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guiding_insights_for_the_vmug_community
CEO
CONN
ECTION
vol. 02_issue 04
THE DISRUPTION ISSUE
HO
W TO…
IN TH
E HOUSE
ACHIEVE TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE
EMBRACE CROSS-CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
MORE THAN JUST A PODCAST
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about_us
vmug_compass > vol. 01_issue 02
VMUG CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERBrad Tompkins
MANAGING EDITORMike Carrozzo // [email protected]
ASSOCIATE EDITORJaclyn Patulo // [email protected]
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD CHAIRBrian Kirsch
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERSAnn JohnsonCarl OlafsonCurt Davis
Dan Maxfield
ART DIRECTORSteve Biernacki
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Trecien Schultz
HEADQUARTERSVMware User Group
330 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 2000Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: [email protected]
ABOUT VMUGOfficially launched in August of 2010, the VMware User Group (VMUG) is an independent,
global, customer-led organization, created to maximize members’ use of VMware and partner solutions through knowledge sharing, training, collaboration and events. With over 110,000
members worldwide, we are the largest organization for virtualization users.
Our standing partnership with VMware has allowed us to create an ever-growing network of customers and partners who continue to strategically impact VMware products and services.
EDITORIAL POLICYVMUG Compass is VMUG’s quarterly digital publication. To submit story ideas for publication
consideration, contact any of the editorial staff members above by email. Publication of any article or advertisement should not be considered an endorsement of the opinions expressed or products advertised. Statements of fact and opinion are the responsibility of the authors alone and do not imply approval or endorsement on the part of the advisory board, membership or staff of VMUG.
Copyright ©VMware User Group 2016 unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission from the editor.
CONNECT WITH VMUG
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10 READY FOR (DIGITAL) DISRUPTIONDigital platforms form the foundation for staying ahead in the age of digital transformation._ MIKE CARROZZO
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15 CERTIFICATION COMPLETES THE PICTURE OF TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE_CARL OLAFSON
18 VMWARE CROSS-CLOUD ARCHITECTURE: ADVANCE YOUR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION_JULIAN WOOD
22 MORE THAN JUST A PODCAST_ALEXA SCHLOSSER
VOL. 2 > ISSUE 4
04 CEO CONNECTION Taking Care of the Customer
_BRAD TOMPKINS
06 EDITOR’S NOTE Pick Three Things for 2017
_BRIAN KIRSCH
08 IN THE HOUSE Leaders Gather at VMworld Europe
HOW TO ...
26 INSIDE THE LAB _ KEITH TOWNSEND
SOLUTIONS ZONE
28 SOLUTIONS ZONE
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VMworld Europe has concluded, and the major announcement was the partnership between VMware and AWS.
The power behind the new service offering is VMware’s Cloud Foun-dation, VMware’s unified SDDC platform bringing vSphere, vSAN and NSX into a natively integrated stack. The platform allows a SDDCaaS model to be consumed on-premises, private and public cloud. This is the true evolution of the SDDC with VMware decoupling the data center from the cloud the same way it decoupled the hardware from the software with ESX.
When asked if VMware was concerned about losing business to AWS, CEO Pat Gelsinger acknowledged this as a possibility, but that the other possibility is AWS business coming to VMware. Once users experience the integration between vSphere, vSAN and NSX, users will bring that experience to their on-premises environments because VMware makes the integration easier than ever.
Take this a step further: What if this option is open to Azure, Google, vCAN and other cloud providers? VMware is positioned to do just that and give customers options that were never available before. How will you, VMUG members and VMware customers, use this tech-nology to accelerate your business?
Also at VMworld Europe came the announcement that vSphere 6.5, VMware’s award winning hyper-visor, continues to add enhance-ments and the introduction of vSAN 6.5. The enhancements of vSAN include iSCSI support for physical systems and the direct connect capability. iSCSI support has many use cases and gives options for physical system consumption for legacy systems.
VMUG and VMware continue to have a strong relationship. Though independent, VMUG receives tremendous support from VMware. A recent example of this support is launching the VMUG Feedback Forum, a partnership between VMware’s CTO Ambassador Program and VMUG. The goal of the Forum is to collect feedback on the challenges and opportunities our community faces when using VMware products. The information will be shared with VMware and is just one of the mechanisms to shape product direction and priorities. I encourage everyone to use the VMUG Feedback Forum to share your experiences.
More than once, I have heard Pat Gelsinger say if you take care of the customer, the business will take care of itself. Whether you are partnering with an unlikely ally or being available for candid customer feedback, VMware’s core focus is to take care of its customers. The way to do this is to give VMware customers options. VMware gives us options, even if it is outside the VMware portfolio. The question is now: How will we use the added options?
Brad TompkinsVMUG CEO
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ceo_connection
TAKING CAREOF THE CUSTOMER
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As we conclude 2016 and begin looking ahead to 2017, it’s time to think about the technical goals you wish to achieve in the upcoming year.
Now is a great time to examine the certification paths many of us are on and decide what 2017 might hold for our individual journeys. It could be a VCAP/VCDX, or something a bit more radical for the VMware admin: AWS certifications. As we are all well aware, IT is an ever-changing landscape of technologies, and our careers and technology interests often need to play catch up to keep pace.
Many of us are being pulled into the dev/ops worlds with automa-tion, orchestration, containers and a dozen other technologies that go along with it. At times, simply keeping our head above water can be a struggle in itself with the flood of technology being adopted. With that in mind, my advice for 2017 is this: Take time to pick three things you want to learn and/or even get certified. For example, you could select OpenStack, orchestration and containers.
The reality is that you likely won’t get to all three; due in part to the fact that life simply gets in the way and tends to take up some of that previous time in-between meetings. And that is OK. Knowing
this reality, if you can focus on two of them, and possibly obtain one certification, I would consider that to be a huge victory for 2017.
Quite simply, it’s not possible for us to be experts on all things right away; we are only human. Instead, embracing this mindset of creating a plan and doing your best to stick to it, realizing that life does happen, can be your best move in 2017.
As we look ahead to the next 12 months, adopt the mindset of always being in a position to move forward with your education in technology. Technology is not going to stop and wait for you to catch up.
Brian Kirsch // VMUG Board of DirectorsVMUG Compass Editorial Advisory Committee Chair
PICK THREE THINGS FOR 2017
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in_the_house
LEADERS GATHER AT VMworld EUROPEVMUG hosted a lunch for volunteer leaders during VMworld Europe on October 18. The annual LeaderLunch is a great opportunity to gather VMUG Leaders from around the world to connect with one another and hear the latest VMUG updates.
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT:➊ VMware Executives Pat Gelsinger and Joe
Baguley speaking with the VMUG Leaders at VMworld Europe
➋ VMUG Leader Lunch at VMworld Europe
➌ VMUG Leaders
➊
➋
➌
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READY FOR (DIGITAL)
DISRUPTION Remain on a firm foundation amid challenges to traditional business models.
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MIKE CARROZZO
MThey say that a little bit of disruption can be a good thing. But try telling that to the estimated 32 percent of large organizations that say company revenue will come under threat in the next five years due to disruption.
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ore specifically, these organizations, surveyed by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), were talking about a certain type of disruption causing a threat — digital disruption. Defined as technology
developments that challenge traditional business models and foster
quicker and more direct engagement with customers, digital disrup-
tion has become the common reality facing businesses large and
small across every market today. And technology leaders who are not
ready for disruption, both from a tactical and strategic perspective,
run the risk of making their business vulnerable to losing customers,
market share — or worse.
These days you don’t need to look very far to find a technology
development that is considered to be in the category of disruptive.
Digital disrupters take the form of things like algorithms, artificial
intelligence (AI) and smart devices, among others. Many argue
that digital disruption is the flipside to the ongoing path of digital
transformation, down which organizations both large and small are
embarking these days.
According to analyst firm Gartner, the ability to handle the pace of
digital disruption demands a new approach to IT; one in which is
built on the foundation of platforms. Gartner stresses that CIOs must
build their business technology to support the development of digital
business around five major platforms:
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IT NEEDS TO BE ABLE
TO DESIGN THE “BIG PICTURE”
OF ALL THE NEW INFORMATION
AND TECHNOLOGY.
• Information systems platform, which supports the back office, and operations such as enterprise resource planning and core systems.
• Customer experience platform, which contains the main custom-er-facing elements, such as customer and citizen portals, multichan-nel commerce and customer apps.
• Data and analytics platform, which contains information manage-ment and analytical capabilities. Data management programs and analytical applications fuel data-driven decision making, and algo-rithms automate discovery and action.
• Internet of Things (IoT) platform, which connects physical assets for monitoring, optimization, control and monetization. Capabilities include connectivity, analytics and integration to core and operation-al technology systems.
• Ecosystems platform, which supports the creation of, and connec-tion to, external ecosystems, marketplaces and communities; API management, control and security are its main elements.
Steve Prentice, vice president and Gartner fellow, says, “At a minimum, the IT organization needs to be able to design the ‘big picture’ of all the new information and technology capabilities required to support digital business. The CIO can then work with the rest of the organization to define who — if not IT — will build, find, support and own these major components.”
DIGITAL DOMINATIONDigital dominates every sector of the economy. This fact is supported by Accenture’s Technology Vision 2016 report, which cites the global digital economy accounted for 22 percent of the world’s economy in 2015, and is projected to reach 25 percent by 2025.
According to Accenture, many companies today struggle to deal with change, as they find the impact of technology and the associated tactics to be overwhelming at times. These companies are faced with the daunting task of being able to change their business models and all supporting processes; develop new skills; and learn different and more agile ways of working collaboratively with partners.
To address these challenges, Accenture has established four pillars of the corporate cultural shift, one of which is the idea of being data-driven organization. While it seems that the idea of being a data-driven organization isn’t necessarily new, Accenture believes that far too many companies are still in their infancy when it comes to making this shift to becoming fully data driven.
Being truly data driven goes beyond just having better tools or skills; it means changing the basis for making decisions at every level of the company. What is needed is for data to become so pervasive and readily available that it is able to support “insight-driven” decision making throughout the enterprise. This goes beyond people using data — machines must also be equipped to harvest and act upon intelligence.
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professionals project rapid growth in cloud services over the next two years, according to research from The Economist.
While this rapid growth in cloud services bring such positive things like speed and flexibility, complexities do also arise. Among those cited by The Economist include rising IT costs due to IT decentralization, increased vulnerability to cyberattacks, and a growing challenge to develop and deploy enterprise apps. In addition, complexities of dealing with a multi-cloud environment (cited by roughly 67 percent of organizations in research by VMware) play a major role.
Solving such a challenge is the impetus behind such developments as VMware’s Cross-Cloud Architecture. As enterprises rely increasingly on multiple public and private clouds to run their applications, they remain bogged down by the complexities that come with the management of applications across diverse cloud platforms, along with the need to secure these applications. It is what VMware classifies as having “cloud freedom and control” by providing a common operating environment. That means the ability to run, manage, connect and secure apps across clouds and devices in a common operating environment.
As the digital transformation continues to introduce new disruptions to the equation, companies like VMware are doing a bit of ‘disrupting’ of their own, as evidenced by partnerships with companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS). This integrates public and private clouds into
Given this idea, in order for organizations to become truly data driven, they must embrace what Accenture calls the Platform Economy. This aligns with the strategy behind the aforementioned five major platforms for digital business cited by Gartner.
Accenture says that the next wave of disruptive innovation will come from the technology-enabled, platform-driven ecosystems that are beginning to develop across all industries. It states, “Having strategically harnessed technology to produce digital businesses, leaders are now creating the adaptable, scalable and interconnected platform economy that underpins success in an ecosystem-based digital economy.”
THE CORE FOUNDATIONNot surprisingly, most executives today believe that their industry will be transformed substantially by digital transformation. It also comes as no surprise that more than half of IT
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a hybrid offering that helps enterprises to run applications across VMware vSphere®-based private, public and hybrid cloud environments, alongside applications that run on AWS.
This further builds off of the previously established partnership between VWare and IBM that provides the VMware data center virtualization software stack as a service on IBM’s cloud. It’s all part of an overall strategy called the VMware Cloud Foundation.
AS IT LEADERS PREPARE TO EMBARK DOWN A PATH OF EMBRACING DISRUPTION, IT’S
APPARENT THAT MUCH OF THEIR SUCCESS IS DIRECTED BY THE PLATFORM STRATEGY.
To see how this is being used in real business, we turn to Steve Phillpott, the CIO of Western Digital Corp. (WDC) as an example. His company uses AWS to run engineering simulations for an F100 company. Phillpott says that running these simulations in the cloud reduces the process from 30 days to a mere eight hours. And that by leveraging combined cloud services from VMware and AWS, he sees increases in IT productivity and security, along with decreases in both operating costs and capital expenses.
Furthermore, Phillpott, who says the plan is to continue maintaining a hybrid cloud environment, believes that VMware Cloud on AWS provides the ability for WDC to move workloads around the world and look across public and private clouds through what he calls “a single pane of glass.”
POISED FOR DISRUPTIONAs IT leaders prepare to embark down a path of embracing disruption, it’s apparent that much of their success is directed by the platform strategy. From there, all that is being developed and deployed has a better chance at thriving in this new era of digital disruption.
Mike Carrozzo is the managing editor of
VMUG Compass. He has more than 15
years of experience as a tech journalist
and content creator, including the
position as Chief Editor of Connected
World magazine, a business-to-business
publication covering the Internet of Things.
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CERTIFICATION COMPLETES THE PICTURE
OF TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE_ CARL OLAFSON
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VMware certifications also have five levels for each technology:
VMware Certified Associate (VCA) is a certification that validates an individual has a solid high-level
understanding of the technology. The VCA certification is a single web-based exam. The only exception is Cloud Management and Automation, which has two VCA exams: VCA-CMA and VCA-HC (Hybrid Cloud). This is an excellent certification level for those who need to validate a solid understanding of the technology, but will not be managing it on a daily basis. VCA certifications currently have no expiration and no prerequisites.
VMware Certified Professional (VCP) is a certification that validates an individual has a solid functional knowledge to administer the specific technology. The VCP certification exam process always starts with the Cloud Foundation exam. The Cloud Foundation exam is only waived if you have completed it for a separate VCP. Unlike the VCA, all
VCP exams will require you to schedule and take an exam at a Pearson Vue test center. Prerequisites for a VCP certification also vary and it is best to review the VMware Certification website for the current requirements. The VCP certification level has a two-year expiration, so you will need to re-take a VCP exam every two years to maintain an active VCP certification.
VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) is actually two separate certifications: Design and Deploy. Each also has a separate exam; both exams are completed at a Pearson Vue test center. The Design test focuses on design considerations and the Deploy exam is a lab-based exam where you work in an actual environment to complete specific functions. Currently, there is no expiration on the
VCAP exams. I completed and passed the VCAP5-DCD, so I do not have to complete the VCAP6-DCV Design equivalent to maintain an active VCAP-DCV (Design) certification. VCAP6-DCV (Deploy) is one of my 2017 training certification goals.
ertification sometimes gets a bad wrap with terms like “Paper Certified,” “Certification Treadmill” and the like. For any of the downsides, certifications are valued by the industry as a whole. All you have to do is search for articles on pay scale by certification to see that certifications are valued.
As a consultant, I had the tagline “Education augmented by Experience back by Certification.” I used this tagline to differentiate that certification should not be viewed in a vacuum, but rather part of a complete picture I like to call “Technical Excellence.”
When it comes to administering a disruptive technology like VMware, Technical Excellence is a requirement. It comes from a three-pillared approach of combining Education, Experience and Certification. Education can be formal or informal. Experience can be hands-on or through lab time. The focus of the remainder of this article is VMware Certifications and what is available.
VMware certifications cover four functional areas: Data Center Virtualization (DCV), Desktop and Mobility (DTM), Network Virtualization (NV) and Cloud Management and Automation (CMA). Most individuals will start their VMware certification journey with DCV, but you can expand your focus by tackling some of the other functional areas that apply to your job or the direction you want your career to take.
CTECHNICAL EXCELLENCE IS A REQUIREMENT.
IT COMES FROM A THREE-PILLARED APPROACH OF COMBINING EDUCATION,
EXPERIENCE AND CERTIFICATION.
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VMware Certified Im-plementation Expert (VCIX) is a "Designa-tion" attained by com-pleting both VCAP exams (Design and
Deploy) for the specific technology. The VCAP certification and VCIX designation are much more difficult than the VCA/VCP and really help differentiate you as an “Expert” at imple-menting (and maintaining) the technology.
VMware Certified De-sign Expert (VCDX) is the most difficult to at-tain and requires com-pleting both VCAP exams (Design and De-
ploy) prior to being able to tackle the VCDX exam. This certification requires completing an extensive design, as well as defending the design in front of a panel of VCDX peers. At last count, there were only 233 individuals with VCDX certification. This is the most prestigious VMware certification and you can view the VDCX Directory for a list of all those that have attained this certification.
DATA CENTER VIRUTALIZATION (DCV)
NETWORK VIRUTALIZATION (NV)
DESKTOP AND MOBILITY (DTM)
CLOUD MANAGEMENT AND AUTOMATION (CMA)
VMware Certified Associate (VCA)
VCA-DCV VCA-NV VCA-DTMVCA-CMAVCA-HB (Hybrid Cloud)
VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
VCP-DCV VCP-NV VCP-DTM VCA-CMA
VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP)
VCAP-DCV(Design)VCAP-DCV (Deploy)
VCAP-NV (Design)VCAP-NV (Deploy)
VCAP-DTM (Design)VCAP-DTM (Deploy)
VCAP-CMA (Design)VCAP-CMA (Deploy)
VMware Certified Implementation Expert (VCIX)
VCIX-DCV VCIX-NV VCIX-DTM VCIX-CMA
VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX)
VCDX-DCV VCDX-NV VCDX-DTM VCDX-CMA
VMware has revamped their certification process and now those with VCP (VMware Certified Professional) can maintain an active certification by testing out once every two years. And it is flexible. I currently have an active VCP-DCV (version 5). I am going to attain my VCP6-NV (Network Virtualization), which will renew my two-year clock on my VCP-DCV as well. I personally see Network Virtualization on par with what vSphere did for the compute layer. Having both VCP-DCV and VCP-NV positions me well for being recognized as qualified for hands-on administration of a Software Defined Data Center (SDDC).
Figure 1 provides a quick chart of functional areas by certification level. The best place to start on your VMware certification journey is the VMware certification landing page and talking with other professionals and your manager on what certifications best align with your career path.
Certification is a validation of your technical knowledge and skills. It also provides greater opportunities for career advancement, so leverage certification in your career goals.
Carl Olafson is a Staff Technical Account Manager for VMware living in
Southern California; he started with VMware in 2008. Prior to VMware,
Carl was an independent consultant for 18 years specializing in
consulting services for SMBs. He has VCP-DCV, VCP-NV and VCAP-DCV
(Design) certifications and is working on his VCIX-DCV. He also has an
SME status on vRealize Operations Manager. Additionally, Carl is a
Hands-On Labs Lab Captain for HOL-SDC-1610 and 1710, a member of the VMware CTO
Ambassador Program and a captain on TAM Tech Lead – vROps. With his busy schedule,
he also finds time to write the odd article for the VMware TAM blog and VMUG Compass.
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VMWARE CROSS-CLOUD ARCHITECTURE:
ADVANCE YOUR DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION_JULIAN WOOD
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orking in the IT industry it can be very easy to assume that everything is already digital. We work with software all day and cringe at those keynote addresses that are still sell-ing CxOs on the benefits of “digital transformation”.
However, digital transformation isn’t only about moving existing paper processes to online forms. Being able to open a bank account without having to sign physical papers or get your receipt emailed to you rather than printed out are great “digital” advances, but the true benefit to businesses is in fact just an evolution of what they’ve always been doing. Digital transformation is business transformation, but more effectively in a digital world.
This can take on many forms, such as:
• Creating a mobile app so customers can see their account status themselves rather than having to phone a call center, which reads out the information.
w • Adding more analytics to an existing web-site to be able to more accurately pitch products to individual customers based on previous visits.
• Connecting scientists across research groups to collaborate more effectively.
• Adding a new interactive marketing cam-paign to highlight the eco credentials of a new product.
• Banks combining multiple customer data-bases across products such as insurance, mortgages and savings to better tailor new offerings.
• Being able to gather and correlate patient records across hospitals or even countries and using the data to better treat disease and even spot epidemics.
These new applications create feedback loops which businesses can then also use to find out
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what does and does not work far more quickly than they’ve ever been able to do before.
It’s great to have this knowledge, but then being able to take action on it is where IT can often fail. “Sure, we can roll out that whole new inter-active marketing campaign based on what was reported in the news this week, but it’s going to take six weeks to stand up the infrastruc-ture.” Or, “Ah, so you’d like to use an analytics-as-a-service offering from a company with a great solution to look at customer adoption across the globe. OK, but this service runs on AWS but all the data it needs to analyse is in our data center and we have no idea how to connect the two or even how AWS works.”
We live in a multi-cloud world with new services available easily and cheaply, yet current IT Infrastructure can often be the bottleneck to what the business would like to achieve.
VMware has announced its Cross-Cloud Architecture, which it hopes is just what you need to help with this problem.
Cross Cloud Architecture is intended to enable customers to “Manage, Govern, and Secure Applications Running Across Public Clouds, Includ-ing AWS, Azure and IBM Cloud”.
a common network across clouds. Due to the agent required, this is at an IaaS layer so NSX isn’t going to be able to connect and secure native Azure or AWS features such as Azure functions or DynamoDB but an IaaS network is likely a huge help.
CROSS-CLOUD MANAGEMENTJoining these multiple clouds together also provides an operational challenge in that they all use different management frameworks. VMware is also now extending the vRealize Suite to be able to deliver an enterprise class cloud management platform to further sim-plify and automate processes across both private and public clouds. This gives you the same unified visibility and control to help your multi-cloud operations. vRealize can manage and control resources on vSphere as well as in Azure and AWS clouds.
WE LIVE IN A MULTI-CLOUD WORLD, YET IT INFRASTRUCTURE CAN BE THE BOTTLENECK TO WHAT BUSINESS WOULD LIKE TO ACHIEVE
There are three main components to Cross-Cloud Architecture.
CONNECTIVITY AND SECURITYIn a multi-cloud world, you now need to securely join these clouds together. You may have an on-premises data center or one in a co- location facility. You may, in fact, have many of these spread across the globe, or you may then have existing network connections to Azure for Office365 and also a connection to AWS. Each of these clouds becomes a new network silo, requiring different operating processes, tools and even teams to operate them.
VMware is expanding its network virtualization product, NSX, to se-curely span these clouds so you can use your on-premises network rules to extend into public clouds. This works at an IaaS layer by install-ing a NSX virtual switch in a guest VM running in Azure/AWS or IBM SoftLayer. You can then centrally manage the connections and rules for all your connected clouds with a single tool, NSX, in effect creating
The connectivity/security and management pieces of Cross-Cloud Architecture are being marketed as “Cross-Cloud Services” and are under Tech Preview.
VMWARE CLOUD FOUNDATIONThe third piece of the Cross-Cloud Architec-ture is Cloud Foundation, which is VMware’s recently announced SDDC stack which brings together vSphere, vSAN and NSX delivered in a fully integrated hyper-converged appli-ance. This is the infrastructure hardware and software that underpins the VMware SDDC and allows you to far more quickly stand up infrastructure. You can think of it as VMware’s version of the upcoming Microsoft Azure Stack.
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Hyper-converged as hardware and soft-ware platforms provide incredible simplicity, yet powerful performance to build a scale-out SDDC. It helps to dramatically shorten provisioning times when you no longer need to individually procure compute and storage and manage a complex hardware/firmware/software support matrix. In my opinion hyper- converged should be the building block for all your virtualisation workloads.
Cloud Foundation is built on hyper-converged and can be installed on-premises to build your private cloud and is certified to run on vSAN-Ready nodes from a number of hard-ware suppliers as well as within the bigger turnkey VxRack solution from Dell/EMC.
VMware’s new software tool, SDDC Manager automates the deployment and management of the entire VMware cloud software stack so you can get this all up and running in a matter of hours. Think of the time saved installing all the individual parts yourself and then trying to follow the complicated upgrade procedure when a new version comes out.
Cloud Foundation can run any traditional or new cloud-native application, from your business critical scale-up application to
distributed micro-services applications using vSphere Integrated Con-tainers. You can even choose to run VMware Integrated OpenStack on Cloud Foundation or VMware Horizon to deliver desktops and apps via a digital workspace.
VMware has also announced that Cloud Foundation isn’t just for your on-premises data center. VMware has partnered with IBM
to provide VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud, as well as AWS, to provide VMware Cloud on AWS. This is a bare metal offering, so no nested ESXi, IBM and AWS will provision you an ESXi host pretty much immediately and you can scale out your cluster. Even better, as part of Cross-Cloud Services you can get Cloud Foundation “as-a-service” so you don’t even have to provision and manage the SDDC stack yourself.
The IBM offering will be managed by IBM and the AWS offer-ing will be actually managed by VMware. Someone else can
handle your vCenter upgrades. Cloud Foundation on vCloud Air is in the works.
Think back to the issue of deploying new capacity to support the new interactive marketing campaign in your data center. You could choose to rather use IBM or AWS as your co-location facility and have a fully managed VMware SDDC environment quickly provisioned including vSphere, VSAN & NSX which you manage in exactly the same way as your on-premises environment. You can scale up and down this envi-ronment and only pay for the infrastructure you need.
Think back to the issue of the analytics service your business wanted to deploy. Now you can create a copy of your vSphere VM within AWS data centers and replicate the data or even vMotion your existing on-premises VM to AWS and have your data right next to where your analytics number crunching is happening and it is also network secure via NSX.
Cross-Cloud Architecture is Cross-Cloud Services built on top of Cloud Foundation, secured by NSX and managed by vRealize. It is all about being able to provision infrastructure quickly and securely across multiple clouds.
This is what VMware is hoping you will be interested in to help with the ongoing business transformation your company must achieve in a digital world.
Julian Wood // // is a freelance IT consultant living and
working in London as an enterprise solutions architect and blogger,
designing and building the interconnected computer related stuff
people use every day. He works mainly on cloud & virtualisation
technology projects, with plenty of storage, networking, desktop and
scripting in the mix with everything else IT has to offer thrown in for
fun, too. Julian has been attending VMUG events for eight years and has presented
numerous times.
He was going to write something more about what he does in his spare time, but realised
he doesn’t have any as he’s a dad of young twin girls!
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_ALEXA SCHLOSSER
MORE THAN JUST A
PODCAST#vBrownBag might be slightly under the radar, but the community is strong and is creating a pipeline of confident industry leaders.
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ooke and other #vBrownBag volunteers were launching their first TechTalk at VM-world and were using sponsorship dollars to assemble grab bags promoting the session.
“We spent the afternoon assembling these in the office, and it was just one of those surreal moments of ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’” Cooke says.
He couldn’t believe that a community-led podcast had led to a presentation at one of the largest tech conferences in the world.
Now in its sixth year, the #vBrownBag pod-cast has over 370 episodes under its belt and has done TechTalks all over the globe. But, according to #vBrownBag team member Chris Williams, it’s still “very much under the radar.”
“The people who are our type of audience know about us and love us, but there are a lot of people outside that audience who don’t know about us,” Cooke says.
BUILDING A COMMUNITY OF HELPERSSo, what exactly is #vBrownBag? According to the website, it’s “a community of people who believe in helping other people.” Essentially,
CTwo years after the #vBrownBag podcast started was the first time Alastair Cooke had a “Do you realize what we’re doing?” moment. It happened while stuffing bags full of energy drinks and earplugs.
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they’re IT folks who want to help other IT folks be better at their jobs. From the site:
The #vBrownBag crew host podcasts where community members present on topics that will help others in the commu-nity. Some podcast series are aimed at helping people achieve certifications for example VMware’s VCP and VCAP certifi-cations. Other podcasts help community members learn an entirely new subject area like the Couch to OpenStack series.
Breaking into the #vBrownBag community is easy — just ask crew member Gurusimran “GS” Khalsa. “I got roped into presenting a couple of times,” he says. “That’s often the way we find our presenters: We look for people that have a little bit more knowledge than everyone else. Everybody doesn’t have to be an expert — just willing to share.”
#vBrownBag host Chris Williams has a similar story. He had been using #vBrownBag to study for his advanced certifications so, when he met Cooke at VMworld in 2015, he wanted to tell him how much he appreciated the podcast.
“I said the fateful ‘If there’s anything I can do …’ and he said ‘Well, actually …’ and told me I could host,” he says. “I told him I’d love to. [Being a host] was a fun opportunity to give back and learn some stuff about things I normally wouldn’t.”
This style of recruitment — for both leaders and presenters — is the crux of #vBrownBag. Cooke jokes that they use the same expres-sion as the military: “They’re being voluntold.”
When someone offers a suggestion for a podcast topic, for example, Cooke asks them to present on it.
“If you know something about it, let’s have you present,” he says. “If you don’t know something, let’s have you learn first and then present a little bit later. We know that one of the best ways to learn something is to pre-pare to teach it.”
MEET THE #VBROWNBAG TEAMAlastair Cooke // //
Trainer, consultant, writer and geek. I do consulting, writing, training, and training development about IT infrastructure
Chris Williams // //
Virtualization Consultant @GreenpagesIT, VTUG Leader, vBrownBag Host, VCAP-DCA/DCD, vExpert, AWS Solutions Architect
Gurusimran “GS” Khalsa // //
Virtualization geek, @VUPaaS co-host, VMware Availability Tech Marketing, ##vBrownBag crew, vExpert, VCAP5-DCD/DCA, father/husband, always learning
Meet the rest of the #vBrownBag team.
A SHORT HISTORY OF #VBROWNBAG 2010 – U.S. podcast begins
EARLY 2012 – APAC podcast starts
AUGUST 2012 –First TechTalk
LATE 2012 – EMEA and LATAM podcasts start
2013 – OpenStack #vBrownBag launched
HOW DO I GET INVOLVED?Fill out this sign-up sheet and someone will contact you.
SIGN UP FOR #VBROWNBAG LIVESign up for the U.S. ##vBrownBag
Sign up for the EMEA ##vBrownBag
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CULTIVATING CONFIDENCE (AND A CAREER)A couple years after the podcast started, #vBrownBag launched a Tech Talk series. These are short, 10-minute live presentations at industry conferences such as VMworld and OpenStack Summit. These talks provide the community with an opportunity to share their knowledge in a public forum. For many speakers, it’s the first time they’ve ever presented.
“A lot of times, it’s developers who have a passion for the technology but are terrified of speaking,” Cooke says. “I really enjoy seeing them get past their fear and get into the content they want to talk about. They get caught up in the passion of the project they work on.”
This aspect is Khalsa’s favorite thing about the #vBrownBag community. “[I love] seeing people come out of their shell,” he says. “They see that people are interested in what they have to say, and that speaking isn’t as hard as it’s made out to be.”
Many times, presenting a Tech Talk or working on a #vBrownBag podcast leads volunteers to other industry opportunities.
“There’s a huge amount of overlap between VMUG leaders and #vBrownBag crew and contributors,” Cooke says. “We definitely
see the confidence that people get from presenting things like Tech Talks helps them to decide that they are the right person to take that more public role either in community at things like VMUG or their professional life. Being involved with #vBrownBag increases your visibility, and so large numbers of #vBrownBag volunteers have ended up working for vendors.”
THE FUTURE IS BROWN#vBrownBag is still in its infancy, but the future is bright. Williams is excited about delving into AWS Solutions Architecture. Khalsa says that whatever the community asks for, they’re interested in doing it. And Cooke wants to push the audience.
“We want to get ahead of what our audience is ready for,” Cooke says. “Normal audiences are not on the bleeding edge doing DevOps, but we know there are technologies that are going to change how data centers are run and what the role of the infrastructure person is. We’ve tried very hard to have content about that before the audience necessarily knows they want the content.”
Wherever #vBrownBag ends up, it’s likely Cooke will continue to have “Do you realize what we’re doing?” moments. His most recent one was in Paris for an OpenStack event.
He puts it poignantly: “I was in downtown Paris staying in a beautiful place because I spend some evenings online talking to people.”
Alexa Schlosser // //is the associate editor of VMUG Compass. She’s currently obsessed with Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”
BEING INVOLVED WITH #VBROWNBAG INCREASES YOUR VISIBILITY, AND SO LARGE NUMBERS OF #VBROWNBAG VOLUNTEERS HAVE ENDED UP WORKING FOR VENDORS.
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INSIDE THE LAB_KEITH TOWNSEND
One of the more exciting product announcements from VMworld US 2016 is vRealize Network Insight 3.0 (vRNI). vRNI continues the trend of VMware supporting Day 2 of the digital transformation. Fast deployment of new applications garners the lion’s share of attention. Tools such as Docker focus the pains of the development process. Not much is written about the management of applications once deployed on a containerized infrastructure.
vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC) addresses the management concerns surrounding contain-ers. Likewise, vRNI addresses the network component of digital transformation. It’s an important tool to understand and learn. Similar to many VMware solutions, vRNI has multiple paths to learn-ing the new technology. Here are some highlights to learning about this valuable technology.
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HANDS-ON LAB The first stop for any new VMware technology is the Hands-on Lab (HOL). HOL is a robust and live system for learning heavy VMware products. The infrastructure required to run vRNI is pretty robust. According to the installation guide, there are two OVAs for simple install.
The two appliances need a total of the following:
• 12-cores with an aggregate reservation of 6144 MHz
• 32GB of provisioned memory with a reservation of 15GB
• 900GB of thin provisioned disk
The footprint for vRNI is only a part of the consideration. The primary market for vRNI is NSX customers. vRNI gives an incredible amount of insight into an NSX environment. One of the pain points of NSX is the ability to trace network traffic on the overlay and physical underlay. vRNI gives the ability to track packets from the VM to the VTEP to a firewall including the physical path. To get close to a full experience with vRNI, you’d have to build out an entire NSX infrastructure as well.
Like NSX, the vRNI HOL provides an enormous value. The primary ben-efit is a free hands-on walk-through of the product. See "Introduction to vRealize Network Insight (HOL-1729-SDC-1) in HOL for a lab that covers the topic in three modules without setting up your own home lab.
HOME LAB Both NSX and vRNI together are too big for a typical nested VMware Workstation lab. By too big, I mean that a typical install will include three vSphere (5.5 or 6.0) hosts with the specs to run both NSX and vRNI. If you have a workstation with 64 GB of RAM, you may have a decent shot at running this in a single system. Otherwise, you’ll need a dedicated ESXi host with a minimum of 64GB of RAM and recommended 128GB for a nested lab. Another practical problem is that NSX isn’t available for evaluation download, so getting the bits are a challenge. You would either need to have taken the official course or become an NSX customer.
I attempted to run it on my Intel NUC vSphere Clus-
ter. I have three hosts with 32GB RAM each. The challenge isn’t having enough ca-pacity for either vRNI and NSX. I underesti-
mated the amount of effort needed to design
an effective NSX overlay, given the Intel NUC only has
one network interface. The proj-ect turned out to be a much bigger challenge than anticipated. If you are set on running vRNI on your home lab, I’ve linked to some resourc-es to help in your journey.
RESOURCES vRNI Screen shot by screenshot installation guide – Sajal Debnath
Nested NSX lab on Intel NUC – Rob Breek
NSX and nested ESXi environments: caveats and layer- 2 Troubleshooting – vLenzker
Keith Townsend // // is an
IT Management Consultant
with more than 18 years of experience.
Keith first used VMware products
beginning with VMware Workstation
version 2.0 and the data center products
beginning with ESX 3.5.
VRNI ADDRESSES THE NETWORK COMPONENT OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.
IT’S AN IMPORTANT TOOL TO UNDERSTAND AND LEARN.
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ELEVATE YOUR PATH IN TECH_JACLYN PATULO
Demand for highly skilled IT professionals continues to rise. Yet, the pool of professionals
with the right blend of tech skills and business
acumen remains thin. According to a Comp-
TIA’s State of the IT Skills Gap 2014, 33 percent
of businesses say they are understaffed, and
another 42 percent say they are fully staffed
but want to hire more in order to expand. How-
ever, more than half of businesses (58 percent)
report being concerned about the quality and
quantity of IT talent available for hire.
The research also suggests that at least eight
in 10 U.S. businesses are being negatively
impacted by the lack of technology talent.
Nearly half of businesses (44 percent) seek
significant improvement on the IT skills front. There’s a shortage of skilled IT professionals, but no shortage of opportunities — especially among top IT leadership and cybersecurity positions.
According to Robert Half Technology’s 2017 Salary Guide for Technol-ogy Professionals, CTO salaries have increased 3.3 percent and CIO salaries increased 3.1 percent between 2015 and 2016. It certainly pays to be at the top, but the climb up can be challenging. Thirty-seven percent of CIOs rank ‘staying up to date on industry trends’ as the greatest source of pressure on IT professionals.
SECURITY LEADERS IN-DEMAND The number of cyberattacks continues to rise, with some estimates stating that the global cost of handling these attacks will reach $2.1 tril-lion by 2019. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that cybersecurity IT professionals are in high demand.
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This all might sound like it adds up to guaranteed pay day, but it’s not that simple. Let’s consider this statistic from the Comp-TIA report: There were 50,000 job openings for security profes-sionals with CISSP certification in 2014, but only 65,000 total CISSP holders in the country.
The report also found that more than one-third of cybersecurity jobs call for an industry certification. You first need to acquire the skillset and knowledge required to fulfill the essential requirements of hiring companies.
The recently launched website Cyberseek, built by Burning Glass Technologies and CompTIA and funded by a National Initiative on Cybersecurity Education grant, is a tool designed to provide action-able data about supply and demand in the cybersecurity job market.
For example, say you’re a mid-level cybersecurity analyst. Following Cyberseek’s Career Pathway, to become a top-level cyberse-curity administrator, you can identify which top skills and certifications requested overlap or which you’ll need to acquire to move up. You’ll also note a nice average salary increase: from $89,232 to $113,407.
Sensing a theme? Working to elevate your career to reach higher-pay-ing and more senior IT roles begins with professional development. IT career growth is learning to bridge the gap between technology and business to provide direction for your organization.
Over the past five years, the core IT services sector has added nearly a half a million new jobs, according to CompTIA’s Cyberstates 2016. To tap into this in-demand market, there’s myriad paths to pursue addi-tional training and skills.
Online coding schools offer a great opportunity to add dev tools to your repertoire. Keeping your skills sharp and adding new languages to your development stack demonstrates you’re a versatile develop-er. For instance, Coursera offers a nine-course data science class that comes with accreditation, and Codecademy offers free resources.
Join a professional organization or association to learn from a mentor or peer that has been in your shoes. VMware users can join the VMware
User Group (VMUG), a customer-led global
organization that offers in person and online
education, webinars, networking and custom-
er communities. VMUG members also have
the opportunity to become VMUG Advantage
subscribers, which can help further your rise
to the top and accelerate your success with
discounts on training, certifications and
product licenses. Getting involved with an
association also gives you opportunities to
volunteer, establish yourself as a thought
leader and shape the direction of initiatives
in the industry.
SEEKING OUT CERTIFICATIONS According to the Robert Half Technology survey,
the following skills and certifications are in high
demand by organizations in North America:
• ASP
• C#
• Cisco Certified
Internetwork
Expert (CCIE)
• Cisco Certified
Network Associate
(CCNA)
• CompTIA A+
• Java
• Microsoft SQL
Server
• MySQL
• .NET
Jaclyn Patulo is the associate editor of
VMUG Compass.
The average cybersecurity jobs pay more than other areas of IT (a nine percent
premium over IT jobs overall)
The amount the average cybersecurity professional
earns, compared with $77,475 for IT position
$83,934 $6,500The amount cyber
security jobs grew from 2010 to 2014
91%
