VMworld 2015 Roundup: Day 3

Day 3 at VMworld started with a little blog experiment, proceeded on to some sessions then a few meet 'n greet events highlighted by the vExpert reception.

General Session

So, as mentioned, I tried live blogging. While real-time live blogging didn't pan out, I queued up the live blog notes and posted them shortly after the session finished. It was an interesting way to work, and I was helped tremendously by having access to the Blogger tables available in the Hang Space.

Go check out the General Sessions summary on it's own page.

#STO4688 Will You Still Love Me When I'm 64?

Are there any questions? Yes, you in the back.

John Hubbard and Ken LeTourneau of Intel presented the results of a challenge/request brought to them by VMware: can Intel build a 64-node VSAN cluster. After some consideration, the Intel team decided to tackle it and did manage to build it.

Key to the success of this project is the exclusive use of NVMe compatible SSDs. NVMe is an open standard specification for interacting with SSDs. The performance characteristics are much more even keeled than other specifications as it scales. That means, as example, that as total IOps increases, latency remains relatively level (there's no spike). NVMe has 80+ companies on board driving and using the standard and it could arguably be considered the SSD for enterprise drives.

The solution ended up fitting into two racks and having 368TB of usable space, which you can see on display at the VMware booth in the Solutions Exchange. It's running just slightly north of 64,000 VMs though interestingly they couldn't all be used for performance testing with Iometer. Iometer has an inherent limit beyond which it's difficult to scale, so Intel settled on designating 128 VMs as "performance VMs" for the testing. Their results are still relatively early and they suggested that more comprehensive results would be coming, hopefully soon.

Here are a few tips from their work that helped them achieve this feat:

• Keep traffic local. For them this included networking traffic, eliminating multi-path and load balancing decision-making.

• Automation. They created custom scripts that interacted with SSH, SFTP, ESXCLI, Iometer, etc.

• You need to have VMware tools knowledge. Tools like ESXCLI, RVC, and PowerCLI.

When John was asked what the key takeaway should be, he suggested that above all you need to know the problem you're trying to solve and design for that. Excellent advice.

#STO5721 - Virtual Volumes on NetApp – Ready For Prime Time!

I only managed to stay for part of the presentation here, which was basically like a VVOLs primer. I'm sure there were interesting NetApp specific VVOLs implementation topics covered towards the end. Thankfully the sessions will be available online shortly after the conference.

vExpert Reception

As I was fortunate enough to be added to the vExpert 2015 roster just before the conference, I was invited to attend the vExpert Reception and it didn't disappoint. It was more than just a meet 'n greet (a party with an agenda, imagine that!) and we were given an overview of a couple of VMware initiatives. Jeff Spicer, VP of Digital Marketing who, we were told, "runs all of VMworld"give us a quick overview of the digital transformation of marketing and what companies are facing getting their message out to customers new and old.

Corey (@vCommunityGuy) Romero took the stage next and gave us a sneek peak into what they're planning for vExpert 2016. Essentially they're going to try to increase engagement and engagement opportunities for vExperts so they can both get timely access to information as well as keep track on how their interactions are contributing to the community. Keep an eye out for the vExpert 2016 nominations, which could happen as early as this November.

Karvl Chiles and Paul Sorensen followed and gave us some highlights of the VCDX program. As of yesterday there were 202 VCDXs world-wide, about 50 of whom hold two VCDXs (there aren't any 3+ holders yet). VCDXs will be receiving a complimentary 12-month subscription to the VMware Learning Zone and it's hoped that they'll enjoy the content enough to want to contribute some themselves.

Receiving enthusiastic applause, Pat Gelsinger (now on twitter @PGelsinger), VMware CEO took time out of his busy schedule to share a story or two and say some kind words for vExperts. You get the impression that Pat genuinely sees the value in the vExpert program and is looking forward to symbiotically working with the group for years to come.

Last, but not least, Chris McCain of VMware's Networking & Security Business Unit (NSBU) came out to talk to us about NSX and the NSX certification program. He made a very interesting announcement that got a lot of people's attention: Over the next year, the person most actively blogging about NSX will be awarded a free seat in the vNinja program. If you haven't heard of vNinja it's an amazingly intense boot-camp that prepares you to defend for the VCDX-NV. There should be a lot of interesting NSX blog posts coming out over the next several months…

Of course, the vExpert Reception is also an opportunity to mingle with other vExperts, some VCDXs and VMware folks. I was able to chat with friends both old and new and had some great conversations.

Evening Festivities

It wouldn't be a night during VMworld without some vendor and community parties. I managed to make it out to the Veeam and vBacon events, both of which were well done, thank you!

Two to Go

That's it for today's VMworld summary. We've got the session heavy Wednesday ahead which is capped by the VMworld Party, as well as the Thursday wind-down where we get one last General Session and some of the venues like the Solutions Exchange and Hands On Lab close down for the year.

I'll leave you today with what appears to be some awesome sticky note art I saw while out and about. Think of it as a little easter egg for those of you who made it all the way here.

8-bit Link