vmworld Archives

VMworld 2014 Session Voting Open

May 6, 2014 by Bob Plankers

One of the most interesting things about VMworld is the public session voting, which is now open. Not many conferences allow attendees to have a say in what gets presented at the conference. If you’re planning to attend VMworld 2014 it’s probably a good idea to vote for sessions that interest you. I am involved in two session proposals: 2770 – The Art of Migrating to the vCenter Server Appliance As the vCenter Server Appliance gains maturity, capacity, and functionality it is becoming a serious choice for those running vSphere environments, reducing expense and administration time. This session will be based in first-hand migration experienced and cover what the vCSA is, common use cases and designs, and where the vCSA isn’t …

VMware & Virsto

February 13, 2013 by Bob Plankers

Howard Marks has a great piece on VMware buying Virsto over at Network Computing (link is below): Some of my fellow analysts have lumped Virsto into the flash acceleration category along with caching solutions like Proximal Data, Sandisk’s Flashsoft and Intel’s CAS. While Virsto can use flash to accelerate some storage I/O, it’s not primarily a flash acceleration product. In fact, Virsto is a log-based, clustered file system that uses a dedicated log device, which can be a shared SSD, to accelerate virtual machine I/O. I saw Virsto for the first time at VMworld 2012, and it looked interesting as something that tries to turn a lot of the random I/O from a virtualization environment back into sequential I/O that arrays can better handle, while adding a …

VMworld US 2012: Day One

August 28, 2012 by Bob Plankers

Day one was a weird day, roaming the city before the Solutions Exchange “Welcome Reception.” Was trying for breakfast at The Pork Store on Haight but ended up at Squat & Gobble, which was excellent. If you get time to go over there the Crab Cakes Florentine is tasty (that’s the plate photo below). Afterwards we walked down to the Ferry Terminal at the end of Market St. If you haven’t been in that building there are some great food vendors in there. There was also an America’s Cup boat heading down the bay. v0dgeball was successful, though I didn’t attend, instead getting an update from Mark Vaughn who was one of the referees. My understanding is that the Arista …

VMworld US 2012: Day Zero

August 26, 2012 by Bob Plankers

Flew in around 3 PM, took the BART over to the hotel, checked in and headed out to Fisherman’s Wharf for some In-n-Out Burger action. Ended up at Rogue Ales, and were so enamored with their beer that we missed the #vBeers. By the time we were ready to head over many of the international & East Coast folks were heading to bed, so we diverted to 21st Amendment. Tasty beer there, too. At Rogue I’d suggest the Hazelnut Honey Brown Ale, at 21st Amendment the HQT which is an ancient Egyptian recipe. We also took a swing through a cocktail bar called Rickhouse, which looked very cool but we were in a mood for beer. That burger is a …

Tips for VMworld US 2012 & San Francisco

August 21, 2012 by Bob Plankers

As VMworld US 2012 approaches rapidly I’ve been thinking about the things I like to do in San Francisco, and the useful things I have learned over the years. If you have thoughts here about things that I’ve missed or are wrong about please add them in the comments! Transportation: From SFO I usually take the Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, to the Powell St. station. It’s cheap at $8.25 a person and relatively fast, though you’ll have to hoof it from the station to your hotel then. If you have more than one person a cab might be okay, but expect the ride to cost $50-$60. Shuttles are also a cost-effective way to travel, $17ish from SFO to …

3 Reasons These VMware vTax & Licensing Rumors Are Great

August 21, 2012 by Bob Plankers

“What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.” – Mark Twain I have to say that, if they’re true, I’ve got three reasons to be happy about the VMware licensing rumors that CRN is leaking. First, you may remember from the vSphere 5 launch that I was one of the folks pointing out that due to the fact that you can pool your vRAM licensing it was likely to have little effect in the short term, and shouldn’t stop anybody from upgrading to vSphere 5. The pain would come in the medium-term for folks that practice the “fewer, bigger machines” approach to virtualization (a practice I promote). Thirteen months is definitely “medium-term” …

How To Power Your Stuff While You're in Copenhagen

October 10, 2011 by Bob Plankers

Denmark’s power is 230 Volts and 50 Hz, which means that if you are traveling from a country with another power specification (like the United States, at 110 Volts and 60 Hz) you have some considerations to make. Last year when I was there for the VMworld conference I had my Dell laptop, my iPad, my iPhone, and my Nikon D80 digital SLR camera. I left my electric razor at home; devices with motors in them need step-down transformers so they don’t catch fire. Step-down transformers are heavy and annoying and have fuses that blow. I can shave with a disposable razor for a week, no big deal. I planned to charge my iPhone off my laptop’s USB, thereby saving …

Tips for VMworld US 2011 & Las Vegas

July 28, 2011 by Bob Plankers

As VMworld US 2011 approaches I’ve been thinking about the things I’ve learned about traveling to & in Las Vegas, and things that I wish I’d been told the first time I went to VMworld. You folks probably also have a bunch of good ideas that I’ll miss, please add them in the comments! Transportation: There are multiple ways for a cab to get to your hotel, but the Interstate 215 tunnel is NOT the shortest way. Ever. That’s a classic cab scam and will result in a 30 minute cab ride, when the Strip is 10 minutes away. Explicitly ask to go to your hotel via Tropicana Avenue. Traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard (“the Strip”) at night is insane, …