Author Archives: Pablo Roesch

The New VMware Hands-on Labs Dashboard

Keep track of our progress

Friends,

We had a few moments in between our releases and wanted to share with you a little dashboard we put together to help us keep track of how things are going.

Loads of exciting items to track (I think this might apply mostly to HOL geeks like ourselves but just in case you are interested) Left to Right.

  1. Number of Active users – this refers to users who have created an account and actually have taken a lab.
  2. Total Labs Deployed – this is mostly a testament of the infrastructure the teams have put together. We are past 1/2 million labs deployed, or 6 million Virtual Machines since Jan 2013.
  3. Active Concurrent Users – This is as it implies – number of users actively taking a lab. What I really love about this gauge is that it is active all day long – to us this means our users from around the globe are using our service
  4. HOL in a Box Events – This is from our HOL in a Box request calendar that shows events coming up. If you are not aware you too can request capacity for your small training event. http://vmware.com/go/holinabox
  5. Top Trending Labs – Active Users – This is a real time feed of the popular labs at the moment, the number to the right indicates the number of users taking that lab.
  6. Current Visitor Map – Its nice to see users around the globe taking our labs

We hope you like our Dashboard – Please do send us any feedback.

Regards

VMware Hands-on Labs Team

New Trevor Videos – Tips and Tricks when taking a VMware Hands-on Lab

Friends,

Trevor was in town last week and he created some videos to help you guys have an even better experience when taking a VMware Hands-on Lab. The videos are short and simple, and designed for someone that is just getting started using VMware Hands-on Labs – be sure to tell a friend and hope to see you at VMworld.

Tip #1 Loading of the Hands-on Labs

Tip #2 Checking to see your lab status (very cool feature in your Lab desktop most folks overlook)

Tip #3 Working your way around the User Interface,,

Tip #4 Sending feedback, getting help on Twitter @vmwarehol, Hands-on Labs Community hol.vmware.com

The Amazing Hands-on Lab Trucker Hat – PEX2015 Attendees

Friends,

Join us at PEX 2015 – Moscone West Room 2001 for a chance to win The Official VMware Hands-on Labs Trucker Hat – supplies are limited so hurry on down and take a lab…

Take a Lab - chance to win a Trucker Hat

Take a Lab – chance to win a Trucker Hat

Keep on Truckin

Pablo

Partner Exchange Attendees – Earn extra Sales Rewards Points by taking End User Computing Hands-on Labs!

Partner Exchange 2015 Attendees,

You will be able to earn extra Sales Rewards Points by taking End User Computing Hands-on Labs during VMware Partner Exchange 2015. The process is simple – just come in to the Hands-on Labs in Moscone West during Partner Exchange and take any lab from the End User Computing Hands-on Lab catalog for your free points. Your points will be added up and credited to your profile after the event.

  • VTSP-DV (v6) + Hands on Labs (HOL v6) = 500 sales rewards points.
  • Exclusive rewards for accredited VMware Partner Sales and Technical Professionals

The VMware Sales Rewards program rewards accredited sales and technical partner reps for completing sales and training activities.The more you sell and train, the more you earn! To learn more visit www.vmware.com/go/salesrewards/video

euc-promo

Help us pick the new Hands-on Labs Desktop background – Vote Today

Folks,

We are rolling out a new look and feel for the Hands-on Labs brand logo and need your help choosing our new desktop design. These are the desktops that you will see in the background as you take a  lab so we figured it would be good to get your input.
We have two to chose from.

So do let us know which you prefer – we will be entering your name for a cool random prize

Vote Today ! 

Option #1 – “Galactica”

Galactica-Final

 

Option #2 – “Cool Steel” 

Cool-Steel

2013 Season Hands-on Labs Expire December 1st 2014..

Friends,

Just wanted to remind everyone that the 2013 Hands-on Labs will expire December 1st 2014. These are the labs we moved into the “HOL Archives” Catalog.

To look for the latest Hands-on Lab on the same topic search for the “14” in the SKU – So, for example if you have been using the Performance Lab from 2013 Season (HOL-SDC-1304) you can swap out the “13” with “14” and find the latest equivalent to that Hands-on Lab. (HOL-SDC-1404) We are just trying to keep things simple for you.

Latest Hands-on Labs can be found at http://labs.hol.vmware.com (Self Register)

Enjoy your lab !

Be sure to use the latest Hands-on Labs - 2013 Labs expire 12-1-2014

Be sure to use the latest Hands-on Labs – 2013 Labs expire 12-1-2014

 

 

 

Heads up Maintenace Window August 9th 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM PST

hol-maintenance-window

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Folks,

We are getting ready for VMworld 2014 Hands-on Labs and need to do some maintenance across all of our datacenters and NEE tenants this weekend.

Many thanks to the NEE and OneCloud teams for working long hours and over the weekend !

When: Saturday August 9th

Time: 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM PST

All labs will be down for maintenance.

Backstage Pass Session #4 – Project NEE & OneCloud – Delivering Hand-On Labs at Cloud Scale

A peek at what it our dashboard look like

A peek at what our monitoring dashboard looks like  during VMworld – Join us for this Webinar on How Project NEE works and how the OneCloud Team operate the Hands-on Labs Infrastructure.

Wednesday June 4th 2014
Time: 9:00 AM PDT
Length: 60 minutes+ depending on questions
In this session we will have the guys from the ProjectNEE team and OneCloud walk us through the architecture and go into details on how we manage our infrastructure.
The first part of this session we will cover details on Project NEE. The second part of the session will go into OneCloud – our internal Cloud infrastructure service. The OneCloud team will discuss how they use the vCloud Suite – vCenter Operations Manager, vCenter Log Insight and various tools.  This is a great session for folks interested in learning how we run and operated our infrastructure and a great opportunity to ask questions.
Agenda
– What is ProjectNee
– What is OneCloud
– Solving the Delivery Problem
– Operating Cloud at Scale
– Questions and answers
This meeting will be recording for folks that cannot attend.
Our Speakers:
Michael DiPetrillo  – Principle Architect – Co Creator of Project NEE
Brian Smith – Director One Cloud Operations

PDF and MP3 Now Available…

Back up ! Uplanned Maintenance – (Extra large fingers at work)

Many thanks to our OneCloud guys – service is back up and humming along – please let us know if you run into any issue…

Thanks

VMware Hands-on Labs Team

Folks,

We are experiencing some unplanned downtime this morning – we were migrating our storage over and ran into some issues with the size of our fingers (fat fingers)

Will keep you guys posted on updates – the guys are working hard to get the service back up and appreciate your patience..

Please follow us on twitter for short message updates –

thanks

Backstage Pass Session #3 – Performance Tuning Hands-on Labs VMworld

Joshua Schnee at VMworld checking on our HOL Performance

Jon S. asking Joshua  S. about our HOL Cloud Performance VMworld 2013 San Francisco CA

Backstage Pass Session #3 – Performance Tuning Hands-on Labs VMworld

This session will discuss how we tested and tuned our Datacenters for optimal performance. Josh will discuss the tools he used to test our multiple clouds and Joey will go into details on the infrastructure we have deployed and our planning for VMworld. This is a great session for folks getting ready to roll out their Clouds and a great opportunity to ask questions.

Date: Wednesday May 7th, 2014

PDF + MP3 is available now