoring in strategy and marketing.”. Learn more about his blog here, you can also follow Justin on twitter @jpwarren.

Chris Jones is a VMware Architect with IBM. and his role is to design, implement and manage large scale VMware environments for customers in the finance and banking industry. Chris is based in Melbourne, live in the eastern suburbs and like long walks on the beach. Learn more about his blog here, You can follow Chris on twitter @cpjones44.

Erwin van Londen is a storage engineer and has been for the last 17 years. From large scale storage management operations to architecture and design via pre-sales and support engineering to sharing the knowledge with the interested. Learn more about his blog here, You can follow Erwin on twitter @elonden.

Hands on Labs

This year there will also be BYOD access to the same HOL provided at VMworld & vForum thanks to @VMwareHOL.

Steering Committee

Finally lets show some appreciate to the Melbourne VMUG steering committee, this event wouldn’t take place without their support: -

Damien Calvert @theatretwit
Tony McPhail @tmcphail
Andrew Dauncey @daunce_

If you’re Melbourne based and want to get involved, please let me know?

So that’s it, look forward to seeing you there and please come over and say hi, there’s nothing more I like than meeting new people at the VMUG (or connecting people), it’s what our community is all about :-)

VMUG Voice Feature

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Just a quick post to reference this months edition of VMUG Voice partly because I’m the featured blogger :-) (ever the self promoter), but seriously i wanted to mention the Voice because this is a great resource to hear about what’s going on in the community by the people for the people.

Here’s the archive of VMUG voice issues:

http://www.vmug.com/p/cm/ld/fid=59

And here’s the December issue featuring my blog :-)

http://vmugvoice.vmug.com/2012/December12_VMUG-Voice.html

vCatchup with… Stephen Herrod

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Saving the best until last….

This is the final vCatchup of 2012, and I’ve saved the best until last as my very special guest is non other than Dr Stephen Herrod who’s the Chief Technology Officer at VMware @herrod.

I’d like to thank Stephen for agreeing to catchup with me and I look forward to the chance of speaking with him again in 2013.

I used vForum as my testbed for vCatchup as I’d have the opportunity to interview a wide range of people from well know international guests, through to locals who have already began establishing a community presence for themselves.

This is kind of a disclaimer, as these interviews are the beginning of a journey / introductory attempt for me at interviewing. I have previously been the interviewee on a few Chinwags but not a one-on-one interviewer, my only other experience as an interviewer has been hosting the APACVirtual podcast, so please join me on this road (I’ll get better, I promise).

Enjoy the conversation and please provide some feedback!

You can subscribe to the YouTube channel:

http://youtube.com/user/blograck

You can also subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast and listen to all the vCatchups as they become available:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/vcatchup/id580478667

Or if you’re not iTunes inclined here’s the RSS Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/vCatchup

Here are the raw links to the Audio/Video files:

MP3 (Audio)
MP4 (Video)

Also, here are a list of the questions we discussed:

  1. Tell me about your most unforgettable vForum experiences past and present. What brings you to vForum Sydney 2012?
  2. In your opinion, what was the most exciting announcement/s at VMworld this year?
  3. What is the VMware CTO Office most excited to talk about? Of all the latest in innovation, what are you personally most passionate and excited about?
  4. Tell me about your commitment to support the user group and what the group means to you personally?
  5. What is your vision of SDDC? How does it compare to the “cloud”? How do you see impacting your channel / partner relationships?
  6. Tell us about your home lab set up, do you ‘get your hands on the tools’?
  7. Has there been any development on the VMTN community? Are we any closer to having licensing for our home lab environments / can the VMUG advantage subscription be developed to accommodate this?

Thanks for viewing/listening to this series of interviews, the vCatchup will return in 2013, in the meantime please spread the good word of the vCatchup!

vCatchup with… Bogomil Balkansky

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This penultimate vCatchup for 2012 is with a very special guest Bogomil Balkansky who’s the Sr Vice President, Cloud Infrastructure Products at VMware @BogieBalkansky.

I’d like to thank Bogomil for agreeing to catchup with me and I look forward to speaking with him again in 2013.

I used vForum as my testbed for vCatchup as I’d have the opportunity to interview a wide range of people from well know international guests, through to locals who have already began establishing a community presence for themselves.

This is kind of a disclaimer, as these interviews are the beginning of a journey / introductory attempt for me at interviewing. I have previously been the interviewee on a few Chinwags but not a one-on-one interviewer, my only other experience as an interviewer has been hosting the APACVirtual podcast, so please join me on this road (I’ll get better, I promise).

Enjoy the conversation and please provide some feedback!

You can subscribe to the YouTube channel:

http://youtube.com/user/blograck

You can also subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast and listen to all the vCatchups as they become available:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/vcatchup/id580478667

Or if you’re not iTunes inclined here’s the RSS Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/vCatchup

Here are the raw links to the Audio/Video files:

MP3 (Audio)
MP4 (Video)

Also, here are a list of the questions we discussed:

  1. What are your vForum experiences, past and present. What brings you to vForum Sydney 2012?
  2. For you, what was the most exciting announcement/s at VMworld this year? Of all the latest innovation, what are you the most passionate and excited about?
  3. Tell me your thoughts on the importance of VMUG and what you think the opportunity presents for the IT community? What is your commitment to supporting the usergroup?
  4. I’ve been asking everyone I talk to this question: what is your opinion on the SDDC? How does it compare to the “cloud”? How do you see impacting your channel / partner relationships?
  5. Tell us about your home lab, do you ‘get your hands on the tools’?
  6. In your opinion, how well do you think Australia and New Zealand as a region is tracking with the ‘journey to the cloud’? Where do you think it will take us and how long do you think it take to get there?

I’ll be releasing one final vCatchup for 2012 later in the week (with a very special guest!), look out for this and please spread the good vCatchup word!

2013 Melbourne VMUG User Conference ‘Call for Community Sessions’

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Firstly if you are intending to attend one of our User Conferences PLEASE register your interest, this helps us with planning the content and agenda (also helps us select keynote speakers ), you can register your interest here:

Sydney VMUG User Conference – Tuesday 5th February 2013
Melbourne VMUG User Conference – Thursday 7th February 2013

Just a quick blog post today, I’m putting together content for the 2013 Melbourne VMUG User Conference (Thursday 7th February 2013) and wanted to announce a Call for Community Sessions.

This conference the Melbourne VMUG are going to have a stream of community presentations (not Sponsor or VMware sessions), these will be presented by community members and give an opportunity for someone to present on a topic of their choice, independently.

Would you like industry recognition, the opportunity to present to a prequalified group of individuals and raise your profile in the community?  If so please complete the form below and register your interest.  Please feel free to forward this post onto any colleagues you think would be interested in participating.

Thanks in advance for your support!