Virtualized Geek

Configuring the Network Editor in VMware Fusion 5.0

I took me a while to figure out where the settings for the Network Editor in VMware Fusion 5.0 Professional. Found it so, I thought I’d share a quick video on locating and configuring it.

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talks Episode 13

Software Defined Data Center vs. Cloud Computing what’s the difference. You have to watch to find out.

The Unicorn that is Cloud Management

If you’ve never watched these Youtube videos from Cisco you should check them out. They are almost as good as my Tech Talks . At the end of most of them they decide what part of the technology discussed is the unicorn. Meaning what is realistic today and what still needs to mature. The topic […]

Laggard Rackspace growth sparks concern: is there enough cloud biz to go around?

Reblogged from GigaOM: Here’s the narrative that cloud vendors would like us to believe: there are infinite workloads flowing to clouds of infinite capacity. There’s enough business for all, keep moving. But there is nagging worry, sparked anew by Rackspace’s laggard Q1 cloud growth, that the appetite for cloud services may not be unlimited after all. […]

Heck yeah! Facebook's Open Compute Project is making an open source switch

Reblogged from GigaOM: The Open Compute Project, which Facebook launched a little more than two years ago, has decided that utterly disrupting the server and storage market isn’t enough. On Wednesday, it said it would solicit input on an open source top-of-rack switch. The project, in a presentation by Frank Frankovsy at Interop, said it […]

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talks Episode 12

Talking about home labs again. Go into a little detail of some sample hardware setups. My Dell 8500 Setup My XPS 15 Setup Link to the Blacks In Technology Site. Follow Blacks In Tech on Twitter @blkintechnology

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talks Episode 11

It’s all about Virtualization. That’s network vs. server virtualization.

Network Virtualization as I understand it

For some reason, I had a difficult time with the basic concept of Network Virtualization. VMware equates network virtualization to Server Virtualization. With server virtualization you can deploy an application to any physical server in your environment easily because the Server OS that the application resides on is abstracted from the network. This gives you […]

New personal site

I had been toying around with the idea of launching a personal site for all of the thoughts that don’t fit either VirtualizedGeek or GrowingUpChi. I registered the domain name keithtownsend.co a while back as a way to stake a claim on what seemed like the only available top level domain left for my full […]

VirtualizedGeek Tee Shirts now available

My PBS moment. I’m looking to subsidize my hosting costs and signed up for a campaign to sell some VirtualizedGeek Tee shirts. If interested in support VirtualizedGeek then please feel free to purchase one of these stylish (maybe a little generous in description) tee’s. http://teespring.com/virtualizedgeek1

How long can Cisco and VMware be friends?

I’ve always felt kind of uneasy about the Cisco/VMware relationship. Server hardware provider’s have to support VMware because consolidation and management based on virtualized compute has become a no-brainer. This relationship has allow hardware companies to continue to sell servers by add value to the VMware stack. Likewise, VMware is pursuing Network Virtualization with full […]

Network Virtualization vs. SDN

Scott Lowe was a guest on the latest episode of VMware Community Podcast and was discussing Network Virtualization. It was a can’t miss episode of the Community Podcast. Scott Lowe is probably one of the most technically diverse and deep cross discipline experts that I’ve read. He has deep experience with both Networking and Server […]

The time I got fired – My best Career Mistake

I’m supremely confident in my skill and ability and I’m more or less considered pretty bright. However, I got served a very hard career lesson a few years ago when I took a job at Rackspace. Rackspace is a great company and a great place for most people to work. This isn’t a critique of […]

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talks Episode 10

Come on and jump in and start blogging. The water is fine! I’ve been a big proponent of blogging and think any professional looking to get ahead in their career should take the plunge. Don’t do it if you don’t like recruiters calling you all the time. That will most definitely be a side effect. This […]

Does VMware really want OpenStack to succeed?

I’ve been asking myself the question ever since VMware joined OpenStack, “what’s the play?” Do they really want OpenStack to succeed. Isn’t a more capable OpenStack project counter productive to their vCloud philosophy. According the this VMware blog post, VMware is a top 10 contributor to OpenStack Grizzly (Latest stable release). Martin Casado, who came […]

Understanding VMware vCloud vs. Openstack

It’s very tempting to compare vCloud and OpenStack. It’s very difficult to imagine an enterprise Cloud that both would co-exist. I wanted to take some time and really think about the two solutions and give a break down of why comparing the two solutions head to head really doesn’t work. This isn’t about directly comparing […]

Cisco Distributed Nexus 1000v closer to reality in Hyper-V

Cisco Distributed Nexus 1000v closer to reality in Hyper-V One of the major differences between vSphere and KVM, Hyper-V and XenServer has been the ability to integrate 3rd party distributed switches. VMware vSphere has had the ability to support Nexus 1000v for a few years now while it has been “coming” to Hyper-V for […]

Is VMworld and other vendor conferences worth your personal investment

Last year, I considered going to VMworld to cover it for VirtualizedGeek.com and I was in the middle of helping to launch a community Cloud based on vCloud so, it made sense from a professional perspective as well. I decided not to go because I was in the middle of a large video conference system […]

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talk Episode 8

My review of the VCP 510 Exam and talking about my Crowd Sourced Cloud idea.

2013 Goals – Earn VCP Chec… Not so Fast!

As earlier mentioned I was going for my VCP and today was exam day. Just like every certification I’ve earned prior to taking this test I refused to move the test date due to lack of preparation And just like most of my other certification tests, I was studying up until the last minute due to lack […]

Crowd Sourced Cloud – A potential project for Google

Since Google likes to tackle complex problems that don’t have an obvious use right away and they have tons of cash and more smart people than most university faculties, I have an interesting project for them to tackle. I call it the Crowd Source Cloud. The idea popped into my head when I was listening […]

Yahoo! is still Sexy

I know I’ve poked fun at Yahoo! in the past but don’t get me wrong, for Cloud computing professionals I believe they are one of the most exciting places to work. Yahoo!’s current VP of Cloud resigned to become the CTO of Go Daddy. I don’t believe Marissa will have a shortage of eager candidates […]

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talk Episode 7

In episode 7, I’m lamenting the days when my skill in the server room were more respected than my skill in the board room. Pursuing the VMware VCP has provided some clarity to where I’m at in the career and my deep technical knowledge about the in and outs of implementing and supporting technology at […]

Pivoting away from being a pure Geek – A lesson from studying for the VCP

Studying for the VCP has helped remind me that I can’t get down in the weeds of every technology. One of my advantages is that I have a very broad range of knowledge across technology. I sometimes lament the time when I could be an expert in a single area but, I believe long term […]

VMware Certified Professional – Will this thing actually add value to my career?

I decided to sit for the VMware Certified Professional (VC) test. I’ve been using VMware since Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 (ESX 3.5) and figured why not take the exam since I did take the Install, Configure and Manage course back in October of 2012. My current role as a Management Consultant and previous role as a […]

Will "hybrid public" cloud give VMware its mojo back?

Reblogged from GigaOM: It may be a cliche, but it’s also true: VMware(s vmw) is at a crossroads. The company, which dominates server virtualization in company data centers, continues to struggle for credibility in the cloud — and it’s new plans for hybrid vCloud service haven’t done much to fix that. This “VMware vCloud Hybrid Service,” […]

Paypal (to) drop VMware for OpenStack

Mirantis, a large OpenStack consulting organization, announced that PayPal will be rolling 10,000 nodes running some variant of OpenStack “Cloud Operating System”. They look to have a total of 80,000 nodes managed by OpenStack at the end of the Cloud deployment. I was a little unclear on what this meant since OpenStack is Cloud management […]

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talk Episode 6

Now downloadable! Topics – Keeping your Skills Fresh (Who moved my cheese?) Virtualized Geeks Young Guns vExpert Application Starting my VCD studies

Finally taking my VCP 5-DV exam

I don’t work for a VMware partner and I don’t normally put hands to keyboard for production systems so, I’ve really not had the need to take the VCP 5-DV exam. However, VMware was running a 50% off special and I figured this was too good to pass up and my previous employer did invest […]

My son almost made me cry

This was meant for GrowinUpChi.com but I posted on VG inadvertently but I’ll keep it here. So, I’m back in Chicago. Part of the motive is financial as I get to reduce my living expenses moving back into the old place. But, I could have rented the house out and still saw a benefit. The main […]

Hmmm… The value of the vExpert membership to VirtualizedGeek

If you are a normal reader of VirtualizedGeek you’ll know that I favor VMware as a solution but this isn’t a VMware website. I am a virtualization evangelist. I believe the blog reflects the fact that I have a board tech interest spread across several different vendors. With this focus in mind I’ve been looking […]

Video Games: Expanding The Industry

About the Author: Sgt. M (Marcus Ramsey) is a student at Northern Illinois. Marcus is looking to obtain a degree in Computer Science and pursue a career in the gaming industry. Its easy to notice that video games have become a big deal. Video games have become very profitable over the years. An article that […]

Who moved my cheese?

There are certain tech companies that I’ve found myself to be fond of over the years. They include Novell, Microsoft, VMware and Cisco. These tech giants have helped me establish a long successful career. Eachwere at one point disruptive and grew to become market leaders due to their innovation and their willingness to question the status quo […]

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talks Episode 5

Episode 5 is all about SDN since you guys can’t get enough of SDN talk. Network as a Service as I wished it Cisco really doesn’t like SDN

Surprise: Cisco doesn’t like SDN

Some pretty interesting quotes from Cisco’s CTO’s reveals that Cisco will try to leverage their dominance in enterprise networking to try and stave off the challenge of SDN. In a NetworkWorld article Cisco’s CTO is quoted as saying: “We see the network as a platform where applications can be programmed, where information can be processed and […]

Poll: Scariest Dr. Who Villain

With the new Dr. Who series quickly approaching, I’ve started chatting with my daughter on the origins of the new mysterious companion. Then I thought about how emotional the new series has been compared to the Dr. Who I grew up on. The new series is definitely different that the stories I grew to love but I’ve […]

Trainsignal Video Training

I just signed up for Trainsignal Video Training. I’ve used their Cisco CCNA product in the past and thought pretty highly of the product. I have to renew my CCNA and discovered they have gone to a subscription model of $49/mo for all you can eat training which is an outstanding offer. I have the […]

The good and the bad of Citrix XenDesktop

I got into a spirited debate on twitter with a buddy regarding XenDesktop vs. VMware Horizon Suite. I’m beginning to educate myself on the entire Horizon Suite but the last time I did a trade study between the two, XenDesktop handily beat out View when it was a standalone product. I plan on during a […]

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talks Episode 4

In episode 4 – Should AWS and OpenStack mimic VMware’s Cloud model for enterprise adoption VMware should drop the course requirement for the VCP

Is VMware helping to Widen the Digital Divide?

Back in the mid 90’s I had a job where I gradually worked my way up from cleaning rooms at a major hotel chain to taking reservations. I made a commanding $20,000 a year. However, I felt I could do so much more. I had always had a knack for technology. I started programming as […]

VirtualizedGeek Tech Talks Episode 3

In episode 3, I talk about the Ars Technica article on VMware vs. AWS and if VMware needs to worry about Amazon’s price cuts. Yet another large company has rolled back their tele-work program. Bestbuy announced the end of R.O.W.E. Last and most fun, we talk about my virtual vs. physical blog post.

Physical vs. Virtual virtualization lab

So, you want to improve your knowledge of virtualization. Doesn’t matter if it’s Hyper-V, VMware, Xen or KVM the major decision of Physical vs. Virtual lab is the same. If you are new to virtualization your first thought may be to go out and purchase some dedicated hardware to run your lab sessions. There’s a […]

Who gets to decide if you have a private Cloud or not?

An interesting debate came up in the comment section in an article on Network World discussing Forester research stating that 70% of the environments labeled as private Cloud isn’t Cloud at all but just virtualization. As I have, the Forester Research used the NIST definition of Cloud Computing which dictates that a Cloud environment needs […]

Episode 2 of VirtualizedGeek Tech Talks

I’m on the road in Episode 2 and using the trusty iPad as a content creation tool. I talk about Yahoo, Google Chromebook, VMware Horizon and PaaS vs IaaS in the enterprise.

10 Collaboration improvements Yahoo can make

I love the idea of Yahoo! employees no longer being able to work from home. I have 10 more suggestions for Marissa to improve both collaboration and morale at Yahoo! 1. Install 56K modems in all laptops – Hey the last time it was standard equipment on laptops Yahoo was the king of all things […]

Cloud Foundry faces fear of forking

Reblogged from GigaOM: The rumblings have been around for weeks but now they’re breaking the surface: Cloud Foundry, the open source platform-as-a-service framework faces a bit of an insurrection. Several vendors, such as AppFog, ActiveState, Tier 3, Uhuru, etc. — have built PaaSes atop the framework and some have quietly been mulling forking the Cloud […]

Best Practices For Virtualizing Your Oracle Database With VMware

Reblogged from EMC IT’s Journey to the Private Cloud: By Darryl Smith — Chief Oracle Architect for EMC IT In this blog (the third in a series on virtualizing Oracle), I will describe the best practices that EMC IT developed as we virtualized our most mission critical and highly transactional databases. You can find the earlier […]

Are you a Yahoo for working at Yahoo!

So, as infrastructure guys we are rarely “The product.” We can be the product in the case of working at places like Amazon, Rackspace and Terremark. But rarely are we at the forefront of the product in most environments. With Yahoo! retracting the ability of employees to work from home, I wondered how much everyone […]

VG Tech Talks Episode #1

The first Virtualizeed Geek Tech Talk. We talk about the difference between OpenStack and VMware. You can provide feedback in the comments section.

Does VMware know Cloud is all about the Developers?

If I were a certain CEO of a certain software company, I would be standing on a stage with a blade server jumping up and down yelling “Developers, Developers, Developers.” I’m a huge fan of VMware products. VMware has long been the thought leader in x86 virtualization products both on the desktop and in the […]

My answer to the best interview question ever

I’ve become a pretty big fan of LinkedIn over the years and the other day I saw a post that gave me a little pause. It was click bait to be sure - The Best Interview Question The question stated basically what is the most significant contribution or project I delivered in my career. If you […]

How I picture Network as a Service and SDN (here’s an idea for Google Fiber)

So, NetworkWorld ran a story on a solution from startup Pertino’s Network as a Service (NaaS). It actually sounds like a pretty cool solution that’s very simple to setup. The backbone of the solution uses a SDN based control plan that runs on AWS. This solution is as Cloud as Cloud gets. However, this isn’t what […]

The battle between the application owner and virtualization admin

Virtualizing your x86 infrastructure has almost become a given. On the surface the benefits are pretty obvious. Increased up-time Reduced costs from resource pooling Enhanced DR capability Rapid server deployment Enhanced Test/Dev capability As a virtualization administrator it is an easy sell to your management team. They understand both the technical and financial advantages of […]

Is Cloud trying to pull one over on business?

This article on shadow Cloud computing and the gap between business leaders and IT over on ZDNet (yes ZDNet) got me thinking about if business managers understand what they are asking for when they look to a Cloud solution. I’ve gotten the impression that business leaders think Cloud solutions are some kind of magic bullet […]

Is VMware on the right path?

I asked the question 2 months ago. Is VMware headed for a slow death? Their stock is down 21% today on adjusted revenue guidance. Their CTO is leaving and they’ve changed directions on PaaS vs. IaaS. The Hypervisor will become a commodity in 2013 and the future of Cloud is Platform as a Service not […]

VirtualizedGeek Swag

Decided to have a couple of vanity pieces made for myself.

VMware CTO leaves

VMware’s CTO leaving is a concern from a strategic perspective. I liked the push into other areas outside of their bread and butter. I believe it would have ultimately brought innovation to their core x86 products. I’m having a difficult time figuring out how VMware’s infrastructure focus moves to an application centered product model […]

2013 may FINALLY be the year of VDI and BYOD

I am thinking that maybe 2013 will finally be the year of virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) enabled BYOD. This is not because of some fancy new feature in VMware View or Citrix XenDesktop but due to a new feature of Windows 8. I said a LONG TIME ago that Windows 8 should be a hypervisor […]

My 2013 Projects

So, I like that Scott Lowe created a project list and shared with us the readers of his blog his progress throughout the year and a final update. It was a pretty balanced list which included some tech stuff and learning German. I decided to create a similar list of Goals for 2013 as they […]

Windows Server 2012 Ain’t no Cloud OS either

I took a little stab at OpenStack’s claim of being a Cloud OS. Any solution that bills itself as an OS should have the features of an OS. My dig on OpenStack was that it was taking liberty with the term OS as it doesn’t have the ability to cluster across cloud providers without a […]

How do you measure Cloud up time?

So, Amazon had four major outages of their cloud services last year with the longest and most notable being the one that took Netflix streaming down for 23 hours during the busy holiday period. This article over on TechTarget discusses how Cloud up time is many times higher than enterprise data center up time. This […]

Deep Dive on SDN by VMware

This is an interesting deep dive by VMware’s Bruce Davie on what VMware labels the Software Defined Data Center. Microsoft calls it the Cloud based Datacenter but what ever the name it’s an interesting concept where the entire datacenter infrastructure is virtualized. Bruce goes into some detail on how VMware defines and approaches SDN. I’m […]

Monday Dilbert!

Reblogged from The Nuage Consulting Group Blog: A new Classic.

InfiniBand makes headway in the cloud

Reblogged from GigaOM: GigaOM Research expects the cloud computing market will grow from $70.1 billion in 2012 to $158.8 billion in 2014. With such expansion, cloud service providers must find ways to provide increasingly sustainable performance. At the same time, they must accommodate a growing number of internet users, whose expectations about improved and consistent […]

VMware vCenter Appliance 5.1 feature parity with Windows version?

So, I was all into vSphere 5.1 news during and right after VMWorld SF 2012. One of the tidbits I’ve been waiting for is documentation on the vCenter Appliance for vSphere 5.1. According to a VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast on October 8th (at around the 23 minute mark) vCenter Appliance now has feature parity with […]

2012 in review

Not a bad year for VirtualizedGeek.com. Some interesting stats. Posts I started the year with only 29 posts and ended with 176. That’s a total of 147 posts in a single calendar year not counting this one. I really put in the work this year. My most popular day was the opening of VMworld where […]

Why do you need a degree if you are already successful in IT?

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague about the value of a college degree in the IT workforce. He has achieved an impressive level of his success in his career without a degree. I can relate. I broke into the IT field in the late 90’s when a combination of the Internet bubble and […]

Resisting network virtualization technology is like keeping Token Ring

My guest post on SearchNetworking Resisting network virtualization technology is like keeping Token Ring.

Nicira planing a Network Hypervisor

NetworkWorld has an interview with Nicira’s CTO where he outlines Nicira’s plans for a network based hypervisor to help further the their vision of SDN. The hypervisor would be independent of VMware’s platform. It would be to networking what vSphere is to server virtualization. The idea is to be able to run network control appliances at a […]

Networkworld lists Drop boxes breach as one of the worst of 2012

Network World has a list of the worst security breaches of 2012 and there is no surprise to me that the Dropbox incident in July where an administrator used the same password for his Drop account that he used on a site that was compromised. The intruders were able to obtain an e-mail list of […]

Network engineer jobs: Satisfaction comes from challenge, not money.

Network engineer jobs: Satisfaction comes from challenge, not money. I’m quoted in this article by Rivka Little on how network engineers seem to enjoy the challenge of a position over actual monetary compensation. I’ve seen this dynamic throughout my career and have often what wondered what keeps good talent in underpaying positions.

Is VMware headed the slow painful death of Novell

If you’ve spent any time reading my blog you know I’m a big fan of VMware’s virtualization platform and the entire management suite vSphere/vCloud and vETC. I believe it is by far the best technical solution for x86 virtualization. Dynamic Resource Scheduling (DRS) is a compelling feature and a huge value on its own. The […]

InfiniBand vs. Gigabit

This is a great article that intends to argue the values of one interconnect over another. I enjoyed it more because it gave a great high level breakdown of InfiniBand as a stand alone transport technology in both HPC and now more in traditional enterprise networking. It’s also used in converged networking solutions. Article is […]

Why VMware is spinning off Cloud Foundry and SpringSource

Reblogged from GigaOM: To say VMware and EMC are desperately seeking enterprise cloud credibility with the proposed spinoff of Cloud Foundry and SpringSource along with key EMC(s emc) technologies into a separate subsidiary might be overstating the case. But not by much. The move shows that EMC and VMware(s vmw) must strengthen their hand in enterprise […]

OTV vs VXLAN for extending the virtual datacenter

In an earlier post I talked about VMware using VXLAN as an option for extending the virtual datacenter across physical datacenters. I’ve gotten quite a few questions on how this differs from Cisco’s OTV using Nexus 7K switches. They are actually two different solutions with two different use cases. VXLAN’s primary use in production is […]

When is iCloud going to be more reliable?

Reblogged from GigaOM: Eddy Cue might have the least desirable job at Apple. Not only has he been in charge of whipping Apple’s problematic internet services division into shape, he’s just been given two more headaches to deal with: taking over Siri and Maps from departing exec Scott Forstall. Cue has long been Apple’s executive […]

SANs free live migration – VMware vs. Hyper-V

With the introduction of Hyper-V 3.0 and vSphere 5.1 both major virtualization vendors have introduced SAN free live migration solutions. To give a quick recap live migration is the ability to migrate a virtual machine from one physical host to another physical host without interruption of service for the target virtual machine. In the past, […]

Virtual desktop infrastructure vs. data container for BYOD management

My guest post on Tech Target. Virtual desktop infrastructure vs. data container for BYOD management.

Using Virtualization and Cloud as a DR strategy

I read a petty interesting blog post from Citrix a while back that took me aback. They talked about how end users shouldn’t use their premier VDI solution XenDesktop as a disaster recovery solution. My initial reaction was that of “Are they not even trying to sale their product.” The author’s rationale is that you […]

The dark side of OpenStack

Reblogged from GigaOM: Just weeks before for the big OpenStack Summit, a new report cautions prospective users not to buy into the hype around this (or any) open-source cloud computing platform. Gartner(s it) Research VP Lydia Leong suggests that prospective users proceed with eyes wide open and recognize that OpenStack, while promoted as an end to vendor […]

Blacks in Technology Podcast Episode 33

I was invited to be a guest on the Blacks In Technology Podcast. The BIT community is a cool growing community and I enjoyed the conversation on topics from the Cloud, Virtualization, STEM and Comics. Looking forward to doing it again sometime. You can listen to the podcast here. BIT Podcast Episode 33

I want a $500 phone – The iPhone 5 ain’t it

I love gadgets. The iPhone has been the ultimate gadget. I didn’t pay the initial $700.00 for the original iPhone because after all it didn’t even do video. But when the price dropped to $499, I was all over it for both me and my wife. The only upgrade I’ve skipped since has been the […]

OpenStack is a hot skill set?

So, if you’ve read my blog for any period of time you know I’m kind of on the boarder about OpenStack. I definately see the appeal of the platform for Cloud providers but I question if it’s the right solution for the private cloud in the enterprise. I believe propeitary solutions already exist and work […]

Dewey Defeats Truman!!! – I hate click bait

Hey I run a technology blog and I don’t do iPhone so, in the week that a new iPhone is released I don’t blog. I don’t want to get caught up in the vacuum that’s Apple. Fortunately, I don’t get paid to blog. Well at least I don’t get paid to write on VirtualizedGeek. So, […]

Nothing like a maxed out workstation for a virtualization lab

I debated on getting a MacBook Pro w/Ritna as my lab machine. However, I already have a XPS 15 with pretty close spec’s to the MBP w/Ritna. So, I opted for a Dell XPS with 32GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and (2) 2TB SATA drives. I’m not disappointed. This resource monitor is showing what […]

VMware Install Config and Manage Course – Day 5

I have to say I’m pretty happy I took this course. It filled a bunch of holes in my knowledge about VMware vSphere while also digging a few more than it filled. This is always a great indicator of a great class and instructor. My instructor for the course was Scott South out of Florida. […]

VMware Install Config and Manage Course – Day 4

This is the day that if you are new to VMware where your head would be hurting. It was all about performance, memory and CPU management. Great stuff on when to use multiple vCPU’s and why. Good basic introduction to resource management and a basic introduction to HA. Day 3 and 4 were the meat […]

VMware Install, Configure and Manage Course – Day 3

Forgot to blog about day 3. Pretty good information that you wouldn’t normally get if you are just managing a environment. It was all about managing virtual machines including vMotion, Shared Storage and back up. I didn’t realize the snapshots store data in 16MB blocks so running VM’s in snapshots for an extended period of […]

VMware vSphere Install, Config and Manage Class – Day 2

Well today was day 2 of my Global Knowledge Install, Config and Manage vSphere 5.0 course. I never liked the pace of these courses as I like things to move pretty fast. But the instructor is pretty good and my fellow classmates are knowledgeable which makes the course more bearable. The great thing is that the course […]

VMware vSphere Install, Configure and Manage – Day 1

So, I’m taking the VMware vSphere Install, Configure and Manage course for vSphere 5.0 through Global Knowledge. I’ve been meaning to take this class for the past 3 years in some form so that I can obtain my VCP. Today was the first day of class and it was pretty uneventful. I’ve been involved with […]

VMware vCloud Director Organizations – Trainsignal

This TrainSignal video is a great overview of VMware vCloud Director from an end user’s prospective. The video goes over the 3 different types of cloud consumption models available to customers. A cloud provider (public or private) may not offer all three options but it’s a great way to get insight into what vCloud Director […]

Video – Using a dedicated physical disk for a VM in VMware Workstation 9

I had to migrate my 1.1 TB Windows Home Server from a physical ESXi server I had running on my home network to my new Dell 8500 Desktop. Instead of doing a V2V over the network I just took the disk out of the ESXi server and put it in the new Dell desktop and […]

How do you perform a P2V with little downtime for large workloads?

Since I got my big bad Dell 8500 with 32GB of RAM I have excess capacity and decided to P2V my Windows Home Server. After cleaning up the disk space on the WHS I ended up needing to “only” convert a 1.1 TB physical machine. This reminded me of my time leading a project to […]

VMWorld 2012 Session Review: STO2980: vSphere 5 Storage Best Practices

I’m making my way through the top 10 sessions from VMworld which are posted on the VMworld website. I have to tell you when I watch the experts talk about their individual domains of expertise I feel like a newbie all over again. Storage is one of these areas. I personally have a very broad […]

VMWorld session review – NET2207: VMware vSphere Distributed Switch—Technical Deep Dive

This is a session you want to bookmark. First off Jason Nash famously says that he doesn’t care if vCenter is virtual or physical just make sure you’re treating it as a Tier 1 application. This was a great video for guys like me that are removed from the day to day of managing a […]

VMWorld Session Review – EUC1305 What’s New and What’s Next for VMware View

If you do VDI this is a must see video. I don’t believe VDI is the future of BYOD but there are very strong arguments for VDI in the enterprise especially as organizations migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7. If you are in a large enterprise and have to make a decision if to […]

VMworld 2012 Session Review – VSP1168: Architecting a Cloud Infrastructure

I found this session to be highly informative. It was great information around architecting a solid shared vSphere environment. David Hill, Aiden Dalgleish, Rawlinson Rivera, Duncan Epping and Chris Colotti are clear experts in the all thing VMware infrastructure. The information was not just specific to VMware products. They referenced some non-VMware technologies like Platespin Recon. […]

VMworld 2012 Top 10 Sessions

If you weren’t able to attend VMworld this year you can still get some of the benefit of the most popular session via the VMworld media content site. VMworld.com: Top 10 Sessions

My thoughts on the major announcements from VMworld 2012

I believe the theme for 2013 will be, “The year the hypervisor becomes a commodity.” Microsoft, Citrix and KVM are gaining enough parity with ESXi that they will be good enough solutions. I guess a better theme will be “2013 the year of the good enough hypervisor.” I was expecting major announcements on the management […]

VMworld shows a VMware in flux

Reblogged from GigaOM: VMworld this year is all about the changing of the guard at VMware(s vmw) — in more ways than one. This is a company in transition as its core server virtualization business continues to get commoditized. Here are 5 ways VMware showed itself to be a company in transition this week. 1: […]

VMware to join OpenStack: Now what?

Reblogged from GigaOM: If VMware’s(s vmw) application to join the OpenStack Foundation is approved, it could mean several things for the server virtualization kingpin. First, it adds more weight to the argument that VMware “gets” open source. Last month, news of its acquisition of Nicira, an OpenStack contributor, showed that VMware might be more receptive […]

VMWare turns it sights to Applications and the Data Center at VMworld 2012

A repeated theme throughout VMworld has been the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC). VMware is pushing beyond server virtualization and even beyond infrastructure virtualization with the SDDC. VMware has re-branded the vSphere Suite to the vCloud Suite to emphasize their focus from hardware to the entire data center including applications. They have an ambitious goal of blurring the […]

The Major announcements from VMworld 2012 Keynote

The major announcements from the VMworld keynote: No more vRAM entitlement and support for OpenStack. VMware will now price vSphere vCloud 5.1 based on the number of CPU’s and Sockets VMware is now a Gold partner with OpenStack 50% of x86 workloads run on VMware 60% of x86 server workloads are virtualized The new CEO, […]

Verizon LTE connection is faster than Comcast?

It never fails for my Comcast connection slows to a crawl every night around the same time. To Comcast’s credit, I believe it has more to do with the fact that there is like 30 WiFi networks in my range but it’s frustrating none the less. I’ve even migrated to 5 GHz but to no […]

Surprise! VMware will join OpenStack

Reblogged from GigaOM: Just in time for VMworld, VMware(s vmw) is about to join the OpenStack Foundation as a Gold member, along with Intel(s intc) and NEC, according to a post on the OpenStack Foundation Wiki. The applications for membership are on the agenda of the August 28 OpenStack Foundation meeting. A year ago, a VMware-OpenStack […]

I decided no VMworld this year but….

I had it open to the last minute on if to go to VMWorld or not this year and decided not to go. I just have too many customer and teaching commitments this week. This isn’t a bad reason to miss a conference but there will be plenty of people from my organization attending the […]

6 things we need to know from VMware

Reblogged from GigaOM: VMware’s(s vmw) annual VMworld shindig is next week, giving the company a golden opportunity to answer a lot of questions about its future and its future products. Here are five topics the company needs to address at the event where incoming CEO Pat Gelsinger, and out-going CEO Paul Maritz will both keynote. […]

What does Samsung’s loss to Apple mean for Android in the enterprise?

I’m wondering out loud what Samsung’s loss means to the enterprise. Samsung is the leading maker of smart phones which means that a good number of employees are looking to connect their Samsung Android device up to your corporate network. They’ve done more to make Android mainstream than any other manufacturer. In turn, there are […]

My Dell XPS 8500 virtualization lab

I finally caved in a purchased a new desktop. For the past year I’ve been using my XPS 15 as a lab machine and my primary day to day workstation. It is definitely much more capable than my XPS 420 but it’s not the bump in performance I was looking for in a lab PC. Since my […]

BYOD management: Using a device catalog to control users

I’m starting to branch out and post content on additional sites. Over on SearchNetworking, I discuss how to use device catalogs as a way to limit the pains of BYOD. http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/news/2240161948/BYOD-management-Using-a-device-catalog-to-control-users

Software-defined networking is hot and Big Switch has data to prove it

Reblogged from GigaOM: Updated: Big Switch, which many in the networking sector have enshrined as Nicira’s rival in software defined networking, said Monday that its Floodlight open-source, SDN controller software has surpassed 6,000 downloads and supports an ecosystem worth $3 billion. This type of momentum release is generally a company’s way of saying, “Hey, look […]

My CoCo 2 and Dell XPS 15

Back to the Future

Biebs, move over for Obama: Klout score changes bring new users to the top

Reblogged from GigaOM: If you’re the kind of person who knows exactly how many Twitter followers you have at a given moment or competes to gather as many friends as you can on Facebook, get ready for a change to your main scoreboard: Klout is getting a makeover, and your ranking may vary. The controversial metric […]

My Online Brand Earned Me a 10% Raise |

I wrote a guest post a few months ago on thevoiceofjobseekers.com on how to cultivate your online brand. I just re-read it and took some notes. Not a bad read at all. My Online Brand Earned Me a 10% Raise |.

VMware or OpenStack – Who will win the hearts of the data center?

It has taken me a couple years for me to understand Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions like AWS and OpenStack. I’ve built infrastructures for Software as a Service (SaaS) environments. I’ve also been part of a larger team that built a community cloud for the service organization that I work at based on VMware […]

Is the Rackspace OpenStack cloud really open?

I read an article over on GigaOm about Rackspace announcing a private/hybrid cloud based on their OpenStack offering. This got me to thinking and asking the question, “Is Rackspace cloud really open?” Yes, it’s built on OpenStack but what does that mean today for enterprise customers looking for an open solution. One of the main […]

DLP is a nightmare – Just take my word for it

DLP tools deliver strong endpoint protection. Networkworld.com had the above write up on several Data Loss Prevention (DLP) products that they tested in their labs. They found in the lab that even with network based DLP product this is an extremely tricky technical control to implement. I’ve had the pleasure of implementing DLP in a […]

Should employees pay their own service bill for BYOD

I’ve read more than a couple of stories that claim that BYOD doesn’t save money but sends service costs spiraling out of control. The main cause is that companies either subsidize or out right pay an employees service charges. The employee selects a device and a plan and then expenses the plan. This is a […]

Growing up Chicago – My attempt to change the world

I’m excited to announce Growing up in Chicago my new blog. I’ve really enjoyed learning how to blog with virtualizedgeek.com but a geek is just part of who I am. Growing up in Chicago is the blog that I hope to make an impact. I’ve got a lot of great post ideas and welcome suggestions.

Tardis Bookself

I don’t get excited over furniture often but this is pretty cool. I’d love to have one for my office.

How many VM’s can you run in VMware Workstation 8?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVcHMUdjN-E

An experiement to see how many VM’s I could run on my Dell XPS 15 with 16GB of RAM.

Zynga uses stock options to keep employees put, report says | Internet & Media – CNET News

With a stock price of $2.94 versus an IPO price at $10.00 and seeing without accounting tricks a loss for the past 3 quarters I don’t understand why any of Zynga’s employees would stay. This is in addition to the fact that they screwed their employees out of non-vested stock options prior to their IPO. […]

Does the Enterprise have a use for OpenStack and IaaS?

OpenStack has gotten a lot of attention the past few months. As well as it should as it’s an ambitious project. The question that I constantly ask, “What is the impact to the enterprise of these IaaS solutions.” In theory when the OpenStack project is mature I should be able to move workloads from my […]

Vote for virtualizedgeek.com

Virtualizedgeek.com was nominated for the must read IT blog on Biztechmagaizine.com which is sponsored by CDW. I’m very flattered to be nominated but I would prefer to win. So as we say in Chicago “Vote Early and Vote Often.” http://www.biztechmagazine.com/article/2012/08/biztechs-2012-must-read-it-blogs-nominations-round

Greatness is something you achieve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JnYcuRW_qo

Sometimes we’ll look back and feel intimidated by what we once were. Once upon a time we raised to our highest levels. I’m here to tell you that at the minimum you can achieve the best you’ve ever done. What’s truly inspiring is that you may surpass your greatest moment.

Greatness is not something you are born with it’s something you achieve.

A lesson in leadership from my dad

Non-tech related story but one of the life long parenting lessons I learned from my father on parenting and leadership. My brother reminded me of an event in his life that made me again admire an attribute of my dad – his ability to be truly interested in all that we do. My brother had […]

iCloud horror story – When remote wipe goes horribly wrong

I don’t use iCloud for much. I did use the iCloud remote wipe to clean the data on a lost/stolen iPhone. I was grateful that the service was available to me even though I had a PIN screen lock on my iPhone. It was nice to have a peace of mind that my data was […]

I have a problem – My laptop is too powerful

When it was time to buy my oldest son a laptop for school last year, I took to opportunity to upgrade my machine as well. I normally have both a laptop and a desktop. My desktop is normally my workhorse which I use to do my hardcore virtualization labs and any video encoding projects. My […]

Are Facebook likes a waste of money?

I recently engaged in what turned out to be an expensive experiment in Facebook advertising. In the past I’ve used Google AdWords to advertise my blog with fairly good results. Even without a good click rate I saw a measurable increase in blog traffic. Facebook has some 900 million plus users so, if you create […]

Rackspace CEO: 'We're playing a different game' than Amazon

Reblogged from GigaOM: For Rackspace, there’s no turning back from OpenStack now. As of Wednesday, all new customer workloads will deploy on the company’s open source cloud computing platform, leaving the company’s legacy platform for existing customers that want to take their time transitioning to the new cloud. Now, the competition to dethrone cloud king […]

I don’t believe Xsigo is a SDN play

Oracle recently acquired Xsigo and it’s being billed as an SDN play for Oracle. Xsigo primary products let you converge your data and storage networks. You can get 40Gbps to 80Gbps connection into your virtual hosts. Its definitely a cool solution and is a virtualization player. But, I don’t see how they have anything to do […]

Deploying a Software Defined Network (SDN) is easy fixing your IT organization is hard

I ran into a switching problem in a vSphere 4.1 environment that highlights the challenges an IT organization faces when trying to deliver next generation Software Defined Networks (SDN’s). SDN’s have the potential to revolutionize data centers, cloud services and the applications riding on the networks. SDN’s allow the conveniences of hardware abstraction to applications […]

Software: The new networking paradigm

Reblogged from GigaOM: VMware’s planned acquisition of Nicra for $1.25 billion represents the evolution of networking beyond the hardware-dominated point of view that has sustained the industry for decades. On the same day Cisco (s csco) said it would cut 2 percent of its workforce,VMware (s vmw) said it would spend roughly 20 percent of […]

Virtualization Experiment Reloaded

Reblogged from Making the Complex Simple: Well, I tried the virtualization experiment again. It worked out much better, but it still isn’t quite there. This time though, I am going to stick with it. The hardware It was time for me to get new development PC hardware. I went with a desktop again instead of […]

Configuring Networking for Nested VM – Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D64iaJLJzTA

My video walk through of configuring a complete vSphere environment in VMware Workstation 8 including the networking needed for nested VM’s.

Google Fiber, Windows 8 – What to do with all that bandwidth?

Om Malik from GigaOm (I still haven’t met the Giga guy yet) posted that he’s getting 200+ Mbps bandwidth from his residential Internet service. Google will announce availability of its 1Gbps fiber in Kansas City on the 26th of July. On paper that’s some serious bandwidth for an entire office let alone single family homes. Of […]

Microsoft, Salesforce Share Secrets to Landing Their Jobs

Reblogged from Dice News: Hiring managers from Salesforce.com, Microsoft, and mobile ad network company InMobi are hiring and hiring aggressively. But when it comes to working at these kind of name companies, well, the competition is fierce. So, how do you win them over? During Google I/O last week, I talked to hiring managers and […]

One does not simply waka waka into Mordor

Because it’s funny.

MacBook Pro with Retina Display for Virtualization Lab

I’m always looking to upgrade my virtualization lab gear. The new MBP with Retina has intrigued me. It’s a very impressive machine. However, I find it hard to justify getting one of these insanely nice machines. I don’t care much for OS X and don’t need Thunderbolt. I’m sure I can do all of the […]

OpenStack faces the terrible twos

Reblogged from GigaOM: OpenStack turns two this week. That means the open-source project — which fancies itself the Linux of the cloud — is entering a critical stage of its development process. Rackspace(a rax) — which helped give birth to OpenStack in July 2010 — rolled out some stats to show OpenStack momentum and to […]

VDI-In-a-Box Running inside of VMware Workstation 8 – Video

As a follow up to what has already turned out to be a pretty popular blog post I’ve created a YouTube video for the my lab on how to run Citrix VDI-In-a-Box inside of VMware Workstation 8. Not a bad post for the 100th virtualizedgeek.com blog post. Thanks for reading and watching.

IBM – Selling fish right off the boat

I asked @IBMCloud on Twitter, how would they update their “Flying Cars” commercial from 2000 now that Cloud computing is such a major part of the technology landscape. I checked my twitter @mentions this morning to find this reply. I have to say this is a use case that I hadn’t considered. However, this is […]

Where are my flying cars? I’ll just take the software.

The famous voice of Avery Brooks posed the question as to where were our flying cars we were promised by the year 2000. But IBM claims we don’t need flying cars because businesses of the time operated at Internet speed. I had to write a white paper on “The Office of the Future” for one […]

Installing Citrix VDI-in-a-Box in VMWare Workstation 8

I posted an earlier lab on installing XenDesktop 5 within VMware Workstation 8. But the number 1 search term that comes up for this post is “How to install Citrix VDI-in-a-Box in VMware Workstation.” I kind of take it for granted that if XenDesktop will run in VMware Workstation then the lighter VDI-in-a-Box should be […]

CCIE vs. VCP

I get this question a lot so, here’s a blog post on my thoughts. There’s a huge difference in these two certifications. First the difference is in level. The Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) is an expert level certification for a designated area of Cisco product expertise. The VMware Certified Professional (VCP) is the entry […]

How to install vCloud Director 1.5

This is pretty cool. I`ve had to look in multiple places for all of this in the past and Kendrick Coleman put together an entire end to end guide for install vCloud Director 1.5. Now getting it installed is one thing setting it up to be useful is something enterily different. I have to credit […]

Netflix: 'We're bullish on the cloud' despite outage

Reblogged from GigaOM: Last week’s Amazon Web Services outage might have outsmarted Netflix’s Chaos Monkeys, but the content-distribution giant isn’t about to turn its back on cloud computing. According to a Friday blog post from the Netflix (s nflx) cloud team, the outage (which started with a generator failure and resulted in a cascading bug […]

Dr. Who Bouquet

I don’t normally do pop culture but I’m a big Doctor Who fan and my daughter found this cool image and posted it on her tumblr so, I’m showing some Doctor Who love to my daughter who I got hooked on the show. Original image via http://www.themarysue.com/things-we-saw-today-superlady-postcards/

Latest outage raises more questions about Amazon cloud

Reblogged from GigaOM: Massive thunderstorms notwithstanding, the fact that Amazon’s (s amzn) U.S. East data center went down again Friday night while other cloud services hosted in the same area kept running raises anew questions about whether Amazon is suffering architectural glitches that go beyond acts of God. While most Amazon services were back up […]

Run XenDesktop in AWS

I’ve often toyed with the concept of running XenDesktop in the Cloud and specifically, running VDI within Amazon cloud service AWS. The Citrix Blog has a great post on running XenDesktop within AWS. It’s actually a novel idea that may have merit. One of the challenges with providing virtual desktops is the spikey nature of […]

Netflix open sources Asgard cloud deployment smarts

Reblogged from GigaOM: Very few companies know how to scale and deploy cloud applications like Netflix(s nflx), the ginormous movie streaming site. And now it’s making some of that cloud management expertise available to the masses via Github. On Monday, the company open sourced Asgard, a Grails and JQuery web interface that Netflix engineers use […]

Is OpenFlow an answer looking for a problem?

Reblogged from GigaOM: OpenFlow and software-defined networking may be hot topics in the infrastructure industry right now — but not everyone believes they are up to scratch. At a panel discussing internet bypass and new data center fabrics at GigaOM’s Structure 2012 in San Francisco on Thursday, two senior industry figures said that the standard […]

Running XenDesktop 5 inside of VMWare Workstation

This is a follow up to my previous post on trying to run XenDesktop in VMWare Workstation 8. In my previous attempt, I wanted to try and consolidate all of the Windows Server roles into the least amount of virtual servers as possible. In my initial attempts I realized that there was no easy way […]

More RAM means more fun

I’ve been salivating over the new Macbook Pro with Retina display. Not just because of the amazing 15.4″ 2880 x 1880 resolution or the Solid State Drives. But the fact this is one of the few 15″ laptops that supports 16GB of RAM. As I’ve said before, virtualization is all about RAM and with 16GB of it […]

Cisco Announces New SDN Strategy Cisco ONE

Cisco has a history of adding extensions to standards and protocols that don’t really address their customer needs when released. Cisco is extremely influential so when they do things such as this others eventually follow suite as their customers adopt the technology. I haven’t been overjoyed by Cisco’s support of Software Defined Networking (SDN). However, […]

Did NASA ditch OpenStack for Amazon?

Reblogged from GigaOM: If folks were given to reading tea leaves, they might read a lot into a recent blog post by NASA CIO Linda Cureton in which she discussed IT reform at the U.S. space agency. She mentioned a few specific cloud computing efforts, including a project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that uploaded 250,000 […]

VXLAN Software Defined Networks (SDN)

I follow the @vmware twitter feed and saw an interesting post on VMware offering Software Defined Networks via VXLAN. Now, I want to give a recap of what I consider the nirvana of SDN to be. Traditional LAN/WAN networking are built on the concept of the 7 ISO layers. When building a complex network infrastructure […]

Enterprise applications in the cloud

Networkworld.com has a pretty interesting article on the topic of acceptance of cloud computing for enterprise applications. The article highlights a Gartner research note that indicates %73 percent of the respondents greatest concern dealt with security in the cloud. I’m not personally concerned with security as I’ve seen firsthand the infrastructure and controls these providers […]

Monetizing social media means navigating 'big, sucky data'

Reblogged from GigaOM: Solariat Founder and CEO Jeffrey Davitz has a message for anyone trying to leverage social network data to make money: “The fundamental problem with social is yes, it’s big data, but it’s mostly big, sucky data.” What he means, he explained during a recent interview, is that life isn’t too easy for […]

Why I don’t use WordAds? Because banner ads don’t work!

Random thought about banner ads (advantage of having your on blog!). Banner ads just don’t work. At least banner ads with no context and target. I’ve been thinking about banner ads a lot since I started my own blog. My aim in starting my own blog wasn’t to make money. At least the aim isn’t […]

Has Amazon opened the door for a more enterprise friendly private/public cloud option?

Amazon is getting tantalizingly closer to providing a native platform that enables extending your private cloud to AWS. This service allows for the importing and exporting of VMDK (VMWare), Citrix, XEN VHD and Hyper-V VHD images of Windows 2003 R2 and 2008 R1/R2 servers. I can easily see a 3rd party provider creating software that […]

Introduction to Virtualization – Client Hypervisor VMware Workstation 8

Class #2 of my series on virtualization technology. This is a introduction to client side virtualization. Client side hypervisors also known as Type 2 hypervisors is a great technology to start to wrap your head around virtualization technologies. VMware Workstation 8 is the foundation of many of the labs that I do on this site. […]

Introduction to Virtualizaton – Video Class 1

Introduction to Virtualization Class 1 I teach two courses at work. The first is a Cloud Computing course which my first two videos were based on and the other is a VMWare vSphere 5 course which this video is based. This is an introduction to the basic concept of Virtualization. Nothing vendor specific other than […]

XenDesktop 5 inside of VMware Workstation 8 – First attempt

Installing XenDesktop is a pretty frustrating experience. I believe that’s why Citrix came out with VDI-in-a-Box to help those interested in a POC build a quick environment. I haven’t looked at the VDI in a Box solution as I’m more interested in mimicking a production environment. I posted an earlier teaser in which I proposed […]

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure missed the boat on mobile Bring Your Own Device

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a great technology. But great technologies don’t always become great solutions. Barb Darrow over at GigaOM post titled “Is this the year of desktop virtualization yet?” It would seem the year of desktop virtualization has indeed been coming for the last 5 years. VDI is a wonderful solution for the […]

Facebook IPO vs Zynga – why I’m not buying Zynga

Facebook’s IPO is just a few hours away. I know there’s plenty of coverage over the huge valuation of the company so, I want to contrast the experience of the employees of two of the most anticipated tech IPO’s in recent history. Compare and contrast the IPO of Facebook and Zynga. Zynga and Facebook are […]

10 Print “Hello World”

10 Print “Hello World!”; 20 Goto 10 That was on of the first computer program that I ever wrote. It came straight out of the programming manual that came with my Color Computer 2 (CoCo 2). Actually, I had just watched War Games with Matthew Broderick a couple of weeks before and was pretty disappointed […]

Why Rackspack and Openstack may not be too late (You have no hand)

I posted earlier on why I believe Rackspace’s open source initiative Openstack may be too late. Now I’m going to discuss why it may not be too late. The solution has been in development from July of 2010 to May 1st 2012 when Rackspace offered the first widely deployed production ready Openstack offering. Openstack is […]

Why Rackspace and Openstack may be too late

I wanted to take some time and make sure that I clarified my position on Openstack. Rackspace and NASA announced this open source project back in July of 2010. Openstack is a cloud manager for private or public clouds. Openstack positions itself as an alternative to vCloud and through 3rd hosting provider party an (potentially) […]

OpenFlow and software defined networks are here. Now what?

Reblogged from GigaOM: Earlier this month I spent a few days at the Open Networking Summit in Santa Clara, Calif. and walked away certain I watched history being made in the networking industry. The emergence of the OpenFlow standard and software defined networking have been on my radar for a while, but at this event, […]

Windows 8 running on a Samsung Series 7 Tablet

Today my employer hosted an internal conference and Microsoft just happened to be there which I wasn’t expecting. Specifically, they were there showing off Windows 8 running on a Samsung Series 7 11.6” tablet. I had ran the Developer Preview of Windows 8 on my older HP tablet which was an OK experience but the hardware […]

“VMLimted” Microsoft taking pretty good shots at VMware

Microsoft’s VM-Limited campaign has pitted VMware’s cloud strategy as just more virtualization masked as a Cloud solution. Microsoft hits on some of the pain points of VMware’s customers including the change in licensing model which the faux VMLimited sales person explains it as “The more you use the more you pay” model. From the density […]

What are some of the considerations for Cloud based ERP?

Recently in one of my courses at DePaul we’ve talked at great length in class about the different ERP delivery models. One model that seems pretty popular today is Cloud based ERP. Provider’s such as Salesforce.com offers an ERP solution and before Oracle acquired PeopleSoft they actually offered a pseudo Cloud based solution for small […]

Think BYOD is an issue? Wait for Stealth IT

Reblogged from GigaOM: The acronym BYOD, which stands for bring your own device, is taking over both corporate America and the press release filter in my inbox. But an analyst report out Monday suggests that BYOD has a flip side that no one talks about — Stealth IT, or the IT pro side of the […]

Is it too late for OpenStack?

Reblogged from GigaOM: There’s been a lot of news about OpenStack recently — notably a conference dedicated to the open-source cloud-computing platform this week and IBM and Red Hat (s ibm) (s rht) signing on to the effort. And yet there is a feeling in some quarters that it may be too late for the project to take hold. Two […]

XenDesktop 5 Provisioning Server support for vSphere 5.0

I’m a pretty big fan of XenDesktop. It’s a slick and power VDI platform. A while back I helped a small company deploy XenDesktop and they’ve really appreciated the migration from XenApp. They are accessing the environment locally, remotely and via iOS devices. It just works (for the most part). One design consideration I had […]

Review of PHD Virtual Backup 5.4

Sponsored Post What is PHD Virtual Backup? PHD Virtual Backup is a virtual server backup application that comes in two flavors – A version for Citrix XenServer and a version for VMWare ESXi. This solution is geared toward a virtualized environment. So, if you have a mix of physical and virtual servers you will need […]

Readers: What's Your Cloud Strategy?

Reblogged from TechCrunch: I get press releases every week about some new (or old!) company and their so-called cloud solution. Some folks are clearly abusing the popularity of the “cloud” buzzword, and others are actually doing interesting things with distributed computing, infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service, orchestration, and related technologies. Amazon is the prime mover on IaaS, […]

Microsoft, instead of turning the lights off on XP, make it open source

Network World’s Mark Gibbs wrote: “Perhaps Microsoft should turn these products loose, make them open source and leave the care and maintenance of them to people who care enough to do so. You know that instantly projects would emerge to work on core maintenance and then distros as wildly varied as those you find with […]

It's official: IBM and Red Hat get with OpenStack

Reblogged from GigaOM: OpenStack filled in some key checkmarks this week as it added IBM(s ibm) and Red Hat(s rhat) to its roster of corporate backers. As GigaOM reported last week, the two tech giants will join the nascent OpenStack Foundation as Platinum members along with AT&T, Canonical, Hewlett-Packard(s hpq), Nebula, Rackspace(s rax), and Suse. The gelling […]

VMware isn't going to let network virtualization pass it by

Reblogged from GigaOM: VMware(s vmw) teamed up with Stanford and Berkeley on Tuesday to create an industry consortium around software defined networks, called the Open Networking Research Center. The company, famous for hypervisors that virtualize servers isn’t about to watch while companies attempt to build the same disruption in networking. The consortium counts CableLabs, Cisco(s […]

Cord Cutting (Cable TV)

A little over 3 weeks ago I received my latest Comcast bill. I was shocked that the price had gone up yet again. This was the last straw for my wife who is a diehard cable user. She gave me the OK to cut the cord. I wasted no time in calling Comcast and scaling […]

Why you should have comments, even when they are bad

Reblogged from GigaOM: If you spend long enough reading blogs — or even newspapers, for that matter — you will eventually come across an essay about how a site is struggling with the question of whether to allow comments, or has decided to shut them down. The latest example of this genre comes from former […]

Why Instagram is likely moving on from Amazon's cloud

Reblogged from GigaOM: Social photo-sharing service Instagram is pretty proud of the infrastructure it built atop the Amazon Web Services (s amzn) cloud, but I have to wonder whether the startup’s acquisition by Facebook today means all that effort was for nothing. Well, it wasn’t for nothing, obviously — Instagram was able to scale to […]

BYOD is unstoppable. Smart companies must build apps

Reblogged from GigaOM: The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement has gained unstoppable momentum. And thanks to the burgeoning mobile app market, employees have high expectations for these tools. They want an attractive user experience tailored to their devices. In other words, companies need to invest in building apps, period. During my two decades of […]

Tim Armstrong may have saved AOL, but at what cost?

Reblogged from GigaOM: Updated: As AOL continues its battle to replace a declining business model — much of which still involves charging people for dial-up Internet access — with something more robust, there are growing signs that Arianna Huffington is increasing her power base at the company. Among other things, a report in the New […]

Hyper-V 3 vs. vSphere 5 Debate on ZDNet

Zdnet has an interesting debate about Hyper-V 3 on Windows Server 8 vs. vSphere 5.0. Hyper-V to this point has been a great value play for organizations that didn’t have huge management requirements for their virtualized environment. It’s support for Linux has actually improved a lot as well. But I think it’s unreasonable to think the […]

Corporate Usage Policy – End User initiated encryption and e-discovery

So, if you work for a publically traded company, health care organization, financial services company or government you may have had to deal with some type of encryption strategy for your mobile devices or removable devices. There are plenty of enterprise encryption products on the market that can assist with this basic security need. Also, […]

BYOD is all about delivery

Remember the big push for BYOD laptops? The theory was that people would get a credit for a laptop device and bring it in to work. Now the big push is around mobile devices. End users have voted and Blackberry is out. iPAD’s, iPhones and Android devices are in. This makes for a difficult set […]

Problems with XenDesktop? Check your time!

Configuring VMware Workstation 8 Networking for Nested VM’s

I’ve posted more than a couple of articles on running vSphere inside of VMware Workstation. One thing we haven’t done a deep dive is how to setup networking in the environment to do things such as vMotion, DRS and Storage. Also, the ability to access nested VM’s from your production network. Visit Virtualized Geek on […]

Book Review of Mastering VMware vSphere 5.0

I’ve been using Mastering VMware vSphere 5 (ISBN-10: 0470890800) as a jump start for my VMware 5 self-training. Overall it’s a pretty good book. It’s not an introduction to VMware and I don’t know if I’d recommend it for someone who is new to virtualization. There’s not a lot of “beginner” information in this book that builds […]

Citrix Doesn’t Want XenDesktop Used for Disaster Recovery

I read an interesting blog post on the Citrix website about how we should not use XenDesktop as a disaster recovery strategy. My initial thought was “huh?” Why in the world would I not want to use XenDesktop as a DR strategy? And why wouldn’t Citrix want to sell me product? I’m not going to […]

XenDesktop Lab Within VMware Workstation 8 Teaser

See if I can encourage some interaction between you guys and myself. I’ll throw this nugget out and see who bites. So, if you have a pretty beefy VMware ESXi server (16GB to 32GB) in your lab you should be able to build a pretty basic XenDesktop lab with a XenDesktop Studio Server, your physical […]

Consumer Patch Management

Talking about having a safe and secure new year, one of my favorite security products is Secunia PSI (Personal Software Inspector). I came by it via the recommendation of a lecturer in one of my DePaul graduate courses in IT Security. The consumer download of the application is free and extremely powerful. This is a […]

ESXi on Dell 6410

Just a quick post to confirm that I was successfully able to install and run ESXi 4.1 on my a Dell 6410 with an i5 processors and 4GB of RAM. Not much to talk about other than it works. The install took all of 15 minutes and no special adjustments. ESXi seems to generally like […]

Windows 8 Developer Preview on HP TouchSmart Laptop

Windows 8 on HP TouchSmart I’ve been toying with the idea of installing Windows 8 Developers Preview on my HP TouchSmart 1025dx Laptop. In theory this should be a decent preview of Windows 8 Tablets to come. The TouchSmart laptop is a Multitouch and Pen based Windows 7 ready laptop and should make for an […]

My XPS 15 VMware Workstation 8 Lab

I originally intended to use my old Dell XPS 420 as a lab machine. I installed ESXi 4.1 on it and started to load it with VM’s and it turned into my production home server. The VM’s became too valuable to shutdown and free resources for my home lab. And to boot it can only […]

Hold both a CCIE and VCP

A while back I brought the VMWare vSphere training videos from TrainSignal. I was surprised to see the instructor had both his CCIE and VCP. These two certifications are probably the most highly sought certifications in the IT industry. I remember the horror stories of people trying to write the CCIE and their many failed […]

Bring your own device is a fail? (or is VDI a failed approach?)

Read a post on ZDNET about how virtualization is the answer to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). That got me to thinking – Are the technologies that are being billed as enablers to BYOD actually the technologies that employees want? On VirtualizedGeek we’ve talked about many of these technologies – Application Virtualization, VDI and of course […]

Running Nested Windows 8 inside Hyper-V in VMware Workstation 8

With all the exciting news about vSphere 5.0 and the Windows 8 beta being released over the past couple of weeks one product announcement may have gone unnoticed. VMware Workstation 8 was released. For us virtualization geeks this is a big deal. Related post – Physical vs. Virtual lab One of the nice surprises with […]

XenClient Install and First Look

A while back I wrote how I thought Windows 8 should be a bare metal hypervisor. I won’t revisit the many advantages including VDI but, I’d be really excited to see a client based bare metal hypervisor with wide support. That’s why I got really excited when I heard about XenClient. I didn’t even know […]

VDI vs Application Virtualization

I got asked a pretty interesting question the other day. If an organization deploys Virtualized Applications or Desktops via a virtualized application solution such as XenApp why would they need to deploy Virtualized Desktop using VDI or vice versa? I gave a breakdown on application virtualization and desktop virtualization in an earlier post. The basic […]

vSphere inside of VMWare Workstation Performance

I’ve been debating over the past few months as to buy a new desktop. My current desktop is still relatively a decent machine. It’s a 3 year old Dell XPS 420 with a Quad Core 9300 and 6GB of RAM; a decent machine for today’s power user. I have no complaints when it comes to […]

My Favorite Microsoft Cloud Solution

I’ve owned both a laptop and a desktop since Windows 95. I’ve also had a home network since those days. And I’ve always had the same problem. Syncing my documents between the two has been a constant challenge. I’ve tried the Windows Briefcase which was a joke. To the cloud you say? I anxiously awaited […]

Virtualization vs Cloud – The Cloud Manager

In my current role, I’m challenged with building a private cloud for fairly large government organization. Most organizations have embraced the concept of virtualization and have started to at least virtualize workloads that make since such as webservers, file and print. Forward thinking organizations have even embraced virtualizing high performance workloads such as Exchange and […]

Error adding vCenter in XenDesktop 5.0 Desktop Studio

This perplexed me for a few hours while trying to install Xendesktop 5.0 using the quick deployment. When it was time to connect to the vCenter to add my VMware hosts I kept receiving this error – “The hypervisor was not contactable at the supplied address.” I was able to find plenty of advice on […]

vSphere inside of VMWare Workstation 7.0

Follow on to my post on running ESX inside of VMWare Workstation 6.5. I’ve finally taken the plunge and spent the $100.00 (yeah these are tough times) and upgraded to VMWare Workstation 7.0. The best feature to me has been the ability to run vSphere natively within VMWare Workstation. The install takes minutes and I […]

Selling the Virtual Data Center

I had a meeting the other day that emphasied the importance of communicating the concept of the virtualized Data Center. I made the assumption that everyone who has been working with virtualization has come up to speed on the concept of the virtualized data center. This actaully isn’t the case. I was speaking with a […]

Magny Cours

Wow!!! August since the last blog post. It makes sense because I’ve relocated to Maryland where I started with Lockheed Martin supporting their Washington Data Center in September. I’ve been extremely busy working on virtualization projects, e-discovery and disaster recovery. Not to mention I’m still working on my MS in Project Management. But, I have […]

Lesson from Server Consolidation of the 90′s

Organizations were suffering from server sprawl…

Windows 8 a Hypervisor Based OS?

Just think of the implications or opportunities for cloud computing.

Virtualization Training Choices

I’ve learned over the years to appreciate formal training courses. The foundation of my IT knowledge is from self-study. I achieved my MCSE, CNE, CCNA and etc through a combination of job experience, home lab and self-study materials. However, I’ve taken courses in school and with vendors that have helped me better understand technology in […]

Are You a Fanboy/Girl?

I remember a disturbing cover from 1987 or about when I was in High School in either PC Mag or PC World. The title was “Is Dos Dead?” I even remember the cover with a C:\ in flames in a lake of fire or something like that. That was my first experience with being a […]

Is the iPad a Better Thin Client than a Workstation?

With the release of the Citrix client for the iPad I have to ask the question. Is the iPad a better Windows 7 Tablet than any native device that PC Manufactures can create? I want to look at the iPad as a serious Thin Client device. I recently purchased an iPad to play around with […]

Virtual Host Security

Now that virtualization is becoming a huge part of the infrastructure, it’s a good idea to extend our security policy to include virtualization challenges.

P2V Migration Thoughts

I had a project where I had to do a decent sized data center conversion without a lot formal planning. We had a SaaS product offering built on a VMware infrastructure that was bigger than the demand for the product. So we decided to leverage the extra capacity by doing a data center consolidation. We […]

Cloud vs. Virtualization

I tend to define Cloud Computing as anything that provides services to the Enterprise via the Internet or Private connection and is supported and maintained by a 3rd party.

Why No True Network Virtualization

I don’t know something like what Extreme has been doing for the past few years …

What is Application Virtualization

This is a pretty good article explaining application virtualization here. I think all the virtualization terms can get rather confusing. I first got introduced to application virtualization through Altiris a few years ago. I thought it was a good platform for us IT folks that would commonly install and uninstall tools for testing on our […]

ESX inside of VMware Workstation

I was talking with a VMware ISV Health Evangelist the other day and he mentioned with VMWare Workstation 7 you can now run vSphere 4 inside of VMware and have nested virtual machines. I thought that was curious as I have 6.5 and had heard you could already do it. Why in the world would […]

Hello world!

Over the past year I’ve tried to label my core professional brand. I cut my teeth as a Novell Netware Server administrator over a decade ago. Since, I’ve had job responsibilities that have included Windows Server administration, Network Design & Implementation, Desktop Engineering, e-Mail implementation, Project Management and the list goes on and on. I […]

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