VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘EMC’

VMWorld 2010 has come and gone. I’m definitely still recovering and trying to catch up on a lot of stuff I missed while working the Veeam booth. One of the first things I wanted to see that I heard so much about was the “vSpecialist Delight” video. This is definitely an awesome production from the team at EMC. Check it out, but please keep reading for the Veeam vPower video afterwards …

Mad props guys! BUT, I have a few observations I want to point out.

From what I can tell, although Fred and Nick wrote the lyrics, it appears that the vSpecialists are lip syncing to still yet to be signed Blaze1 actually rapping (Updated 9/5/10) Blaze1, a relative of the studio owner in Atlanta where the song was recorded, is the rapper in the song.

Here’s a screen shot from the credits at the end of the video.

Am I jealous? Sure. However, what really inspired me to write this post was when I read the lyrics available from Nick’s blog post. This rhyme especially got my attention:

Now I ain’t trying to start a backup race
Data Domain and Avamar will win that race

Fred, Thanks for the ride from the SFO airport, but “Holy 2Pac and Biggie Batman!”

That brings me to the “I Got vPower” song and video the Veeam Teeam made for VMWorld 2010. Like the guys in the bowling shirts

Read the rest of this entry »

David Davis (@davidmdavis vmwarevideos.com) recorded the 2:30pm vExpert Panel session from the recent Carolina VMware User Group (VMUG) Summit 2010. The session occurred on Friday June 11, 2010 in the Charlotte Convention Center and featured the following vExperts:

@sakacc Chad Sakac

@vstewed Vaughn Stewart

@scott_lowe Scott Lowe

@mike_laverick Mike Laverick

I was lucky enough to get to moderate the discussion, and along with excellent help in the form of several questions from the VMUG crowd (my co host for the event), I am extremely pleased with the conversation that resulted. We touched on VCE vBlock architecture, Secure Multi Tenancy, vStorage API for Array Integration, FCoE, and a few other virtualization related storage topics

in the 60 minutes we were given. In fact, the end result turned out much like a live version of both the Virtumania and Infosmack podcasts.

One of my personal goals for this session was that the everyone in the audience did not have be storage gurus in order to get benefits from listening. I’m proud to say that I feel we achieved this goal, and so I am embedding Davis’ video below so more VI admins can tune in to what these guys have to say about the future of storage and virtualization!

Read the rest of this entry »

So, we should all know what VCE stands for by now, right? Let’s say it together: “VMware, Cisco, EMC.” Using a bad analogy of Adam Lambert, a contestant on American Idol last season, the three companies “came out of the data center” today and publicly announced what we already knew; they’ve been working together to build the most integrated cross technology cloud infrastructure solution known to mankind. They are so integrated they’ve cross trained each other’s support staff so that anyone of the three partners can be a single “choke point” for those customers that implement vBlock Architecture. They call their union a “Computing Environment Coalition.” At the same time, EMC is promising that VMware can continue to “play the field” with technology partners that want to hook up. Hey, if you love somebody let them go. if they come back then it was meant to be!

Confused? Me too. Time will clear the fog and, as promised, reveal the vBlock based Cloud.

VCE vBlock is big, bad, and designed for scale like VMworld 2009 Infrastructure (without being told as much, my bet is that what we saw at the bottom of the stairs in the Moscone Center was a vBlock test drive). Apparently, VMworld’s spotlight on vCloud Express provider Terremark was another hidden VCE vBlock showcase from Vmworld. It all was happening in plain sight. If we only knew then what we know now. 

My thoughts (or this rant) can best be described as “now what!?”. I’ve spent the last 5 years figuring out how to design customized, application specific, performance optimized, and product feature specific virtual infrastructure designs for the enterprise data center. This is because I’ve listened to everybody explain that a “cookie cutter” infrastructure is not adequate for their solutions. Change this setting for feature A, provision these LUNs for feature B, add these VLANs for feature C, etc., etc. Now, VMware, Cisco, and EMC have figured out all the tough stuff and come up with a “connect the dots” data center reference architecture to make it easy to move to the Cloud? Really? I mean, I know we’ve been told this had to happen in order for the Cloud to work, but REALLY?!! Oh well, the only constant is change.

Ok, I feel a little better. Anybody else care to vent?

Here’s some more random links and quoted information to help others with similar change anxiety issues as me. Read the rest of this entry »

On the Virtual Geek Blog, Chad published some early photos of the server infrastructure in use for VMworld 2009.

VMworld – V-Max – powered up and ready to go!

Chad’s post title indicates the VMworld 2009 datacenters are using EMC’s Symmetrix V-Max for storage.

Some links for EMC V-Max
Symmetrix V-Max: A New Paradigm For Storage Virtualization?
Symmetrix V-Max: Storage Architecture Redefined
A great new VMware View/Cisco UCS/V-Max whitepaper
EMC V-Max: V stands for bigger – Storage Soup

On Run-Virtual.com, Richard provides some additional details about the VMworld servers:

At least 512 Cisco UCS blades at VMworld 2009!

“This year there will be 3 ‘datacenters’ at the event where VMware is placing all its kit to support all the hands-on labs, email stations, booths, etc. The biggest datacenter is showing 16 Racks with each 4 Cisco UCS blade chasis, with each 8 blades = 512 Blades! WOW!!”

Some links for Cisco UCS
Cisco UCS and Nexus 1000V design diagram with Palo adapter
More on Cisco UCS
What are the hardware components of UCS – Ciscowiki
The good and bad of Cisco’s UCS servers

Looks like the bottom of the main escalators at the Moscone Center will be a great spot to get warm if needed!

I attended the VMworld 2008 EMC Keynote session at 11:00 am today (Weds), but my battery was almost drained so I took manual notes. This post is a translation of those notes.

Chad Sakac, Senior Director and Mr. VMware at EMC, hosted this session titled Designing the Next Generation Data Center. The session was about how storage and networking vendors must work together to build upon the new features available in the new VDC-OS suite of technologies. Specifically, this session zeroed in on the vStorage group of features. Chad explained that EMC, Cisco, and VMware have been working together for a while and he would demo the results of this collaboration for us. Along with Chad onstage was Ed Bugnion, Cisco VP/CTO Virtualization, and Scott Davis, VMware Chief Architect.

Chad began by providing some opinion on how he felt vendors need to evolve their storage products for the next generation data center and the VMware VDC-OS. Some of the points he made were: Read the rest of this entry »

Chad Sakac has a great post on his Virtual Geek blog titled The Case For And Against Stretched ESX Clusters. In this post Chad discusses the possibilities of configuring ESX Clusters between 2 different physical data centers. That is, spanning the SAN across a wide area network so that VMs can be vmotioned between sites. The concept is a frequently discussed desire of many administrators, and Chad brings to light some great points for and against this design with specific configuration details about making it work with VMware ESX.

For example, the post explores several options: Read the rest of this entry »

VMware announced officially today that Site Recovery Manager will be available for order next week and then generally available within 30 days. As I mentioned in my Site Recovery Manager Overview post last week, a requirement to using SRM will be a Site Recovery Agent (SRA) from the various storage vendors. VMware’s announcement reveals what vendors will provide SRAs initially:

“VMware Site Recovery Manager leverages customers’ investment in storage replication software from VMware’s leading storage partners including 3PAR, Dell, EMC, FalconStor, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM, LeftHand Networks and NetApp. VMware is working with partners across its storage partner ecosystem to ensure that customers can use Site Recovery Manager with their storage system and software platform of choice.”

As expected, several reports surfaced on the Internet today Read the rest of this entry »