March 2019 archive

What do bagels and storage arrays have in common? Neither should be sliced!

To set the context for this if you haven’t seen it, recently there has been a lot of public outrage all over the internet about someone ordering bagels sliced up like bread. You can read all about this controversy here, having read that myself I naturally thought of the comparison to storage in VMware environments. The result is the newspaper article below, enjoy and happy Friday!

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VMworld 2019 Call For Papers, I mean Case Studies, is now open

The annual call for content for VMworld is now open through April 16th, however this year VMware has changed the submission process and is basically only looking for customer case studies. Instead of the old form where you did an abstract, outline and key takeaways on whatever topic you wanted, now you fill out a simple speaker interest form where you enter your name, title and how many case studies you want to submit (2 max) and then you fill in the following:

  • What problem(s) did you or your customer face?
  • On which solution(s) did you decide?
  • How did you implement those solution(s)?
  • What factors contributed to your or your customer’s success or failure?

VMware has made this change to “lighten the submission load”, if you read into that it sounds like VMware wants to limit the submissions to be only case studies which will greatly reduce the amount of sessions they need to review (and ultimately reject). As a result this basically excludes the traditional deep dives, panels and other technical types of sessions that were popular in years past.

The good ole days were you had a decent shot of getting a session through have been gone for many years. VMware’s own sessions dominate the session catalog these days and if you want to get a session you have to pretty much buy one through a sponsorship. It’s a shame as there is a whole community full of people that have valuable knowledge to contribute. To a lesser degree they have a platform in social area of VMworld but it would be nice if VMware dedicated some session slots to community content. Below are the types of speaking opportunities available this year:

I may try and submit one on VVols as case studies are sorely needed to promote it, but finding customers able and willing to participate is always a challenge. If any HPE customers are using VVols and are interested in presenting please let me know and I’ll work with you to submit a request. And for those that want to try and submit a session request you can go fill out either the general speaker interest form or the {code} speaker interest form. The links to submit and guidelines are available in this form.

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Pat Gelsinger’s vInk re-visited

Remember the whole unveiling of Pat Gelsinger’s tattoo at VMworld last year? There was a lot of speculation on if it was real (permanent) or not (temporary). I was hanging out with Pat at the vExpert party were he rolled up his sleeve and showed it to us and couldn’t tell. I also did a post on it last year and laid out some evidence that it may have not been a permanent tattoo which is what I had suspected. I have never heard him confirm or deny that it was a permanent tattoo, but recently in an interview with CRN he confirmed it was a long term temporary tattoo:

So I’m giving the keynote that it was fun and there was great energy in the room. After the keynote, I’m running around like crazy. I call my wife at 9:30 p.m. that night. The only thing she said to me is, ‘You better have gotten rid of it before we go on vacation.’ There was nothing like, ‘Great keynote, honey. How are you doing?’ – no, it was, ‘You have better gotten rid of it before vacation.’ It was one of those long-term temporary tattoos. It’s successfully been eradicated from me. We did go on vacation and my wife still loves me and is married to me.

So there you have it, no more tattoo, but despite it being gone I’m sure his devotion to VMware remains unchanged. Maybe this year he’ll do something else crazy like shave his head or something.

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Top vBlog 2018 Full Results

Here are the full results for Top vBlog 2018:

Legend:

Rank = 2018 rank
Previous = 2017 rank
Change = # of position change from 2017
Total Points = Voting points + Post points + Pagespeed points
Total Votes = Total number of people who voted
Voting Points = Weighted points based on ranking (#1 vote = 12 pts, #2 vote = 11 pts…..#12 vote = 1 point)
#1 Votes = # of people that ranked blog as their #1
2017 Posts = total # of posts published on blog in 2017
Post Pts = (# of 2017 posts x 2) (400 max)
PS% = Google PageSpeed score (percent)
PS Pts = Google PageSpeed score % * 200 possible points

BlogRankPreviousChangeTotal PointsTotal VotesVoting Points#1 Votes# 2017 postsPost Points (2 per post, 400 max)Google Pagespeed %Pagespeed Points 200 possible
Virtually Ghetto (William Lam)1107440766707423511322670%140
ESX Virtualization (Vladan Seget)220506055645429230040059%118
Cormac Hogan33047475484417227815687%174
Scott Lowe blog45129983602554412324699%198
vSphere-land (Eric Siebert)56127353732455126112279%158
vMiss (Melissa Palmer)616102635326236311499887%174
Cody Hosterman71582622284237088469280%160
VMGuru (Various)810226183812356155911872%144
The IT Hollow (Eric Shanks)99025993332247315310695%190
VCDX133 (Rene Van Den Bedem)101112596323233029489685%170
Virtual Geek (Chad Sakac)117-4259436223387459083%166
Wahl Network (Chris Wahl)124-8258734923855326469%138
Derek Seaman's Blog1312-12498328226226397879%158
NTPro.nl (Eric Sloof)148-622103111848913927842%84
Virtualization is Life! (Anthony Spiteri)1519421732511841418817678%156
Jorge de la Cruz Mingo163014163515911273618436870%140
Notes from MWhite (Michael White)17311416181931210711523089%178
Virten.net (Florian Grehl)18224159222513524377483%166
vInfrastructure Blog (Andrew Mauro)1923415911941075618236476%152
VM Blog (David Marshall)2026615001489462660040077%154
VMware Arena (Mohammed Raffic)21846314931711187279118262%124
vNinja (Christian Mohn)2217-51483213124720255093%186
Tayfun Deger23331014351531173426112270%140
VCDX56 (Magnus Andersson)2414-1013331609811314128235%70
TinkerTry (Paul Braren)252721288159994106312684%168
vXpress (Sunny Dua)263481255166107316418250%100
Elastic Sky (Paul McSharry)274922120217398011275484%168
GestaltIT (Various)285123120198647637440077%154
vZilla (Michael Cade)294415118913895714418275%150
Virtuwise (Angelo Luciani)305828117715797711142886%172
Deep Storage (Howard Marks)31N/AN/A11731659697214281%162
DiscoPosse (Eric Wright)3225-711601689523275477%154
Domalab (Michele Domanico)33N/AN/A115998837327815693%186
Punching Clouds (Rawlinson)3413-2111521558962377491%182
Enterprise Daddy (Adil Arif)3555201152125896115210476%152
Long White Virtual Clouds (Webster)3620-16115116910077122460%120
Virtual Jad (Jad El-Zein)3721-1611481629883132667%134
Mastering VMware (Mayur Parmar)386830112613084085711486%172
Justin's IT Blog3928-1111111609113265274%148
NoLabNoParty (Paolo Valsecchi)404111092108760248016086%172
My Virtual Cloud (Andre Leibovici)4118-23108613983495410872%144
VMware Insight (Pranay Jha)427634107712798332214226%52
Virtualization How To (Brandon Lee)437229107697538720040069%138
Professional VMware (Cody Bunch)4424-20105812772227715491%182
Virtual To The Core (Luca Dell'Oca)4538-710451388135326484%168
Around the Storage Block (Calvin Zito)4637-91042121672414629239%78
Virtu-al (Alan Renouf)47N/AN/A10401579281102046%92
CloudXC (Josh Odgers)4829-1910371678975224448%96
VMware Guruz (Sateesh Thupakula)4981321005115723116112280%160
Tom Fojta's Blog5050098312884910295838%76
Sysadmit (Xavier Genestos)5152197710163587915892%184
mwpreston dot net (Mike Preston)526089501327621428452%104
vLenzker (Fabian Lenz)53853295012080617173455%110
All About VMware (BhanuPrakash)5417812494410272622357074%148
VMware Minds (Anjani Kumar)5590359291297612265258%116
TechniCloud (Rebecca Fitzhugh)566159181337281265269%138
Niels Hagoort576369151307391142874%148
VMwaretv (Cahit Yolacan)58118609149069413367274%148
Aprendiendo a Virtualizar5932-279048652839819690%180
Architecting IT (Chris Evans)6059-19029763036913867%134
Homelaber Brasil (Valdecir Carvalho)6142-1989710058377414883%166
SFlanders.net (Steve Flanders)6235-278949458056412893%186
CloudManiac (Romain Decker)63117548941026704214291%182
StorageIO (Greg Schulz)64862288391543109118279%158
Virtualization The Future (Ranjna Aggarwal)65791487380537813627232%64
Running-System (A. Lesslhumer)6646-20872846202438683%166
Teimouri.net (Davoud Teimouri)67993286068474610521088%176
David Stamen681701028581116522122491%182
Solutions4Crowds (Ricardo Conzatti)69871885585573125711484%168
vSphere Arena (Ritesh Shenoy)70922285310967113183673%146
DBigCloud (Daniel Romero Sanchez)71881785380585115110283%166
Demitasse (Alastair Cooke)72140688481176262285683%166
TechCrumble (Aruna Lakmal)73N/AN/A84464590186913858%116
My Cloud Revolution (Markus Kraus)74784841855814326498%196
vDrone (Laurens van Duijn)759823837875977224498%196
Wojcieh.net (Wojciech Marusiak)7643-338348163816418257%114
MaquinasVirtuales (Raúl Unzué)77N/AN/A8319458528285695%190
Virtual Reality (Manish Jha)78N/AN/A83059402712725487%174
24x7 IT Connection (Theresa Miller)7971-88298951728016076%152
Blog VMware (Leandro Ariel Leonhardt)8054-26828885723489680%160
Rob Beekmans8156-2582679524116613285%170
Why Is the Internet Broken (J. Parisi)82100188228458649018028%56
Viktorious.nl (Viktor van den Berg)8336-47820975864428475%150
Build Virtual (Ian Walker)84244160819986451173470%140
VMwareMine8570-158161066424193868%136
doOdzZZ's Notes (Abdullah Abdullah)8680-681510267512244846%92
My Virtual Vision (Kees Baggerman)8740-478071026214102083%166
Blog de Sistemas (Norman FS)88N/AN/A806926000122491%182
Let's Virtualize (Kanishk Sethi)89890804945780438670%140
VM To Cloud (Ryan Kelly)9074-16798965603387681%162
Blah Cloud (Myles Gray)911091879810160210122486%172
AODBC in the Cloud (Raul Gamez)92N/AN/A7958350126112286%172
Cisco Redes (Rodrigo Rovere)93N/AN/A793805496459077%154
vswitchzero (Mike Da Costa)94N/AN/A777945597336676%152
vBrain.info (Manfred Hofer)9562-337751035531193892%184
SOS Tech (Josh Andrews)9694-2772885282387684%168
Virtual Red-dot (Iwan Rahabok)9795-2769805312336686%172
VMFocus (Craig Kilborn)9897-17681045524163292%184
Storage Soup (Tech Target)9975-2476663356112925876%152
Cosonok's IT Blog (David Cookson)1001505075462366011723477%154
The SLOG (Simon Long)10167-34745986197102053%106
Penguinpunk.net (Dan Frith)102106474463364211422876%152
VMware Hub (Altaro)1031292672572425710921841%82
Tekhead (Alex Galbraith)10482-22723895351244870%140
vJenner Blog (Kyle Jenner)10564-41722965140244880%160
CloudVM (Sean Torres)10613226722814943275487%174
Zero to Hero (Saadallah Chebaro)1071918472111561916285623%46
TheHumbleLab (Cody De Arkland)108N/AN/A7141205822173449%98
vHojan (Johan van Amersfoort)1091112710995405183667%134
Tim's Tech Thoughts (Tim Smith)11048-62704784803173495%190
vGyan.in (Sujith Surendran)111N/AN/A6847450422234667%134
vRealize (Sidharth Swami)112N/AN/A6821025542193845%90
Blue Gears (Edward Haletky)11317360679784936112282%164
Matt That IT Guy (Matt Crape)11466-48677884291489676%152
My Virtual Journey (Nisar Ahmad)115207926765539266412878%156
Pantallazos.es ()116N/AN/A67042228015130270%140
Rimmergram (Jane Rimmer)11791-26669855536122446%92
vSaiyan (Mohamed Amer)118N/AN/A668704680132687%174
vThinkBeyondVM (Vikas Shitole)119N/AN/A661874658102088%176
Digital VSpace (Tony Reeves)120N/AN/A6541034520122489%178
My VMworld (Noham Medyouni)121176556546244211153091%182
Marius Sandbu IT blog12283-396477040315210470%140
Blog.igics.com (David Pasek)12321087644724220306081%162
Brian's Virtualization Corner (Brian Owen)124N/AN/A638714340132689%178
Be-Virtual.net (Mischa Buijs)125N/AN/A637824410214277%154
Michelle Laverick12645-81633744191234684%168
David Hill127107-20632724301153086%172
Planet VM (Tom Howarth)12873-55621844513244861%122
Define Tomorrow (Barry Coombs)129103-266044929218416872%144
Blog's-IT (Batuhan)130N/AN/A6039846114132658%116
D8TA Dude (Richard Arnold)131126-56005230025611294%188
Elastic Sky.de (Michael Schroeder)132N/AN/A585513174397895%190
Michael Ryom13369-64583663711204086%172
The Virtual Horizon (Sean Massey)134122-12582653923163279%158
Virtual Ramblings (J.Nicholson)135N/AN/A5771084654112245%90
Andy Nash13615115576764741163235%70
Victor Virtualization (Victor Wu)137186495755137395811643%86
Mike Tabor138110-28573453413234693%186
Daniel Paluszek139N/AN/A5696344311265237%74
Vroom Blog (Fouad El Akkad/Alban Lecorps)14018545568734582122443%86
Ather Beg's Useful Thoughts (Ather Beg)1411498565663570153089%178
vCrooky (James Cruickshank)142216745633520928717490%180
Ray On Storage (Ray Lucchesi)14319653552482882408092%184
Ask Aresh (Aresh Sarkari )144N/AN/A549693950132664%128
Snurf (Ian Sanderson)145N/AN/A546493161346881%162
Rhys Hammond146N/AN/A546503241214290%180
I'm all Virtual (Lior Kamrat)14715811540623542255068%136
Blog.bertello.org (Giuliano Bertello)14818840539713930132660%120
VirtualG (Graham Barker)149N/AN/A5394530510275490%180
Virtual Tassie (Matt Allford)15019040529412917255094%188
Blog about the Infrastructure (Deepaj)15119847527723971163249%98
vWud.net (Steve Wood)152147-5526623162285677%154
vCloud Info (Carlo Costanzo)1532418852449292510420812%24
CloudHat.eu (Constantin Ghioc)154N/AN/A518463021408068%136
LostDomain (Martijn Smit)155N/AN/A517493294132681%162
Virtual Allan (Allan Kjaer)15616155173317107815695%190
vBlog.io (Cedric Quillevere)157102-555144529805110257%114
Pro Virtual Zone (Luciano Patrao)158152-6514392689438680%160
MindMelt (Jurgen Allewijn)159235765103223415511083%166
driftar's Blog160N/AN/A510462601357090%180
vMBaggum (Marco van Baggum)161N/AN/A505563332132673%146
IT Should Just Work (Chris Bradshaw)162156-6505432452469284%168
Ps1code.com (Roman Gelman)163N/AN/A5023830211265274%148
Let's V4Real (Chestin Hay)16424076498492882306075%150
Pascal's Wereld (Pascal Heldoorn)165N/AN/A496432500346889%178
vCloudnine (Patrick Terlisten)166128-38491412452295894%188
Tecnologias Aplicadas (Patricio Cerda)16718720490382682326479%158
WoodITWork (Julian Wood)16857-111489583313306049%98
Virtubytes (Ryan S.)169N/AN/A4893318765911892%184
vGemba (Colin Westwater)170N/AN/A489362311326497%194
vMatt.net (Matt Heldstab)171N/AN/A487532952265270%140
Virtually Sober (Joshua Stenhouse)172N/AN/A484442482346884%168
Thom Greene173145-28479482391224498%196
Corey & Associates (Michael Corey)17423157477382430387679%158
Scott Bollinger175142-33473472492173495%190
DefinIT (Sam McGeown/Simon Eady)176120-56468493184438632%64
IT Pro Land (Wesley Martins Silva)177N/AN/A468482945377450%100
DCIG Blog (Various)178135-43467432330459072%144
Daily Hypervisor (Sid Smith)17922344465482950112274%148
vAddicted (Raffaello Poltronieri)1802638346325153111623239%78
ExploreVM (Paul Woodward)181N/AN/A461473053285650%100
vWannabe (Javier Rodriguez)182134-48460603240183650%100
Scottish VMUG (James Cruickshank )183N/AN/A459342434163292%184
Hyaking Tech (Hyaking)184272884543317409018050%100
VCDX181 (Marc Huppert)185N/AN/A454422522102091%182
SafeKom Blog (Michal Iwanczuk)186162-24451332437224482%164
VMscribble (Matt Menkowski)187160-27448352365102096%192
Double Cloud (Steve Jin)188N/AN/A447432430265276%152
Virtualization Team (Eiad Al-Aqqad)189N/AN/A443482591122480%160
VMexplorer (Matt Mancini)190144-46442392386234679%158
Technodrone (Maish)191157-34440382341265277%154
Linoproject.net (Lino Telera)192N/AN/A4393118706212464%128
vBrainstorm (Roger Lund)193N/AN/A439392150306082%164
Just Another IT Blog (Eduardo Meirelles)194108-86437402230275480%160
Virtual Chris (Chris Chua)195180-15435462150153095%190
Retouw.nl (Wouter Kursten)19621418429452692204060%120
Ravi IT Blog (Ravi Kumar)197155-42427402111142894%188
FlackBox (Neil Anderson)198113-85422311620489682%164
Virtualize Stuff (Dave Davis)199N/AN/A420432404112279%158
RNelson0 (Rob Nelson)20021212418452360112280%160
Zsoldier's Tech Blog (K. Chris Nakagaki?)20124544417612213173481%162
vCallaway (Matt Callaway)202171-31416362221285669%138
cstan.io (Christian Stankowic)203N/AN/A415362151224478%156
The Virtualist (The Virtualist team)204169-35414472183153083%166
Kiwicloud.ninja (Jon Waite)205N/AN/A413493272122431%62
vHersey (Hersey Cartwright)20624236412352042255079%158
Unix Arena (Lingeswaran)207N/AN/A408382062112290%180
The Fluffy Admin (Robert Kloosterhuis)208N/AN/A407432250132678%156
JBcomp (James Brown)2092178406402140153081%162
Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat210137-7340554377314280%0
Green Reed Tech (Martez Reed)211N/AN/A405362230224469%138
Virtual Me (Joseph Griffiths)21223321403362070255073%146
VM Spot (Matt Bradford)21324330403392270153073%146
Kamshin (Max Mortillaro)214194-20400352061306067%134
Virtualvmx (Sachin Bhardwaj)215N/AN/A396392021142883%166
IT 2.0 (Massimo Re Ferre)216133-83394422081102083%166
ukotic.net (Mark Ukotic)217201-16393291977153083%166
Default Reasoning (Marek Zdrojewski)218182-36393311830173488%176
Virtualisatieadvies (Eelco de Boer)219267483921672011523045%90
VMware Thiru (Thirukumaran)220205-15391392051173476%152
Ivan de Mes221N/AN/A391361910193881%162
Everything Should Be Virtual (L. Smith)2222308390321881163285%170
GeekFluent (Dave Henry)223172-51386392220326450%100
Virtual Village (Pawel Piotrowski)224159-65386241300326496%192
VMware & Veeam Blog (Karel Novak)225104-121383602670102048%96
PeteNetLive (Pete Long)226N/AN/A3813216515611252%104
UP2V (Marcel van den Berg)2272270381351730224482%164
Plonius.com (Hans Kraaijeveld)228N/AN/A379372050132674%148
Virtual Hive (SH, Hwang)229N/AN/A371238707414868%136
Plain Virtualization (Wee Kiong Tan)230197-33365381874244865%130
Purplescreen.eu (Gosselin Olivier)231221-10364331820224469%138
QuirkyVirtualization (Jeremy Ey)232N/AN/A363281630122488%176
Rudi Martinsen233N/AN/A356211160234697%194
SnowVM Blog (Rene Bos)234N/AN/A355331731102081%162
Hazenet.dk (Mads Fog Albrechtslund)235N/AN/A355291410112296%192
Virtual Odyssey (Preston Lasebikan)236N/AN/A347137505410882%164
Virtualization Blog (Prashant Rangi)237N/AN/A345361871102069%138
Virtual Wiki (Christian Wickham)238N/AN/A344281340102095%190
VMNet Brasil (Fernando Teixeira Silva)239130-109343402611204021%42
Educational Center (Dean Lewis)240165-75340281861122465%130
Ivo Beerens241175-66338361962102061%122
vDestination (Greg Stuart)242199-43337241390153084%168
I Think Virtual (Alex Lopez)243206-37336502480102034%68
Virtual Elephant (Chris Mutchler)244195-49333271350153084%168
vInception (Kammoun/Zecevic)245222-23331211412336662%124
Koolaid.info (Jim Jomes)246219-27331351810122463%126
The Virtual Unknown (Anthony Poh)247177-70322291600255056%112
Uprightvinyl.co.uk (Chris Porter)248N/AN/A318271440142873%146
Inspired By Digital Tech (S. Kaushik)24926213316241180102089%178
rsts11 (Robert Novak)250N/AN/A309221450214261%122
Doug's Blog (Doug DeFrank)251N/AN/A307291410153068%136
Ctrl-alt-insert.com (Frank Milisi)252218-3430441274015300%0
vMustard (Martin Riley)253220-33295351431142862%124
Ready Set Virtual (Keiran Shelden)254N/AN/A285311752163239%78
Stankowic development255251-4282241421224448%96
Northtech Consulting (Yendis Lambert)256N/AN/A281271651102048%96
Storage Gaga (Chin-Fah Heoh)257N/AN/A274311700153037%74
RoundTower Community Blog258N/AN/A2716451266112249%98
Virtual Story (Michael Peres)259213-4626023980102071%142
Jonathan Medd's Blog260257-3248321700193820%40
Techbrainblog (Ganesh Sekarbabu)261246-15244201361122442%84
Techazine (Philip Sellers)262260-2243221110234643%86
Leclmaas.nl (Kevin Leclaire)263N/AN/A23915910122462%124
ITuda (Lieven D'hoore)264237-2723513650142871%142
Virtual Management (Marco Giuricin)265236-29234251200142843%86
Virtual Brakeman (Tim Hynes)2662682230211260163236%72
The Lower Case W (Ben Liebowitz)267253-1420021166117340%0

Favorite Female BloggerVotes
vMiss/24x7 IT Connection (Melissa Palmer)388
TechniCloud (Rebecca Fitzhugh)199
24x7 IT Connection (Theresa Miller)162
Virtualization The Future (Ranjna Aggarwal)149
Rimmergram (Jane Rimmer)84
Transform or Die//24x7 IT Connection (Gina Rosenthal)65
Exchange Goddess/24x7 IT Connection (Phoummala Schmitt)37
Other/Not Listed645
Favorite Non-English BlogVotes
Jorge de la Cruz115
vInfrastructure Blog (Andrew Mauro)108
Homelaber Brasil (Valdecir Carvalho)104
Tayfun Deger83
NoLabNoParty (Paolo Valsecchi)68
Elastic Sky.de (Michael Schroeder)58
My Cloud Revolution (Markus Kraus)57
Homelaber Brasil (Valdecir Carvalho)55
IT Pro Land (Wesley Martins Silva)44
VMwareTV (Cahit Yolacan)43
Blog VMware (Leandro Ariel Leonhardt)41
My VMworld (Noham Medyouni)41
Aprendiendo a Virtualizar37
vBlog.io (Cedric Quillevere)37
DBigCloud (Daniel Romero Sanchez)31
Virtual Hive (SH, Hwang)29
VM at Work (Matthieu Gioia)29
Solutions4Crowds (Ricardo Conzatti)28
Blog de Sistemas (Norman FS)25
Other/Not Listed758
Favorite Scripting/Automation BlogVotes
Virtually Ghetto (William Lam)385
Virtu-al (Alan Renouf)114
VMGuru (Various)112
DBigCloud (Daniel Romero Sanchez)64
VMware Insight (Pranay Jha)63
vThinkBeyondVM (Vikas Shitole)63
My VMworld (Noham Medyouni)48
My Cloud Revolution (Markus Kraus)45
Virtualization The Future (Ranjna Aggarwal)42
Rudi Martinsen36
ukotic.net (Mark Ukotic)34
LostDomain (Martijn Smit)33
Jonathan Medd's Blog28
Ps1code.com (Roman Gelman)27
Other/Not Listed582
Favorite Storage BlogVotes
Cormac Hogan245
Cody Hosterman158
ESX Virtualization (Vladan Seget)130
All About VMware (Irshad & Sayed)70
vSphere-land (Eric Siebert)67
Long White Virtual Clouds (Michael Webster)62
Architecting IT (Chris Evans)48
StorageIO (Greg Schulz)46
Virtual Geek (Chad Sakac)45
Deep Storage (Howard Marks)44
Around the Storage Block (Calvin Zito)34
My Virtual Cloud (Andre Leibovici)33
Victor Virtualization (Victor Wu)30
Penguinpunk.net (Dan Frith)29
Kamshin (Max Mortillaro)26
Virtual Ramblings (John Nicholson)24
Storage Gaga (Chin-Fah Heoh)24
D8TA Dude (Richard Arnold)21
Other/Not Listed563
Favorite New BlogVotes
Digital Vspace (Tony Reeves)119
TechCrumble (Aruna Lakmal)109
Mastering VMware (Mayur Parmar)93
My Virtual Journey (Nisar Ahmad)78
IT Pro Land (Wesley Martins Silva)71
Snurf (Ian Sanderson)60
Uprightvinyl.co.uk (Chris Porter)59
Virtualvmx (Sachin Bhardwaj)58
Scottish VMUG (James Cruickshank)54
Virtubytes (Ryan S.)49
vSaiyan (Mohamed Amer)44
vGemba (Colin Westwater)33
Rudi Martinsen27
Other/Not Listed804
Favorite PodcastVotes
Virtually Speaking (P. Flecha/J. Nicholson)304
VMware Communities Roundtable (Eric Nielsen)123
Cut The Noise Podcast (Roundtower)90
Geek Whispers (Troyer/Brender/Lewis)90
Around the Storage Block Podcast (Calvin Zito - HPE)70
Veeam Community Podcast (Rick Vanover)70
Open TechCast (Edwards/Beg/Galbraith/Panchal/Johnson)68
Greybeards on Storage (Ray Lucchesi/Howard Marks_49
In Tech We Trust Podcast (Farley/Poulton/Vanover/Chapman/De Leenheer)48
ExploreVM Podcast (Paul Woodward)35
GC On-Demand Turbonomic (Eric Wright/Turbonomic)28
The CloudCast (A. Delp & B. Gracely)27
Other/Not Listed635
Favorite News/Information WebsiteVotes
The Register Virtualization News131
VM Blog (David Marshall)120
Virtualization Review109
ComputerWorld Virtualization News106
Silicon Angle91
CRN Virtualization News83
Tech Target's SearchVMware63
ZDNet Virtualization News62
Tech Target's SearchVirtualStorage57
Tech Target's SearchServerVirtualization47
Tech Genix42
Network World Virtualization News40
InfoWorld Virtualization News31
Other/Not Listed673
Favorite Independent BloggerVotes
VCDX133 (Rene Van Den Bedem)126
ESX Virtualization (Vladan Seget)124
The IT Hollow (Eric Shanks)53
NTPro.nl (Eric Sloof)50
Deep Storage (Howard Marks)48
TechCrumble (Aruna Lakmal)47
vNinja (Christian Mohn)39
Aprendiendo a Virtualizar35
VM Blog (David Marshall)28
NoLabNoParty (Paolo Valsecchi)27
Wojcieh.net (Wojciech Marusiak)27
VMware Insight (Pranay Jha)26
The Storage Architect (Chris Evans)24
doOdzZZ's Notes (Abdullah Abdullah)23
Zero to Hero (Saadallah Chebaro)23
Victor Virtualization (Victor Wu)21
StorageIO (Greg Schulz)20
Blog VMware (Leandro Ariel Leonhardt)20
IT Pro Land (Wesley Martins Silva)20
Rhys Hammond18
Ask Aresh (Aresh Sarkari)18
Elastic Sky.de (Michael Schroeder)18
IT Should Just Work (Chris Bradshaw)17
Solutions4Crowds (Ricardo Conzatti)17
DBigCloud (Daniel Romero Sanchez)16
Mastering VMware (Mayur Parmar)16
Snurf (Ian Sanderson)14
My Virtual Journey (Nisar Ahmad)14
vInfrastructure Blog (Andrew Mauro)13
Pro Virtual Zone (Luciano Patrao)13
Blog de Sistemas (Norman FS)13
Michael Ryom12
Blog about the Infrastructure (Deepaj)12
ExploreVM (Paul Woodward)11
Mike Tabor11
vCallaway (Matt Callaway)11
VirtualG (Graham Barker)11
Penguinpunk.net (Dan Frith)10
My Cloud Revolution (Markus Kraus)10
Scottish VMUG (James Cruickshank)10
Virtualization The Future (R. Aggarwal)10
Virtubytes (Ryan S.)9
vCloudnine (Patrick Terlisten)9
VM at Work (Matthieu Gioia)9
VMscribble (Matt Menkowski)9
Virtual Tassie (Matt Allford)8
VCDX181 (Marc Huppert)7
SafeKom Blog (Michal Iwanczuk)7
Kamshin (Max Mortillaro)7
Virtualization How To (Brandon Lee)6
Tekhead (Alex Galbraith)6
vGemba (Colin Westwater)6
vSaiyan (Mohamed Amer)6
D8TA Dude (Richard Arnold)5
VanBragt.net (Wilco van Bragt)5
Uprightvinyl.co.uk (Chris Porter)3
Ready Set Virtual (Keiran Shelden)2
Other/Not Listed520

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Top vBlog 2018 Top 25 & Category results

Below are the results for the Top 25 vBlogs and Category winners that were revealed today. You can watch the recorded results show and the slide deck used is also available below. Full results will be published very soon!

BlogRankPreviousChangeTotal PointsTotal VotesVoting Points#1 Votes# 2017 postsPost Points (2 per post, 400 max)Google Pagespeed %Pagespeed Points 200 possible
Virtually Ghetto (William Lam)1107440766707423511322670%140
ESX Virtualization (Vladan Seget)220506055645429230040059%118
Cormac Hogan33047475484417227815687%174
Scott Lowe blog45129983602554412324699%198
vSphere-land (Eric Siebert)56127353732455126112279%158
vMiss (Melissa Palmer)616102635326236311499887%174
Cody Hosterman71582622284237088469280%160
VMGuru (Various)810226183812356155911872%144
The IT Hollow (Eric Shanks)99025993332247315310695%190
VCDX133 (Rene Van Den Bedem)101112596323233029489685%170
Virtual Geek (Chad Sakac)117-4259436223387459083%166
Wahl Network (Chris Wahl)124-8258734923855326469%138
Derek Seaman's Blog1312-12498328226226397879%158
NTPro.nl (Eric Sloof)148-622103111848913927842%84
Virtualization is Life! (Anthony Spiteri)1519421732511841418817678%156
Jorge de la Cruz Mingo163014163515911273618436870%140
Notes from MWhite (Michael White)17311416181931210711523089%178
Virten.net (Florian Grehl)18224159222513524377483%166
vInfrastructure Blog (Andrew Mauro)1923415911941075618236476%152
VM Blog (David Marshall)2026615001489462660040077%154
VMware Arena (Mohammed Raffic)21846314931711187279118262%124
vNinja (Christian Mohn)2217-51483213124720255093%186
Tayfun Deger23331014351531173426112270%140
VCDX56 (Magnus Andersson)2414-1013331609811314128235%70
TinkerTry (Paul Braren)252721288159994106312684%168



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Watch the Top vBlog 2018 results show live on 3/21

Join myself along with special guests Eric Wright, Angelo Luciani and John Troyer as we countdown the top 25 bloggers based on the results from my annual VMware/virtualization blog survey. This event will be broadcast via a live webinar at 8:30am PST on Thursday March 21st and also saved to YouTube for later viewing. So don’t miss out on the fun and go sign up for a great event where we will be covering:

  • State of blogging today (Why, value, how to be successful at it, vExpert program)
  • History of Top vBlog
  • What’s new with Top vBlog and scoring process
  • Importance of having a well designed blog
  • Top 25 Blogger countdown
  • Category winners
  • Closing comments
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Happy 4th Birthday VVols! – Is 2019 the year of VVols?

VMware’s new Virtual Volumes (VVols) storage architecture became available exactly 4 years ago today as part of the vSphere 6.0 GA. The vSphere 6.0 datasheet described VVols in this manner:

Transform Storage for your Virtual Machines – vSphere Virtual Volumes* enables your external storage arrays to become VM-aware. Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM) allows common management across storage tiers and dynamic storage class of service automation. Together they enable exact combinations of data services (such as clones and snapshots) to be instantiated more efficiently on a per VM basis.

I was very involved in the initial launch of VVols and worked closely with VMware to promote and market it. There was very little ecosystem support for VVols at launch, only 4 vendors supported it on day 1, and looking back over the years VVols has come a long way since it’s initial release.

Last year I wrote that I felt 2018 wasn’t the year of VVols for a number of reasons, this year however I feel that 2019 will be the year that VVols adoption picks up pace and we finally start to get towards seeing mainstream usage. I recently wrote an article on the HPE blog detailing the reason for this, you can go read my thoughts behind that over there. I did want to talk a bit about the dreaded “Chasm” that is typical of technology adoption and how VVols relates to that model.

I recently took a product management leadership course and they covered in detail the stages of product adoption from the early market stage where products are born and launched to the chasm stage which must be crossed before you get to the mainstream stage. The chasm represents a significant challenge for a product or technology for it to cross over from early adopters to more mainstream adoption. The representative user base for any technology product typically includes the following user types:

  • Innovators/Techies – always adopting new stuff right away
  • Early Adopters/Visionaries – trying to stay ahead of the herd
  • Pragmatists – sticking with the herd
  • Conservatives – OK with the status quo and moves only when they have to
  • Skeptics – no way are they moving

The chasm exists between the visionaries and pragmatists which represent a very small percentage of a user base and winning over the pragmatists are the key to the adoption of any new technology and it going mainstream. This illustration that Pete Flecha from VMware used in his VMworld session illustrates this:

In this illustration the chasm looks fairly small and easy to cross but in reality that chasm is very wide and can represent many years to cross. The course I took highlights 2 key deliverables that a product must have to cross the chasm and win over the Pragmatists:

  • Credible customer references from fellow trusted Pragmatists, references from early adopters/visionaries are interesting but not sufficient
  • 100% minimum viable whole product that truly solves the Pragmatists pain point

To date VVols has been lacking in both of these key areas. If you look around you will find very few (if any) customer case studies with VVols. I know in general it’s often very hard to find customers willing to be references and have a case study done. I did have one years ago for VVols that was translated from an Asian language that wasn’t all that great. I don’t think I have seen any other vendors that have published one and VMware has not published any that I’m aware of as well. VMware did do a customer session on VVols last year at VMworld which was good but that doesn’t apply well beyond VMworld and is not easily consumable for anyone looking for VVols case studies today.

I think what VVols desperately needs is a lot more customer references and case studies. I came across a new one internally just last week that is in development and I plan on being very active in that one. What is needed though is for all partners, particularly the ones with larger VVols user bases to identify customers and develop these, the biggest VVols partners today are HPE, Pure, EMC and NetApp. Besides that I believe if VMware itself would publish some it would greatly help all partners as VMware has a larger audience and independent credibility from its partners. For that I’m calling out Lee Caswell who offered to help us promote VVols, having a good case study or two would really help move VVols adoption forward.

On the next point of having a 100% minimum viable whole product, VVols has been largely a work in progress since it’s initial release, this includes both the deliverables from VMware and the deliverables from partners trying to build VVols solutions. I would refer to these as two completely separate products as VMware has a product to deliver for VVols and partners have their own VVols products to deliver. On the VMware side in the beginning there were limitations including compatibility issues and lack of feature support with VVols. Over the years most of those limitations have disappeared, the big one we are still waiting on is SRM support which is finally coming this year. VMware is very near to having a 100% minimum viable whole product with VVols.

On the partner side, many partners have mature VVols solutions today but there are also many that are still playing catch up as well. Scale has been an issue with most partners that have to support many thousands of LUNs with VVols, expect scale to continue to increase as vendors continually optimize their arrays to handle VVols at large scale. How close any partner is to having a 100% minimum viable whole product with VVols is entirely up to each partner, I’d argue a few vendors are very close to being there but there are others that are pretty far off.

Overall I would say VVols is definitely ready for prime time, it’s assuredly ready for use across just about every vendors platform however there may be a “but” involved with some platforms and as long as you understand and accept that “but” you won’t have any issues with VVols. By “but” I’m saying VVols works just fine and does this and this “but” it just doesn’t do this right now. An example of a “but” may be doesn’t support replication or doesn’t scale over 5,000 VVols. If that “but” doesn’t apply to your environment you have nothing to worry about, if it does you can still use VVols to the extent you can while avoiding the “but” scenario and using VMFS for whatever may require it.

The bottom line is I feel 2019 is the year where VVols adoption will accelerate at a faster pace than it has before. From a development perspective it’s in a good place right now, the core VVols product is solid, there is really nothing limiting partners from building out complete VVols solutions right now. Partners will continue to mature and enhance their VVols solutions and SRM support is coming this year. I can’t say that VVols will completely cross the chasm this year but if VMware and it’s partners collectively promote the benefits of VVols and help increase customer awareness it will go a long way towards getting there. It will really take a group effort and that includes customers as well, if you are a customer that uses VVols today please reach out to VMware and/or your storage vendor and tell us your VVols story. Together we can navigate the chasm and climb the mountain to get VVols to be mainstream where it deserves to be.

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