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VMware User Groups: Not for just for VMware employees and Vendors

Aaron Dumbrow, , , Leave a comment

A couple weeks ago we had our annual Portland VMUG User Conference.  First of all, big Kudos to the local VMUG leaders, and a big thank to the VMUG National Headquarters, and the vendors who sponsored us.  A reoccurring theme with all of these events I participate in is the number of vendors and VMware employees presenting.  I say this not to be critical but to encourage a different mindset.  I am hesitant to say this, because I love getting up in front of the VMware users and talking about what we are doing, and getting their feedback and questions.  That is one of my favorite parts about being here is talking to our customers.

Something which has made the rounds with the usual suspects is the concept of mentoring customers to speak at the VMUGs.  Mike Laverick wrote this article last year, and I think we need to keep pushing this concept forward.  The VMUG has a program called Feed Forward, to make this a reality.  Now I am not the foremost expert on presenting, but the VMUG is something I consider personally important to me, especially in Portland.  I have been a member for 4 years now, and I have been presenting for 2-3 of those years as a partner and VMware employee.  I have met more cool people, and had more amazing conversations through the process.

The VMUG is not about me, it is not about vendors, it is absolutely all about the customer.  It does very little good to have our partners and employees present every session.  Of course there are some customers who do present, but as a VMUG member, and someone who cares deeply for what we do, I would encourage you to get out there and speak up and get involved.  There are literally hundreds of us who are willing to help you and encourage you.  Most of us are not perfect presenters, but we just want you to be successful.  I encourage you to start small, but let us help you start being more involved and grow your personal brand at your local VMUG.

VMware User Groups: Not for just for VMware employees and Vendors

The universe is big. It’s vast and complicated and ridiculous.

Aaron DumbrowLeave a comment

As I was meeting with a customer recently, we got onto the topic of workload portability. It was interesting, we were discussing the various cloud providers, AWS, Azure, and VMware’s vCloud Air, primarily, and how could they, a VMware shop, move workloads in and out of various cloud providers.

Most industry analysts, and those of us on the front lines trying to make this all work, or help our customers make it work, will agree that we are in a transition phase. Many people smarter than I have talked at length about how virtualization and infrastructure as a service is a bridge to get us to a new way of application development and delivery, one where all applications are delivered from the cloud, and where development is constant and iterative. Imagine patch Tuesday every hour every day…

So how do we get there? Well if virtualization is simply a bridge, that begs the question of portability of workloads, virtual machines in this case. Looking at the problem objectively, we have started down that path previously with the Open Virtualization Format (OVF), but that requires a powered off Virtual Machine which is then exported, copied, and then imported to the new system which creates the proper format as part of the import process. But why can’t we just live migrate workloads without downtime between disparate hypervisors and clouds?

From my perspective the answer is simple, it is coming, it has to, but the vendors will hold out as long as they can. For some companies, the hypervisor battle is still waging. I think it is safe to say we are seeing the commoditization of the hypervisor. As we look at VMware’s products, they are moving from being a hypervisor company, again nothing insider here, just review the expansion into cloud management, network and storage virtualization, application delivery, and so much more, but more and more they are able to manage other vendors hypervisors. We are seeing more focus on “Cloud Management Platforms”, and everyone wants to manage any hypervisor. It has to follow then that some standards emerge around the hypervisor, virtual hard drives, the whole stack so we can start moving within our own datacenters.

This does seem counter intuitive, but if we put this into perspective, there is very little advantage in consolidation at this point. Most companies are as consolidated as they will get, we are now just working to get many of them to the final 10% or so. It is rare to find a company who is not virtualizing production workloads now, so now we need to look at what is next. Standards must prevail as they have in the physical compute, network, and storage platforms. This doesn’t negate the value of the hypervisor, but it does provide for choice, and differentiation around features and support.

I don’t suspect we will see this happen anytime soon, but it begs the question of why not? It would seem to be the logical progression.

The universe is big. It’s vast and complicated and ridiculous.

Bow Ties are cool!

Aaron DumbrowLeave a comment

Now that I am past my first 90 days here at VMware, I consider myself something of an authority on absolutely nothing. Thus I feel it incumbent on me to post a semi serious post about life, liberty, and the pursuit of virtualizaiton.

Since coming here I get the question at least once a month about how to get hired at VMware. The truth is there is no secret formula, no one trick that will get you an interview, or past the interview. The truth is that you just have to stand out and bring something unique to our growing team. I have seen many of my friends go through interviews, some get hired, and some not make it. It is not that they aren’t good enough, but there has to be something which sets those who make it apart from those who don’t. What follows may or may not make sense, be true, or be helpful, but it is my attempt to shed some light into what it takes to be a part of our team and a part of changing the technology world.

Flexible

Working at a company growing as quickly and disrupting the technology world the way VMware has requires flexibility. Being amenable to change on a moments notice is a requirement here. Every day we wake up and have a new requirement, a new idea, a new challenge. No day is ever dull or the same as the last, and just when you think you have it figured out, there is a new strategy, or a new solution for our customers.

Humble

This one caught me by surprise too. The best people at VMware are the most humble. They are the types who are willing to sweep the floors, talk to the new hire class about how great VMware is, or talk to our largest customers about how we are taking responsibility for something that may not have gone as well as we thought it would. Being here means remembering that it has nothing to do with me, it is all about the cool technology and the team. Imagine walking around the Palo Alto campus and bumping into the guy that literally wrote the book on VMware storage or networking, and talking to them as a team member.

Curious

Everyone I meet here, well almost everyone, has a love for learning. Since joining the team, I have spent most of my time asking questions, reading, studying our roadmaps, and debating strategy, technology, and ideas with some incredibly smart people. I have found that most of the people here want to know what others think, they are well read, and generally trying to absorb as much information as they can. It is hard to be around and not get motivated to read the latest white papers, learn a new programming language, or grab someone who has been here a while and ask them questions.

Being Awesome

We are a team of winners. That isn’t me being prideful or putting anyone down, we just love to win. We love bringing amazing ideas to life, everyone on the team, at least everyone I have met so far, is all about teamwork. That being said, we all work for a greater good, we are executing on a vision, not for ourselves, but to make our little section of the world a better place. Nowhere is this more evident than in the commitment to giving back. We are encouraged to volunteer, not because it makes the company look good, but because it is part of the culture. We are encouraged to be involved in things we believe in and to make a positive difference wherever we are.

Where do I sign up?

So really the best way to join us is to be involved in the community. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my current manager began to screen me at the VMUG User Conference. Since moving to Portland, I have done my best to get involved in the local tech community and help out where I can. I have volunteered to speak at the conferences, work the booth for my employer, evangelize the various user groups, and just show up to support friends. Get your name out there as someone who is willing to do what ever is needed. Be active, be sincere, and be present. VMware is a great place to work, but only because we have an awesome community, awesome partners, and awesome users. Whether you want to work at VMware, or just be involved, this is an amazing place. Get out there and be involved in the community. The Portland VMUG Conference is November 4th this year at the Oregon Convention Center. Come by and check it out, learn more, and find a way to pitch in. We are all about community, and that is the best way to find out about working here.

Bow Ties are cool!

EVO Rail, is technology really making things easier for us?

Aaron Dumbrow

This week at VMworld, the announcement of what had been Project Marvin became official.  I wanted to add my voice to the debate on the use case for this, and where I believe the industry goes with products like this.  To answer the title question, EVO is a step in the right direction, but it is not the end of the evolution.  As always I have no inside information, I am not speaking on behalf of VMware, this is my opinion on where the industry goes and what I think is cool and fun.

To understand this, we need to consider something my wife said recently.  As a teacher, she was a bit frustrated this week to return to school to find her laptop re-imaged, and her printer was not configured.  I tried to help her remotely, but it is something I will need to work on when I get back.  Her comment was, “Technology is supposed to make things easier”.  This stung for a moment, after all technology is my life, but when I thought about her perspective, it struck me just how right she is.  Why afterall shouldn’t the laptop have reached out, discovered a printer near by and been prepared to print to it, afterall, my iPhone/iPad can do that with no configuration on the device itself.

So what does this have to do with EVO?  If we look at EVO as a stand alone product, it doesn’t quite add up.  It is essentially a faster way of implimenting a product which is not too complicated to install.  I have personally installed thousands of Nodes of vSphere, hundreds of vCenters, it is pretty simple with a proper design.  The real value here though, the trend, is simplification.  Just because I know how to build a computer, doesn’t mean I want to.  Just because I can easily impliment a massive vSphere environment, that doesn’t mean I want to go through the steps.  That is why scripting is so popular, it enables us to do repetetive tasks more effeciently.

The second part of this though really comes down to a vision, where are we going.  If you look at where we are going as an industry, we are moving to do more at the application layer in terms of high availability, disaster recovery, and performance.  We see this with the openstack movement, the cloud movement, docker, and so many others.  At some point, we are going to stop worrying about highly available infrastructure.  At some point our applications will all work everywhere, and if the infrastructure fails, we will be redirected to infrastructure in another location without realizing it.  

That is the future, but for now we have to find a way to hide the complexity from our users, and still provide the infrastructure.  We need to scale faster, better, stronger, and more resilient, without impacting legacy applications.  Someday we will all be free from our devices, and use what ever is in our hand, or in front of us, or just get a chip in our brains, someday HA won’t be an infrastructure issue, but until then projects like EVO will help us to bridge that gap.  Not perfect arguably, but this is a bridge to get us a step closer to a better world.  At the end of the day the more complexity we hide with software, the better we are, provide that software is solid, and we can continusiouly improve.

EVO Rail, is technology really making things easier for us?

VMware, come for the people, stay for the vision

Aaron DumbrowLeave a comment

As I approach the end of my second month here at VMware, having had this conversation with some friends, I thought it would be valuable to talk about the reasons why I chose to join, and what it looks like from this side of the fence. As a disclaimer, what I am disclosing is all public knowledge, nothing untoward here, I am speaking for myself not VMware, and this is intended as a larger statement on careers and where we choose to go.

When I made the choice to join VMware I was very happy at HP. I was looking for a new position within the company to align with my career goals, but I was very happy. HP is a great place to work, my peers, management, and teams were amazing. When VMware approached me I was very adamant that I was not interested, even though I was helping to lead the VMware Champions team within HP, and have a great love for all things virtual and cloud related. What finally convinced me was the people. Everyone I talked to, both during interviews, and friends who worked there, was excited. Everyone had the vision and was on fire to change our industry for the better. There were many conversations around products, around culture, and around where the company was headed.

When I got here, I couldn’t help but be sucked into that culture. I was excited, and every day I get a little more excited. We are doing amazing things here. When I go talk to customers I am sharing the vision with them. Where we see the industry going, how we are improving businesses, simplifying them. This is my dream job…well for now. Next week VMworld 2014 kicks off, and we share a little more of the dream with over 20,000 of our friends, customers, and partners. We have a vision and it is so awesome.

So what is the point of all of this? Choosing a career is tough, but finding the right company is tougher. One of the things I have learned the hard way has been finding a company with a vision that I can really believe in. I don’t just work for VMware, I believe we are changing the industry. I came here because there are some really amazing people and products, but I am here now because I believe in our vision. It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur, or a plumber, if you don’t believe in what you are doing it shows. Life is short, and if you are not sold out for your job, you need to ask yourself why. I am not saying go out and quit your job because you don’t like it, but take a long hard look at yourself and ask why you aren’t passionate about it. No matter what you do, it is up to you to make it awesome. VMware is awesome because I believe in what we are doing. Do you believe in what you are doing?

VMware, come for the people, stay for the vision

Changing Direction…Again

Aaron DumbrowLeave a comment

The funny thing about life and careers is you never know where you will end up. Alistair Cooke wrote a fascinating article, about how random his career has been, http://www.demitasse.co.nz/wordpress2/?p=1174. Recently a number of my friends from around the globe have been asking me about career moves, or for advice, assuming I actually know something or know what I am doing. I have come to realize, similarly to Alistair, planning my career does not work.  I am no where near where I thought I would be at any point in my career, I have surpassed my own expectations, not because I am smarter than anyone else, but because I love to learn and I have been very blessed to meet some very intelligent people who have taught me more than I ever thought possible.

Over the past 20+ years I have had the privilege of working as a soldier, tech support, a systems admin, a systems engineer, and a technology architect.  Recently I had a conversation with the team at VMware.  I was pretty convinced that I didn’t want to change jobs, but I do love VMware, and I have spent a great deal of time and effort to understand the strategy, as well as to work with VMware as a partner on many levels.

The interesting thing I learned during my interview process was that I have actually been interviewing for this job for nearly 9 months now without realizing it.  Interactions with various VMware employees showed them I was interested in VMware as a company, and in helping customers understand more about the solutions.  Through the conversation, the team at VMware laid out a strategy, and a future which is compelling.  The thing though that finally sold me though was the people.  I have a number of friends at VMware, and I follow many on the Tech Marketing team, so I feel like I know what things are like there, but meeting with the local team, and getting their perspective, and understanding the vision from their level.

I do want to say, HP is an exceptional company with some amazing products, and with some of the smartest people I have ever met.  I am humbled to say I was a part of the team at HP, and I am equally humbled and excited to be joining the VMware team.   I will continue to write my own opinions, and things that interest me.  If I have anything to recommend to anyone considering how to improve their current position, or find another it is the following.

  • Never stop learning
  • Ask questions
  • Find smart people and hang out with them
  • Learn from everyone
  • Give something back to the community.
  • Thank you’s go a long way
  • Humility saves you from looking silly
  • Always be polite and helpful, you never know when someone might help you, or when you might be able to help them.

So all this to say, this month I will be joining the VMware Health Care team as a Senior Systems Engineer.  I have much to learn, but I have confidence in the team, the product, and the strategy.  I look forward to continuing my journey, and to giving back to the community wherever possible.

Changing Direction…Again

Hyper-Convergence: a paradigm shift, or an inevitable evolution?

Aaron DumbrowLeave a comment

With the recent article on CRN about HP considering the acquisition of Simplivity, http://www.crn.com/news/data-center/300073066/sources-hewlett-packard-in-talks-to-acquire-hyper-converged-infrastructure-startup-simplivity.htm, it seems a good time to look at what simplivity does, and why they are an attractive acquisition target.

In order to answer both questions, we need to look at history. First was the mainframe. That was great, but inflexible, so we moved to distributed computing. This was substantially better, and brought us into the new way of computing, but there was a great deal of waste. Virtualization came along and enabled us to get higher utilization rates on our systems, but this required an incredible amount of design work up front, and it allowed the siloed IT department to proliferate since it did not force anyone to learn a skillset outside their own particular area of expertice. This lead us to converged infrastructure, a concept that if you could get everything from a single vendor, or support from a single vendor at the very least. Finally came the converged system, it provided a single vendor/support solution, packaged as one system, and we used it to grow the infrastructure based on performance or capacity. It was largely inflexible, by design, but it was simple to scale, and predictible.

To solve this problem, companies started working on the concept of Hyper-Convergence. Basically there were smaller discrete converged systems, many of which created high availability zones not through redundant hardware in each node, but through clustering. The software lived on each discrete converged node, and it was good. Compute, Network, and Storage, all scaling out in pre-defined small discrete nodes, enabling capacity planning, and fewer IT administrators to manage larger environments. Truly Software Defined Data Center, but at a scale that could start small and grow organically.

Why then is this interesting for a company like HP? As always I am not an insider, I have no information that is not public, I am engaging in speculation, based on what I am seeing in the industry. Looking at HP’s Converged Systems strategy, looking at what the market is doing, I believe that in the near future, the larger players in this space will look to converged systems as the way to sell. Hyper-convergence is a way forward to address the market space that is either too small, or needing something that traditional converged systems cannot provide. Hyper-convergence can provide a complimentary product to existing converged systems, and will round out solutions in many datacenters.

Hyper-Convergence is a part of the inevitable evolution of technology, whether HP ends up purchasing simplivity, these types of conversations show that such concepts are starting to pickup steam. It is time for companies to innovate or die, and this is a perfect opportunity for an already great company to keep moving forward.

Hyper-Convergence: a paradigm shift, or an inevitable evolution?

It takes a community to create change

Aaron DumbrowLeave a comment

A brief break from talking about the software defined datacenter, I thought it might be good to talk about community groups, and a little about giving back.

This morning in Church, the message was about being generous, how we are much happier when we give others what we have, not so much talking about money or possessions, but rather something of ourselves, something that is important. I thought that was an interesting parallel to what our technical communities do.

I was recently recognized for my work in the VMware community with the title of vExpert, the reason I applied to the program is similar to my reason for joining HP. I have for about a decade worked on virtualization and storage platforms. When the opportunity to join HP came up, it was not HP specifically I was excited about. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great company, and an exciting place to be, but it wasn’t on my career plan. What intrigued me was the opportunity to join a company where I could teach others about the technology I am so passionate about, give back to the community, but what sealed the deal was the company philosophy. At the heart of the HP Way are the rules of the garage.

  • Believe you can change the world.
  • Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
  • Know when to work alone and when to work together.
  • Share – tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
  • No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)
  • The customer defines a job well done.
  • Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
  • Invent different ways of working.
  • Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.
  • Believe that together we can do anything.
  • Invent.

When I look at these, I see them on display in the tech communities, in the user groups, in the books, in the blog posts, in the twitter debates, in the sessions at trade shows, and in the conversations we have with customers, competitors, peers, and friends.  It is amazing how we can all work with different products, for different companies, we can debate who has the best product, but we do seem to have a common goal of educating those around us, and making the world better through technology.

As you go throughout your week, I would encourage you to look around and see what you can do to be generous. Teach someone something, help a junior team members career, get involved in an online community, or better yet join a user group. We all have something to contribute, just remember it’s not about me, it’s not about you, but it is time we started living the rules of the garage, and it is time we all made a difference.

It takes a community to create change