Find out what happened at VMworld 2008 and discuss it with others. The discussion includes the vCloud, vNetwork, vClient, and vParty from the show. Consider this discussion your chance to get back together with your friends from VMworld 2008.

Also visit a rebroadcasting that was held later that night


Technical Community - Background Reading

Virtualization Frontier at VMworld.com
I Don't RTFM and Neither Should You

VMTN Day by Day Blog

http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2008/09/vmworld-monday.html
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2008/09/tuesday-keynote.html
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2008/09/tuesday-after-1.html
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2008/09/wednesday-keyno.html


Chat Transcript

DELL-ScottH Hey brick man
DELL-ScottH :-)
depping Hey :)
DELL-ScottH Really liking your blog
depping Thanks!
depping Really enjoy doing it.
depping Although it's been hard to find the time keeping up to date with all these new announcements
JasonPowell joined.
DELL-ScottH Tell me about it... and then you have to keep up on all these outlets, twitter, blogs, wiki, Web--just want to disconnect some time
DELL-ScottH Hey Jason!
DELL-ScottH How's the storage and project management Web site going?
JasonPowell Howdy Scott
JasonPowell I think the Pm Wss site is good to go. We're still trying to decide how to proceed on the Md3000i
DELL-ScottH Did my e-mail make sense?
JasonPowell My guys are scared to span multiple 2 TB LUNs
DELL-ScottH Why?
JasonPowell Yes, thanks for the e-mail.
JasonPowell Let me ask them again
DELL-ScottH I would think you would have better redundancy, multiple RAID5 arrays, multi-disk failures, if you stripe it. I might see how it might be a little riskier, but if just spanned
depping Depends on the file system on the LUNs
JasonPowell They want to know if you're talking about a software RAID to span the 2 TB LUNs
DELL-ToddM joined.
depping I'm also no fan of spanning
DELL-ScottH Yes, I was referring to the native windows disk tools
DELL-ToddM Hello everybody!
DELL-ScottH Ok, I'm overruled
JasonPowell So then the question is how would you recover a software RAID? That's the scary part for my guys :-)
JasonPowell But someone also made a good point in twitter about how long it would take to run tools on volumes over 2 TB, which I didn't think about
DELL-ScottH Buy two :-)
DELL-ScottH Yeah, that's been the hesitation about large LUNs
JasonPowell I'd really like to do some VM testing on the Md3ki and see how it fairs against our Ps arrays
DELL-ScottH Todd, did you run some preliminary testing on that?
JasonPowell We just have the 7200 SATA disks
JasonPowell Which of course is the same drive type as our Eql arrays
DELL-ToddM I have run some tests against both, but not to compare them
greg.ashbaugh joined.
DELL-ScottH Hy Greg!
greg.ashbaugh Hey Scott
DELL-ScottH How's the world of hairless cats?
DELL-ToddM In general I would say that the PS series would outperform
greg.ashbaugh Lol
JasonPowell What's the fastest way to reset the Md3000i back to factory settings?
JasonPowell I assume there's some Deleteallmydatanow command for it ;-)
DELL-ScottH Sorry, on call right now about twitter strategy brb. Todd and I
JasonPowell No problem
JasonPowell Tell your peeps we're very impressed at you guys using Twitter and some of the help we've gotten...5 gold stars!
depping Twitter strategy
depping Things are getting out of hand here
DELL-ScottH Thanks!
DELL-ScottH Amazing that we are having a "twitter strategy" call :-)
depping Best strategy is handing out coupons for 50% reduction!
depping Who agrees?
JasonPowell Lol
greg.ashbaugh How about some twitter give aways?
greg.ashbaugh Although I like coupons too
depping That's what I'm talking about Greg! Free is even better
greg.ashbaugh =)
greg.ashbaugh Mention free, and they'll get a lot of followers
depping I'm Dutch, so it's either gotta be cheap or free
depping So just to give you an idea what I'm looking for, three servers (ESX(i) compatible), with 4 GB memory, dual-core is fine.
lifeflakes joined.
DELL-ScottH Hello lifeflakes
lifeflakes Hey Scott and Todd
lifeflakes Another 20 minutes to go before the official time is it?
DELL-ScottH Yeah, on a call about twitter right now. Official chat starts in 20
depping 10
depping So 10 past
DELL-ScottH Yeah 9.755676
depping Then there's enough time to get some drinks
jake joined.
DELL-ScottH Hello jake
jake Howdy
depping So any of you guys tried out the T105 with ESXi by the way?
depping It's pretty cheap for a test server.
lifeflakes Yes
DELL-ScottH Doesn't fit in our racks :-)
lifeflakes But the memory and CPU accommodation is very limited on that server
depping Well, I don't have a rack at home :)
depping Well if 4 GB fits, that's more than enough
lifeflakes You could use the VMware workstation instead
depping I've got workstation running with ESX, VC, etc.
lifeflakes I guess they would do wonders with Precision workstations
depping But it's hard to set up SRM on a 2 GB laptop
Dell-RogerF joined.
depping So I need at least two servers
depping Or workstations.
lifeflakes The one I’m really keen on is the M905, It seems to be the state of the art
depping HP has got the Ml150,which is pretty cheap
lifeflakes Yes, the T100 is of the same specs
XU-James joined.
DELL-ScottH Whew, we just solved world hunger on that call :-)
DELL-ScottH Hello James
XU-James Hello
DELL-ScottH We're just hanging out cussing and discussing before the official chat starts in a few minutes
DELL-ScottH We've determined that everyone wants free stuff
XU-James Of course we do
DELL-ScottH And that Depping is happy because we are talking VMware and not Hyper-v today
DELL-ScottH :-)
depping Yihaaaa
DELL-ScottH Is that a Texas accent in our honor?
lifeflakes They are catching up
depping Texas?
depping Hehehe not really
depping Not even close.
DELL-ScottH Todd and I actually had dinner with MS one night at VMworld....interesting; maybe we'll get into that today
XU-James I saw in one of the chats someone there at Dell was working with the Banner application
XU-James Dave Jaffe, I think
DELL-ScottH Yup, Dave used to be on this team
DELL-ScottH He's doing Banner
XU-James I tried to send him a message through the message board but have not heard back
DELL-ToddM Yep - Dave is the banner guy
DELL-ScottH Better to send him an e-mail
DELL-ScottH Don't think he checks back here too often
XU-James Does he have a number or Dell e-mail addy?
DELL-ToddM Standard Dell e-mail format: first_last@dell.com
DELL-ScottH Underscore
brennels joined.
XU-James Dave or David?
DELL-ScottH Hey brace!
DELL-ScottH Dave
XU-James Cool, thx
DELL-ToddM Hey Brace
brennels Hey guys how are you? Recovered from VMworld parties yet?
DELL-ScottH Barely
DELL-ScottH Todd, ready to kick it off?
DELL-ToddM It is about 3 isn’t it?
depping It's 22:02 :)
DELL-ToddM Welcome to today's chat on VMworld 2008
rbell joined.
DELL-ScottH Hello rbell
DELL-ScottH Fyi...you can use "action" "recent room history" to catch up on the chat
DELL-ToddM We are going to provide a little bit of background about VMworld and then give everybody a chance to talk about the conference
DELL-ToddM There were some pretty big announcements from VMware including some forward-looking stuff with enabling things for the cloud, or vCloud
rbell hello, Scott & Todd
Angie joined.
DELL-ScottH Hello Angie
Angie Hi Scott!
DELL-ToddM The opening keynote by Paul Maritz was his first as VMware CEO, and I think that he really laid out a vision for the next few years of where VMware wants to go
Tim_Broom joined.
ryanfetters joined.
DELL-ScottH Hello Tim and Ryan!
DELL-ToddM The rest of the conference was really about the details--specific announcements with vCloud, vNetwork, vStorage, vCenter (I think you get the idea here)
DELL-ScottH Use "action" "recent room history" to catch up
rradunz joined.
DELL-ToddM So, who wants to go first? What did you think was the biggest/best thing that happened at the conference?
brennels I missed the Paul Maritz keynote but was interested in many of the API's they were talking about. Did anyone catch a demo?
Sean joined.
DELL-ScottH I was able to attend a lab that covered vCenter and actually did the vfaulttolerance--pretty cool
depping I think the main message was the integration of all the new and acquired products in to vCenter
DELL-ScottH The vappspeed was one of the most impressive demos on the center stage
DELL-ToddM Welcome Sean, we are just getting starting on discussion around VMworld
brennels I sat in on a BOF around Cloud, which was kind of disappointing as it seems no one really knows what it will be
DELL-ToddM I agree that the vappspeed demo was very impressive
Sean Thanks, Todd
brennels It does appear that VMware is really moving everyone to integrate with the vCenter versus running on the VM
DELL-ScottH Actually, Duncan (depping), has a good blog post on the vCloud: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/09/26/vmware-cloud-strategy/
DELL-ToddM I heard from lots of people who didn't really think the BOF sessions worked very well.
brennels What is vappspeed?
DELL-ToddM vappspeed was known as Beehive
DELL-ScottH Maps out applications all the way through in real time
DELL-ToddM It can monitor application performance inside of VMs and across a set of VMs
DELL-ScottH You see exactly where the bottlenecks are
DELL-ScottH Impressive
brennels Oh ok; I did see some of that, which was impressive
depping Well, I was also impressed by vStorage, real multi-pathing!
DELL-ToddM Here is link to the keynote with the vappspeed demo: http://www.vmware.com/go/vmworld2008-webcast
DELL-ScottH The local Austin Vmug had an EMC person talking about that as well; do you know if that will work across all vendors’ storage?
depping Yes, it's an API; all vendors can hook in
depping EMC is the first working on this.
depping http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2008/09/so-what-does-vs.html
depping That's a nice blog about vStorage
DELL-ToddM So, EMC is going to have Powerpath for vStorage, and that will be installed or become a part of ESX?
depping I think it will be an add-on, but no clue yet how they will be doing this with ESXi
Tim_Broom I don't want to move off topic; let me know if I am, and I’ll locate another site for info/help. If I am looking to implement the Virtual Environment for Desktop and Servers, not Enterprise, is there anything that you saw at the conference that would change your mind of going from VMware to Citrix or vise versa?
DELL-ScottH There was a session by Brian Madden (http://www.brianmadden.com), that I heard was excellent, but didn't get a chance to attend. It was all about VDI, Citrix, RDP.. let me find the session number
depping I would indeed go to Brian's Web site and check his forum.
depping There are some great independent and objective writers there that can help you out
Tim_Broom I will, thanks!
DELL-ScottH I can't find the session number, but send him an e-mail, tell him you are looking for it
Tim_Broom I found it, thanks
DELL-ToddM Overall I thought that VMware put much more focus on desktop virtualization technologies
DELL-ToddM I think that they called it vClient
DELL-ToddM Just a guess
depping Great guess
DELL-ScottH I'm kind of excited about that aspect of it. I've been ready to put terminals in every room of my house for the last decade
DELL-ToddM The idea of being able to take your VM with you, on your laptop or USB key is great
DELL-ScottH But of course aren't we (IT geeks) usually about 10 years ahead
DELL-ToddM And then be able to sync up later is also good
DELL-ToddM The details of how you do this remotely or with the cloud seemed undefined as of yet
depping I love the teradici and Wyse announcements...a better protocol for video was really needed
depping Remotely?
brennels Actually, I heard the first best practical use of VDI for disaster recovery.
depping Remotely = Ace incorporated into VDI, I guess
depping I haven't seen it yet, but that's what I expect
DELL-ToddM Remotely: Not in the office on a LAN
brennels Think about having copies or images of all your workstations at your DR facility that can be spun up and accessed through terminal server if your primary site is wiped out
brennels I think the NEC keynote presented this solution for one of their customers
DELL-ToddM It is a very good scenario for DR; how do you keep the DR site images synced?
brennels Pick something, EqualLogic, Double-take.
DELL-ToddM What - no magic pixie dust?
brennels The images may not be in synch 100%, but at least available with all applications ready to go. And since your servers are likely already at the DR, it kind of makes sense. So what does this mean for tape?
depping Why sync?
depping Just deploy VDI and recreate your VDI VMs
DELL-ScottH I think there is always a need for tape, or backup. How do you restore the CEO’s deleted e-mail?
depping This will save you on bandwidth
brennels May not need to synch for the desktops
brennels You restore your CEO's e-mail? :)
DELL-ToddM I agree that it doesn't need to be 100% synced. I was just wondering if there were any solutions that were specific to this environment, that might have sync policy that could be set based on groups or something
DELL-ToddM It's really the user data: docs, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. that have to be synced I guess
depping SRM
brennels Sure, why not; could be a good fit for an iSCSI boot solution too
DELL-ToddM Speaking of iSCSI, we had the new EqualLogic iSCSI array in the Dell booth
depping But what about a cross-platform Virtual Center! And VC as an appliance!
DELL-ToddM It was code named sumo--official name is PS5500e--up to 48 TB in one array
brennels Nice segue! The SRM lab I sat in was good, but I would have liked to see the under the covers at the LUN snap procedures. Anyone know if that is complicated to configure?
depping Well that depends on the SAN you're using
DELL-ToddM I didn't think that cross-platform virtual center was really that big of a deal; I haven't heard anybody complain about Windows only
DELL-ToddM I'm sure that the Linux guys would disagree :)
DELL-ScottH And the Mac boys :-)
depping Well for a lot it is
depping But I like the fact that VC will be an appliance
greg.ashbaugh If VC was on Linux, our Linux group would try to steal the VMware responsibilities from us. (I'm in our Win/VMware team)
DELL-ToddM The ability to access vCenter from my phone would be nice (they showed iPhone, but I'm hoping for BlackBerry as well)
DELL-ScottH And then I'm sure they would try to move everything to Xen
greg.ashbaugh Maybe a winmo app too
DELL-ScottH I vote iPhone
brennels That would be cool and probably not far off
greg.ashbaugh When iPhone is Sprint or Verizon, I'll vote iPhone too :)
DELL-ScottH Move to Europe; you get lots of choices then :-)
DELL-ToddM At VMworld 2007 I presented a session on running Exchange 2007 on ESX--big controversy about it not being supported
DELL-ScottH We do have some pics on our site from the show: http://www.delltechcenter.com/album/46895/vmworld+2008
DELL-ScottH Anyone else have photos from the show on a site?
DELL-ToddM At this year's VMworld I attended several sessions on the same topic, and it was of course not an issue
DELL-ScottH Look at the difference a year makes
depping And what about the Distributed vSwitch and host profiles? That will make maintaining and installing a lot easier than ever before
DELL-ToddM Due to support from MS through SVVP
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I also got to set up a distributed switch in the lab; very easy, nice to not have to worry about the Vlans
greg.ashbaugh depping: I played with those in one of the labs, pretty cool.
DELL-ToddM The distributed switch is going to make things much better. Looking forward to getting that feature
depping I really like the host profiles--great way to keep your environment consistent
brennels Thanks for the links guys, have a great week and see you next Tuesday
DELL-ScottH Thanks for stopping by Brace
DELL-ToddM Hey, did anybody get the free casino chip that MSFT was handing out?
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I turned mine into $3800
depping :)
DELL-ToddM You wish
DELL-ScottH Day dreaming again
DELL-ToddM I actually think that is an interesting aspect of VMworld, that competitors come and are a part of the conference
DELL-ToddM It's mostly VMware, but they do allow MSFT and Citrix to have their space
DELL-ToddM In talking with some of the guys at the Microsoft booth they admit that VMware has technical advantages with their products
depping Would be strange if they wouldn't admit :)
DELL-ToddM But they are trying to catch up as fast as they can :)
DELL-ToddM VMware seems to be doing a good job of innovating with things like Fault Tolerant VMs, distributed switches, enhanced APIs
depping Well, if they will have Live Migration in 2010, I wonder when they will have stuff like DRs, FT, dswitches, Storage Vmotion, etc.
DELL-ScottH I think the fault-tolerant (needs better name) stuff is going to put people on their heads. No requirements for HA, just works--too cool
depping Well, it will cost you resources, so I would only use it for VMs that require it
DELL-ToddM I think that VMware is going to have clear advantage in the mid- to high-end virtualization deployments
DELL-ToddM The new servers that we are coming out with have plenty of resources. The new 6-core Intel processors are great
DELL-ToddM Of course, there are other non-server resources: storage, bandwidth
DELL-ToddM Tonight we are going to have a second chat session on this same topic to give all of the late night guys a chance
DELL-ToddM At 10 pm Central time; we will have our first "late night" chat
DELL-ScottH My Mt. Dew is chillin' in the fridge!
DELL-ToddM For depping it will be the first "early morning" chat
DELL-ScottH And then Teamfortress 2 after?
rbell Are the late night chats every Tuesday?
depping That will be a bit too early
greg.ashbaugh Has anyone played Spore? Is it worth it?
depping Spore, it sounds and looks cool.
DELL-ScottH Trying them out for the first time; if goes well, then a staple maybe
depping But I can hardly find the time to check out stuff like that.
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I got it. Mine is out of the water and on land
DELL-ScottH Yeah, time sink
DELL-ToddM This is the first one; do you have a suggestion for another day/time?
rbell Not I, glad to hear that there are time options
DELL-ScottH What zone are you in?
rbell CDT
DELL-ToddM It's really depping’s fault. He always makes the chat and it is very late for him
DELL-ToddM So we thought that there might be some people like that in other time zones as well
DELL-ScottH I don't think there is anyone else like depping :-)
DELL-ToddM One last thing for me--I thought that the party was very fun
depping Let's hope not :)
DELL-ToddM I've never been around a race track at 105 mph before
greg.ashbaugh I thought the lunches were really good.
DELL-ToddM I'm just surprised that the lawyers let them do it
DELL-ScottH Greg, here's my spore on the land: http://twitpic.com/atd6
greg.ashbaugh Cool picture
DELL-ToddM I thought that all of the meals were pretty good, except for the very greasy egg Mcmuffin things at breakfast
DELL-ScottH Yeah, greasy has to go
depping Gotta go guys, enjoy the chat
DELL-ScottH Later
DELL-ToddM Yep, I gotta log off as well.
rradunz Bye guys
depping And if anyone wants to check out Bluebears Kodiak, e-mail me
DELL-ToddM Feel free to post questions about VMworld either here or on vmworld.com
greg.ashbaugh Thanks guys. See ya on twitter
DELL-ScottH Later greg