If there’s a chance to save time by using scripts or automation tools, I always take it. Over the years I’ve found that there are a set of common themes associated with these scripts, and many that my colleagues and I use on a daily basis Here are some of the common categories that […]
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Contemporary monitoring solutions are no different from any other distributed application in your environment. Even a small-scale deployment can include multiple components: often, these include a Web server, an application server, and a database server. And as with any distributed application, you need to consider placement for each component. More specifically, when you are charged with designing a monitoring […]
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VMware® as a technology has a huge potential to sprawl. Have you created an environment for testing purposes? Have projects required a number of guest VMs to be built, but are no longer in use? How about your storage? Is there some chance that your storage can be helpfully augmented by vSAN? What about the […]
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I’ve been a VMware® evangelist and virtualization advocate for a decade. Even before I first started using VMware—by accident, I’ll admit—I’ve had the (dis?)advantage of wearing many hats in IT. In that time, I’ve had many opportunities to work with men and women who are responsible for VMware and competing virtualization environments.* Based on […]
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Hyper-converged offerings are gaining popularity, and more vendors are entering the arena. Everything is software-defined; therefore, the technology cannot be separated like in a converged offering. This can bring a new challenge when it comes to monitoring. In the case of a converged offering, you still have your separate storage, compute, network, and hypervisor. Hyper-convergence […]
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Virtualization is an amazing and valuable tool for so many reasons. I’ve been a proponent of the concept since GSX server, and early Workstation products. In the early days, I used to use it as a fresh image to load on a workstation for a development crew who required a pristine testing environment for a […]
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Virtualization has been around for quite a while now; however, its mass appeal has only been realized with the extensive improvements that have appeared in the last few years. In virtualization’s early days, you had to purchase very expensive hardware; now, due to its ability to use commodity PC servers, you can download free virtualization […]
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In the world of enterprise architecture, many parts of our daily conversations are taken for granted. We talk about virtualization, vMotion®, Storage vMotion, Replication, IOPS, and so very many other jargon-filled statements. We know these things, understand the concepts, and feel that our conversations amongst industry veterans can use these concepts without explanation. Even when […]
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So you’ve started planning your career using a VCDX skillset. Continuing on that same train of thought, I want to walk you through an additional concept that might help you decide what skills to develop next. In the last year, I’ve been preparing my organization for the new skills any infrastructure, network or storage admin […]
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Earlier this year I had the opportunity to speak at VMWorld in San Francisco. The session title was Using Virtual SAN to Maximize Database Performance, and in that session I spent time focusing on performance as well as recovery. Why would recovery be a part of the talk? Because: Every database administrator knows that […]
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IT is full of buzzwords. DevOps, SDN, NFV, CI, big data, SDS, hybrid Cloud: the list goes on and on. It’s hard keeping up with all of these new technologies, and choosing the ones that are relevant for you and your career development is even harder. Now, I’m not here to tell you which trend […]
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The role of information technology inside of corporations is not new; it has existed for decades. With each passing year, we see an acceleration in the speed and complexity of changes to our roles as IT professionals. Industries as a whole tend to resist change. This makes sense because industries are made of corporations, those […]
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