Category Archives: VMware

VMworld

VMware Hands-on Labs public beta

One of the most awesome parts of VMworld, at least in my opinion, is the Hands-on Labs.  There, you get to actually put the new product through its paces.

At VMworld 2012, one of our announcements (which I think kinda got lost in all of our other announcements) is that we’re going to make our Hands-on Labs available online.  Our first step towards that is live now: add yourself to our list for the public beta.  We’ll use this to figure out how much demand there actually is for this, and we’ll add people to the Hands-on Labs so that we can manage the experience and make sure that it’s all happily working for everyone.  So get on the list!

Full details are in the blog post announcing the public beta.

vSphere

The Register on vSphere 5.1’s Flex-based web client

The Register’s click-inducing title Love vSphere? You’re going to have to love Flash too made me wince when I saw the title, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s a pretty even-handed look at the new web client and how it came into being.  I won’t spoil the whole thing, but here’s the conclusion:

VMware has done a spectacular job of delivering the first enterprise-class Flash application I have had the pleasure to use. The web client in vSphere 5 was an interesting toy that we collectively poked at, shrugged, and went back to the familiar C# client. This time the training wheels are off, and VMware doesn’t disappoint.

For those of you who install 5.1, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the web client.  My team has put a lot of work into this, and we’re continuing on it in the future.  Stay tuned for more announcements of research that my team is doing so that you can help us shape the future of vSphere and the vCloud Suite.

VMworld

VMworld run down

This was my first VMworld, and I’ll post some thoughts about it later, but for now, here’s a great list of what happened at VMworld.  From my perspective, here’s one important point:

The new vSphere Web Client is where VMware is going, and you can tell this in the vSphere 5.1 release.

Once you install vSphere 5.1, I’d love to hear your thoughts about the web client.

Fusion, Mac

Fusion 5 is here!

Before I get swept up in all of the VMworld madness, I’d better not forget to let you know that Fusion 5 has been released!  I’ve been dogfooding it for awhile, and ’tis awesome.  It works well with both Mountain Lion and Windows 8, not to mention the Retina display on the new MacBook Pro.

The thing that I’ve noticed the most is that Fusion 5 has made some great strides in performance.  I used to have to be careful with running Fusion if I wasn’t going to be near a power outlet soon, but now I don’t worry about it.

More details are over on the Fusion blog‘s announcement.

VMworld

BYOD for the VMworld Hands-on Labs

I know that the Hands-on Labs are one of the most popular parts of VMworld, including bragging rights if you finish all of them.  So one way to work on those bragging rights is the new BYOD for the VMworld Hands-on Labs.  We’ll still have the traditional workstations set up, but you can also use your own device.

My awesome team made a video about it, which you absolutely need to watch:

Nadyne, VMworld

VMworld! next week!

Next week is VMworld, and I’ll be there.  Want to meet up?  Ping me (honestly, reaching me via twitter is probably going to be best, since my mail is going to get pretty backed up next week) and we’ll meet up for coffee or cocktails.

user experience, vCloud, vCloud Director, VMware, vSphere

virtual infrastructure architects and senior admins needed for user research

I’m conducting some user research in the coming months, and I need virtual infrastructure architects and senior admins to participate in it.  At a high level, I’m looking for virtual infrastructure architects and senior admins who do tasks such as manage and monitor virtual infrastructure, plan capacity, create VMs, migrate VMs, or deal with virtual infrastructure help tickets.  If you’re local to Palo Alto, then you can come to my usability lab and participate in person; if you’re outside of Palo Alto (including outside of the US), then we’ll conduct the studies remotely via WebEx.

This user research is a little different than usual: I’m going to be doing a lot of research on a related group of topics in the coming months, and so I’m putting together a small pool of people who will participate in multiple studies over that amount of time.  Every 6-8 weeks, I’ll run another usability study, and I’ll pull from this small pool of participants for it.  You don’t need to participate in each study, but you do need to commit to participating in at least one study.  The first study begins on Monday, August 13.  You will be compensated for participating in each study, and your level of compensation grows with each study you participate in.

If you’re interested in participating, then fill out this survey to tell me a bit more about what you do and what your virtual environment looks like.  And if you’ve got any questions, feel free to ping me.