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Tag Archives: Community Warrior

Congratulations to VMTN Community Warrior, @continuum!

Submit a nomination for the next VMTN Community Warrior. This program will continue to recognize users who commit time and energy to engaging with peers in the VMTN community. Learn more.

Congratulations to VMware Technology Network’s newest Community Warrior, @continuum for being a beneficial contributor to our community. We are truly thankful for everything you do to help the VMTN community.

Learn a little bit more about @continuum…

Which VMware communities are you involved in?

I started with Workstation as I had no access to ESX compatible hardware until about 2008.
Later I got quite involved in the Converter forum – I even developed a LiveCD  for Coldclones when VMware decided to discontinue their own version. Nowadays I rather search for recovery related posts in all forums. Even if I miss a post myself – other community members tell folks to contact me directly when they post any recovery topics.

What is the most difficult thread you’ve addressed on VMTN?

The most difficult thread I ever addressed in VMTN was the challenge to run VMware Workstation on top of a Windows LiveCD. Normally VMware Workstation requires a user-account to run on Windows but a Windows LiveCD only uses one SYSTEM account only.
So everybody I asked about this said it is impossible. One and a half year and countless hours later I finally was able to solve  the problem and I could celebrate one of the happiest victories of my  live. The next few years I offered a construction kit for a Windows  LiveCD with VMware Workstation on my website and had lots of happy  users.

What is the most rewarding thread you’ve addressed on VMTN?

The most rewarding thread I ever encountered in VMTN was the request to recover some vmdks from an unreadable VMFS-volume. That thread was in 2007 or 2008 if I remember right.
After some weeks of work I discovered an approach to recover lost vmdks after a VMFS-corruption. Later I added more work into this approach and got better and better the more cases I looked into. 3  years later I lost my boring factory job and thanks to this rare skill set I was able to find a new job for a german VMware Partner Company. Nowadays I run my own small business and offer VMware recovery support to world wide customers.

Are you working on any projects you think the VMTN community would be interested in? (book, blog, etc)
Yes – I maintain a Linux LiveCD that I use to assist users with remote support when they run into problems with VMFS-corruption. Unfortunately  major changes in ESXi 6 and later make this even trickier as before and  I am trying to keep up to date with the latest changes. This LiveCD is available on my site www.vm-sickbay.com. Unfortunately I don’t have enough time to keep this site up to date. At the moment I have a lot of research to do to keep up with the latest changes in the ESXi-product.

Anyway – I still offer my support in all VMTN posts that are somehow related to my recovery skills.

How do you work with VMware day-to-day?

I offer recovery support for VMware customers. So typically I scan VMTN for any questions in my area and if required I get in contact with those users and fix their problems. Another part of my time goes into research as the VMFS-filesystem and all the related recovery topics are only poorly documented – if they are documented at all. I used to work for a german VMware partner for a couple of years – but that company was not interested in my recovery work so I decided to try my luck as a freelancer.

How can people follow/get in touch (Twitter,etc)?
Nowadays I rarely use my twitter account @sanbarrow.
But I actively monitor my skype account “sanbarrow” and answer all questions related to any recovery problems.

Thanks @continuum!

Do you see someone frequently answering questions in your favorite forums? Did someone provide support to you recently at a VMUG or over Twitter? Any community involvement counts. Head to the Community Warrior page to nominate a user, or email jenniferg@vmware.com.

Congratulations to Community Warrior, @daphnissov

Submit a nomination for the next VMTN Community Warrior. In 2018, this program will continue recognizing users who commit time and energy to engaging with peers in the VMTN community. Learn more.

VMware Technology Network’s newest Community Warrior, @daphnissov, captures the meaning of community in his actions every day and it’s a privilege to honor him for his contributions.

Any VMware user who has been on communities since 2015 has likely interacted with the newest Community Warrior, @daphnissov, and left the forums better for it. Rather than try to capture the value he adds, I will let the Community Warrior nomination submitted by another user do the talking:

“For a vRA installation, he spent his own time troubleshooting my issue and trying to replicate a rather specific error within his own environment. Seeing that this was my first post as well as interaction with another forum member, I can only say that other places are hard pressed and should be lucky to find one as him/her/it (AI or something)”

Thank you for all that you do @daphnissov – we are lucky to have you contributing to VMTN!

Learn a little bit more about @daphnissov…

Which VMware communities are you involved in?

I am involved with many of the VMTN Communities on an almost daily basis including vSphere, ESXi, vCenter, vRealize Automation, vRealize Orchestrator, vRealize Operations Manager, vRealize Log Insight, vSAN, VMware Workstation, and VMware Fusion. Although I’ve been on the communities for a number of years, I came to the realization (sometime earlier) that it’s fairly unsportsmanlike conduct of me to always be the beneficiary of others’ generosity and knowledge without ever reciprocating, and so I ramped up my contributions over the past year.

I think I speak for all of VMTN when I say we’re glad you did! Tell me, how do you work with VMware day-to-day?

 Well, my day-to-day can be very VMware filled, but I am currently a Senior Solutions Architect for Sovereign Systems, a VMware partner, where I architect, design, and then implement the full SDDC stack of solutions, so everything from vSphere up to cloud management platforms and all things in between. I have the privilege of working with an awesome team who, in turn, get to help and guide customers of all sizes through their virtualization and cloud journeys.

After that, I can often be found in my home lab where I tinker with (and sometimes break) more VMware products and find interesting ways to solve real-world problems with them. And, of course, assisting others on the VMTN Communities is a daily hobby as well.

Wow – that’s fantastic. Can you tell me the most rewarding thread you’ve helped to answer in the forums?

That’s tough since I get a lot of reward just knowing that I was able to make a difference in any thread, but also difficult in just finding posts since I have a hillock of discussions to which I’ve contributed (I’ve always wanted to use that word in a sentence). This one was rewarding to see resolved, however.

What is the most difficult thread you’ve helped to answer?

That’s also tough as there have been some real head-scratchers. Generally, whenever there are any discussions which necessitate a full environment be deployed it’s got to be pretty interesting. This one was a good candidate.

You are clearly a VMware expert. What advice would you give to community members on learning more and becoming a better professional?

The first thing is to get involved in the communities. Let the problems experienced by others be your problems and, in turn, let the solutions build your knowledge. Do one thing each week which scares you by taking you out of your comfort zone. Never hesitate to state the obvious. Shun no knowledge, regardless of what it may be. And never be afraid to admit ignorance on a subject—the beginning of all wisdom starts with the phrase, “I do not know.” Your struggles as you attempt to find those answers will result in tremendous personal and professional growth.

Are you working on any projects you think the VMTN community would be interested in?

I’m always working on at least three things at once, it seems. Blogs are constantly in the works and some of the ones forthcoming include things like LACP use in vSphere; for the automation folks I’m continuing my exploration of the SovLabs extensibility modules for vRealize Automation; and for those more operations-centric I’ll be diving into vIDM usage with vROps and vRLI soon. I am also trying to finish up a fairly substantial article that covers any and every form of vSphere migration type which I hope to expand into a book at some point. I’m also working towards my VCDX.

I’ll look out for updates… How can people follow you or get in touch?

I’m fairly accessible over either Twitter (@chipzoller), LinkedIn (Chip Zoller), or send me a private message through the VMTN Communities.

Thanks @daphnissov!

Do you see someone frequently answering questions in your favorite forums? Did someone provide support to you recently at a VMUG or over Twitter? Any community involvement counts. Head to the Community Warrior page to nominate a user, or email katieb@vmware.com.

Congratulations to VMTN Community Warrior, @rcporto

Submit a nomination for the next VMTN Community Warrior. In 2017, this program will be recognizing users who commit time and energy to engaging in the VMTN community. Learn more.

This week’s Community Warrior burst into the VMware Technology Network community program from left field at the end of last year, and has made his mark. Congratulations to the newest Community Warrior, @rcporto!

@rcporto originally joined communities in 2011, became a vExpert in 2014, and came to my attention late last year, when he won a prize in the CloudCred VMTN Challenge. This was a raffle around the VMTN Badge on VMware’s gamification platform, CloudCred.

Not a month later, he reached out with interest in becoming a VMTN Community Moderator. Today @rcporto is not only a User Moderator, he’s a global moderator, who owns and manages the Brazilian Portuguese community.

Thank you for all that you do @rcporto. VMTN would not be the same without your commitment.

Learn a little bit more about @rcporto…

What was the first VMware product you ever used, where and when?

The first VMware product that I used was the vSphere ESXi 3.5, back in 2009, to virtualize some workloads for a client of my company.

What inspired you to become a VMTN Community Moderator recently?

The VMTN community had a lot of great moderators doing a wonderful job to keep the threads clean and in the correct location, but I noticed that a lot of messages, mainly from other languages, like Brazilian Portuguese, do not get the same attention from moderators. I decided to become a moderator to keep my eyes mainly on Brazilian Portuguese messages, since this is my native language, but I spread my attention to English threads as well.

You sure do… Check it out.

How do you work with VMware day-to-day?

I work for a VMware partner, and my main role in my job is to implement, administer and troubleshoot VMware vSphere environments, the vRealize suite products and vCenter Site Recovery Manager, as well as others.

Although I am very experienced with VMware, becoming active in VMTN by replying to user’s threads contributed a lot to my knowledge on real world issues and best practices. I’ve found the VMware KBs and documentation are awesome, and if you search correctly, there is a good chance you’ll find the answer to your problem. Many times when I reply, I don’t know the solution, but since I am familiar with these resources, I can search a solution and reply to the user.

Are you working on any projects you think the VMTN community would be interested in?

Right now, I am busy with my full-time job tasks, but my personal project regarding the VMTN community is to achieve the Guru status in the next six months, so I would like to invite VMTN users to post your questions. It would be my pleasure to try to answer them.

How can people follow/get in touch (Twitter,etc)?

Twitter: @richardsonporto | VMTN: @rcporto

Thanks @rcporto!

This is wise advice from a hard working community warrior: answer questions and ask questions to become a better professional. Get involved and get to know your resources.

Do you see someone frequently answering questions in your favorite forums? Did someone provide support to you recently at a VMUG or over Twitter? Any community involvement counts. Head to the Community Warrior page to nominate a user, or email katieb@vmware.com.

 

Congratulations to #VMTN Community Warrior, @sreec

Submit a nomination for the next VMTN Community Warrior. In 2017, this program will be recognizing and rewarding users who commit time and energy to engaging in the VMTN community. Learn more.

The VMTN Community Warrior program is back and better than ever after a brief break during what may go down in history as the best, and busiest, VMworld season of all time. Thank you to our last Warrior, @firestartah, for keeping the throne warm.

 

Congratulations to @sreec – our newest community warrior!

What makes @sreec a community warrior?

  • He is on the top participants list for three communities on VMTN: vCloud Director, NSX, vCloud Networking and Security.
  • He has achieved vExpert and vExpert-NSX based on community contributions, like the NSX book he wrote and published in 2016.

The list goes on from there… Thanks for all that you do, @sreec.

Needless to say, with NSX adoption growing every day it was exciting to be able to ask this Community Warrior to weigh in on what drew him to network virtualization, VMTN, and his upcoming projects.

Check out what @sreec had to say….

How did you get involved with VMTN?

When I was working with VMware from 2011-2016 I focused on a wide range of VMware products like vRealize Configuration Manager, vSphere, vCloud Director, vCloud Networking and Security, vCloud Connector, NSX, and more.

VCD is one of the products which I worked extensively with, and that’s where I started liking network virtualization. Considering the complexity of troubleshooting in VCD, I used VCD labs and I started looking at vCloud Director communities to better understand customer queries and then contributing to them as much as I could.

Over a period of time, I realized VMTN is by far one of the best technical hubs for VMware technologies and every day I spend 1-2 hours and follow the NSX & VCD communities.

Why are you passionate about NSX?

VMware NSX is at the forefront of the software-defined networking revolution. I come from a storage background and I switched my job to the virtualization field. I knew this was the right track to focus on and the last 8 years have been truly remarkable for me. I worked with the vCloud Network Security solution during its early days and I liked the concept of network virtualization.

My immediate focus was to clear VCAP-CIA and I achieved it very shortly followed by VCAP-DCA & DCD. I’m a strong believer of learning a technology in a way that makes people understand it very easily. If one cannot explain a feature/design, that shows a lack of knowledge in that area.

After spending a lot of hours in labs and reading blogs/books, I started training candidates on VCD, VCNS & NSX. For me this is where my passion for software-defined networking started. A few months back, I cleared VCAP6-NV and achieved VCIX track.

Having seen the technology transform all the way from VCNS to NSX for all types of workload all I want to say is NSX is a cherry on top of VMware product portfolio. It’s because of the large ecosystem, coupled with the fact that customers can leverage NSX in Private/Public and build a true network hybrid platform. We don’t need to chase a use case for implementing NSX. This product fits in extremely well for all types of workloads & environments and that is why I’m passionate about this technology.

Are you working on any projects you think the VMTN community would be interested in? 

Having learned a few things about NSX, I decided I should give something back to the community. My first contribution was the NSX book – VMware NSX Network Essentials. The focus is on core components of NSX, how to deploy, and manage it effectively.

Thank you for the time, wise words, and great community contributions.

To connect with @sreec for regular updates, follow him here:

Twitter: @sreeec ; VMTN: @sreec ; LinkedIn

Do you see someone frequently answering questions in your favorite forums? Did someone provide server saving support to you recently at a VMUG or over Twitter? Any community involvement counts. Head to the Community Warrior page to nominate a user, or email katieb@vmware.com.

Congratulations to #VMTN Community Warrior, @firestartah

Submit a nomination for the next VMTN Community Warrior. In 2017, this program will be recognizing and rewarding 25 users who commit time and energy to engaging in community discussions and capturing the values of VMware Technology Network. Learn more.

Congratulations to Gregg, also known on VMTN as, @firestartah and welcome to the VMTN Community Warrior Hall of Fame. Gregg is an exceptional person, someone who has truly embedded giving back to the VMware community into his day-to-day life.

Not only is Gregg a VMTN Community Moderator, he:

  • Co-hosts the EMEA #vBrownBag podcast/webinar series every Tuesday at 7PM GMT
  • Has been a vExpert for 7 years in a row
  • Holds a VCDX-DVC (#205) – and mentors others to help them achieve theirs
  • Regularly speaks at London VMUG

The list goes on! Gregg – thanks for all that you do.

Check out what Gregg had to say…

K: What is it that attracted you to the VMware community? When did you get involved?

G: When I started learning virtualization and VMware in particular almost ten years ago I did what a lot of people did, and still do today, and that is read some of the top blogs. From reading these, I started following these bloggers and anyone else who was talking about VMware on Twitter. The Twitter community was quite small then and I remember being able to read every tweet all the people I followed each day without much issue which allowed me to really connect with fellow vNerds and learn so much from all of them.

K: I remember those days… How did your involvement evolve from there?

G: The number of people who were willing to help really inspired me so I decided to start trying to give back in any way I could so I wrote blog postings about little things I fixed and whose blogs helped me with it, or I would go on the VMware communities and try to help answer people’s problems. Doing the blogging and communities work led me to become a vExpert which I have been graciously awarded every year since. I have also become a communities’ moderator. I loved doing all of it from blogging, to tweeting, to attending the London VMUG, to becoming part of the vBrownbag crew.

What has kept me involved so long is honestly the people in the community. The benefits I have found not just from a work perspective, but also a friendship perspective has been amazing.

           

 

 

K: That’s great. I know you do a lot of mentoring for certifications and are heavily involved in those communities on VMTN. For community members who are looking to gain more certifications, and maybe even looking to achieve their VCDX, how would you recommend preparing?

G: Certification pages were and still partly are what I’m known for in the community as it was the way I could collate the study resources I was using for my VCP’s and VCAP’s and now VCDX. Certainly, learn NSX and do the VCP-NV if you can as I think you’ll never regret learning about SDN. If you are looking at doing the VCAP’s then there are loads of great resources out there which I’ve listed on my blog and some really good VMware courses as well. The VCAP’s are challenging but are really good to do especially the administration ones if you are working with VMware every day.

I would highly recommend getting your VCDX especially for the journey and the number of things you learn along that journey. Doing the VCDX is a very big commitment and I always recommend people speak to their significant other and let them know you will be dedicating time to getting the certification. I always recommend starting as soon as possible on the VCDX journey and there are loads of great resources out there from blogs, to books to podcasts to VCDX Workshops to help you. Also 99% of the current VCDX’s are very approachable people who are happy to help you along on your journey as long as you are willing to pull your own weight.

K: That’s fantastic advice – I know you’ve taken it to the next level… How did you get involved in mentoring others?

G: I’m not sure really, I think it’s linked to writing my VCP/VCAP/VCDX study resources pages and trying to give back to the community that helped me so much. I have had and still have loads of people giving me advice and helping me grow and pushing me and so I wanted to give that back as well. When I passed my VCDX and actually even whilst I was still going for it, I wanted to try to help as many people along as possible and connect people aiming for it so we could all learn from each other. The VCDX study/mock group I have run for the last few years has amazed me with the amount people have grown and that everyone who benefitted is now helping others. We have seen a pass from every round of VCDX defenses since we started which is amazing!

Wow! Thank you, Gregg – and congratulations again!

To get in touch with Gregg, you can find him here:

Do you see someone frequently answering questions in your favorite forums? Did someone provide server saving support to you recently at a VMUG or over Twitter? Any community involvement counts. Head to the Community Warrior page to nominate a user, or email katieb@vmware.com.

Congratulations to #VMTN Community Warrior: @jfrappier

Submit a nomination for the next VMTN Community Warrior. In 2017, this program will be recognizing and rewarding 25 users who commit time and energy to engaging in community discussions and capturing the values of VMware Technology Network. Learn more.

Congratulations, and welcome to the VMTN Community Warrior Hall of Fame @Jfrappier.  It is an honor to put the spotlight on you, because you deserve it. Check out the nomintation Jonathan received the following nomination from Community Warrior: @arielsanchezmor:

Jonathan is a veteran of the vExpert and EMCelect communities who has been a big influence in the Boston virtualization groups and has been an integral member of vBrownBag. He has also led the charge in publishing content that bridges the devops tools integrations with vSphere (out of his own time, this is not his job role) at jfrap.com and has helped many in the vCommunity as a mentor and sounding board. Unusually quiet in person, yet one of the funniest I know, my main reason for nominating him is that I know (from being a vBrownBag crew member) that Jonathan is the engine that keeps vBrownBag running, always scheduling people with ample time and doing the hard work of choosing a new topic and getting presenters for it. He takes care of all the little jobs that are needed, and also finds time to regularly present when he is asked to. I have only seen his impact in the last two years, and yet I know he has been doing this for a long time.

 

I think Ariel captured why Jonathon was chosen to receive this badge. Jonathan is not only active on VMTN, but as Ariel says, he is a vExpert who is heavily involved with the vBrownBag organization. Beyond that, the man is also active on GitHub, he recently delivered the keynote at the annual Virtualization Technology User Group (VTUG) Spring Forward meetup, is active in the Boston VMUG, is constantly tweeting, blogging, sharing, learning, and LIVING the foundational principles behind a great community. He even had a book published.

Let’s learn a bit more about this warrior…

K: You are clearly a VMware community guy – what is the unique value for you in each?

J: None, and any…all at once. I am less interested in any particular vertical community and more interested in meeting other people. Since my interests are spread across technology I just choose to meet smart, open, people who are interested in helping others with positive feedback. If that person is a SQL DBA – cool, I’ve played the role of SQL admin before. Network admin? Yup, done that. Developer – I just want to hear more from those people as I think our world is headed towards “everything as code.”

K: How are you going to get involved with community at VMworld?

J: I will be in the hang space (VMvillage) almost the entire event, I’ll pop down to the vendor place but otherwise I’ll be connecting with people and helping vBrownBag produce TechTalks.

K: Do you want to tell me a bit about the vBrownBag TechTalk you will be delivering?

J: At VMworld US I will be doing a vBrownBag Tech Talk on using the vSphere 6.5 REST APIs though an Ansible playbook. I’ve long been a fan of Ansible and being able to use to automate and manage the configuration of my vSphere environment combines two products I enjoy working with.

For those that haven’t worked with APIs before, don’t worry because we will be kicking off a vBrownBag series on APIs right after VMworld US with a ton of great presenters and topics.

Thank you, Jonathan – and congratulations again!

To check out Jonathan’s TechTalk at VMworld U.S., register for VMTN6616U on ScheduleBuilder. To get in touch online, you can reach Jonathan here:

Do you see someone frequently answering questions in your favorite forums? Did someone provide server saving support to you recently at a VMUG or over Twitter? Any community involvement counts. Head to the Community Warrior page to nominate a user, or email katieb@vmware.com.

Congratulations to #VMTN Community Warrior: @rajeevsrikant

 Submit a nomination for the next VMTN Community Warrior. In 2017, this program will be recognizing and rewarding 25 users who commit time and energy to engaging in community discussions and capturing the values of VMware Technology Network. Learn more.

I’m happy to announce, and extend my congratulations to VMTN’s new Community Warrior @rajeevsrikant. Welcome to the Community Warrior Hall of Fame! For those that have been to the VMTN NSX page in the past three years will recognize @rajeevsrikant’s handle. What makes him special is he gives as much as he gets.

Not only does @rajeevsrikant answer customer questions, but he asks them. He leverages VMTN as a place for support, while providing support to others. He takes time every day to improve the community ecosystem for VMware customers, and that makes him a Community Warrior. Thank you and congratulations!

Let’s learn a bit more about this warrior…

K: How were you originally introduced to communities and what inspired you to stay involved?

R: Initially when I was very new to NSX technology, I was looking for open communities where I can learn, share & find answers to queries/problem. VMTN provided the exact platform which I was looking for which is helping me to learn something new every day. It helped to interact with people of multiple skill sets, share their experience & knowledge which is very useful.

K: So, you leveraged it as a platform to learn. That’s great. What have you gained through your involvement with VMTN?

R: VMTN is a knowledge warehouse & it provides easy & fastest way to address any real-time problems. It helped me in acquiring adequate knowledge about the technology & which was useful for my work. It also provided me a platform to share the experience & knowledge to other members.

K: What has your NSX journey been?

R: My NSX journey has been a fun ride. As a pure hardcore networking guy I was assigned to work in the network virtualization project using NSX with not much experience on VMware platform in the past. Completely new to this technology, HOL provided me the best platform to learn about NSX & gets hands on. Knowledge gained through VMTN & HOL gave me huge confidence during implementation NSX in an enterprise environment in large scale deployment. I am proud to say that I am VCIX-NV certified.

K: The ultimate question: would you recommend NSX to other networking professionals?

R: Yes, I do recommend NSX as this is the future of networking. The features, functionality, flexibility & ease of deployment which NSX offers makes it stand out among its competitors. NSX is the game changer for Data Center networks.

K: And finally… Tell us a fun fact about you!

R: I am a friendly character & I love reading.

Thanks for sharing @rajeevsrikant! If you are interested in making any book recommendations, learning more about his NSX experiences, or making a friend – message or follow him on VMTN. He is always posting great content like:

NSX Edge Gateway – On Demand Failover

Congratulations again and thanks for all of your community engagement!

Do you see someone frequently answering questions in your favorite forums? Did someone provide server saving support to you recently at a VMUG or over Twitter? Any community involvement counts. Head to the Community Warrior page to nominate a user, or email katieb@vmware.com.