Plain Virtualization

With the announcement of vSphere 6.0, comes Virtual SAN (VSAN) 6.0 the next release of VSAN since 5.5. This makes several improvement and I will be listing them here and do note of the differen ces as there are some improvement with changes to existing VSAN 5.5. To start clear, we need to know the terms right.  You will often hear Hybrid VSAN and All-Flash VSAN.  Hybrid is not new.  Since VSAN 5.5, it is always in Hybrid VSAN.  What it means it's a mixed of Flash or Solid State Harddisk (SSD) for cache and Magnetic Disk (MD) for persistent data. What about All-Flash, this is new in VSAN 6.0.  There will be no MD but make of all Flash/SSD for flash and SSD for persistent. source: VMware, Inc In VSAN 5.5, the cache read/write ratio was 70/30.  This is fixed and cannot be changed.  Of course in a VDI environment, this will be less favorable though it is using flash/SDD for cache since only 30% of the cache is used for write cache in a ...

With the new year of 2015, VMware education also did some amendments to their certification roadmap to adapt to the industry requirements.  However there isn't a big change but one major one I see is the VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) has been renamed to VMware Certified Implementation Expert (VCIX).  You can view more details here .  The roadmap diagram is as below: You can also find the more updated charts for version 5 and version 6 here . In fact I was seeing this coming since under Network Virtualization track it has already started with VCIX. Although VCIX6-NV started with only an administration exam, I believe all tracks will contain both design and administration exam as mentioned under VCIX section. The other change would be under the Cloud Management & Automation track where there are two different VMware Certified Associate (VCA) but only one VMware Certified Professional (VCP) track.  This will be focused on VMware vRealize A...

For those who are not aware, the application for vExpert 2015 started in November 2014 and today it was announced .  A total of 1028 individuals this time!  That was a big increased from last year 754 at the start of 2014 and 581 from 2013. For those who are new to vExpert, you can follow the update that are entitled to you throughout the year and posted in this community page log into based on your email ID.  Many vendors each with their respective way to reward vExpert either via a NFR use their product or a free T-shirt. For those who have missed the application, this year however there were no news of quarterly application mentioned like last year. Nevertheless, keep up the good work and carry on the contribution you have been doing to be rewarded this accreditation year after year. Once again, congratulation to all individuals. Keep it going! If you missed it, do check out the next application date, which has yet to be announced. Some benefits listed ...

The start of February also mark the great launch today by VMware.  Another milestone achieve with more to look forward to which will change the way things will run in an infrastructure. Today has been the long awaiting launch of vSphere 6.0 (which many thought was during vSphere 5.5 but finally it made it), there are also some changes to some add-on products changes as well as bundle update. The General Availability (GA) for vSphere will be in Mar 2015.  The training courses are found here . What's New vCloud Suite will be updates with vSphere 6.0 and vCloud Director and vCloud Network & Security will be deprecated as announced last year and no longer seen in this bundle.  This also get updated with the new vRealize Operations (vROps) Suite to 6. vSphere with Operations Management (vSOM) will be updated to 6.0 which include vSphere 6.0 and vRealize Operations (vROps) 6.0.  Finally those on vSOM 5.5 have been asking for vROps 6.0 has been granted t...

Many might not know unless you receive email from VMUG or by chance saw some postings from social media. What would we be expecting from this event is unknown but I am speculating the long waited vSphere 6.0 which was on public beta since last year and have already been on Release Candidate Build.  With vSphere 6.0, we can assume we might be seeing VSAN 2.0 since VSAN is integrated to vSphere as well as Virtual Volumes as Tech Preview first seen in VMworld 2011. With all this above, we might see some new pricing or bundling.  I am hoping to see what is line up during this launch. Here is the online launch site where you can register to be reminded. You can choose from the few dates available and the first day will be on 2nd February 2015 during America time and 5th February 2015 for Asia time. Below is the dates and time: AMERICAS Date:   February 2, 2015 Time:   1:00 – 2:00 PM PST / 4:00 – 5:00 PM EST EMEA Date...

Yes the very first VMware User Group (VMUG) Singapore Conference is happening on 23rd Jan 2015! It came a long way, from the first VMUG meeting held from few members to a large group of members now.  From a meetup every couple of months to almost every month.  As it matures today, it has more and more sponsors/vendors sharing their technology and road map as well as special speakers. Coming the first month of next year (not too long to wait), the very first VMUG SG Conference will be held at Marina Bay Sands.  This is the first time a full day conference been held in Singapore.  There are already many in the States and Australia however this is the very first milestone for Singapore. For those not aware, VMUG are run by users in the VMware community so VMware does not come into any organizing this such event like vForum equivalent.  This is focus for the VMware users by the users. The agenda is finally out and the speakers are all ready.  You will ...

Last month of the year and today have a some talk over lunch with a colleague and decide to pen this down which I see lacking on the market. I have spoken to customers and also spoken to some colleagues and realize the IT paradigm as changed quite substantial.  However many are still operating the wrong way which end up even with virtualization, cloud or Software Defined Data Center, etc. it is still not helping them achieve in a big scale. Recently I did a session on BC/DR: Implementing a Holistic Strategy with VMware Solutions session at APJ vForum in Singapore.  I mentioned a few things that was abstracted from VCDX Design Defense Blueprint page 11.  This diagram has helped me in a lot of discussion and I see many are still not aware.  The five things: Availability, Recovery, Security, Manageability, Performance. Taking an example today, when a Application owner request a machine with certain specification in terms of CPU, Memory and space from an Infra p...