Twitter Handle: @bknudtson
Blog URL: http://knudt.net/vblog
Current Employer: Vital Support Systems (http://www.vitalsite.com)

How did you get into IT in the first place?

Must’ve been fate.  Ever since I was a kid I had my eyes set on being a paleontologist, but when it came time to look at colleges, I started to reconsider.  Seemed to not be a lot of room in that field.  Trying to come up with alternatives, I said to myself “You’ve enjoyed playing with computers more and more since you were 7, you can make a career out of that.”  My guidance counselor found a full ride scholarship that was being made available for a new school at the University of Nebraska Omaha.  I submitted for it and received it along with a web developer internship.

How did you get into working with VMware and becoming a 2011 vExpert?

I was working for a health insurance company at the time (my second IT job), where I started as their Webmaster.  We had just completed our HIPAA project, where I was the lead of the infrastructure design/build out, and I transitioned to an analyst role on the infrastructure team.  I was tasked with figuring out how we could consolidate our data center before we ran out of space.  That’s when I discovered VMware and went to my first VMWorld (2004). 

Many things followed after that that lead to becoming a vExpert in 2009: heavy participation in the VMware communities from almost the beginning (announced at VMWorld 2004), cofounded the Omaha VMUG in 2006, started my blog and joined Twitter in 2009.  

What would you tell someone who wanted to get a job like yours to do?

IT is a large career field.  Pick a part that you are passionate about and work hard.  Go out of your way, continue learning and growing, be active in the community (both generally and IT communities, like VMUGs), and give your coworkers and associates something positive to remember about you.  People will notice your work ethic and capacity for learning and growing (good or bad).  All of my jobs in this industry were practically given to me by people I knew who respected me and my capabilities.

Also, don’t be afraid to take on unique opportunities.  Starting off as a developer, I never would’ve expected to find myself designing data centers, but I took on challenges that morphed my position in IT. And I haven’t regretted those decisions one little bit.

For those that might have missed it, check your iPad for an update to the VMware View client.  We released an update to the iPad client that is optimized for View 5, it supports running as a background process,  and brings a new look and feel to the connection manager among other features.

Arne Fokkema – PowerCLI: Migrate templates during the Enter Maintenance Mode task – Normally when you put a host into Maintenance mode the templates will stay on the host instead of being migrate to a different host. This can be very annoying if you are performing maintenance on the vSphere host and a colleague needs to deploy a VM from the template. I am running vSphere 4.1 update 1. I don’t know if this is still the case with vSphere 5. The host in Maintenance mode will look like this.

Tommy Trogden – Setting up View 5 Connection Server for the 1st time – The next part of the Connection Broker install is to setup your vCenter and Composer credentials.    As with a lot of VMware’s new management user interfaces, everything is moving towards a Adobe Flex client to manage.  This is great because it frees you up from having to install management applications on your device.  It also makes it really handy to manage your View environment from just about any browser in any VM you happen to be in !!  VERY COOL.  Anyway, lets get back to the topic at hand. 

Chris Colotti – vCloud Director Clone Wars Part 2 (Deep Dive) – In part one we looked at the simple challenge of how to try and balance the I/O clone traffic on more than one host.  Although the fix is not ideal it does the job as best we can.  I decided to take a deeper look at this with a different scenario.  How does the cloning traffic flow when you are dealing with not only multiple clusters, but multiple vCenter Servers, and multiple datastores.

Eric Siebert – vSphere 5’s Storage DRS and storage profile function deliver control over storage resources – The release of VMware Inc.’s vSphere 5 brings many exciting new features and enhancements to the virtualization platform, especially when it comes to storage. Two of the biggest new features in that area are Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and Profile-Driven Storage, which provide some much-needed control over storage resources.

Jase McCarty – VMware View – Better service with less $upport cost$ – I speak with customers all the time on various technologies.  One such technology that I speak about is virtual desktop technologies, architecture, sizing, and so on.  I don’t know if I can say that 2011 is the “Year of VDI”, but I can say I have spoken to quite a few customers about it.  Remember that 2009, 2010, & 2011 were touted as the “Year of VDI.”

Twitter Handle: @vmhenk
Blog URL:  http://vmstarter.nl
Current Employer: Veeam software

How did you get into IT in the first place?

Just always played with C64, Atari, Commodore Amiga etc.

Started at an local Amiga reseller, quickly after this I started for the Amiga Tast Force (ATF) for desktop video (now called Multimedia) at Commodore. After a few jobs and 10+ years, I  worked for a company OTG software (created virual filesystems (HSM)) Legato Systems acquired OTG, and EMC acquired Legato. A while later EMC acquired VMware and VMware did start in the same office-corner as “the Legato team” (in this time called EMC software).

Here I did “learn” the potential of VMware and felt in love with the virtual world.

How did you get into working with VMware and becoming a 2011 vExpert?

Through EMC (at that time my employer) I felt in love with the virtual world, and about 1,5 years ago I started to collect some tips and tricks on my blog vmstarter.nl

Some readers recommended me for vExpert, and to my big surprise, I received an email from John Troyer and his team that I was selected as a vExpert 2011 🙂

What would you tell someone who wanted to get a job like yours to do?

Follow your dream in finding a job that suits you. Never think you know enough, and learn every day (not so hard for virtualisation)

Don’t be afraid to get stuck into new things – accept that you will never know 100% of something and learn to apply old knowledge to new situations.

And also sorry: since THIS job is already taken, and I still love the ride every day 😉

Calling all Bay Area VMware users! We need your help to improve our web site and products. If you qualify for one of our upcoming focus groups, you could receive $300 for your participation and could help shape our future development. See if you qualify.

VMworld Europe has concluded last week, and we had a whole bunch of announcements go out during the show. Here’s an overview of the few big ones:

• Together with Verizon Wireless in the US and Telefonica in Europe we announced the availability of Dual Persona Android™ Devices, which allow you to have your personal and work phones combined on one device, with two separate numbers. Dual Persona technology is powered by VMware Horizon Mobile solution, and we will talk about it today in more detail. To bring this solution to the market, the two wireless carriers and VMware are working with a growing ecosystem of partners. Samsung and LG will be among the first to offer mobile devices, tested and ready for use with VMware Horizon Mobile on the Verizon Wireless network.
• Further, we announced the availability of VMware vCenter™ Protect Essentials Plus and enhancements to the VMware Go Pro™ service, which simplify IT management for small and midsize businesses. We also have guests on the show today to talk about this announcement.
• Also, we announced with NVIDIA® a strategic partnership to advance virtual 3D graphics technology and enable the remote delivery of high-end virtual desktops and applications for engineers, artists and scientists.
• SAP has announced that it selected our infrastructure and cloud management technology for one of its internal global IT modernization projects.

Outside of VMworld, we also unveiled our new management portfolio for the cloud, which included significant enhancements to VMware vCenter Operations™ and the introduction of new VMware vFabric Application Management™ and VMware IT Business Management suites.

If you want to follow all of our announcements, you can do so at vmware.com/company/news/

On Facebook, the vCloud team has linked to a new fling published by VMware Labs, which assists with vCloud automation. Find it and more cool links at facebook.com/vmwarevcloud

Also, VMware Fusion team has shared some handy tips and tricks on their Facebook page. It appears that they have started a weekly series for Tips and Tricks, so you may want to keep an eye on that. Go to facebook.com/vmwarefusion to check it out.

VMware View is inviting you to join the ThinApp bootcamp beginning next Monday, the 31^st of October. After the great success of the View Bootcamp, we decided to offer another one, and here it is. Head on over to facebook.com/vmwareview to find out more and to register.

We have thirteen cool new webinars listed on the webcasts page, covering topics from introductory to advanced, and a range of technologies from your plain Jane virtualization (if there is such a thing) to roaming desktops and Java environments. Go to webcasts.vmware.com to register.

As you know, the VMware Forum is concluded for the United States area, but you can still register for on-demand delivery. The Forum will be making stops in Mumbai, Tokyo, Singapore, and Halifax in November, and in Vancouver in December. Find the dates for your region and register by going to vmware.com and clicking on the big grey box that says VMware Forum 2011.

The following VMUGs are going to be meeting over the next week: Suisse Romande, Santa Barbara, Raleigh, Iowa, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Buffalo, Greensboro, Chicago, and Birmingham. There’s also the VMUG conference on the 31^st in Chicago. Cincinnati and Ontario are having their user conferences on the 2^nd of November, while UK will have its full-day event on the 3^rd.

By the way, the UK event on the 3^rd will be the first ever national user conference of this scale. It will be held on 3rd November at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham.

If you can’t wait until the 3rd November, a pre-event networking reception sponsored by Veeam software will be held at the Museum from 7pm the night before.

Virtualisation ‘rock stars’ including Duncan Epping, Frank Denneman, Cormac Hogan, Mike Laverick, Alan Renouf, Tom Howarth, Simon Gallagher and Julian Wood will be hosting technical sessions, Q&A workshops and generally offering their expertise to attendees throughout the day. For more dates and locations, head on over to myvmug.org

Twitter Handle: @gguglie
Blog URL: http://virtualbyte.wordpress.com

How did you get into IT in the first place?

I've started when I was a boy as a self learner on a Commodore 16 and in the subsequent year I went “all Commodore”, going to a Commodore 64 and then to an Amiga. In these years I became the “IT-boy” for my friends and parenthood and I had the opportunity to play with all kinds of home and PC/MS-DOS computer. During University, I played with Solaris, HP-UX and Linux distributions and this gave me a better understanding of Operating Systems and networking.

How did you get into working with VMware and becoming a 2011 vExpert?

I've started with VMware Workstation: for academic purposes, I needed a linux box and a windows box concurrently and I started looking for some way to have them on my (single) pc.

My first true virtualization project was with VMware ESX 3.0 and was about create a multi-OS source building system without having a rack full of roaring and aging servers 🙂 From that time I became more and more involved in virtualization and I became the virtualization specialist in my workplace.

About 1,5 years ago I decided to get really involved in the VMware community, in particular because I saw a lack in the Italian VMware

community: I started a blog, I opened a twitter account and I got in touch with other people not only from Italy (my native country) but also from other country. This probably has open new perspectives and I became co-founder and board member of the Italian VMUG! Finally, I applied for vExpert and now I have the honor to be among all these smart guys!

What would you tell someone who wanted to get a job like yours to do?

First of all: enjoy and love what you do. Never stop learning, be a self-starter and never stand still: the IT field is ever-evolving and there is a lot to do and a lot to know.

Secondly, get involved and collaborate with other people: nobody can know everything and you can learn something from everybody.

Twitter Handle: vmroyale
Blog URL: http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/vmroyale/
Current Employer: I work for a Fortune 1000 in Richmond, VA

How did you get into IT in the first place?

I started off like most people, using computers for fun. I would say that I really got into IT in my first job out of college. I ran the computer labs at Longwood University. It was a mix of managing student employees and managing Windows 95 on about 100 computers. It was trial by fire, and I learned a lot in a short time. From there I climbed the ladder at Longwood University, where I moved into a junior networking position and finally into a Systems Engineer position. Along the way, I've worked with desktops, networking, programming, systems and storage. It turned out that these experiences were all great preparation for moving into virtualization with VMware.

How did you get into working with VMware and becoming a 2011 vExpert?

I immediately started working with VMware GSX in 2006, after a co-worker showed me the software. From there it was VMware Server and ultimately ESX 3. I obtained my VCP3 certification and soon thereafter started participating in the VMTN communities. Since then, I have also become a moderator in the communities and started blogging. I've been a vExpert since the program began, and it has ultimately been my participation in the VMTN communities that has made this possible.

What would you tell someone who wanted to get a job like yours to do?

Always be somewhere close to outside of your comfort zone, and learn everything you can. Always think about how what you are learning right now can be used later. I moved through many disciplines in IT, before I got involved with virtualization. Without these past experiences, I don't know that working with virtualization would have been possible.

Well VMworld part 2 (aka Copenhagen) has wrapped up this week, and once again was a huge success.  The largest IT tradeshow in Europe is now at a population north or 7000 attendees and the excitement of the event continues from where it left off in Las Vegas.  I have been following all of the blogs, tweets, youtube video’s etc from afar, but I think my favorite highlight of the event (outside of technology) was the interview with the vMafia.  Classic!

On with the Top 5 of the week…

Kevin Kelling – vCenter Server Heartbeat 6.3 — Experiences and Recommendations – Is vCenter Server a mission-critical application for which you cannot afford downtime?  It depends on the environment, but for many organizations the availability of vCenter Server is becoming more and more critical.  For starters you lose a single point of management for all your ESX hosts, DRS and potentially quite a bit more.  Let’s take a look at some specific impacts of vCenter Server being unavailable.

Mike Laverick – VMware Auto Deploy: ESXi installation made easy – VMware vSphere 5 includes a new feature called Auto Deploy, which automates ESXi installation and host configuration. Through PXE booting, VMware Auto Deploy delivers the entire ESXi hypervisor across the wire, meaning the host can be completely diskless.  I’ve been tinkering with VMware Auto Deploy for a new book I’m working on, and I think VMware admins will find it easier to configure than storage area network-based booting.

Cody Bunch – Orchestrator – Install the vCO vApp – In case you missed the announcement, the barrier to entry for vCenter Orchestrator was just lowered significantly with VMware’s release of the vCO 4.2 vApp. Here, we’ll talk about installing it.  Basically, I’m assuming that you have an edition of vSphere that is licensed for vCenter and have downloaded both the OVF and VMDK files from the VMware download page.

Julian Wood – VMworld Buzz: VMware announces vCenter Operations Management Suite – VMware’s major announcement at VMworld is billed as “The Biggest VMware Management Launch Ever”. What that means is VMware has announced its new version of vCenter Operations which it is now calling vCenter Operations Management Suite and will be released later this year or early 2012. vCOPS as it’s called is the technology VMware bought from Integrien in August 2010.

Eric Gray – VMware vMotion: Over 5 Times Faster Than Hyper-V Live Migration – In a new head-to-head comparison published by independent technology assessment firm Principled Technologies, VMware vSphere once again trounces challenger Hyper-V by delivering superior speed, performance, and reliability for zero-downtime virtual machine migrations. 

Twitter Handle: dellock6
Blog URL: http://www.vumeuer.it
Current Employer: Moresi.Com SA

How did you get into IT in the first place?

It's has always been a passion since I was a teenager, and it all started with the Amiga 500. After I stopped studying at University i said to me "well, if I'm good with computers, maybe I can get a career out of it". 

So I started in 2000 at a tiny IT company, we were working on small companies configuring MS servers and applications like Exchange 5.5, SQL and others. After four years I started my own consultancy firm with my best friend, and we tried to do something more focused on security, I also gained CISSP and BS7799 (now upgraded to ISO27001) certifications in 2004.

I closed the Information Security firm in 2008, and from 2009 to August 2011 I worked for a consulting firm in Italian Switzerland, as Senior Consultant, SysAdmin and Architect.

From September 1st I work for Moresi.Com SA, we run our own vSphere/vCloud datacenter and we offer hybrid clouds solutions to customers; I'm Head of the Professional Services area, and I work with customers to develop their internal VMware environments and to connect them with our VMware datacenter.

How did you get into working with VMware and becoming a 2011 vExpert?

I "discovered" VMware in 2006 as many people using VMware workstation and the (never forgotten!!) GSX, and I used the latter in production eversince. I started using ESX from 3.0 version and I never stopped. I got both VCP3 and VCP4 and in these years I got the possibility to put my hands on almost every product VMware did.

I started my "social life" about VMware on November 2008 with my blog www.vuemuer.it. I wrote about 600 articles during these years, mainly in italian, and first feedback were great since not so many guys, even in IT, knows well english in Italy.

After almost 3 years of blogging, my blog has about 600-700 daily readers and from august it's written also in english.

I'm also one of the VMUG Italian Chapter co-founders in early 2011 and we already did our first meeting with about 100 attendees. A second one is expected in October and we hope to increase that number.

What would you tell someone who wanted to get a job like yours to do?

From my experience made of both failures and achievements, besides basic issues like a good wage and others, find a company that can let you and help you grow. Avoid if you can companies that only want you to fill your daily agenda to have more and more billable hours, without left time to study. This is a super-fast changing world so we all need to keep oursleves updated as much as we can, so is critical to have some sort of a lab, spare time to study, and the trust in you to give you new activities where you can really learn something new.