Announcing VCE's Vblock Data Protection

Today VCE announced something awesome.  Moments ago we took the covers off a solution to a pain point many of our customers were feeling.  Sure, a Vblock system provides you with an converged foundation for private cloud computing, but what about backing it up?  What about replicating all the data to another location?  Until now, VCE has relied very heavily on EMC to provide those services for our customers.

The Vblock system and EMC Data Protection solution has been so compelling we have worked together to bring Avamar, RecoverPoint, Data Domain, and VPLEX into the VCE product portfolio.  You can now order the products from VCE, have the products delivered and built as a single product in the Vblock, AND have still maintain the VCE seamless support experience that customers have grown to love!  Our Vblock Data Protection solution is simple, complete, and flexible.

So what exactly are all the products introduced today?  I'll going to do a cut and paste from our announcement that I believe is much more clear and concise than I ever could be:

The Vblock Data Protection family scales from one to many platforms within and across data centers to provide the precise data protection needed.

• EMC Avamar—Deduplication backup software and system that provides highly efficient, variable length deduplication, with tight integration to EMC purpose-built, backup appliances. Avamar enables fast, complete daily backups of virtualized environments including the entire IT infrastructure, enterprise applications, and data. Deduplication on the client side reduces ESX contention and network traffic by sending only changed blocks to the backup target. This shortens backup times in even the busiest virtualized environments while keeping full backups available for rapid, single-step restores.

• EMC Avamar plus Data Domain—Dual options: Avamar targets the Avamar Data Store in your solution. Or for larger, high-change-rate workloads, the target can be a Data Domain system that provides high-speed, variable-length, inline deduplication. The result is a backup data storage footprint that averages 10x to 30x smaller than traditional backup.

• EMC RecoverPoint—Continuous data protection with flexible recovery points. The solution can be rolled back to any point in time—using snapshots that can be mere seconds apart—to quickly restore critical applications and data. RecoverPoint can also be used to efficiently migrate data from one virtualized Vblock platform to another.

• EMC VPLEX—A powerful, innovative solution that delivers unsurpassed workload mobility and business continuity. VPLEX enables administrators to share, protect, or load-balance their infrastructure resources across multiple Vblock platforms in the same data center or in different data centers within a campus or metro area. You can easily and non-disruptively move live virtual machines between locations to avoid planned downtime. VPLEX also handles unplanned events automatically with zero data-loss and zero to near-zero application recovery time.

Come see VCE's CRAZY Mobility Demo at EMC World!

This is something you won't see everyday!  In a few hours VCE, EMC, and Cisco will attempt a pretty amazing demo at the EMC World Solutions Echange.  The teams have combined forces to take Workload Mobility to a new level.  Here's a few pictures of our team hard at work finishing the build this morning.

What is Workload Mobility you ask?

Utilizing EMC's VPLEX technology, we have created active-active clusters between all three booths on the trade show floor and we will be running demos a few times a day to demonstrate the ability to seamlessly move workloads from one location to another with ZERO RPO and ZERO RTO.

Want to know more?  Come by VCE's Main Booth (#410) and ask questions!

I'll be working in both VCE booths (#410 and #515) anytime the Solutions Exchange is open.  Come by and say hi!

Lastly, A huge THANK YOU to the VCE Corporate Engineering team for the long hours they put in to make this happen!  Tom, Praphul, John, Aaron P, Bilal, and Sean, you guys rock!!

New Cloudcast: Live from CA World with Andi Mann

This morning we posted a new The Cloudcast (.net) podcast with Andi Mann, VP of Strategic Solutions at CA Technologies.  Andi sat down with us last night at CA World and we had a great discussion around the state of public and private cloud in the enterprise and how that relates to virtualization trends in the market today.  Fascinating conversation (if I do say so myself) and worth a listen.

My First Year at VCE

Last week was one year for me at VCE. In honor to Jay Cuthrell, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the last year of the rocket ship that has been VCE. Here are some random thoughts in no particular order:

• Building an organization from nothing is much harder than it sounds.  My first day at VCE consisted of reporting to the "Yoga Room" in an EMC exercise facility that had been converted into cubes for our temporary use.  Luckily we weren't there long.  Conducting job interviews in the hall is fun but gets old quickly.  Once you have a team, then what?  How do projects get on the Roadmap?  How do they get dropped?  What documentation standards will we all use?  We started with a clean slate.  We didn't make all the right choices the first time but we learned quickly how to make course corrections on the fly.  What a great learning experience!

• Management has been an interesting gig.  For those that didn't know, I accepted a role in Management when I signed on to VCE (hence the reason the technical content on this site over the last year has dwindled but that will be corrected shortly, details soon).  Learning all the management basics (one on one's, team meetings, coaching, etc.) has expanded my horizons greatly but doesn't make for entertaining blog posts.  Over the last year I've hired a team and "herding cats" in the right direction has been an exciting challenge but the rewards have been great.  I have an exceptionally talented team and they make all the difference in the world!

• The idea of a "job description" hasn't applied.  Our job roles change on a frequent basis and we all dig deep to get it done.  It seems at times my team has done everything except our mission (designing solutions).  Because we wear so many hats, we have become a very diverse team.  The "chaos" has given way to "controlled chaos" and "order" is starting to settle in.

• All the haters are gonna hate but VCE is doing just fine (better than fine actually).  I had the honor of attending VMworld this year and the crowds at the VCE booth were amazing!  The booth was constantly filled with great customers asking great questions.  The Vblock Infrastructure Platform message is resonating with customers and the momentum continues to increase.

• The "speeds and feeds" don't matter to me as much anymore. When I first started at VCE, I had a head full of speeds and speeds and lots of technical questions about what made the Vblock Infrastructure tick. Like many of our customers, I found my desire for this diminish over time. Does this mean the "speeds and feeds" aren't important? Of course not. What it means is that some of the brightest folks in the industry work very long hours to make all of that "go away" for you. The Vblock Platform has taken the industry one step closer to the concept of "Utility Computing".

VCE's FastPath Desktop Virtualization Platform is Here!

Just a short time ago, VCE announced a new product, the FastPath Desktop Virtualization Platform. FastPath is a custom solution that allows you to quickly and easily get up and running with VMware View. Benefits Include: 

• Single Order – VMware View Premier licenses (including support and maintenance) are included
• Seamless Support Extended to Include View – VCE has extended support to include View! You’ve heard me talk before about View running “on top” of a Vblock. With FastPath, View support is “inside” the Vblock 
• Rapid Provisioning, Setup & Configuration – Standing up a View environment has never been easier! Apply power and network connections to the Vblock, complete the Wizard (screenshots included below), upload a VDI “Golden Master” Image, and go get some coffee or maybe lunch and the FastPath Platform will take care of the rest! 
• Validated Platform – The FastPath Platform has already completed testing for common VDI pain points (boot storms) and the entire Platform is designed for resiliency and reliability 
• First Product to Utilize the UIM API’s – This is the first product VCE has introduced that hooks into UIM’s API’s for provisioning and configuration. You’ll see much more of this in the future
• Factory Reset – The FastPath Platform was built with the ability to quickly and easily hit the “Reset” button and set everything back to factory defaults. Great for POC and lab environments! 

Check out VCE’s FastPath Landing Path for more information: http://www.vce.com/fastpath

Here are some screenshots (click for a larger view) of the FastPath Platform Wizard:

If you are at VMworld this week, stop by VCE’s Booth (#1121) to see a demonstration or to speak with somebody about this exciting new product!

Summary of All Things VCE at VMworld

This will be a short post tonight.  I wrote a guest blog article for VMworld listing all of VCE's activities this year on Cisco Data Center blog.  If you are interested in everything VCE is up too, check it out!

The #vHunt at VMworld is ON!

A number of EMC folks have already posted about this including Chad, vTexan, Bas, and Matt.  EMC and a few partners including VCE will be hosting a #vHunt at VMworld this year.  To borrow from Bas's blog, the rules are simple:

So, what’s the deal? Simple, follow these steps and see if you win:

• Members of the EMC vSpecialist and VCE teams will be tweeting various tasks and challenges throughout VMworld. Day and Night, on the floor, in the labs, in the sessions, at the parties, etc. You can identify those tasks and challenges by looking for the vHunt hashtag “#vHunt” in our tweets. You will find all kinds of things there, facts, trivia or fun challenges.
• Every time you respond to one of those challenges or tasks, tag it with “#vHunt. Someone from EMC will be watching those responses.
• During the convention (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 3x a day, our marketing folks pick winners based on the criteria above, and hand the winners their prize.

That’s all there is to it!  I have a few things in mind already.

In case you're wondering, I'll be pretty easy to find.  I'll either be in the VCE Booth (#1121) or in the Blogger's Lounge.  I won't be attending sessions this year so stop by and say hello!

VCE TweetUp at VMworld

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that VCE (my company) will be hosting a TweetUp at VMworld.  If anybody has questions about VCE or the Vblock Platform, stop by and say hello!  Here's a link to register.

Where: Double Helix Wine & Whiskey Bar @ Palazzo
When: Tuesday 8/30 @ 5:30

(Stop by and wish me a happy 14 years of marriage)

VCE & VMware's AlwaysOn Desktop Solution at VMworld

I get to share something really cool with everyone today!  Welcome to the next generation of VDI.  At VMworld next week VCE and & VMware will highlight a joint solution we call AlwaysOn Desktop.  Stop by VCE's Booth (#1121) to see a live demonstration.

What is AlwaysOn Desktop you ask?

VCE and VMware took a standard VDI solution and "cranked it up":

• Always On, Fast Logon
• VDI Desktop Follows the User ("Follow Me Desktops")
• Any Device
• Quickly Provision Desktops
• Easy to Manage
• Highly Available

Think of it like this: VCE along with our partners on this solution have created a desktop solution that allows a user to access their desktop from any VDI station through their access card using Imprivata's Single Sign On product.  Your desktop will now quickly and easily follow you around.  This solution was developed in our Raleigh Solutions Lab and it is soooooo cool.  Walk up to one station, hold up your card, get your desktop.  Walk up to another station, hold up your card, and you're disconnected from the previous station and switched to the new station within seconds.  It is awesome!

The solution involves Imprivata’s Single Sign On (OneSign®), Cisco’s load balancer (ACE), and VMware View – all running on a replicated Vblock™ infrastructure.  That's right, replicated.  The Demonstration for VMworld will be for the Healthcare Industry, we're calling it AlwaysOn Point of Care.  But, this can easily be adapted to ANY industry that requires Highly Available VDI.

Here's a high level look at the architecture:

In the upcoming weeks VCE will publicly publish more on AlwaysOn, until then stop by the VCE Booth (#1121) and talk to the folks who designed the solution!

Let's Talk about Cisco UC on Vblock at VMworld!

For a good portion of VMworld this year I have the distinct privilege of hosting customers in the VCE Booth (#1121).  We have many great things to discuss this year that I will be highlighting over the next few days leading up to VMworld.

Today, I want to discuss a solution near and dear to my heart.  My team has been working closely with Cisco to bring Cisco Unified Communications (UC) as an integrated solution to the Vblock platform.

What has VCE accomplished to date for Cisco UC?
Through VCE and Cisco's collaboration, we have introduced Unified Communications Blade Packs specific to the Vblock platform.  If you are familiar with UC, you will understand the concept of Cisco's Tested Reference Configurations.  Basically, it is a hardware standard that the Cisco UC team has fully tested and Cisco will support.  Cisco and VCE jointly support the B200 M2 TRC#1 and TRC#2 configurations.  In addition, EMC's PowerPath/VE and the Cisco 1000v now come standard with every UC blade pack to better support co-residency with other applications inside a Vblock (but on different hardware blades).  If you have any questions, find me at VMworld and we'll discuss the "nitty gritty" details.

Why has VCE introduced the Cisco UC Blade Packs?
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  The following table is taken from the design considerations page on Cisco's UC website.  We want to make the infrastructure "go away".  By running UC on Vblock, you can focus on the UC design and not worry about all the "stuff underneath".  All components of the Vblock are supported by VCE & Cisco will handle the UC application.  It couldn't be easier!

What about UC's newly announced specs-based support?
In June of this year Cisco introduced the concept of specs-based support for UC.  Long term this will remove the hardware dependence of the Tested Reference Configurations.  VCE and Cisco are working closely on a fully supported and documented solution for this architecture as well.  Specs-based UC on Vblock will work today but it is up to the customer or partner to design the architecture.

In conclusion, it's an exciting time for Cisco UC on Vblock!  Stop by VCE's Booth 1121 and let's talk about it!

Designing Solutions on a Converged Infrastructure

I've been doing a lot of thinking (no answers today, just thoughts) about the solutions and applications running on top of converged infrastructure stacks.  Today, we have a few scenarios to consider that each require increasing levels of design complexity:

1. A single tenant with a single application (one big VDI farm or maybe Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution) 
2. A single tenant with multiple applications (a VDI farm as well as an SAP instance) 
3. Multiple tenants running the same application (vCloud Director giving out IaaS resources)
4. Multiple tenants running multiple applications (a service provider hosting vCloud Director as well as Cisco Unified Communications)

Single Tenant with a Single Application - This one is pretty easy to digest; the entire CI (converged infrastructure) can be tweaked and modified to support a single application.  This makes the technical folks happy because they get to play with the "nerd knobs" and do some tuning.  The downside is that unless the application is a really big application, the CI may not be fully utilized or you may have multiple CI's in the data center.  You've just taken the server sprawl problem of a few years ago (single application, single server) and made it worse.

Single Tenant with Multiple Applications - In this scenario we just need to make sure our applications "play well with others".  As long as the CI can support the design, you are just adding more "blocks" at the application level.  This design usually requires a certain level of interop testing to make sure one application doesn't starve the other for resources.

Multiple Tenants Running the Same Application - The classic example here is vCloud Director.  As many are finding out, defining a work area for multiple tenants while at the same time creating a secure environment can be challenging.  When hosting multiple customers or tenants, it's all about the isolation.

Multiple Tenants Running Multiple Applications - This is where the fun begins!  You now have to balance the isolation aspects of multiple tenants while also providing a level of service across all the applications, all in a secure and stable environment.  For CI's to really succeed, this is where our design focus as architects needs to be in the future.

A Note on Multiple Tenants: As brought up by Christian Reilly on a recent episode of the Cloudcast, where do you define Multi-Tenants?  Are you talking just at the hardware layer?  Can you share a database and host multiple instances (a very common practice) or do you need separate databases servers as well?  Things to think about...

New Must Read VCE Blog

Now that all the dust is beginning to settle I wanted to highlight a new VCE Blog that is a must read if you are interested in the background and direction of the newly renamed/organized VCE Company.  The blog is virtual-architect and is currently managed by Trey Layton, World Wide Director of vArchitects for VCE.  Trey has published two articles and both are worth a read.  Here are links to both as well as a few highlights from each:

• VCE - A Historical Perspective
• $100 Million in shipments in 6 months and $1.2 Billion Pipeline
• Fully developed sales and engineering teams
• Customer demand continues to exceed expectations
• Both Acadia and the VCE Coalition have been replaced by the VCE Company
• Vblock From Reference Architecture to a Platform
• Vblocks used to arrive as pieces to assemble on-site
• Vblocks are now a product that is manufactured and shipped to a consistent physical build

Full Disclosure: In case you didn't already know, I manage a team designing solutions for VCE and I'm not part of their marketing in any way.  I'm just passing on some great public information from Trey.

My First Month & Impressions of VCE & Acadia

I have a little over a month down at Acadia/VCE.  The question I've been asked most is "How is it?"  Let me answer that in this post by relating the highlights of the past month.  There are many things that will announce shortly that I'm not at liberty to talk about yet (I want to continue to be paid) but here are some general items.

I work in the Solutions Organization, more specifically solutions for service providers and verticals.  What does the mean?  It means my team, and others in our organization, work with companies to make sure their applications and solutions work "on" and "with" Vblocks.  We also have many other teams that will be providing solutions in other areas.  The first few (SAP and VDI) were released recently and highlighted by Chad Sakac here.  Solutions on Vblocks will be critical moving forward and will the subject of a post in the near future.  Other highlights:

• My team was fortunate to spend a little over two hours with our CEO, Michael Capellas.  As a general rule I'm not a C-level fanboi but wow is that a smart and impressive dude.  No subject was off limits and we peppered him with some very difficult questions.  He "gets it" and his vision for the company is on track.  Expect some great things to happen soon.
• My organization's lab is moving along nicely.  We will have a large number of Vblocks in facilities in both California and North Carolina.  The amount of gear we will have access too is simply incredible and will allow us to provide our customers with first-rate solutions.
• In addition to our solutions group, the vArchitects (field technical architects) are ramping up.  I was privileged enough to attend a few days of their training last week.  Great people and great information!

It won't be long now...

My New Role at Acadia - Forget What You Know About Acadia

Today is my first day in my new position at Acadia.  I will be managing a team under Jonathan Donaldson here in Raleigh at a new office we will be opening very shortly.  The office will be amazing!  My team (and other peer teams under Jonathan) will be responsible for integrating and certifying vertical solutions on the Vblock architecture.  In addition to this testing, we will be performing many customer facing engagements both in Raleigh as well as at major industry events throughout the year.

The mission of our team is new to Acadia.  This brings me to my next point: Forget what you may know about Acadia and the VCE Coalition today.  Things are about to change.  As noted by Chad's posting, Acadia is ramping up in a serious way.  We will be adding people to teams in a all areas including field technical, lab and solution integration, customer demonstration, and engineering & development.

I personally have two open positions right now but slots are filling up fast.  You will need to be in the Raleigh area or be willing to relocate (no, I can't offer relocation at this time).  I also have a few peer teams that need people as well.  Take a look at Chad's posting above and figure out what my new e-mail will be (hopefully it gets turned on later today) and shoot me your resume.  If it bounces, give it a day or two and try again until my mailbox is set up.  I can't promise to get back to you but I promise I will evaluate every one.

Will the focus of this blog change?


Honestly, it might.  I blog about what I get my hands on.  I hope to get some competitive gear in my lab at some point but for now I will have access to EMC, VMware, and Cisco.

What kind of gear will we be getting in the lab?


We need to go shopping.  We will order all types of Vblock hardware shortly and I'm sure I'll post more as we set it all up.  I plan to blog about the good (and honestly the challenges) that we face setting up this environment and learn how to make the Vblock a better product.

Will this become an Acadia Blog?


No it will not.  I plan to keep doing what I'm doing and Acadia will not be reviewing my content.  The disclaimer on the side of the page doesn't change.  I have a LOT of research I want to do around 10GB and FCoE solutions and I actually see this site turning into more of a resource for that than anything else in the near term.

Thank you for coming by!