VM /ETC

Archive for March, 2010

Tuesday afternoon before we all returned home from HP StorageWorks Tech Day in Houston vExpert Rodney Haywood (@rodos) interviewed me on camera about the Virtumania podcast. We talked about how we came up with Virtumania for the name, what’s the theme of the show, and what to look forward to in future episodes.

I’m embedding the video here, but be sure to check out Rodney’s blog, Musings of Rodos, and the rest of his videos on his Rodos Vimeo Page.

Episode 5 brings you more VIRTUMANIA from the usual VIRTUMANIACS! Rick Vanover again joins Marc and I along with special guests Devang Panchigar and Chris Evans  for a great talk about storage virtualization. Devang, Chris, Rick and I were all in Houston, TX for the HP StorageWorks Tech Day listening and learning about HP’s storage virtualization solutions so we decided to extend the conversation! The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 5 – Sir Mix-A-Lot Storage Virtualization. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com co host along with regular Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com. Devang Panchigar (@storagenerve) of storagenerve.com and Chris Evans (@chrismevans) of thestoragearchitect.com join as special guests. This week’s episode wanders through various storage virtualization options, references several vendors’ storage virtualization solutions, explores different storage design considerations in virtual environments, and expands on current and future storage integration with hypervisor management. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation for this Infosmack Production.

I’ll point out that Episode 5 was extremely challenging to record. With 4 of the 6 participants on the podcast sharing the same wifi from the HPStorageDay hotel, along with all the other bloggers and geeks online too, we had to stop and restart the conversation numerous times. Greg Knieriemen makes it all better with his post editing magic, however! You’ll still hear some audio quality issues throughout the episode, but you have no idea really what it was like – thanks to Greg!!

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the storage virtualization topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 5:

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As in the past, I have started a Picasa photo album for the images I have captured during the event. Go to my web album to see the full size versions or watch the embedded slideshow here.

I will be adding images from Day 2 of HP StorageWorks Tech Day 2010 both today and tomorrow. So, check back for more!

In an attempt to make it easier for VM /ETC readers to follow HP StorageWorks Tech Day 2010 I will be using CoverItLive’s tool to stream the tweets and add my own comments and reports. Anyone can watch here live once I start at 8:00 am CST Monday morning, and hopefully many will participate by adding their own comments and questions.  For those that want to contribute you will be able to use your Twitter or Facebook account to do so. Best of all, the event will be recorded and playable in the future as well!

There are a ton of features available with CoverITLive. I’ll do my best to add links, photos, and maybe even some media to keep things interesting.

Monday Live Blog

Click Here to get the Live Blog in pop up window or watch and participate in the embedded widget here.

 

I’ve been invited to another blogger event by HP, so I’m looking forward to returning to Houston, TX this coming week. The HP StorageWorks Tech Day will begin on Monday 3/29 and end Tuesday 3/20 afternoon. This time HP will show off how their StorageWorks team and products contribute to their Converged Infrastructure strategy. Regular readers may recall that the first HP event I was a part of was the 2009 StorageWorks Tech Day in Colorado Springs last fall. It was a great event then and I expect the same this time too.

Look for my usual coverage with quick photo videos, eventually my full photo album, and a few posts here on VM /ETC. I might even follow fellow attendee John Obeto’s lead and try out a live blogging service and widget. We’ll see.

I want to thank the folks at Ivy World Wide, Calvin Zito, and everyone involved at HP for putting another event together for us right on the heals of the HP Blades Event just few weeks ago.

To see our event agenda go to the official Event Web Page.

http://www.hp.com/go/techday2010

There’s a Monday Night TweetUp open to the public, so if you are in the Houston area RSVP and come say hello Monday night.

http://twtvite.com/HPHouStorage

Here’s more specific event details and the list of bloggers attending as taken from the blog of HP’s Calvin Zito:

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In Episode 4 Greg substitutes for Marc as my Co Host and Rick Vanover returns for a great discussion with Mr. VMware at EMC Chad Sakac. The following is the episode summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 4 - The Coolness: Virtualization, Storage, and Cloud Futures. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC. Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation replaces Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com as this week’s episode co-host. Guest Host Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.comreturns for more, and special guest Chad Sakac, VP of all things VMware at EMC, (@sakacc) of virtualgeek.typepad.com joins us to discuss some general virtualization “coolness”. The discussion ranges from information about Chad’s mass hirings of vSpecialists to candid information about future storage technologies for virtualization and the Cloud. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen for this Infosmack Production.

I want to thank Chad again for “tap dancing around” the stuff coming in the “next release” of VMware, EMC, and virtualization and storage in general.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the “coolness” mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 4:

Read the rest of this entry »

Previously, all we knew about Veeam’s Surebackup was there was a public countdown in process. That countdown reached 0:00 early March 22, 2010 (this morning). Veeam sent emails to those who preregistered and then provided a press release shortly after. The countdown was for the introduction of a unique feature for verifying VM restores that will soon be introduced in the next version of Veeam Backup and Replication.

Here’s the information from my email for those that did not sign up to be notified:

Breakthrough Technology: Test and Verify the Recoverability of EVERY Backup

Veeam is enhancing the SureBackup™ capabilities in Veeam Backup & Replication™ with a breakthrough technology that overcomes the final obstacle of image-level backups. IT professionals will have the ability to verify the RECOVERABILITY of EVERY backup of EVERY virtual machine EVERY time. It’s never been possible before.

SureBackup introduces a new patent-pending technology that allows IT professionals to run a virtual machine directly from a compressed backup file.

By publishing the content of backup files directly to ESX hosts, you can:

• Eliminate the need to extract backup files
• Test and verify EVERY backup in a matter of minutes, without affecting backup windows
• Perform recoverability testing without additional hardware or staff

The same technology also allows for item-level restore for any virtualized application, on any OS (patent-pending).

This exciting new technology will be made available in version 5.0 of Veeam Backup & Replication, scheduled for release this summer.

Sound too good to be true? Join us for a free webinar on Wednesday, March 24 at 2:00pm EDT to find out more. Live Webinar – Register Now!

Can’t wait? Go to www.veeam.com/surebackup NOW!

I was actually invited to Veeam’s pre release blogger briefing over the weekend, and the rest of this post is my notes and thoughts about what I learned during briefing.

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