Claiming that this is something the world has been waiting for is probably taking it too far, but we’re back. In full HD.

With faces for radio, and voices for silent movies, the next natural step was to do a video podcast. Join us for a quick recap of everything new since our last episode on March 6, 2017.

Ok, perhaps we don’t cover not everything that’s happened, but hey, time flies when not podcasting.

So here it is: vSoup Reloaded: Episode 1.

And yes, this site needs some TLC. Or updates. They will come.

This is episode 60, which is a decent number by any standard. No guest, just us three hosts shooting the breeze.

Bonus points if you remember Paula, no bonus points if you have to listen to figure out what we’re talking about. Ok, fine, you’ll get some bonus points for listening.

Lazy bullet list of topics:

– Travel difficulties and missing flights
– Nokia Reboot
– TSA checking hardware
– VCSA and containerization
– Technology fortune telling and Paula

Lazy bullet list of topics:

• Unsupported configurations
• Death of C# client
• VRA
• Tech Unplugged
• People, processes and technology
• Architecht job title gripes
• Token cloud discussion
• Being a customer, reseller or vendor positives and negatives
• vendors badmouthing each other on Twitter.

Amit Panchal

This time we got Amit Panchal to spend some time with us, and since we recorded it, we might as well just publish it. Right? We also get into Christian’s new job, and how he suddenly got his VCAP-DCD.

How about that VMworld thing, who is going? Oh, and VMware made some announcements right when this one was recorded, so naturally we mention that too. Add some buzzword bingo, and your fruit might just come pre-dirtied. Og low hanging. Whatever floats your boat, and suddenly Dropbox de-clouds itself. It’s a strange fruit world indeed.

Welcome 2016! We’re back!

We’re back!

The plan is to release one monthly episode in 2016, and impressively enough we are right on track. At least so far. Since it’s been a good 6 months since the last one, we went commando. Perhaps commando is a feature of Hipster- and bipolar-IT? Are we trendsetters now?

Anyway, we touch on the Dell EMC deal, on how VMUG topics are changing and weird job titles. Obligatory Cloud/Hybrid-Cloud talk is obligatory, and so are goals for 2016.

Just give it a listen, will ya?

A little about what was going on in the world at the time – EMC Had just bought Virtuastream  which led us to chat a little bit about the relative benefits of buy vs build. Horizon Mirage rears its beautifully groomed head a couple of times too! Is a 15 minute deploy time for a product really a benefit ? Will you ever look good with one of these ?

We are on the hunt for some guests to help keep the 3 of us just about sane ? if you’ve got something good to talk about , then we’d love to hear from you at guests@vsoup.net

Your Uncle? (Photo by Stephen Foskett)

We’ve gone full circle, sort of, with a return of the wonderful Bob Plankers as our guest. You know, The Lone Sysadmin guy. The hosts enjoy is blog posts, and we sure do enjoy having him as a guest as well. After all, he was a guest in our fourth podcast back in 2011 as well.

Matt Brender

No we are not quite dead yet, we’re just pining for the fjords.

Beyoncé Northam

Beyoncé Wood

So, lets get 2015 started with an episode recorded way back in 2014. We’re sorry about the delay, but this one needed some time to simmer. After all, one of our guests ends up singing. To find out which of our two guests, Julian Wood and Matthew Northam, channel his inner Beyoncé, you’ll just have to listen.

Besides random singing, we talk tech holiday toys, hyperconvergence and when it’s not (EVO:RAIL + Filer?!), some really bad storage guy jokes and stockholder swingers parties, which correlates nicely to vCenter availability.

Chris Wahl (Not Spongebob)

We got the double VCDX Chris Wahl, and we got him to spill the beans on where the VCDX-NV’s came from. And no, it is not from the Iliad. We talk certifications, and answer the age old questions; “Is is wise to try to certify when you are hung over?” and “Can a server actually blind you?”.

There has to be some some wisdom hidden in there somewhere. Chris is also doing a VMUG tour of Europe, bringing along his immense Minesweeper knowledge. Be sure to catch “Chris does Europe” if possible.

Other than that, Proximal Data, cache products (including the usual rant from Christian) and home lab talk. All in all a really mixed bag of somethings, which I guess sums us up pretty nicely.

Frank Denneman joins us for a discussion about travel, writing and publishing books, dogs with ebola and HA/DRS Deepdives. How´s that for a rather mixed bag of nuts? Since Frank is an evangelist for PernixData, they get a mention too, but this one is decidedly very light on the marketing side. Just the way we like it (aha-aha).

So, if you’re into book, dogs and ebola, sprinkled with some virtualization, this one comes highly recommended. Now there is a narrow demographic if there ever was one.

Kidding aside, this entire fiftieth episode of vSoup is pretty much entirely about EVO:RAIL; the what, the why and the how.

Fifty recordings? Really? That’s a lot of soup.

Also, next week is VMworld EMEA, and both Chris and Christian will be there. If you’re in Barcelona find us and say hi! Also, if you schedule allows it check out the vBrownBag TechTalk schedule for VMworld EMEA 2014, we’re recording a live show on Wednesday 15th between 12:30 and 13:15 – Pop on by and you might even be our guest!

Some, but not all, of the VMworld announcements get mentioned, like EVO:RAIL/EVO:RACK, vCloud Air and so on. At some point, Christian turns into Max Headroom, but that doesn’t stop him from not really knowing anything. Product names, and colons, OpenStack and printers.

Is the future of vSoup printers? Who knows, all we know is that they play some cool tunes:

We also touch on Julian Wood’s great How Policy will drive the Software Defined Data Center blog post, and since Brian’s our guest, VMunderground and the new Opening Acts program gets a piece of the headlight action.

So, if you want something to do the next 44 minutes and 41 seconds, you know what to do.

It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark… and we’re wearing sunglasses.

-Hit it.

We also give our listeners a quick intro into how Mike works after a few G&T’s, and we discuss if more soft-skills are required by techies these days.

Random? Nah, not us. It’s all very well planned.

By Christian Mohn
April 10, 2014

Bergen, Norway – Milton Keynes, UK – Zürich, CH –  The attention of the vSoup Podcast has been drawn to the fact that RightScale acknowledges it’s existence to the point where vSoup is being used as an internal term in their organization. The vSoup Podcast wishes to state that it has no prior knowledge about this and was not aware of any known usage of the term beyond it’s original intention.

While the vSoup Podcast acknowledges that the name is brilliant, there are worries that the incorrect usage of the vSoup term might lead to confusion and cloudification of it’s good name and reputation. The vSoup Podcast therefore wishes to clearly state that the term was coined, and subsequently used, by a group of three individuals with no prior podcasting experience. The first episode of vSoup was released in January 2011, which clearly pre-dates any usage on RightScale’s behalf.

About vSoup

The vSoup Podcast, recently voted the second best virtualization podcast in the world, is a fairly regular podcast that to date has released an astonishing 45 episodes of mostly virtualization related content.
For more information, and audible pleasure, visit vSoup.net

Contact

To learn more, please contact

Ed Czerwin
@eczerwin 

Chris Dearden
@chrisdearden

Christian Mohn
@h0bbel

No guests, just hairy wizards. If that doesn’t scare you, give it a listen as we ramble on about things like the Swiss Navy, VMware Airwatch, Simon Long moving to the US and adaptation rates on new technology. We even talk about tablets, and the Top vBlog Vote 2014. Thanks everyone for voting us #2 in the Podcast category!

As for the recording itself, well, some time things don’t really go according to plan, even if you don’t have a plan to begin with.

This time we have Vaughn Stewart from Pure Storage. As since this, thankfully, is audio-only we have no idea if he was wearing leggings or not. Just like Irene Cara we have moved past that awkward third album phase, and discuss a few topics ranging from epic bus rides, all flash storage arrays (AFA) to upgrade issues. Oh, of course, the VCP recertification policy gets some airtime as well.

It clocks in at an hour, so there better be some content in there somewhere.

A little storage discussion regarding RDMs, NPIV and Christian shares a story about 3Par / StoreServ reclamation and SCSI UNMAP issues.

Obligatory VCDX talk is of course obligatory.

Oh, and Google buys a bit of hot air/smoke Nest, is that an internet of things or an internet of Google?

And we couldn’t resist, should VCDX design samples really be available?

For the first recording in 2014, we do it like the last time; Three guys hosting, no guests. Except for General Purple that is.

Other than that, we talk a bit about Chris’ career change, business travel, hypervisor footprints, Windows Server Clusters and filer appliances. Also, does virtual appliances add or reduce complexity?

Kendrick Coleman’s JumpSquares, his very own cloudy thing, and we might have a suggestion or two for it as well.

Oh, and some of us has found an F-ing cool tool too.

This episode has no guests, and that might just be how we roll in the future, unless we happen to have a guest with us. Don’t worry though, this will mean that there will be more vSoup than ever before, in fact it means that we have grown to that age where being regular is important…

Anyhow, we get into a few topics this time too, things like stacks, blades, SDS, unprofessional social media usage, the Nordic VMUG conference and yes, Christian is writing a book.  Ed hopes it is erotic fiction, but to be honest, the world is not ready for that.

Anyway, we hope you enjoy the newish format, listen in for more details.

This is decidedly the most ghetto recording we have done; Recorded on Craig’s iPhone connected to Christian’s microphone via Bluetooth with the same microphone connected to Ed G’s Macbook for power. Ed talks via a Skype connection on Christian’s iPhone which in turn is connected to an external speaker. Simple, right?

All of this just because the vBrownbag Crew packed their things together on wednesday. Slackers.

Oh well, enjoy this weird (yes, it’s back) roundtable discussion of all things VMworld, and a few things that are not. Oh wait, why did we need a stand in? Turns out we did not need one, but Ed G is always good fun.

Just like his Twitter stream, this one is a constant barrage of fun, knowledge and insight (and some random things, after all this guy has tweeted over 80k times).

Grab a Hoffacc[h]ino from your favorite caffeine dealer, try to sit still and have a listen!

Topics:

• Why has Hoff been quiet on twitter and does Twitter in fact cause rage?
• Infosec career evolution
• SDDC and changes in attack surfaces
• Security bolted on vs. baked in
• Onion shaped security model: Just add parsley or cut the onion differently?
• Are people the weakest security link?
• NSA, Prism and snooping

Lets all hope we are able to release a new one after this, who knows.

I always feel like somebody’s watching me.

And I have no privacy.
Woh, I always feel like somebody’s watching me.
Who’s playing tricks on me?

Naturally we get into Podcasting for Cancer, which so far has had way more donations than anyone would have thought when it started. Other than that, well it´s mixed bag of topics really.

Go on then, have a nibble.

Topics:

• SMB IT
• Nirvanix goes under
• Cloud storage and other cloudy topics
• Microsoft
• SMB more agile?
• Fish tanks and Internets the Pleco
• What object should represent Ed at VMworld
• Podcasting for Cancer

Just the three of us. Naked. Imagine that, or wait, perhaps not.

Anyway, here it is – Enjoy it if you got that mental image out of your head. If not, things might just get a bit weird.

Topics:

• VMworld – Observations from people who were not present
• Hands-on Meth-Labs? Did Eric Sloof visit?
• Obligatory vSphere 5.5 and new features discussion
• Frozen Custard, really?
• vCloud Director unofficial news (Since official-ish)
• Should  SDDC really be called vSoup? (We vote yes, surprisingly enough)
• The Phoenix Project
• Nick Weaver and Automation – Project Zombie
• Cloudy talk
• Cloud Standards Customer Council
  everything else standardizes why not cloud?
• OpenStack usage
• APIs for fun, ?????, and profit
• Halo Marketing – why stick with the same brand?

Dutch Caravans? Really?

Other topics:

• VCDX Designs
• Troubleshooting difficult problems
• Is PernixData chocolate ice cream?
• VMworld 2013 – whats happening
• Chromecast, AppleTV and possible nefarious images.
  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW9Fiu9IlA4)
• Idea to make your presenter life easier on the road by @BasRaayman
• DevOPs and The Phoenix Project 
• VMworld 2013 speculations
• vCloud automation, Dynamic Ops and Openstack

And there it is. 35 minutes of mostly weird, geek laughter.

For some reason John Troyer snubbed us, but hey, we can´t really complain since both Amy Lewis and Matthew Brender graced us with their presence.

Naturally we get into a social media, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Topic list:

• Using social media correctly and incorrectly
• Is Community Social 2.0
• Getting weird IT guys to be extroverts
• BBS Systems the first Twitter type Platform?
• How Social Media created vSoup
• Is Social Media being used for any other professions than IT?
• Social media usage and challenges on the horizon

So there it is, a podcast with another podcast crew talking social media. Meta much?

Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K, and perhaps we´re all suffering from a mild form of hysteria, but this is a fun one!

Listen to this dude Rufus, he knows what he’s talking about.

Our most excellent list of topics include:

• “Mike’s Epic Journey to the vCloud“
• Mike’s new Role at VMware
• Can you turn a blog into a book?
• Evolution of vCloud director thru versions
• Other cloud automation tools
• VMware and Puppet
• Does 68+ posts on vCloud director make it too complicated? (or even 71 as it is at the time of writing)
• Usage cases for vCloud Director and other products
• 3rd party Virtualization stacks
• vShield

And remember: be excellent to each other!

(ok, ok, I went overboard with the references in this one, but hey, I believe our adventure through time has taken a most serious turn.)

Nick, who blogs at nickapedia.com is as quick with his mouth as he is with his blogging, so you´re in for a real quickfire episode!

I´m sure we have missed something, but conversation items include:

• Nicks Career Transformation
• Automation – will it replace YOU?
• DevOPs and the next level of automation
• Puppet and how to make sure your underpants are on first.
• Automation with regards to the evolution of Tech
• API’s and their importance

Now, let us all hope that Chris figures out how many hats to wear, or if he remembered to put on underwear before pants. We do not want Chris going commando, trust me.

Does he succeed? We´ll leave that up to you, the vSoupheads, to decide.

Show linkware:

• Free-Form Discussion on Hybrid Switching, OpenFlow, and SDN with Cisco
• VMware NSX Network Virtualization
• OpenStack

An unusually short list, perhaps some links got lost in a multicast storm somewhere? We honestly do not know, all we know is that this one is worth a listen. Perhaps even two.

Maish Saidel-Keesing, you know, the don´t vote for me guy who came in at a very respectable #41 place in this years top VMware & virtualization blog vote, was voted our favorite guest for Episode #30!

We go on and on about CloudCredibility and gamification, but we also get to poke around a few other subjects as well:

• VMWorld Barcelona – Can you get a Cloud Credibility badge for punching a pickpocket?
• Gamification of vMotion?
• VMware NSX; is N the new V?
• SDN – Would you buy a car to use as an alarm clock?
• VMware Hybrid Cloud discussion
• Urban Dictionary as a marketing tool
• Christians 4.1 to 5.1 upgrade adventure
• vSphere 6 speculations
• vCenter 5.1 Pre-Install Check Script
• vCert Manager – Changing VMware SSL Certs Made Easy by Michael Webster
• Liquid Data Center tool by Massimo Re Ferrè
• Mike Laverick “My vCloud Journey“

So there it is, #30 episodes of vSoup. Does that make us grown-ups now? Have a listen, and you can decide for yourself. Me? I´m not so sure…

While he has been lurking in the shadows before, this is his first time. First time on vSoup that is, considering that his wife is very pregnant…

And on that bombshell, on to the content:

• VMware PEX
• Conferences in Vegas: Is it a good thing?
• Greggs preparations for VCDX and when to find time
• NanoLab – Running VMware vSphere on Intel NUC – Part 1
• A little bit on lab gear
• Pernix and potential use with vVols?
• Christians quite interesting experience with the APAC Virtual live recording
• Conference call etiquette
• Yahoos new work from home policy
• Pulling a Pope
• The man who outsourced himself

Oh, and spiders. There were spiders.

Since the mayans were wrong after all, we´re happy to present vSoup Episode #28, which also marks the 2nd full year of vSoup Podcasts!

Quick summary of topics:

• XtraVirt and Darrens role there
• Consulting firms providing products in addition to professional services?
• Design Me a Highly Available Infrastructure at LonVMUG
• Chris’ session at LonVMUG
• Social Media in the Community\People Skills and kids these days
• VMware spelling mistakes
• Ed’s method for determining correct spelling of vCenter
• Are products too easy to install?
• Snapshots again!
• VMFS Heap size issue Chris encountered
• Christian application for VMUG leadership
• General VMUG discussion
• Is twitter popular in Norway

Listen now, and get of our lawn!

Since we´re a bit on the slow side releasing this one, we´ll just get right to it.

Quick summary of topics:

• VCDX design and defense and Joeps experiences
• Joeps new website vcdx101.com
• Tablets, Phones and Horizon Mobile
• End user computing
• Storage chatter and a bit about Fusion IO
• Fault Tolerant VMs running on a VMware VSA and issues experienced
• 43:45 Joep opens a beer?

It´s nice to have a new vSoup to listen to, innit?

Listen to, and view, Chris Dearden´s vBrownbag Tech Talk “Engaging tech support for vSphere professionals“:

Sadly we can only offer the embedded lifestream feed for this talk, at least at the moment. If we can our hands on an actual working video file, we´ll get it added to the feed as a video podcast as well.

For now, here it is:

For more background information, read Shanghai… we have a problem… on vNinja.net.

Anyway, on with the live recording which, by popular demand, features Ed Grigson who still blogs at vexperienced.co.uk.

And yes, we know Christian was the silent minority here. After all, he´s in Norway.

That´s pretty far away.

As far as topics go there is no way around New- vs Old-school storage, and as the title reflects, should “server huggers” be afraid of the Software Defined Datacenter?

Other topics covered in this episode:

• John Walsh explains his IT dept.
• VMworld Europe 2012
• Lightning talks at VMworld, and Ed´s unfortunate session title.
• Certifications (as usual)
• vCloud Director and Lab Manager
• Building up Labs for customers

Enjoy! Look for us live from VMworld Europe, and since Christian is not attending this year either, who know what he´ll be represented by this time around…

Of course, their new book Building End-User Computing Solutions with VMware View is the hot topic of the day.

We do get into other topics as well, check out the list:

• VMWorld
• Mikes new role at VMware
• Labs and MiaaS
• Whiteboxes
• Community book project possibilities discussion
• Recent Acquisitions
• Keeping book content up to date
• Further into maintaining Wiki Style content
• Is the stack better than building a best of breed solution?
• Closing with various end user computing/view topics

And a few other little things as well, please leave a comment if you figure out where the title for this one comes from and, No, neither Mike nor Barry are weird, at least not in the vSoup sense.

We´ve been graced with the presence of Mr. Joe Onisick, Cloud and Datacenter Guru and all around nice guy (If you agree with him, that is).

So, topics? We had a few:

• Dell Quest Acquisition
• VMware DynamicOPs Acquisition
• Multi-Hypervisor Data Centers
• Amsterdam TechEd – How does it compare to VMWorld
• Conference arranged parties – are they worth it?
• VMWorld discounted certifications
• VMWorld Flash Talks!!!
• Virtualizing Exchange
• One to One virtualization – big benefits?
• SMB 3.0 and it quickly turns to a File vs. Block discussion

Also, wow, no delay this time! We´re on fire.

Oh wait, it´s holiday season, so who knows when we will be back next.

Finally a new episode, that is way overdue because of Ed´s Asian Adventures. This weeks guest is PowerShell and PowerCLI Guru Hal Rottenberg, and in no particular order we get into:

• VMworld sessions
• Forum usage
• When was your Powershell ‘Moment of Clarity’?
• Mac use and associated challenges
• Splunk and vSphere usage
• Splunk + development in Powershell
• News (old by now)
• View 5.1
• Norwegian Farming issues and resolutions
• VCDX Wannabe
• Possible Job opportunity in CH

As you can see, it´s quite the list and we throughly enjoyed finally being able to have Hal on.

Enjoy the vSoup!

Naturally we talk VCDX certification, including defenses, the VCAP certifications and Bas spills the beans on the VCAP-DCA beta exam.

Guess what? We have a guest this time too! Michael Poore, yet another englishman who´s recently visited the US of A, finally graces us with his presence!

Now, tell us, how large is your shower head? Seemingly a random question, but hey, this is vSoup after all.

Is it possible to work towards the VCDX in a distributed fashion? And yes, there will be a VCDXWannabe website, but that´s not quite ready for release yet. It will be soon though, I promise. Really. For now, have a look at VCDX Defence Practice Event – London

Other than that, the new WSX feature/service in the VMware Workstation 2012 Tech Preview gets some well deserved attention, weird P2V scenarios and we get all wet eyed talking about old Compaq servers.

That should cover it, as usual, enjoy!

David was recently one of the Virtualization Field Day 2 – Silicon Valley delegates, and finally gets a chance to tell the world what it feels like to be a member of a very prestigious club. How often does that happen to a fisherman from Sunderland?

Of course, as some of the hosts like to stick their neck out, we get into VCP upgrade certification time limits, the VCDX certification and when Godwin’s law takes effect this over 1 hour edition is officially over.

We hope you can bear with us for that long, we barely managed it ourselves.

For some reason, augmented reality also makes an appearance, and traffic in Vietnam. And, can anyone guess which series of movies would be the best de-duplication candidate? We know.

Christian gets to plug Mike Laverick’s new SRM book that both he and Ed got a free copy of.

Have fun, we did while recording!

We get into all sorts of topics like Christian’s new job, Volkswagen shutting off off hours email, Ed’s Hyper-V to vSphere experience, Chris job stuff (Shameless Veeam Plugs aka B&R v6 and NFR licenses for just about everyone), SOPA, and how Eric Sloof ambushed Christian and got him on video.

Also, can you have moral qualms about globalization in software companies (offshoring)? Whats the deal with The Norwegian butter crisis and 2012: Will the world go under, or what? Will we see new vSphere Features? Is the future one the Multi- hypervisor datacenter?

Listen now, and some of that might just get answered. Or if not answered, it will get mention. A bit. Sort of.

Duncan Epping, VCDX #007 with a license to pimp VMware, is our guest.
A promising young lad that might just have a future in the virtualization space, if he plays his cards right.

We talk about Duncan’s next project, vShield App, Hairy Security Guys, and we get the answer to the ultimate question “What is Duncan doing in Technical Marketing?”

Chris’ provides a great quote from his bed time lecture, and does he really eat food prepared by underwater virgins in Ecuador? Also, another important question: “Why no VAAI?”

Listen now, and we promise it’s the last time we talk about Christian’s potatoes. Honestly.

This time we kidnapped Jason Boche, just to keep him away from the Dutch vMaffia, and stuck a camera in his face.

Of course, Jason delivers, as usual. We even nearly got Gregg Roberson on camera too, but somehow he managed to stay out of view laughing at us from a few Steps distance.

So here it is, tvSoup #2 – Live from VMworld Europe 2011. Of course, the potato is still present.

Ed and Chris are both present in the studio, but Christian, who can’t be at VMworld this year, is back home in Norway. Thankfully his presence is emulated by a potato.

Enjoy:

We’ve (everyone besides Chris that is) decided to leave this up to you, so here it is The vSoup VMworld 2011 Poll:

Be sure to vote NOW!

Arjan Timmerman is our esteemed guest in episode 17. Arjan is one of the rather huge dutch virtualization army, and a really nice guy as well.

We get into all sorts of topics, like P2Ving Domain Controllers, Christian’s new job, Ed’s possible Asian rim job, and can you, as a consultant, really say to to a client/customer?

Also, for some reason we get into replacing Christian (at VMworld Europe) with a potato, and the possibility of having Chris wandering around Copenhagen wearing a green bikini. Two things the world isn’t ready for, at least not the bikini part.

VMware Workstation 8 gets some more well deserved attention too, including running Hyper-V in it. The value of conferences gets mentioned and so does the conference parties!

Linkware:

• The Virtualization Room: Announcing our new advisory board member
• EDB ErgoGroup
• vdicloud.nl
• Qurius
• VMware Workstation
• P2V a Domain Controller? Why would you?
• Cloud still tops 2011 priority list; desktop virtualization maturing
• VMware Workstation 8 – What’s new?

Competition Time

Again, we get going with a new competition for our listeners, and yet again, we’re giving you the change to win a virtualization book. This time the prize is the VMware vSphere 5 Clustering Technical Deepdive, written by Duncan Epping (yellow-bricks.com) and Frank Denneman (frankdenneman.nl). You can get your hands on a signed copy of the book, if you can answer the two questions Arjan asks in the podcast.

Note: The first question has changed to this:
“In a vSphere 5 Cluster, if the Master Node fails an election process is
started. Explain this new election process.”

Send in your answers by using our contact form

Once again the vSoup crew get involved with extreme sports, and get three guests all at once. Lugi Danakos, Chris Cicotte and Tim Oudin from the vCommunity Trust joins us to explain just what they are up to, and why!

We even get into some rather “hairy” suggestions for future fundraising activities for the vCommunity Trust and we eagerly await the various vendors response!

Note: We have to make a correction after the fact, the #vTrust structure allows sponsoring of any candidate globally and not just US.

Linkware:

• Mike Laverick’s MIAAS
• VMware AppBlast and Octopus Tech Preview
• Novell iFolders
• Tony Sale, Colossus rebuilder and computer conservation pioneer, (1931-2011)
• VMware Workstation 8 What’s New? (Shameless vNinja promotion)

Stephen Foskett and Matt Simmons from Tech Field Day join us for the first time, and by popular demand we welcome back Bob Plankers! Naturally most of the talk revolves around Tech Field Day #7 which is right around the corner, but we manage to squeeze in some vSphere 5 as well.

Competition Winner

It’s been a while, but back in vSoup Visio is for Girls #12 we ran a little competition. We are pleased to announce that Pat McCloud has won a physical copy of Cloud Computing with VMware vCloud Director by John Arrasjid, Duncan Epping, Steve Kaplan Ben Lin, Michael Haines and Raman Veeramraju. Pat, Christian will be in touch to get the prize sent your way!

Mike Laverick, the SRM guru, is our guest and we get into all sorts of goodness: VMUG’s, SRM, VMworld bands, some vRAM semi-speculation and vBeers get some attention too! What is an unconference? Are we commoditized yet?

Linkware:

• VMware User Groups
• VMware SRM
• VMworld 2011 Band: The Killers
• vBeers
• vSphere Storage Appliance (and yes, Chris was wrong on this being limited to SKU/Essentials. Boo)

Lukewarm on the heals of the “Raising the bar , Part 5” webcast held by VMware today , Ed and Chris Deputize David Owen ( to sit in for Christian , who is currently sunning himself ) for a special reaction chat to the biggest VMware software launch yet. In our own vSoup way we talk about the pro’s and cons of the new features  – will the additional licencing cost be worth it ? will it affect our choices of hardware ? why no Microsoft “Me too” announcement ?

Normal vSoup service will be returned once we’ve thawed Christian back out.

Simon Long (you know, the guy with a massive slog) is our guest this time around, recorded from a dodgy hotel room in Leeds. Luckily Simon was able to see his car from the hotel room window, making sure no-one stole it during recording.

Even if Simon is “one of them” (read: vendor) we can’t exclude him, especially now that we have “one of them” in our own midst as well.

Semi-random images related to the podcast:

Short and Dumpy

Reverse Limbo DC temperature scale

Linkware

• Gliffy
• Veeam
• Microsoft Visio

Competition Time

We’re back with a new competition! This time you can win a copy of Cloud Computing with VMware vCloud Director by John Arrasjid, Duncan Epping, Steve Kaplan Ben Lin, Michael Haines and Raman Veeramraju.

All we ask is for you to tell us, either via Twitter, a comment or an email:
“how many times does Chris mention Veeam in this podcast?“.

And, we know it’s a way overdue, we have drawn a winner of our last competition. We are very happy to announce that Guy West-McDonald is the winner of a copy of vSphere for Dummies. Chris will be sending you your prize as soon as possible!

Remember to follow @vsoup_podcast on Twitter and to subscribe via iTunes, RSS or Stitcher!

Soundbites from Tech Field Day #6

vSoup Tech Field Day / BPaaS Soundbites with Mike Laverick and the happiest man in virtualization Tom Howarth.Mike Laverick talks about VMware SRM (surprise!) and virtualization management products.

Tom talks about Tech Field Day itself and current status and the possible future of VMware MVP.

At the end, we even have our first vendor on, with VKernel’s Brian Semple (what’s up with that twitter account Brian?) appearing explaining why VKernel presents at Tech Field Day.

Linkware:

Chinwag with Mike… and Chris Dearden [Episode 01]
VMware SRM
Nimble Storage
VKernel
Hyper-9/Virtualization Manager
VMware MVP (Mobile Virtualization Platform)

We talk about the upcoming days presentations from Zerto, a startup coming out of stealth mode any day now, Symantec, Embotics and NetApp. At this stage we didn’t know what exactly some of the vendors were going to present, so a few idea were knocked around.  We also discuss VMsafe and how it will make it off the power point and into your infrastructure. Where does Embotics fit into things? Are NetApp more than just a storage vendor? What is Rounders? Listen in and find out!

Links:

• The Bleacher Bar – http://bleacherbarboston.com
• Trend Micro Deep Security – http://us.trendmicro.com/us/products/enterprise/datacenter-security/deep-security/

We wouldn’t let him leave until we got the skinny on the vExpert program.

The following is a true and accurate account of the event…

note: no wookies where hurt while recording.

Would you run other hypervisors than VMware ESX/ESXi? If so, why, and even better, why would you want to run more than one? This weeks guests is Scott Merrill who’s employer recently decided to move from VMware based virtualization to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization as well as Microsoft Hyper-V.

That’s right, this episode of vSoup mainly focuses on non-VMware virtualization. And they all called us a one trick pony, guess that’s not the case after all!

Linkware

• Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
• libguestfs
• Red Hat Summit 2001

This time around, Stuart Radnidge is our guest, which somehow has prompted us to do a “RAW” recording. Minimal edits have been done, and we might just be a little more incoherent than usual.

Linkware

London VMUG Session
Rise of the Stupid Network
High Scalability
Evernote Architectural Digest
vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide: Shortcuts down the path of Virtualization
Internet censorship and you
Controversial Data Storage Directive Accepted

Competition Time !

If you would like to get your hands on a copy of “vSphere for Dummies” as reviewed by Chris recently here

“What books has Stuart been recently involved with?”

Winners will be announced when the next episode is released.

This time around we’re joined Christopher Wells aka the vSamurai.
At last, the vSamurai and vNinja gets talking!

Chris talks about his earthquake experience and life in Japan in general. Due to his recent experiences he’s even submitted a paper for VMworld 2011! Naturally we also get into disaster recovery and some whacky possible datacenter disasters. Veeam Backup and Recovery has it already, but will SRM get host based replication at some point?

What’s up with all the weird energy drink names? Since Chris enjoys his Pussy in the shed, we need an energy drink sponsor! Are clown jackets really the best way to monitor your environment?

VMware Cloud Foundry, why should we as sysadmins care?

Christopher Wells talks about his Tech Field Day #5 experience, and we’re extremely happy to announce that the entire vSoup crew, as well as this weeks guest has been invited to attend Tech Field Day #6 in Boston!

Episode #9 Linkware:

• Japan – My Earthquake Experience
• Real Life DR & BC, with VMware SRM
• Cloud Foundry
• Rackspace Cloud
• Open Compute Project (Facebook)
• Introduction to Chef
• So Your AWS-based Application is Down? Don’t Blame Amazon

In this episode we’re honored to have Jonathan Medd as our guest! As Jonathan runs his own podcast called Get-Scripting PowerShell, he proves that not only is he a great host on his own, but a very good guest as well.

Naturally Jonathan talks about the new VMware vSphere PowerCLI Reference: Automating vSphere Administration. We even get the gritty details on the work behind writing such a book like schedules, publishing and dealing with technical editors.

We also touch into other topics like Microsoft System Center Orchestrator (Previously known as Opalis), PowerShell licensing change by Microsoft, community awards: Can you “catch them all”?

Episode #8 Linkware:

• PowerShell Deep Dive Conference: April 17-19, 2011 in Las Vegas
• Microsoft Community Promise licensing
• Samsung NC240 24″ all in one monitor
• London VMware User Group
• VMware Forum 2011 Oslo
• Fusion-IO, a technology that allows running hundreds of virtual desktops per host
• VMware vExpert 2011 applications now open
• Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) / MVP Summit
• Citrix Technology Professionals

Competition Time

The competition is back! Don’t worry, we’re not trying to give away the cheesehat again! This time around we have a paperback copy of VMware vSphere PowerCLI Reference: Automating vSphere Administration book to give away.

Want to win it? Listen to the episode to find out how!

Sean Clark is our esteemed guest this time so naturally the first topic is
Argyle Sweater vests and Crocs, which surely is a winning combo?

Tech Field Day and Stephen Foskett, gets a lot of praise, but when will we get one in Europe? Xangati gets (even more) praise for the now infamous bacon and chocolate espresso beans serving!

How about a Cherry Pie and Bacon combo? It has already been done, Chris!

How about virtualizing your SQL servers? Do they require bacon? How do you go about setting up your storage for virtualized DBs? The Oracle tax on virtualization and licensing to finance uncle Larry any way around it? Is there a VMware vSphere Cluster size sweet spot, and if so, do they really resemble making love to a woman?! Will Christian reach virtualization nirvana in 2011? Party in the datacenter? If not, at least he gets to play with his fondleslab and vCenter!

Episode #7 Linkware:

• IBM XIV Storage System
• IOBlazer (VMware Fling)
• DBhammer
• Quest Benchmark Factory® for Databases
• Brent Ozar – SQL Server and virtualization
• Oracle Support for VMware
• VMware vSphere Client for iPad
• Bluebear Kodiak

Competition Time

We don’t have a new competition this time, but we do have a winner from our last one! As usual we numbered all of the comments, but this time we decided to do a manual draw. The winner, and only contestant, is <insert drumroll here>: @dncns! Congratulations, we’ll make sure David Owen sends you his mug!

Remember to follow @vsoup_podcast on Twitter.

David Owen, who is not from Newcastle, is our esteemed guest. We get into certifications again, mainly the DCUCI and VCDX certifications. Is the VCDX actually worth it? Is the VCDX like the iPad 2? Wantware?

Will three yearly VCDX defenses be enough, or has VMware dropped the ball? How about those VCDX fauilure rates?

Of course, since David is our guest, the we also get into UCS and the little known UCS Express gets mentioned as well. Of course, there is room for some rather off topic talk too, like “Does being electrocuted by a server rack cause hair loss?” and can the Tesla electric cars run more than 20 minutes? Network discovery tools, are there any good ones out there?

There was also a call for virtualization community fundraiser for Japan!

Anyone in the community want to organize that and get it started?

Episode #6 Linkware:

• Cisco UCS
• Cisco UCS Express
• Kendrick Coleman on vCenter Operations Hype
• VMware vCenter Operations
• EMC IX2 GiveAway
  Sadly Chad is out of IX2 boxes, but data is still welcomed we presume
• VMworld 2011 Call for papers
• Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson under fire over Tesla electric car test drive
• Tesla Roadster

Competition Time

Since we got no participants in the contest for Episode #5, we’ll save the cheesehat and t-shirt that Bob provided us with for later. We do however have a new contest this time as well, where David Owen generously offers to give away some vMackem.co.uk coffee mugs. Or you might just get a cheesehat, who knows?

Competition question: VMware vCenter Operations is the product formerly known as?

As before, we’ll number all the correct answers and draw one at random when the next episode is served.

Also, remember to follow @vsoup_podcast on Twitter.

Gabrie van Zanten is our guest in Episode #5, where he explains some of the magic behind his Cheap disaster recovery with PowerShell concept. Management through a single pane/pain of glass also gets a mention. We even manage to find time to go sobbing about how generous and great the virtualization community is.

Is the world ready for DHCP only networks? Or how about production vSphere environments running of USB sticks? Seems like the dutch are, but is the rest of the world?

Episode #5 Linkware:

• Cheap disaster recovery with Powershell
• Powershell Scripts for Monitoring and Visualizing Performance Data
• Using vscsiStats for Storage Performance Analysis
• Using vscsiStats (the full how-to)
• Converting vscsiStats data into Excel charts
• vTardis Cloud
• VMware Auto Deploy – Stateless ESXi
  
• ESXi and USB failure?

Competition Time

First off, in Episode #4 we had the HA & DRS Technical deepdive up for grabs. We’re pleased to announce that the winner is:

Congratulations Damian Karlson! We’ll be in touch to get your shipping address, and we’ll be sure to get the HA & DRS Technical Deepdive shipped your way as soon as possible.

New competition

Bob Plankers has decided to sponsor this episodes grand prize! To celebrate the Green Bay Packers and their win in Superbowl XLV he will provide a lucky listener with a cheese hat and a t-shirt from the University of Wisconsin, Madison! Of course, the lucky winner will have to provide us with a photo of themselves, or a hot loved one, in said outfit.

Competition question: How many DHCP servers did Christian manage to connect to a corporate network, and wreck total havoc?

As before, we’ll number all the correct answers and draw one at random when the next episode is served.

Also, remember to follow @vsoup_podcast on Twitter.

Bob Plankers from The Lone Sysadmin joins us this episode for a veritable buffet of vSoup, it seems to be of a distinctly networking flavour this week with a light scatting of certifications, conferences and books on top.

Speaking of Books, we have a copy of the  VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical deepdive (Volume 1) by Duncan Epping & Frank Denneman to give away to a lucky reader. As with the last entry, please leave a comment with the answer to the following question:

Contest question: Where does Bob work?

As before, we’ll number all the correct answers and draw one at random when the next episode is served.

Episode #4 Linkware:

• IPv4 vs. IPv6 Mentioned links:
  The IPocalypse Cometh – Are You Ready?
• More books:
  VMware vSphere design – the book by  Forbes Guthrie, Scott Lowe and Maish Saidel-Keesing.
  Book Follow-up by Forbes Guthrie
  VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical deepdive (Volume 1)
  VMware vSphere PowerCLI Reference: Automating vSphere Administration
• vCenter Disaster Recovery
  Standby vCenter Server for disaster recovery

Also, remember to follow @vsoup_podcast on Twitter.

Listen to the Podcast

If the normal dose of Chris, Ed and Christian isn’t enough, this time we brought on a guest as well: Julian Wood who blogs over at WoodITWork.com

Episode #3 Linkware:

• Digital Ship Scandinavia – 2 & 3 February 2011
• UK London VMware User Group:
• Designing a Virtual Infrastructure that Scales: Part 1, Taking Stock
• Liquidware Labs
• VMware boss: we rise as Windows falls
• EMC Record Breaking webcast

Episode #2 Competition winner !

We numbered the entries on order of their age and used the True Random number Generator to select a winning number…

Congrats to @mwpreston, who had comment number 3! Your free copy of the vSphere Troubleshooting Training Course is on the way!

Also, remember to follow @vsoup_podcast on Twitter.

Listen to the Podcast

Episode #2 Linkware:

Recruitment

• Leaving virtualization.info and cloudcomputing.info: A message from Alessandro Perilli

Software Weirdos

• Virtual Admins – Virtual Pirates?

Security

• vSphere Security hardening Guide
• Virtualisation Security Podcast
• When Dreamcasts attack

HP ProLiant MicroServer

• Official Hp Site
• Tech-head review
• Jason Boche’s home lab
• HP ProLiant MicroServer – Oh, it’s there!

Competition time!

vSoup in conjunction with Trainsignal have a giveaway for this episode of the podcast. Simply follow @vsoup_podcast on twitter & leave a comment on this thread with answer to the question below
(which curiously enough, you’ll find within the podcast )

A correct answer will be picked at random and the lucky winner will receive a free copy of the vSphere Troubleshooting Training Course – for a review of the course have a look here

Contest question: “What is the RPO of Ed’s Mission Critical systems?”

For extra special cruton points, answer the following bonus question as well:
“How many times does Christian say ‘weird’ during this episode?”

And remember: You’re already in it.

In this first episode Chris, Ed and Christian talk about automation, backups and even the dreaded cloud word.  For more information on the hosts, check the bio page!

The podcast should be available in iTunes in about 24h, but for now you can listen to it right here.