Author: lenzker

#VMworld Barcelona: Adios Amigos. My Personal Recap

lenzker

VMworld 2018 Europe in Barcelona is about to end, but other than the rumors on the street proposed it seems that the newest rumor fact is that we will meet again next year for VMworld 2019 in  ….. BARCELONA… 4-7th November 2019

Having been in Las Vegas at this years VMworld, I didn’t expected that the European conference would flash me that much. But once again in my life I was wrong.

My Goal of this week

  1. Meet the people (check)
  2. Propagate the vExpert message among the German fellows (partially check)
  3. Learn about NSX-T (check)
  4. Learn about Workspace One Intelligence (check)
  5. Deliver a good presentation at Brian Maddens EUC Forum (partially check)
  6. Stay Healthy (DISQUALIFIED)

Comparing the check-mark I am really really happy with the results

Meet the people

Coming to more and more VMworlds over the years brought me into the position of knowing some persons in the field. The more I have been in the vCommunity, the more you realize how small the world is. It’s always so much fun hanging around with my comdivision gang. If you don’t follow them yet on twitter – get connected with Workspace ONE gurus Jens Hennig, Reinhard Partman and Automation / Cloud gurus Matthias Eisner, Yves Sandfort and Tobias Paschek.

Hanging around at the VMTN & vmware.code booth most of my time I had so many great conversations about technical and non-technical topics (‘crazy taxidriver’). I really need to do a shoutout to Brian Graf here. Every time you see him he is in a friendly, polite and nice mood and acts as a real good example of a great person. Very impressive and inspiring!

If you want to see the Interview I have given to my Ather Beg from Rackspace regarding NSX, check it out here:

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#VMworld 2018: General Session – The Superpowers of Tech

lenzker

2018 marks the 20th anniversary of VMware. 12000 attendees have joined this years European conference in Barcelona. From an economical and technical perspective the last years have been a real success for VMware. During the annual European conference VMworld, Pat Gelsinger who is VMware’s CEO for 6 years, gave an outlook on the companies’ present and its future.

Bridge across

Listening to Pat Gelsinger the core message of VMware’s core strength is pretty clear. Bridge across things.

  • Act 1 bridge across Servers (vSphere) [and Storage]- vendor independant (Lenovo, HPE, Dell)
  • Act 2 bridge across devices (Workspace One) – vendor independant (Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Google)
  • Act 3 bridge across networks (NSX) – vendor independant (Cisco, Juniper, HPE)

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VMware’s #vExpert Programm. Wie starte ich meine Reise? #VMworld Edition

lenzker

This post is available in English

Vor ca. einem Monat wurde ich gebeten im deutschsprachigen Raum als vExpert Repräsentant Nachwuchs zu rekrutieren ;-). In der Rolle als vExpert Pro ist es meine Aufgabe Leute in Deutschland zu finden und ihnen Tipps zu geben wie sie sich innerhalb der Virtualisierungs-Community zurecht finden und einen Beitrag leisten können.

Was ist das vExpert Programm?

Das vExpert Programm ist VMware’s Kunden und Evangelisten Programm um Anreize zu schaffen sein Wissen mit anderen zu teilen. Als vExpert bekommt man Zugriff auf interne R&D Quellen, Webex Vorträge, Einladung in den vExpert Slack channel (Unglaublich mächtiges Tool), Einladung zu #vExpert Parties bei der VMworld und last but not least: Man wird Teil einer unglaublich coolen Community.

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Why you should try becoming a #vExpert ? #VMworld edition

lenzker

Note: This post has also been created in the German language.

About a month ago VMware has announced their new vExpert sub-program: vExpert Pro and I was honoured to become a representative for this programme within Germany.

What is goal of vExpert Pro Program and why did I participate?

The vExpert program has been created by VMware to as VMware’s global evangelism and advocacy program. In the end it’s a community of fellow virtualization experts, geeks who share their knowledge in form of tweets, blog-posts, speaking-engagements or other fancy formats.

Over the years this ‘small’ program has grown to more than 1000 members.

The vExpert Pro progam has been established by Valdecir Carvalho (aka homelabber brazil) to increase the number within specific regions. As in every community there are a few people that don’t like small/internal programs to grow, since with too much growth the exclusiveness of being a member of such a ‘club’ decreases.

I understand that argument and of course there is a risk that if the bar of becoming a vExpert get’s too low, the quality of such a program will lack. That argument is legit, but VMware needs to think on a global scale about that topic.

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#VMworld 2018 Europe: Let’s get started ?! Focus on the network and win 1.000.000$

lenzker

It’s November; it’s VMworld again and it seems that the sun is definitely celebrating #VMworld with us.  As every year in Barcelona, Sunday evening’s event kicked off #VMworld: #vRockstar 

(If you are here because you wanted to win 1.000.000$… good luck!)

It has been a pleasure to meet so many vGeeks out there and I am very proud to be part of the team that has sponsored this event among others: comdivision.

(They knew which music needs to be played: Fuerte NSX on Spotify)

The evening went by far too quick and it’s time to get technical. Within the VMware world it is important to remain focussed. The ecosystem is amazingly growing in all kind of areas:

  • Hybrid (we have heard that for a while) Cloud
  • Edge-Computing (Computing moves closer too the customer’s site – sounds familiar right?!)
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • End-User Computing
  • Public Cloud

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#VMworld 2018: Day 4 Summary Videolog

lenzker

VMworld 2018 in Las Vegas is over. I must admit: I think it was the best VMworld that I have ever attended. It has been so much fun doing a breakout session with my fellow EUC champions Sean Massey, Dane Young, Eduardo Molino and Brian Madden.

And you know what’s better than having a session? Having a session that people obviously liked. The survey showed that each of us had an average >4 out of 5 with an overall result of 4.14 (more details). It has been the first time I am doing such a panel discussion and I really enjoyed it. I need to do that more often to improve my capabilities in such a round.

If you want to watch the recorded session. Check it out here

Other social highlights have been the meet-up with the many many vExperts and other guys in our field. Besides the regular sessions I want to give a shoutout to Brian Madden who organized a great EUC forum on Tuesday evening and Cyndie Ziekmund who leads our EUC Champion program. She did a fantastic job in bringing the product people responsible for the Horizon and Workspace One products to us. We received access to road maps and deeper technical information, VMware gets feedback from people dealing with it on a regular base -> Win-Win if you ask me. I don’t need to add that the dinner afterwards at Strip Steak (mmhhh) has been fantastic as well.

Meeting up multiple times a year with all of the other comdivision guys has been awesome as well, especially when Yves Sandford surprised us with a great helicopter flight through the grand canyon on Saturday morning (instead of supposed to be legal meeting). Thanks for that. I could write so much more about this fantastic event, but hey… the title says #VMworld 2018: Day 4 Summary Videolog. So I assume I should deliver finally a video.

Here we go. I will add an additional one with further VMworld cutovers within the next week.

//You want to know my motivation behind those video where I do talk in a selfie mode? To be honest: I hate how I do it currently. I don’t like //the way I talk in front of a camera (I can barely watch it) and I want to improve it. So I will repeat that at certain occasions over the year //and if I think I still suck after next years VMworld. I will just leave it as it is.

It is time I will head back home! I had a great time (did I told anyone that my back still hurts from #vSoccer?!), but I am really exhausted. All of you still reading this, have a safe trip home and hope to catch up with some in Barcelona.

#VMworld US 2018: Datacenter and Cloud products, announcements and releases

lenzker

During (and around) the general session at VMworld 2018 (US) VMware has made clear that hybrid cloud is the way to go in the future.

The general session was focusing on the 4 so called super powers of technology.

  1. Cloud
  2. Mobile
  3. Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
  4. EDGE Computing

The keynote showed up how and with which products VMware is settling for remaining a digital player in the next century (tighter AWS cooperation, vSphere on ARM, hybrid / multi-cloud, Workspace One, Pulse) while keep the principle of doing good (for the people). Seriously a lot of good stuff in the pipeline.

People that were expecting news or announcements of the core products haven’t heard any news about them even though many have been refreshed

To make you aware of all kind of changes / new releases within the current product portfolio and the new I tried to summarize key elements of the new products or releases surrounding the #VMworld conference. I will add useful and good detailed blog posts of my fellow colleagues that have gotten into much deeper detail. Read more →

#VMworld 2018: Introducing VMware Cloud Provider Pod

lenzker

[DISCLAIMER]
The Cloud Provider Pod is a product that I was involved with since the beginning of the development phase. All information are accurate, but for sure some comments or opinions are biased ;-).
[/DISCLAIMER]

Within the session Introducing VMware Cloud Provider Pod Yves Sandfort and Wade Holmes presented a new VMware solution for VMware’s Cloud Service Provider Program (CSPP) (View the session online here). The goal of the Cloud Provider Pod is to easily enable service provider to setup a fully featured and supported vCloud Director environment based on the requirements of the service provider.

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#VMworld 2018 – Announcements for the VMware Cloud Provider Program (#VCPP)

lenzker

Just in time for this years VMworld VMware has updated key products around their cloud portfolio for service provider. Within the VMware Cloud Provider Program (CSPP) a Service Provider can use VMware’s technologies and offer public IT services for their customer, while being charged only for the workload that is used (and therefore sold) to the customer.

Using the SDDC stack (vSphere, NSX, vSAN, vRealize) and integrate it within vCloud Director (and its add-ons like vCloud Director Extender) service provider can use a fully software-defined stack to add value for their customer by adding Services on top of this platform.

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