ExploreVM Podcast - Episode 9: Microsoft Azure with Thom Greene

So we've discussed making the move from VMware to AWS, but it seems we have forgotten about our friends over at Microsoft. Let's take a look at what its like to dive into the world of Microsoft Azure

Listen to "ExploreVM Podcast" on Spreaker.


To Contact Thom:
https://www.thomgreene.com/azure
https://www.thomgreene.com
Twitter: @tbgree00
Twitter: @LexingtonVMUG
https://vbrownbag.com/
www.openedx.microsoft.com

If you'd like to join the conversation about the show's topic, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), Email, or on Facebook.

ExploreVM Podcast - Episode 8: ExploreVM Live - VMware 101

Today on the ExploreVM podcast, we've got a special episode in a series I'm calling ExploreVM Live. The following session was recorded at a company meeting where I was giving a VMware 101 lesson for our engineers who work outside of data center technologies. It's a high level overview, but we do have some laughs, I hope you enjoy.

Listen to "ExploreVM Podcast" on Spreaker.

Session Slide Deck

2017.06.19 Paul Woodward - ExploreVM VMware 101 from Paul Woodward Jr

Session Links

Snapshot Best Practices 
Understanding Snapshots  
Delete All Snapshots
Understanding Clones 
What Files Make Up A VM 
Virtual Machine Files Explained  
VMware Support  
More About Snapshots 
ESXTOP  
Restoring Snapshots 
vCheck 
vRealize Log Insight 
vRealize Ops Manager 

If you'd like to join the conversation about the show's topic, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), Email, or on Facebook. 

ExploreVM Podcast - Episode 5: VMware on AWS with Chris Porter

The cloud is just someone else's computer. And as such, why can't we extend our virtualized datacenter to the cloud? Have no fear, VMware is here with just the solution. This episode we discuss VMware on AWS and Amazon Web Services with vExpert Chris Porter.

Listen to "ExploreVM Podcast" on Spreaker.

To contact Chris

https://twitter.com/uprightvinyl

Links:
http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2017/05/06/virtually-speaking-podcast-vmw-cloud-aws/
http://www.vmware.com/cloud-services/vmware-cloud-aws.html
http://www.vmware.com/cloud-services/vmware-cloud-aws-overview.html
https://aws.amazon.com/vmware/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rqv5Gg1VSk


If you'd like to join the conversation about the show's topic, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), Email, or on Facebook.

ExploreVM Podcast - Episode 3: A Conversation with Alan Renouf - APIs, SDKs, and More!

VMware recently announced they were open sourcing two of their Software Development Kits. To learn more about what this means for developers and the FOSS community, I spoke with VMware's Alan Renouf about SDKs, APIs, and PowerCLI. Alan also has an important message about providing feedback and involvement.

Listen to "ExploreVM Podcast" on Spreaker.

To contact Alan Renouf:

https://twitter.com/alanrenouf
http://www.virtu-al.net/
Email Alan

More about VMware SDKs & APIs:

https://blogs.vmware.com/opensource/2017/03/09/integration-vmware-vsphere-using-new-open-sourced-software-development-kits/
https://github.com/vmware/vsphere-automation-sdk-rest
https://blogs.vmware.com/code/2017/02/02/getting-started-vsphere-automation-sdk-rest/
https://blogs.vmware.com/code/2017/02/15/getting-started-vsphere-automation-sdk-rest-p2/
https://code.vmware.com/web/dp/doc/preview?id=4645
https://vmware.github.io/vsphere-automation-sdk/
http://www.lucd.info/2017/03/10/vsphere-automation-sdks-powershell-part-1/
https://virtualbrakeman.wordpress.com/2017/03/12/vsphere-automation-sdks/

If you'd like to join the conversation about the show's topic, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), Email, or on Facebook. 

Quick Update & North Central WIVMUG Slide Deck - Upgrading to vSphere 6 (updated)!

Below you'll find the slide deck from my most recent VMUG session, "Upgrading to vSphere 6 - Updated", from the North Central WIVMUG Super VMUG meeting on 11/03 at UW Eau Claire.This session was updated to include information about the VCSA migration tool.

I appreciate all of the feedback and questions I receive about my sessions. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions here or on Twitter (@ExploreVM).

As an aside, I've had some personal matters come up lately. This has taken up a lot of my free time which would have been dedicated to blogging & podcasting. I will be writing on this subject shortly, as well as getting back to creating more content soon! I'm also migrating ExploreVM.com away from Blogger to another platform, and have a new logo and stickers created! Ask me for a sticker next time you see me at a VMUG event!

2016.11.03 ncwivmug super meeting - v sphere 6 upgrade from Paul Woodward Jr

VMworld 2016 - ExploreVM Pod Cast Wants YOU!

My trusty Tascam DR-40 and I are out and about at VMworld 2016 and would love to speak with you! While out here in fabulous Las Vegas, I'm looking to gather content for the upcoming ExploreVM pod cast series. 


Let's grab 5-15 minutes here at VMworld and chat about anything and all things technology! What trends are you seeing in your industry? Have you implemented any new solutions which have changed your environment for the better? Any IT horror stories? Whatever you'd like to share, I want to speak with you!

If this sounds like something you'd like to contribute to, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), or comment on this post. Let's get a chat scheduled!

Trusty Tascam, ready for duty!

IndyVMUG UserCON Presentation - Upgrading to vSphere 6

Below is the updated slide deck from the IndyVMUG UserCon.
I've recorded the audio of the presentation as well, and will be posting as long as the sound quality is decent.

2016.07.20 indy vmug usercon - vsphere 6 upgrade from Paul Woodward Jr 

If you have any feed back on my session or the slide deck, I would love to hear from you!
Comment below or reach me on Twitter at @ExploreVM.

WIVMUG UserCon Slide Deck - Upgrading to vSphere 6

Here is the slide deck from my presentation at the WIVMUG Super UserCon on 05/24/2016.

2016.05.23 wivmug user con - vsphere 6 upgrade from Paul Woodward Jr

My VMworld Abstract - "Simplifying the Sys Admin’s Day with vRealize [8325]"

Like many people, I've taken a shot at an opportunity to speak at VMworld 2016 by submitting an abstract to the VMworld call for papers. Now that public session voting has begun, I'd like to share my abstract. Should you find my session relevant, I ask for your support by voting for me to present at this years VMworld. I've placed a link which will take you to the Public Session Voting page below. I thank you for your support!

Title

Simplifying Sys Admin’s Day with vRealize (8325)

Abstract

Small/Medium Business (SMB) Administrators face numerous challenges in their day to day operations. What if some of the workload around monitoring, planning, compliance, and resource requests could not only be simplified, but automated as well? This introduction to vRealize Operations Manager (vROPs) & vRealize Automation (vRA) will demonstrate practical applications for use in the SMB environment. 

Attendees will gain a better understanding of the reporting and capabilities of vROPs, coupled with the automation abilities of vRA through demonstrations. The benefit of real world implementations, such as time & costs savings, will also be provided through customer testimonials. Although this session will have a focus on SMB environments, Enterprise admins will find value in this session as well as the examples will be easily relatable to challenges faced in large scale environments.

Outline

·        Introduction

·        vRealize Ops & vRealize Automation Introduction

·        Brief overview of product installation

·        Features call out with SMB applications

·        Real world examples

·        Q&A

Key Takeaways

1.      vRealize Ops provides a centralized overview of the ESXi environment that offers simplified resolution to alarms
2.       vRealize Automation can be leveraged for resource requests, freeing up the admin’s time to focus on other tasks 
3.       Combining the power of both vRealize Ops & vRealize automation, SMB admins can save time and money

Vote on the VMworld Sessions Here!
Session ID: 8325

NCWIVMUG Presentation - Preparing for the VCP

Here is the slide deck from my presentation at the North Central WIVMUG Super VMUG meeting on 11/19/2015. A full recap will follow shortly.

2015.11.19 - NC WIVMUG Preparing for the VCP from Paul Woodward Jr

Virtualization & SMB Series: Virtualization Architecture for Small Business

Virtualization & SMB Series: Virtualization Architecture for the Small Business

I had debated whether hardware or licensing should be the first topic covered in this series. As cost drive a lot of small business decisions, and hardware costs can vary greatly, it seemed like the best place to start. And, just a reminder, this series is focused for VMware admins in environments containing 20 or less VMs, the small end of SMB, obviously the solutions discussed below will not work for large environments. I will touch on larger VMware environments in a future series

Alright, let's begin!

The Shared Storage Conundrum

Shared storage in smaller environments is cost prohibitive. Yet, it's important requirement for VMware High Availability and Fault Tolerance. The small business must assess the value of uptime and lost productivity due to host failure against the costs of this additional hardware.
If  99.99% uptime, or the ~30 second reboot window using HA is critical, then shared storage is a necessity and you won't find value in this post. But, if a short outage while replacing failed hardware is acceptable, let's continue.

Local storage is starting to come back into the limelight with the advent of Virtual SAN and similar products. It also provides a cost effective storage option for the smaller ESXi environments. I will discuss the use of vSAN in the small business in a future post, but for the below example, simple local storage will suffice.

Number of Hosts

The number of hosts are dictated by the number and purpose of each VM. Does the environment call for a low number of VMs running simple network services such as AD, DNS, DHCP, print server, file server, and Exchange? Then a properly configured single ESXi host can be deployed. However, introducing more complexity to the environment on top of the above listed services, such as a resource intensive line of business application, the use of a second host will save future headaches and provide additional benefits.

The use of a second host provides flexibility, scalability, and, to an extent, disaster recovery. The flexibility to migrate VMs for host maintenance or to load balance, albeit manually, across both hosts (we will discuss VMware licensing and features in the next post). The scalability to add new VMs should the need arise. And, in the event of a host failure, a second host provides a platform to restore VMs from the failed host. Scalability and disaster recovery are dictated by the amount of resources with which the host is configured. This will be discussed next.

Configuring the Hosts

Now we know the environment will be running one to two ESXi hosts without shared storage, how do we properly configure these hosts? Here's where budget and some forecasting come into play. The approach I've taken is to look at the company's current needs coupled with potential growth over the next 1-3 years. Is the company projected to grow such that they will need additional VMs? Is the ship holding steady? Future uncertain? Doing your best Magic 8-Ball impression will help your design hold up over the next few years.

Let's use the following example explore this concept (I will stay vendor agnostic in my examples).

ABC Co. is a family owned company that has 20 employees, 5 of which use an ERP program on a daily basis, and host email internally. The "server room" is a climate controlled closet off the main office space with no racking. Sales have grown by 15% on average 3 of the last 5 years. You've been put in charge of the hardware refresh project. As hard as you've tried to demonstrate the benefits of shared storage, the budget is simply not there, and the CEO is comfortable with ERP and email services being down for upwards of half the day due hardware failure.

Knowing ABC Co. has projected growth, the solution implemented needs to have room for expansion. Assuming that the budget will not allow for the purchase of all resources up front, there are two things I do not skimp on in these scenarios: CPU and storage bays on the chassis. Dual 10 core hyper-threaded processors in each host may seem like overkill now, but when you look at the costs of purchasing 4 new processors in the future versus the capex investment today, fiscally, it's the better option. The same is true when it comes to the chassis. The price point between an 8 bay or a 16 bay chassis is generally negligible. Despite needing only 8 drives of local storage today, it's easier to fill in the open bays as needed versus replacing the entire chassis to obtain enough storage.

RAM and local storage is where you get to be more creative in your solution. Ideally, I would configure each host with enough RAM to run all VMs on a single host, but that may not be allowed within the constraints of the budget. Installing additional RAM in the future is cheap and easy, so it's not necessary to max out your host today. At minimum, I would suggest enough RAM to run all of the current VMs without constraint, and factor in some additional capacity to power one to two additional VMs should the environment suddenly need another server. This also allows the host to have the resources to bring up a critical VM should the other host in the cluster encounter a failure.

In a perfect world, local storage capacity, much like RAM, would provide enough resources to house all VMs in the environment. Knowing that storage, both shared and local, is expensive, this is usually not possible. What I've done in these scenarios is calculate how much storage is needed today, assuming max capacity of all thin provisioned VMs, and, much like RAM, add extra capacity for an additional VM or two. Again, in the future, it's easy to add additional hard drives and create a new virtual disk group to meet the storage needs.

In these smaller environments, providing high IOPS is not always necessary to meet business needs. While using solid state drives is necessary in some cases, adequate performance can be obtained from spinning disks in RAID arrays. I've had success implementing varying sizes of RAID arrays to meet the storage and budgetary needs. These arrays have included pools of 300-600GB 10K, 1.2TB 10k/15k, and 300-600GB 15k spinning disks.

Which RAID option is right for your environment? In almost every scenario, I have deployed RAID 10, but the hard drive count may deter some admins from its use. What makes RAID 10 a good choice is that is provides both read and write gains coupled with the ability to have two drives fail before data is lost (assuming they are from different sets). However, if the budget is truly that tight, RAID 5 is a decent option considering that it provides for a single drive failure and provides read performance.

Understanding that all VMs may be running on the same host on a single RAID array, I would recommend the investment in the utilization of RAID 10. A bit of capital spent now can save your company's data, and a lot of headaches, in the future.

Protecting Against Downtime

Downtime is inevitable, but there are steps admins can take to protect their environment from unplanned outages. Creating a nearly fully redundant hardware solution is the first step. Make sure to equip your host(s) with dual power supplies and dual NICs. Utilizing an uninterrupted power supply not only protects your hardware from a surge, but provides a clean flow of electricity to the host. The power input to the UPS should also be split between two different electrical circuits if possible, keeping things running in the event of a tripped breaker.

As discussed, RAID provides some data protection against drive failures, but what if an additional drive fails before you can replace the first? Implementing a hot swap drive to take over in the event of a drive failure provides a fail-safe to keep the array running at peak performance until you can replace the drive. Regular monitoring of the environment can also help detect and predict issues, but we will discuss that in a future post

We've got the Hardware, What's Next?

In the next post, I will go over VMware licensing for the small business and which solutions offer the best values.

In the meantime, do you have any questions, comments, or would you like me to dive deeper into a topic covered above? I'd love to hear from you! You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below, contact me on Google +Paul Woodward Jr, or reach out to me on Twitter @ExploreVM.

Chicago VMUG UserCon Session Recap "Virtualization and Small Business"

I had the privilege of making my VMUG speaking debut at September's Chicago VMUG UserCon. It was an honor to be asked to speak at the same event as some of the people I've looked to for
information and guidance throughout my career. I am glad I've got my first session under my belt, as I'm scheduled to present at November's North Central WIVMUG Super Meeting.

My community session, co-presented with +Brian Kirsch, was on the use of virtualizaiton in the small business environment. You can find our slide deck here.

What I noticed, after attending numerous VMUG meetings, is that no one is really focusing on the small portion of the SMB market. When I say small, I'm referring to 200 or less employees, 1 - 2 ESXi hosts. There are plenty of great resources out there if you're working with a few hundred VMs, but what if the company only requires 5, 10, or 20 guests? Given that's the size of the market I have most experience with, and also, community resources for the admins of these smaller IT departments is largely overlooked, I decided that I could share my experiences and help others along the way.

Now, rather than write a lengthy blog post recapping our entire session, I felt I could better share my knowledge by breaking the session down into each topic covered.

Over the next few weeks, watch for posts on the following topics:

• Virtualization Architecture for Small Business
• VMware & Other Vendor Licensing in the Small Environment
• Techniques for Small Business Virtualization 
• Tools for the Small Business VMware Admin

In closing, Brian offered the following thoughts:

"The success of the SMB is depended on the needs of today and the growth of tomorrow. Architecture has to be planned out carefully as growth is not hoped for but expected. It becomes a question of how much growth and how quickly all while balancing costs and profits. Understanding the various options and how they translate into the future with design, storage and licenses is a complex undertaking but having that established path which will translate into less obsolesce. Technology for the SMB cannot be a throw away resource as you grown, it has to be a carefully planned base that allows you to expand at a moments notice without breaking your budgets."

If you've got any questions, would like to chat, or would like to suggest any other topics, feel free to contact me via Twitter, @ExploreVM, LinkedIn, or in the comments section below.