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Jan
22ndThe VCE Model : Yes, it is different
This post comes out of a slide deck I authored last week for a partner event. I decided I was going to try and illustrate why the VCE model really is such a different approach to other datacenter and private cloud models. Normally my blog is light on vendor specific commentary. I see myself more as a virtualization geek who just happens to work for an awesome company (EMC) than a hardcore analysis/blogger. But I have seen so much messaging lately that distorts the VCE message, I really felt the need to offer my own perspective.
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Jul
12thGeek week : How to build an empire in 6 days[printprofile] 15 EMEA based vSpecialists, too much caffeine, the smell of last night’s pizza, and a seemingly impossible list of tasks to accomplish – that was Geek Week Q2 2010. As a vSpecialist at EMC, we attend a lab construction week as part of the on-boarding and initiation ritual. The instructions are simple: take this list of applications and infrastructure configurations, and work as a team to install and configure them all with the kit we provide to you before the week ends. There are multiple objectives for Geek Week, the main ones being; get the team working together, learn about integrating EMC, VMware, and Cisco technologies, and develop a good understanding of technologies that are not yet released, so we are best able to support our customers at product launch time. To kick off the week, Scott Lowe and Chris Horn dive into the details of what they expect from us: With the equipment you have been given, please deliver the following by COB Friday: Rack, stack, cable all equipment (build a Vblock 1, and connect the non-Vblock components into their own environment) Upgrade EMC CLARiiON CX4 platform to FLARE 30 (prerelease) Upgrade EMC Celerra platform to DART 6 (prerelease) Upgrade Cisco UCS firmware, and UCS Manager to the latest release Install VMware vSphere 4.1 including vCenter Server 4.1 instances deployed as VMs (prerelease), and configure NFS, and VMFS datastores Configure hosts to use Cisco Nexus 1000V and PowerPath/VE Use Unisphere to configure storage and present the storage. Configure [...]
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Jun
30thCisco Live 2010 : Things to do in Vegas
Ok, if you are at Cisco Live 2010 and have any interest in the new Private Cloud innovations or in Virtualization, I have a who’s who of EMC vSpecialists onsite that you must meet. 1. We have in one location two of the masters of the VCE SST team. These guys eat, sleep, and breath Vblocks all day. Chris Horn, and Eric Hollis are the busiest vSpecialists and other than maybe Chad Sakac or Wade O’Harrow, have more face time with customers looking at private clouds than anyone. I highly recommend swinging by booth 1671 and asking to meet them. Tell them Nick (@lynxbat) sent you. 2. There are people who are in the know at EMC, and then there is Stephen Spellicy. This guy is involved in helping with product development, testing, and demo building across all parts of EMC. Have a question on Redwood UIM? Where EMC is going with Cisco and VMware? No other guy at EMC that I know of (I admit, not a long list…) is working the technology in the trenches like Stephen. He is also working the booths for VCE and EMC Journey to the cloud. 3. But, I am not done. We also have my step-brother (by employment) David Robertson. Storage guru, FCoE master, Nexus 5k experienced geek and a half. Have a difficult storage/FCoE/VMware question? I bet $10 Dave will have it answered for you in a very short and intense conversation. 4. Alongside the above we have John Avery (VMware, [...]
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