Wisconsin VMUG’s December meeting featured a visit from VMUG’s new CEO, Brad Tompkins, presentations by Eric Wright, also known as @discoposse, principal solutions engineer and tech evangelist for VMTurbo, and Brett Johnson and Dan Beauregard of OneCloud, VMware TAM expertise on the upgrade paths to vSphere 6.0 from Heath Johnson, and coaching on how to prepare for the VCP6-DCV test from Paul Woodward of Netech. And all of that before one of the best “ask the expert” roundtables yet.
Brad Tompkins kicked off the morning with a look back at some VMUG milestones for 2015, which included adding the first paid position of CEO to manage the growing organization, as well as establishing a European headquarters to support the VMware user community and VMUGs there. For 2016, Brad plans to continue to align VMUG membership with VMware’s users, which means directing some effort to two huge user regions currently under-represented in VMUG: Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
Brad encouraged members to educate each other on products, where the industry is going, and how to evolve the IT of the future – think “Return of the Generalist” – a theme expanded on by Eric Wright.
Eric’s “Any Workload, Any Infrastructure, Choose Your Own IT Adventure” presentation was so packed with great ideas that we’ll devote the next post to unpacking it. For now, I’d encourage anyone seeking a forward-thinking view on the importance of being an IT generalist, and some important considerations about open source, to visit Eric’s blog, http://discoposse.com/.
TAM Heath Johnson noted that one of the biggest changes for vSphere 6.0 is feature parity between the vCenter Appliance and vCenter on Windows, with one important caveat: VUM isn’t yet available for the appliance version. For some, that’s a dealbreaker, but for those who use a different resource, Heath recommends that you consider the appliance version when you upgrade to 6.0.
Heath pointed out that 6.0 is actually the third generation platform SVCS controller – a product coming to maturity. In addition to SSO, it now manages licensing, certificate authority, certificate store, service and product registration, and other services are coming. It also supports data replication/HA mode.
Brett Johnson and Dan Beauregard presented OneCloud’s solution for automating andcost-optimizing the use of AWS as a DR site. They’ve developed a solution that greatly simplifies the process of setting up an automated DR in the cloud. They have a price modeling system that accurately shows how much you’ll actually be spending day to day. This is an exciting solution, and a company to watch.
When it comes to preparing yourself for the VCP6-DCV, Paul Woodward recommends some tried and true study resources, as well as a bit of advice most people don’t talk about: the possibility of failure. These tests are difficult, so Paul recommends that you prepare for the possibility of failing before you pass. Given the amount of effort that goes into preparing for this test, it’s hard to believe failure could be in the cards, but it often is, and that’s no reflection on your abilities. It’s a reflection on the difficulty of the material you’re working with.
It’s also the reason there’s a waiting period before a retake. Paul recommends that if you don’t pass, wait a while before retesting – preferably longer than the minimum waiting period. You’ll have a chance to regroup, review and regain your confidence. Paul surveyed the room, and many members acknowledged that they didn’t pass the first time.
If you haven’t attended a Wisconsin VMUG meeting yet, the “ask the expert” roundtables alone make it well worth your time. This meeting’s roundtable covered questions on implementations, product compatibility and preferred solutions including firewalls, and then struck gold with a discussion of the non-technical skills needed by IT professionals. The soft-skills conversation covered everything from being able to talk effectively with users to the importance of written communication, given the amount of e-mail and documentation you’ll craft on a daily basis.
Suggestion for future WIVMUG meetings: these roundtables deserve some YouTube love – anyone game to video them?