Who is Chris Wahl? • VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) #104 ▫ Data Center and Network Virtualization

• Tech, Lab, Certs, Reviews, Videos ▫ WahlNetwork.com

• CCNA Data Center & vCloud Courses ▫ Pluralsight.com

• Virtualization User Podcast as a Service ▫ VUPaaS.com

Networking for VMware Administrators Paperback, Kindle, eBook, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, Klingon*

100% of my profits go to Alzheimer’s Association

Social Media

The dilemma

MineSweeper (mīn′swēp′ər) n. A person who employs a manual process to execute a common operation in a repetitious manner

Mine Sweeper

Next Next Next Finish

Repeat

New VoIP initiative

Just take this CD, and …

My reaction

Sorcery!

The Perception • Abstract • Pool • Automate? • Play minesweeper ▫ (or eat sandwich)

Apps

Hosts

LUNs

Why did we put up with this? • Closed, proprietary systems • Lack of (affordable) social coding • Data graveyards • Firefighting! • Lack of SDK / APIs • The 80 / 20 rule

Skynet is coming Let’s just hope Schwarzenegger is around

Innovation is driving massive disruption

And then there’s this guy

One vendor’s quote to me “We are not shipping a single feature out the door unless it has a well documented API to accompany it”

But it’s not about … Being fully software defined

Being “the best”

Being a programmer

Being into eating sandwiches (optional)

Also, I really hated programming

Also, I really hated programming :(

The call to action Time to pick your poison!

Wide variety of choices • The power of “P” ▫ PowerShell (version 3+) ▫ PowerCLI (version 5.8) ▫ Python (version 2.7.8)

avoid version 3.x.x ▫ Puppet (open source)

• Many others! ▫ Ansible, Chef, SaltStack, Jenkins ▫ vCenter Orchestrator is a hidden gem

The 10,000 hour rule • Do I believe this? ▫ Arbitrary? ▫ Practice certainly helps

• Regardless… ▫ Start now! ▫ Learn ▫ Improve ▫ Share ▫ Grow

Noticeable trends • App/Dev teams are … ▫ Coding around infrastructure ▫ Building distributed applications ▫ Demanding responsive feedback loops ▫ Able to get this from off-prem sources

• Infrastructure teams … ▫ Must adapt to these needs ▫ Must add value to the SDLC

“I don’t need this stuff at my work”

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4000Series 1Series 2Series 3Series 4Series 5Series 6

“I don’t need this stuff at my work” - Novell Admins (when asked about Active Directory)

Resources for learning Get more skills to pay the bills

PowerShell • “Monad Shell” • .NET Framework • Primarily a Windows tool • Desired State Config (DSC) • Version 3 or better ▫ I prefer version 4

PowerCLI • VMware focused cmdlets • Great for workflows • Spectacular community

Python • Very human friendly • Object-oriented • Package management ▫ (PIP)

COBOL

Puppet (open source) • Configuration Management • Declarative language • Abstraction from Ruby

vCenter Orchestrator • GUI-like framework • Little code required • Plug and play • “Free”

• Check out vcoportal.de by Jörg Lew ▫ (superb resource!)

Codecademy

Codecademy (and others) Experts build

training modules

Modules available for

free

Beginners learn from modules

Beginners become experts

The power of social code How it has impacted my life

A GitHub example

A GitHub example

A GitHub example

Thank you for a great session! For more goodies, check out these resources:

Visit WahlNetwork.com for Deep Dives, Home Lab Tips, Reviews, and More!

Check out “Networking for VMware Administrators” by VMware Press

Over 25 hours of my video training content is on Pluralsight.com

Nearly 100 free HD videos on the WahlNetwork YouTube Channel