Virtual Strategy Magazine
Confessions of a Virtualization-aholic
Aug 27th
The editor of Virtual Strategy Magazine recently asked me if I would be interested in committing to a regular monthly column for them. After thinking about it for a few days, I agreed and my first article in the series was published on Monday. The title of the column is going to be “Confessions of a Virtualization-aholic” where I’ll talk about real world experiences, with plenty of exaggeration and embellishment for effect. 
You can follow my new column by visiting Virtual Strategy Magazine and this month’s article is here http://www.virtual-strategy.com/Features/Sweemer-20090825.html. I’ve also republished the article below.
The data center lights are brighter than the sun. The air is particularly stale and warm today. Beads of sweat are forming on my forehead. One bead grows too large and trickles down my face into my right eye. The salty liquid forces me to squint and temporarily blurs my vision. I hear Jamiroquai’s "Virtual Insanity" playing in the background. Sweet.
My vision returns and I notice a lone leaf of paper, like tumbleweed, dancing across the raised tile floor. It’s caught in the airstream of the temporary fans brought in to combat the blistering heat pouring off the mountains of servers. Off in the distance, I see an Oompa-Loompa doing a perfect pirouette. That’s weird. He’s kinda freakin’ me out. But nevermind. Back to the heat. It’s bad and it’s getting worse.
There are just too many servers. Some renegade, old-school wahoo added more hardware when the existing hardware is way underutilized. Brainwashed products of an era dominated by inefficient operating systems and incompatible applications, you can’t blame them anymore than you can blame a dog for being a dog. But placing blame aside, they have an incredible knack for making a horrible mess of things. I need to put an end to this.
I can feel the temperature rising. The data center technicians have all stripped down to their knickers. Long hair and pot bellies abound. It ain’t pretty. Except for Megan Fox. She’s hot. Evidently, in between filming scenes for her next Transformers movie, she moonlights as a server admin. Who knew? She turns to me and says "Aaron, you have to help us!" There’s an air of desperation in her voice.
"Don’t worry, miss…everything’s going to be alright."
In super slow motion, she flicks back her hair, gives me a sexy smile and a wink. I can’t disappoint Megan! Now I’m on a mission, the heat must come down. Servers must be eliminated. Everything must be virtualized!
It’s show time. Without hesitation I start to P2V everything in sight. The growing crowd starts to cheer and I feed off their excitement. Web, database, middleware, you name it … nothing is safe, nothing is sacred. I’m a P2V monkey, but instead of flinging poo, I’m flinging servers. One by one, each server meets its timely end. The heat is retreating. Trees are being saved! Energy execs are sobbing as their profits diminish with every dead server!
The pile of lifeless hardware is growing quite large. Each server bears an official death certificate which reads "Virtualized by VMware." Most of us cheer. But a few of the old timers hover over the steaming pile of scrap metal screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" One of the poor pathetic souls shakes his fist at me and calls me a murderer. I can’t help but snicker.
Just then, Megan breaks through the crowd and comes running toward me. Oddly enough, her knickers are gone and she’s covered by nothing more than a recent issue of Virtual Strategy Magazine. Carryl Roy, Editor in Chief of VSM, yells "We’re only digital, not print!" To which I exclaim, "I really think you’re missing the point!" And at that very moment, Megan leaps toward me and lands with her lips in perfect alignment with mine.
"My hero!" says Megan.
"Sweemer’s the name, virtualization’s my game."
She moves in for a long, wet kiss. But before our lips touch, she pauses, gives me a funny look and says, "BEEP." Huh? That was weird. Well, it’s Megan Fox, she can say whatever she wants ‘cause she’s so hot! But let’s try that again.
"BEEP"
Okay, Megan sweetheart, you really need to stop that. It’s distracting.
"BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP"
My eyelids open and I’m staring at the rear end of my 10-year-old boxer, Lucy, who apparently managed to crawl into bed in the middle of the night. I reach over and grab my alarm clock and mid BEEP, I throw it against the wall. I’m pissed. I lost Megan and woke up to old stinky dog butt. But then I roll over and see my amazing, beautiful wife. Megan’s got nothing on her! And life is good again.
My wife opens her eyes and says "You were dreaming about Megan Fox again, weren’t you?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you woke me up 15 times last night screaming, ‘P2V me, Megan! P2V me, baby!’"
I try to conceal my embarrassment as my wife just giggles. But she does a great job of comforting me when she says "Don’t worry, baby. I dream about Megan Fox, too." Sweeeeeet. I love my wife.
Well, time to get up and get ready, I’ve got a long day, which begins with my Virtualization-aholic’s Anonymous meeting. It’s been rumored that Simon Crosby and Steve Ballmer will be there. Care to join us? We meet right here, once a month, at Virtual Strategy Magazine. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you may even hurl, as you hear weird, wacky and sometimes seriously disturbing Confessions of a Virtualization-aholic.
A Little Side Tracked
Jul 27th
At the end of Why you should care about virtualization (part 2) I stated that part three should come along much quicker than part two did. Well here I am almost a month later and part three still isn’t ready.
But I’ve got a very good reason this time. With the little free time I had to write, I spent it focused on a piece for VIRTUALSTRATEGYMAGAZINE. And it is with their permission that I reprint my work here. Below is my first piece of work published anywhere, ever … very exciting for me It was originally published on July 24th, 2008 on the VIRTUALSTRATEGYMAGAZINE website. Here is the official link: How did they do that?!
This morning I found myself watching one of those drug commercials we’ve all come to know and make fun of. You know what I’m referring to. Each one varies a bit but they’re all basically the same. This one was for a new medication that treats chronic diarrhea and it opens with a very handsome guy mountain biking down an ocean front cliff, the sun in his face, and the wind at his back. Angels were singing and birds were chirping. The commercial ends with total world peace and all the world leaders holding hands and singing “Kum Ba Yah” around a perfect campfire. Awesome! I need to get me some chronic diarrhea! Wait. Hold on. How did they do that?!
As I watch the Microsoft marketing engine shift into high gear, and as I read various articles and posts scattered throughout the blogsphere about the recent release of Hyper-V, I can’t help but feel like I’m watching the techie version of a drug commercial. I mean seriously, for three years the Microsoft zombies have been holding hands, surrounding the virtualization crop circles, eyes glazed over and swaying side-to-side in perfect harmony, constantly repeating their unmistakable mating call “hyyyperrrrrveeeeeeeeeee.” And now the mother ship has landed. The result? Phrases like “Microsoft will eat VMware for lunch” and “VMware will be dead in five years” and “VMware will be the next Netscape” are a dime a dozen. Really? Awesome! I need to get me some Hyper-V! Wait. Darn it, I fell for it again! How did they do that?! And where are my diarrhea pills?
Let me clearly state that I’m actually not a Microsoft hater. I write this article using Microsoft Word which is installed on my Windows XP operating system, both of which I love. And my Microsoft mouse ROCKS! It’s got all sorts of cool buttons and it lights up and it’s shiny!!! Weeeeeee!
Don’t mistake my twisted humor as a full-on attack of Microsoft or of Hyper-V, because it’s really not. To be perfectly honest, in my limited exposure to Hyper-V, I would say it’s a half decent start for a version 1.0 hypervisor. My intent really is to just cut through the hype and the marketing spin surrounding it.
Let’s not lose sight of the real reasons we are virtualizing the in first place. Sure, creating a virtual machine is fun and easy and the lure of putting 30 VMs on a single physical machine is certainly powerful. But creating a VM became possible almost 10 years ago and server consolidation of this magnitude has been happening for at least 3 or 4 years now.
Today, the true power of virtualization is revealed at the management and automation layer. With the proper platform and tools in place, IT can actually take control of their infrastructure, becoming the choreographers of a fantastic ballet of dancing VMs. And simply being given the option to create a VM doesn’t come close to delivering on this promise. Rather, to achieve what we’re really looking for, we need a whole new set of management and automation tools. We need a set of tools that are purposefully built from the ground up, capitalizing on all the inherent properties of a VM. And if you’re just starting to virtualize, believe me when I say you’ll get here fast. Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that you can wait for this type of management.
The good news is that this is more than just a promise for many companies, and it can be for you, too. Disaster recovery, virtual lab automation, release management, provisioning management, life cycle management … VMware has virtualization management and automation solutions that address all of these areas (and more) and they’re available today. Better still, they’re built around a hypervisor that’s been in the data center for years, not a few days
It’s easy to get lost in the smoke and mirrors of phantom products and even easier to choke on the exhaust of a marketing engine in full throttle. So do your homework and make decisions based on solid facts. And while this is a new frontier for all of us, VMware isn’t new to the game and they have very real virtualization management solutions today. Why wait? You’re missing out and wasting a ton of money if you’re waiting for the free version to be “good enough.” And really, I equate this to waiting to see if my 80 year old grandma will be able to break dance. Gosh darn it, it took her an hour just to stand up! Regardless of what she tells me, I just don’t see her bustin’ a move anytime soon.