Just Be Better...

Well who would have seen this coming. Last week, VMware and AWS jointly announced they would be offering their customers VMware on AWS Cloud. That is ESXi, VSAN and NSX on AWS bare metal hardware. Historically the road to public cloud hasn’t been as easy and as clearcut as one might hope. We’ve seen VMware take a stab at IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) with vRealize Air and we’ve seen AWS take a stab at wooing enterprise customers to their platform with enterprise centric services. The latter being more successful. Separately, adoption has not been as quick as both companies would like. With this merged approach, both AWS and VMware are catering to those Enterprise customers that want to take advantage of the public cloud but don’t want to lose existing investments in both hardware, staff, licensing and operational know-how. The offering itself is sold, supported, and licensed directly through VMware with AWS providing the IaaS muscle on the backend. What I particularly like about this offering which is only in tech preview as of now, is the perceived ease of on-boarding and the potential for long term modernization. You see AWS has everything to gain from this bedless union. Not only do they get paid by VMware for the use of their infrastructure now, VMware all but walks their enterprise customers directly into their competitors hands (queue the evil Jeff Bezos laugh). Once on this platform, AWS is betting that those same customers will begin to explore and leverage those feature rich services that makes their platform so valuable. This of course will take years, due to the inherent slug nature of most enterprises, but they then are a captive audience. With elastic DRS and vMotion to AWS from on premise environments, the carrot has been dangled and this time I think its enough for most enterprises to bite off on. Price (which hasn’t been released yet) will of course be a factor, but unless its outrageous I don’t think it will matter (Remember current licenses will/can be utilized). Enterprises want to modernize, but lift and shift is not modernizing. This option gives enterprises the ability to quickly shift workloads to the AWS platform while slowly (and at their pace) begin the move to modernizing their applications and way of life in the cloud. Its not “Will" companies move to public cloud, its “When" will they move to public cloud. We all like options, we all like flexibility, but again no one wants to be locked in to a single vendor…have AWS and VMware solved that dilemma? 

More info below..

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-vmware-cloud-on-aws/

https://aws.amazon.com/vmware/

As of today, Varrow has merged with Sirius Computer Solutions headquartered in San Antonio, TX and we couldn’t be more excited! For everyone at Varrow this thing we have created has been a labor of love over the past several years. We’ve poured our hearts into building something that has positioned us as trusted advisors across our industry and across our customer base. With this merger our trust and influence will extend across the nation, hand and hand, with our Sirius brothers and sisters (over 1300 in fact). We simply are stronger, broader and more capable than we ever have been... Although Varrow as a brand will dissolve, the very essence of what embodies that brand, the people, is still very much alive. We will continue to operate out of the Southeast and serve our current customers (and future) with excellence and respect. There will be new faces and new opportunities for all of us but our core values will remain the same. In fact, our values are almost identical to Sirius’s below... Respect for Each Individual

Superior Client Service

Excellence in Everything We Do

True Partnerships With Our Suppliers and Partners

Sound Economics In All We Do

Community Service

As of February 13th my new Pluralsight course “Introduction to EMC VPLEX” was released! I often say this is the longest 2 hours of my life as I originally signed on to complete this back in 2013. As you know life gets in the way, but I was committed to getting this done and I’m happy to say that she is…done.

VPLEX is one of those interesting technologies that really changes how we look at storage. Throughout the datacenter, rigidity has historically been the norm. By virtualizing different aspects of one’s environment the constraints of physical hardware become, not insignificant but less of a concern. Compute, Storage and now Network have moved wholly into software, offering organizations more flexibility and options. It’s this flexibility, these options, those use cases and strategy to implementation that I offer in this course.

Look to be entertained, but most importantly look to learn something. I have years of experience working, designing and implementing this solution. If something isn’t addressed or you have questions about the information provided please reach out to me at [email protected], I would be happy to help.

           I’m very pleased to announce the release of my second course to market, EMC RecoverPoint Essentials! For now this is the last course of my creation under the TrainSignal brand (now Pluralsight). This course itself has been a labor of love since I started. I get a lot of questions about RecoverPoint throughout my travels so putting this to paper, or video rather was a way for me to collect my thoughts and share for the benefit of others.

RecoverPoint has undergone quite the transformation over the last several months moving from the 3.X code base to 4.X. Considerable changes from a management perspective have taken administration to a more unified look and feel across product lines. This course itself will focus on several different topics from Licensing, to terminology, to deployment and integration strategies. All building upon my experience with the product for the last several years. 

On Wednesday, June 17th 2013 I had the pleasure of delivering an Introduction to EMC Storage Essentials webinar. The intent was to give a glimpse into what the course would entail but also help those that needed a little push exploring EMC's midrange line. Hopefully I captured that and you were entertained as well : )

I am very pleased to announce the release of my first course (of many I hope) with the always spectacular TrainSignal. As of today, EMC Storage Essentials is now available for consumption. That's assuming you have an all you can eat subscription from TrainSignal. Which if you don’t, you should. No where else can you have access to the every expanding catalog of IT training that is TrainSignal. And the list of instructors and courses is growing. I could not be more excited to contribute and work with such an embracing and talented team.

So back to the course…

My goal was to make what is the sometimes fuzzy, always changing, world of storage simple to digest and understand. Add a little fun, add a little of my care free nature, and at the end is hopefully a course that will entertain, teach and better those relationships in your shop. Talking the talk is a big component of building that rapport internally. When you know the lingo it helps. Like speaking a foreign language in its native country, those natives appreciate that you're trying. From your perspective, it makes the conversations more fluid and more efficient. Even if its at an “Essential” level it will pay off I assure you.

This is but the first of many courses on the the “Storage” front that I hope to contribute to. Storage in general is such a broad topic so I apologize for its use. Just know that at this time next year there will be plenty of quality content; vendor specific, non-vendor specific and all will be down right glorious. If all works out, look for topics around RecoverPoint, VPLEX and vSphere integration with VNX from me. So stay in touch! It's just the beginning…

With that, I’ll leave you with a few notes on the course that I lined up to further explain its purpose. I look forward to everyone’s comments and suggestions, good or not so good. Feedback! Its how we all get better...

One of the primary mainstays in most data centers over the last 20 years has been that of a storage array. These mysterious monolithic towers of steel have done more to divide IT departments than any other tangible solution to date. For that reason, their fundamentally has been a split in data center knowledge. There are those that know “Storage”, and those that don’t. With the advent of server virtualization, that gap has somewhat lessened. Understanding the “speak” around storage has always been foreign for those not embedded in it. It’s for that reason storage fundamentals are a must in today’s tightly integrated datacenters. By arming yourself with base storage knowledge the conversations get easier and the silos slowly begin to dissolve. Although primary focus and terminology is specific to EMC storage, most concepts are transferrable to other storage vendors as well.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Navigate the broad portfolio of EMC Midrange Products and Software Suites • Better communicate and understand common storage terminology applicable to both EMC and third party arrays. • Ask the right questions when purchasing an EMC Array • Understand the topology of a Storage Environment • Supplement their learning in preparation for the E10-001 EMC Proven Professional Entry Level Certification

                              I won’t begin this post with, “Its that time of year again” as that is so cliche. But it is! With the advent of Spring and all the wonderful things it brings, the Call for VMworld 2013 Papers has landed. 2012 for me brought a wonderful experience to present at VMworld on Deploying Active/Active Datacenters with SRM5. Our attendees were great. VMware was great. My co-presenters, Mike Bailess and Greg Camp were beyond great.

This year however, after convincing myself that presenting in front of hundreds of tech starved individuals was not that scary, I decided to have at it again. This time with a twist. As we so adamantly tried to persuade you that our solution was Active/Active, Datacenters not Storage. This year we (Martin Valencia and I) will burn the path to all the great things that come with Active/Active Storage solutions. Particularly around the vMSC (vSphere Metro Storage Cluster) configuration using VPLEX that VMware supports. Having deployed several of these solutions, makes us qualified to get the word out. Our goal, is make the session dirty technical. I mean dirty. But you won’t know unless you vote, now will you? So head over to vmworld.com here, filter by Varrow (or dirty), look for our session and make it happen.

Need a little more encouragement, here’s what Mr. Sakac had to say on his “My Fav Picks” post here…

“Varrow has some of the best cross-domain experts I've seen at a VAR. They've had a lot of experiences with a lot of technology – so I would expect that this would be a very balanced and deep session.”

He’s right and we are. But how will you experience this technical dirtiness (yeah I said it) unless you vote? Do it.

Finally, unlike previous years where Varrow’s showing has been limited, we hope this year is different. The incredible technical talent at this company has been exposed. Bubbling through the round of first cuts, available for you to vote. Again filter by Varrow and make this a reality.

Thanks for the support, and here’s to 10 wonderful years of spreading the VMware way!

More info on the abstracts below…

5038 Achieving High Availability with vSphere Storage Metro Clusters and EMC VPLEX

Joe Kelly and Martin Valencia, Varrow

High Availability in todays datacenters stretch beyond a single or multi host failure. Increased visibility and mobility across datacenters is quickly becoming a must have for all workloads. With the introduction of Active/Active Storage solutions to the market, VMware has begun to support these SVD’s or Storage Virtualization Devices for qualified products. vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) is a configuration option that allows for stretched clusters between two synchronous joined datacenters. Providing these cluster capabilities, that are distributed in nature, allow for fluid VM mobility using vMotion between datacenters. This session will focus on the benefits and challenges of such a solution based on front line field experience using VPLEX 5.X and vSphere 5.X. Multi-site vSphere cluster designs just got better.

4809 SQL Virtualization – How to bring Tier 1 SQL workloads into an optimized vSphere environment

Tony Pittman and Kyle Quinby, Varrow

Drawing from real-world experiences, Kyle Quinby and Tony Pittman will be going through some accumulated knowledge on tips and tricks to squeak out every last bit of power of your SQL VMs. They will be focusing on how to lay a solid foundation for SQL for both performance and high availability. Tier 1 Database workloads truly have a home in modern virtual infrastructure. Consolidation ratios are finally what they should be, and bookkeeping aspects such as licensing and backup/DR have finally become relatively simple to achieve. This session will be appreciated by, 1. SQL admins or developers that are looking for insight into how their virtual admins can help them 2. Virtual infrastructure administrators, that are unsure what steps they should be taking for their SQL workloads 3. Long-term planners (architects/CIO) looking to get some “best practice” information to create a virtual SQL strategy

4969 Understanding vSphere Physical Connectivity - Deep Dive & Recommendations

Jason Nash, Varrow

This session will provide an in-depth look at your options for physically connecting vSphere hosts to the network. The discussion will focus on common question areas that come up during knowledge workshops and customer design sessions. Throughout the session videos and animations will be used to help attendees easily see the expected result from many of these configuration options. The presentation will focus heavily on the different hashing types and traffic control, especially the more advanced options such as Load-Based Teaming and Network I/O Control. Other areas of focus include physical separation of traffic, networks of differing security requirements such as DMZs, and suggested NIC configurations for both 1Gb and 10Gb environments. Finally, recommendations for physical switch configurations will also be covered. Throughout the session best practices, recommendations, and lessons learned from many production deployments will be shared. Attendees should expect to walk away with a deep understanding of the physical connectivity options available with vSphere, how they can be utilized in their environment, and the best methods for deploying them.

5053 Cloud Continuity: How does the Cloud fit into your Business Continuity Plan?

Tom Cornwell, Varrow

Today cloud is becoming ubiquitous. However, it can be utilized in many different ways. Whether you utilize cloud for your production environments or not, cloud can play a part in your business continuity plan. This session describes different business continuity strategies utilizing cloud. Topics include: cloud as a source, cloud as a target, and cloud to cloud DR. In addition, we will discuss mixed strategies and different types of cloud implementations including Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Storage-as-a-Service, and DR-as-a-Service.

5158 How High Point Regional deployed a secure, feature-rich resilient desktop to their users Dave Lawrence, Varrow. Adam Flowers, High Point Regional Health System

Come hear how High Point Regional Health System implemented Horizon View using the latest technologies such as HTML Access, Persona Management, Imprivata OneSign, Trend Micro Deep Security and Zero and repurposed clients all on a vSphere Streched Cluster with EMC VPLEX. Come hear the lessons learned during this dynamic deployment and how to integrate all of these great solutions together.

5296 Hypervisor-Based Disaster Recovery: The Missing Link for Virtualizing Mission-Critical Applications Jason Nash, Varrow. Shannon Snowden, Zerto.

Mission-critical, tier-1 applications such as database and transactional applications are often the last to be virtualized. Despite the many benefits of virtualizing these applications, some companies still question the ability to protect and recover these applications in virtualized environments. Most likely, each application is on a different type of storage, so having one solution across the environment is not possible – driving up complexity and costs. Traditional BC/DR technologies are built for physical environments, requiring manual and complex processes to utilize these systems for virtualized applications, and each type of hardware has its own type of replication – so there is no consistency. New disaster recovery technologies are filling this gap for large and small enterprises alike, delivering all the flexibility customers expect from a virtualized environment, with the aggressive RPOs and RTOs that mission-critical applications require. In this session, we will show how hypervisor-based replication solves these critical DR issues, clearing all barriers to virtualize tier-1 applications.

5470 The seven things you need to look at in your environment BEFORE installing Horizon View! Dave Lawrence, Varrow

Ready to install Horizon View? Have you checked your DHCP scope? Is your version of vSphere supported? Are you using Group Policy loopback processing mode? Should you? There are seven main components of your environment that you should review BEFORE installing Horizon View. Come to our session and find out what the seven components are and how to avoid the most common environmental pitfalls that our engineers have come across during hundreds of View deployments.

5553 Cloud Bursting: Strategies to overflow into the cloud Tom Cornwell, Varrow

VPLEX is quite a unique beast in that there are numerous failure opportunities (as I like to call them) a host can walk away from unscathed. There are also some it cannot. I have gotten this question a lot lately and sometimes to the bewilderment of the intended receiver. As magical as VPLEX is, in a lot of cases failover is not automated which implies why VMware SRM integration is in the not so distant future. Below I have gathered information from a few sources that speak on the topic so just maybe we can all get it straight in our head. 

  To preface that, I wanted to mention two types of volumes from a VPLEX Metro configuration, they are Distributed Virtual Device/Volumes and a Virtual Volumes with remote access. The two are very different. DVV’s as we’ll call them have two copies of the data, one leg at each site. The VV is only one copy of the data, at Site A or Site B, the remote access allows you to make visible that data to hosts at the opposite location to where the data lives. Meaning if you have a VV at Site A you can enable remote access so hosts at Site B can access that VV over the VPLEX transport. In this scenario, you could lose an entire array at Site B and still maintain host uptime because the data is being served up from Site A. 

  With DVV’s, hosts are actually accessing their local leg for data access, but its done at the head level for the DVV. Considering the two volumes that make up the DVV are mirrored and identical, you could lose either volume, one or the other, not both, and still maintain host connectivity. Where it gets squirrelly is at the loss of VPLEX itself. In single engine scenarios your SPoF is now that single engine. Yes there are two directors within each engine, but loss of a single engine would most likely cause data unavailability depending on what site it failed at. There are a few ways around that. As I mentioned earlier by zoning all hosts at Site A to Site B’s mirror leg and providing standby pathing access, you could survive the loss of a Site A VPLEX engine. Models like such get incredibly complex, especially from a zoning perspective, so be careful out there. 

  Consider the loss of each from the hosts POV, if there are other scenarios you would like clarification on let me know…

VPLEX IO Module Failure – Consider the modules themselves. Front End, Back End and WAN COM. Assuming you have zoned correctly and all paths are redundant. You could lose multiple IO modules in a director and still maintain host uptime. 

VPLEX Director Failure – Two directors themselves. Again assuming you have zoned correctly and all paths are redundant, you could lose a director and still maintain host uptime. 

VPLEX Engine Power and Fan Failure – Both are redundant and could sustain a single loss on a per engine basis. 

VPLEX Engine Failure – If you’re running a single engine to which all local hosts are zoned to. You will sustain a host failure. There are ways around this in a Metro config, by zoning all your hosts to the secondary cluster and utilizing those paths as standby’s is an option. 

VPLEX Management Server Failure – Loss of a management server will not interrupt services to those hosts attached to VPLEX. 

VPLEX Cluster Failures – All DVOLs have a detach rule (Third site witness aside). If you lose a Cluster (meaning all engines at one site), the winning site (that to which your detach rules are set to) will remain read/write assuming the cluster that failed was not that site. The other site will detach and IO will suspend if that site is not set as the winning site. In another wards, the hosts utilizing VPLEX storage from a site who’s cluster fails will loose access to its storage unless it is zoned to the other clusters DVOL leg.  

Bitchin'! Thank you to EMC (@mjbrender and all the founding fathers) for recognizing my contributions from 2012. To me this represents nothing but teamwork. I'm able to do what I do, because of the individuals I surround myself with; those passionate 85+ men and woman at Varrow and our dedicated EMC partner team. So thank you all. 

                           On Saturday I made my way to the first TEDx event in the Wilmington area, dub as TEDxHampstead. Hampstead is a small community north of Wilmington, to which a few of the cofounders and board members live. TEDxWilmington happened to be taken (damn you Delaware), hence the name. What has always grabbed me about the TED(x) movement is the notion of life long learning. Its part of the human makeup. Being highly social and curious creatures, we have a thirst for knowledge. This thirst has no age limit, although you'll see below, perhaps the younger generation needs a little push…

  The general flow of the event was as follows below. There are number of guidelines the charter has to adhere to to be legit. I imagine this will be the same format in your area if you attend. 

Introductory Remarks

TED Video

First Speaker

Break

Second Speaker

Third Speaker

Break

TED Video 

Fourth Speak 

Closing Remarks

The speakers themselves were very diverse which added to the appeal and interest. From a Communications Professor at UNCW to one of the cofounders of the Full Belly Project, all had a message and their experiences to bring. The audience, frankly, was sparse. Filled mostly with geriatrics, distinguished suits, a smattering of College ed's and me (I certainly didn't hit the crowd demographic) Maybe 30 to 40 with crew and speakers. After each speaker there was Q&A which rounded out each speech to around 20 to 25 minutes a piece. 

  Formality's aside, what brought me there was the speaker David Pell. I somehow stumbled upon his communal contributions, of which he humbly calls a Taste of Guitar, a few months ago. Which in turn led me to TEDx. His vision is to create a forum for young musicians to showcase their talents. Beginning and advanced musicians must audition to perform, preferably solo, with several songs premiered. This free event brought together elder musicians in the area who provided sound equipment and mentorship. Also as part of the event was a guest artist, usually someone of stature and relevance in the music industry, who would play and teach. 

  So I guess at this point you are trying to make sense of the Subject of this post, "1+1 can be". Pell's speech was called "Being Creative" and drew upon his/this recipe for creativity. As a teacher, he explains, his students today are only interested in mimicking   their musical idols. The creativity to create their own music seems..well distant, unobtainable. Its with this background that he created "1+1 can be". The idea is simple, when you look at this (1+1) what do see? Do you see the number 2? Or do you see ||||, or 1 > 1 or 1 < 1. All at their root are 4 lines. Think about how many different patterns and variations there are with 4 lines. Its with this, he explains how every element, every song can be broken down into its core elements. Its from these elements, creativity is alive. 

                         If you're like me the word DevOps may seem quite foreign, although it shouldn't. To simplify the explanation, its nothing more than tighter collaboration and communication between Development and Operations within an organization. With this tighter collaboration,  comes greater efficiencies and reduction in risk when deploying software products and services. Development/Developers are paid change agents. Their job is to respond quickly to a businesses' needs. Counter to that is Operations. Their job is to resist change for fear of instability. And their lies the problem. These different organizational structures, goals, mindsets and tools all lead to silos of frustration between both sides. 

  What really put this in perspective for me is this article by Damon Edwards at dev2ops.org. The name of the post says it all, "DevOps is not a technology problem. DevOps is a business problem". Without proper collaboration between all business entities, the process of a taking an idea from inception, to market literally becomes an up hill battle. This the very essence of DevOps, business enablement. Without the business, we're all nothing more than glorified hobbyists. 

The 3 primary principles of DevOps as defined by Gene Kim, founder of the IT Revolution Press and Tripwire fame are as follows…

Approach the performance of the system holistically. Never pass defection downstream. Local optimization at the risk of global degradation is never allowed. 

Instantiate right to left feedback loops. 

The third way and I will quote is, "…about creating a culture that fosters at two things:  continual experimentation, which requires taking risks and learning from success and failure; and understanding that repetition and practice is the prerequisite to mastery…The outcomes of the Third Way include allocating time for the improvement of daily work, creating rituals that reward the team for taking risks, and introducing faults into the system to increase resilience."

For the last two years I like to recap the year with events that have been instrumental in Varrow's  success. Although there are many, I document only what comes to me in my stream of consciousness (mostly recapping Varrow.com). Hope you enjoy, and have time to reflect on this whirling dervish we call Varrow…Here's to a successful, and customer focused 2013!

Varrow Madness 2012 – Certainly the largest partner event in the Carolinas, #vm never disappoints. Labs, sessions, keynotes, beer and basketball, what's not to like? Whats got me most excited about this year is more engineering participation for the sessions. I like to think ToT was a catalyst for this but maybe its the new blood pushing the old blood : )

Company Support of Home Labs – As eddy would say from Christmas Vacation, this truly is the gift that keeps on giving. It's a fact engineers are naturally more hands on, to this point home labs have excelled the learning process here at Varrow. Investing in training has been a huge focus this year, and it shows. Engineers are more confident, customers are more comfortable, trust is built, lifers they become. Its that simple.

More vExperts added – VMware vExperts that is, and its VMware's way of showing support for those in the community that contribute, promote and evangelize their products. Jason Nash and I were the lone rangers for the last two years but 2012 introduced Martin Valencia, Andrew Miller and Phillip Jones (by acquisition) to the list. Remember, anyone can apply, you can nominate yourself! Just contribute and be prepared to document. 2013 nominations will be here before you know it...

TrainSignal Exposure – I don’t know how he has time for it but Nash has produced both the vSphere Advanced Network Training and the soon to be released vCenter Operations Manager course over the last year. The latter of which I served as tech reviewer. Not only do you get to experience Jason's witty knack for teaching but both are jammed pack with useful, practical and detailed technical goodies. Huge exposure for Jason and Varrow!

VMware View focused partner of the Year – For one that delivered the first View implementations at Varrow, I couldn't be happy about this. VMware has provided funds to develop and grow our View business. For many years we were on the fence as to whether or not VDI would be core to growing our business. With these funds, the right leadership and engineers in place, we've shown that VDI indeed is a pillar of this organization.

EMC Velocity Services Quality Award again – This award from EMC is based on what every services organization should strive for, Customer Satisfaction. We've accomplished this year over year. Blood, sweat and tears, it ain't easy but its what drives us to do better.

Top Storage Practice in Nation so says CRN and me : ) - I'm not even sure what this really means or what its based on, but CRN gave us an award for it. I always knew this, I'm glad others have recognized the overwhelming talent in this group.

4 Presenters at VMworld 2012 - Brian Boyd, Jason Nash, Greg Camp and Myself, if you didn't know. This was a big deal for me, really pushing my comfort zone. But I learned a lot and realized the obvious. Public speaking is easy if you practice, have a mastery of your subject, and memorize your starting and ending statements. Everything in between is all you. And that is what everyone comes to see and listen to, you!

Inc 500 awarded number 447, CRN's Fast Growth 100, #1 in Triad FAST 50 again, and CRN's 2012 List of Tech Elite 250 – Yep there are more, these are but a few. These will come and go and ultimately are a byproduct of our rocket growth. At days end, the service quality awards are what gives our foundation.

2 office moves – GSO and CLT have moved entirely and the Raleigh office expanded. I, being 100% remote have not seen any of the spaces in person, but I understand this was a much needed expansion. Varrow has dressed up and taking it to a new level. I'm so proud of what we have built.

10's of new faces – I'm not even sure how many Varrow-ites (39 it seems) we have added this year, but just remember I'm number 5 : ) And if I haven't said it, Welcome!

Teachers of Tech (ToT) introduced – Really glad this is getting traction in 2012. My suspicions are that we were all thinking about this avenue. Sometimes it just takes someone to own it. I for one, look forward to many great sessions over 2013. For those outsiders, ToT is a weekly internal webinar on a particular process or technology that the engineers host. You simply sign up for a slot and speak for an hour on whatever "technical" topic you want. Their recorded and posted on online for those that can't attend. We hope to expand this externally, so look for more info to come...