Tag: vExpert

Building a Horizon View vCheck with those nice api’s (part 1 of ??)

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Intro

Ever since I saw Alan Renouf’s vCheck script first in action years ago it has been one of the tools I have been promoting to use for daily checks. The fact that you can disable and enable plugins makes it a flexible adjustable solution that helped me preventing companies having big problems or proving that I have been warning them about things for weeks or months. Also I have whipped many colleague or customer around the ears with questions why they didn’t remove those snapshot they created 3 days before

Getting started

Fast forward until a couple of months ago when I saw those release note’s for PowerCli 6.5 with more options to talk to the Horizon View api’s. This immediately gave me the idea to build a set of vCheck scripts for Horizon View. One of the first things to do was finding out how the vCheck framework actually works. This turned out to be a matter of outputting the info you would like in the output as if it is on the command line. Also adding a section that contains a description helps in building the output:

$Title = "Composer Servers Status"
$Header = "Composer Servers Status"
$Comments = "These are the used Composer Servers"
$Display = "Table"
$Author = "Wouter Kursten"
$PluginVersion = 0.1
$PluginCategory = "View"

The 2nd thing to do is deciding on what checks needed to be build. After checking on the vExpert slack and with some co-workers and friends I came up with a shortlist:

  • Dashboard error status (Sean Massey)
  • Desktops with error (non-standard) status (Myself,Sean Massey)
  • Compare the Snapshots that have been set to the ones actually used on desktops to see if recompose might not have run (Brian Suhr, myself)
  • relation between Composer and vCenter (Kevin Leclaire)
  • last use time for dedicated desktops (Kees Baggeman)
  • Event Database status
  • Connection,composer,security server status
  • Information and status about the various desktop pool types
  • RDS farm status

Getting things done

Before actually building any checks a connecton has to be made this is done in the Connection plugin:

$Title = "Connection settings for View"
$Author = "Wouter Kursten"
$PluginVersion = 0.1
$Header = "Connection Settings"
$Comments = "Connection Plugin for connecting to View"
$Display = "None"
$PluginCategory = "View"

# Start of Settings
# Please Specify the address of one of the connection servers or the address for the general View environment
$Server = "Servername"
# Maximum number of samples to gather for events
$MaxSampleVIEvent = 100000
# Please give the user account to connect to Connection Server
$hvcsUser= "username"															
# Please give the domain for the user to connect to Connection Server
$hvcsDomain = "domain"														

# End of Settings



# Credential file for the user to connect to the Connection Server
$hvcsPassword = get-content .\hvcs_Credentials.txt | convertto-securestring		
# Credential file for the User configured n View to connect to the Database
$hvedbpassword=get-content .\hvedb_Credentials.txt | convertto-securestring   	

# Loading 
Import-Module VMware.VimAutomation.HorizonView
Import-Module VMware.VimAutomation.Core

# --- Connect to Horizon Connection Server API Service ---
$hvServer1 = Connect-HVServer -Server $server -User $hvcsUser -Password $hvcsPassword -Domain $hvcsDomain

# --- Get Services for interacting with the View API Service ---
$Services1= $hvServer1.ExtensionData

# --- Connect to the view events database ---
#$eventdb=connect-hvevent -dbpassword $hvedbpassword

# --- Get Desktop pools
$pools=(get-hvpool)

As you might notice the vmware.hv.helper plugin is required to do this.

The first real check I decided to build was to see if the desktops are actually build on the same snapshot as configured on pool level. With this you are able to see if a recompose ran into trouble. Let me highlight some of the code:

if ($pool.type -like "*automated*" -AND $pool.source -like "*VIEW_COMPOSER*"){

There are a couple of pooltypes and one of them is automated, since we’re looking for linked clones we also need to make sure the pool source is VIEW_COMPOSER if this says VIRTUAL_CENTER you’re looking at full clones.

$wrongsnaps=$poolmachines | where {$_.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagesnapshotpath -notlike  $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath -OR $_.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagesnapshotpath -notlike $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath}

I could have shortened this one by defining a couple of variables but this gives an impression of how deep you might have to go to get the required data. WHat I do is check if the snapshot has the same name AND if the selected source VM has the same name if either of the two is different the vm wil be entered on the output.

$wrongsnapdesktops+= New-Object PSObject -Property @{"VM Name" = $wrongsnap.base.name;
								"VM Snapshot" = $wrongsnap.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagesnapshotpath;
								"VM GI" = $wrongsnap.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagepath;
								"Pool Snapshot" = $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath;
								"Pool GI" = $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.parentvmpath;

Last of the real code is about displaying the actual info for the desktop.

This all results in the following plugin, be aware that this might be a bit slow to run since it needs go go trough all desktops. For my customer it takes about 3 minutes on 1350 desktops.

# Start of Settings
# End of Settings


$wrongsnapdesktops=@()
foreach ($pool in $pools){
$poolname=$pool.base.name
if ($pool.type -like "*automated*" -AND $pool.source -like "*VIEW_COMPOSER*"){

$poolmachines=get-hvmachine ($pool.base.name)
$wrongsnaps=$poolmachines | where {$_.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagesnapshotpath -notlike  $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath -OR $_.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagesnapshotpath -notlike $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath}
foreach ($wrongsnap in $wrongsnaps){
$wrongsnapdesktops+= New-Object PSObject -Property @{"VM Name" = $wrongsnap.base.name;
								"VM Snapshot" = $wrongsnap.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagesnapshotpath;
								"VM GI" = $wrongsnap.managedmachinedata.viewcomposerdata.baseimagepath;
								"Pool Snapshot" = $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.snapshotpath;
								"Pool GI" = $pool.automateddesktopdata.VirtualCenternamesdata.parentvmpath;
}
}
}
}
$wrongsnapdesktops

$Title = "VDI Desktops based on wrong snapshot"
$Header = "VDI Desktops based on wrong snapshot"
$Comments = "These desktops have not been recomposed with the correct Golden Image Snapshot"
$Display = "Table"
$Author = "Wouter Kursten"
$PluginVersion = 0.1
$PluginCategory = "View"

And this is how it looks:

Another script I already made is a simple one to get the status of all full clone pools. Not really fancy but it gets information about what template is used as the base and several counts for the various status of desktops:

# Start of Settings
# End of Settings

$fullpoolstatus=@()
foreach ($pool in $pools){
$poolname=$pool.base.name
if ($pool.type -like "*automated*" -AND $pool.source -like "*VIRTUAL_CENTER*"){
$desktops=get-hvmachinesummary -pool $poolname
$fullpoolstatus+=New-Object PSObject -Property @{"Name" = $Poolname;
								"Template" = $pool.AutomatedDesktopData.VirtualCenterNamesData.TemplatePath;
								"Desktop_Count" = ($desktops).count;
								"Desktops_Unassigned" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.User -eq $null}).count;
								"Available" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "AVAILABLE"}).count;
								"Connected" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "CONNECTED"}).count;
								"Disconnected" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "DISCONNECTED"}).count;
								"Maintenance" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "MAINTENANCE"}).count;
								"Provisioning" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "PROVISIONING"}).count;
								"Customizing" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "CUSTOMIZING"}).count;
								"Already_Used" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "ALREADY_USED"}).count;
								"Agent_Unreachable" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "AGENT_UNREACHABLE"}).count;
								"Error" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "ERROR"}).count;
								"Deleting" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "DELETING"}).count;
								"Provisioning_Error" = ($desktops | where {$_.base.basicstate -eq "PROVISIONING_ERROR"}).count;
}
}
}
$fullpoolstatus | select Name,Template,Desktop_Count,Desktops_Unassigned,Available,Connected,Disconnected,Maintenance,Provisioning,Customizing,Already_Used,Agent_Unreachable,Error,Deleting,Provisioning_Error
$Title = "Full Clone Desktop Pool Status"
$Header = "Full Clone Desktop Pool Status"
$Comments = "These are all pools with full clones and their most common counters"
$Display = "Table"
$Author = "Wouter Kursten"
$PluginVersion = 0.1
$PluginCategory = "View"

and again this is how it can look:

Github

After Alan Renouf saw me posting screenshots on Twitter he offered to setup a github project for this. Last week this was done and I have already done my first few commits. Hopefully more people will jump on the bandwagon so we can make this check as awesome as the original is.

Using PowerCLI to get Horizon view status & events

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Update: There is a new way to pull the event information without having to enter the sql password please see this post about it.

So two weeks ago I had a nice little post about talking to Horizon View using PowerCLI. I also promised to be digging a bit more into PowerCLI by grabbing the script posted on the VMware blog and editing it a little to my taste. It’s a very useful script they have on there but still I prefer to know what might have caused the issues. I decided I needed to know who the last user was that used the desktop and the last entry into the eventlog and the time of that log. So actually most code used talks to the eventlog database, something already available pre PowerCLI 6.5 but what I hardly ever used.

The basics for connecting I won’t post but we do need an extra connection and that is to the event database:

$eventdb=connect-hvevent -dbpassword $hvedbpassword

As with the Horizon View connection it’s best to put this into a variable so it can be used later on. The $hvedbpassword should be the password for the user that View uses to connect to the database server in plain text! Earlier in the script I read the password from hashed contents in a text file.The request has been dropped to be able to pass encrypted credentials and/or creta a credentialstore for this.

Next up is grabbing the events for a certain Desktop

$lastevent=get-hvevent -hvdbserver $eventdb -timeperiod 'day' -messagefilter $problemvm.base.name

This could use some rework since I would prefer the time period to be a variable based on the current date but if the event is older then a day it will be hard to find anything on it anyway.

if ($lastevent.events){
$lasteventtime=$lastevent.events | select -expandproperty eventtime -first 1
$lasteventmessage=$lastevent.events | select -expandproperty message -first 1 
$lasteventusername=$lastevent.events | select -expandproperty Username -first 1 
}

This grabs the latest event, the time it happened and the user it happened to. This can be anything including a logoff. It might be able to help you why a lot of desktops are ending up in a rotten state.

The rest of the script is basic building of arrays, filling them, mailing it etc etc. So still not a lot of complicated code that some people build but it’s a bit of the basics in talking to the View Api and the event database.

This is the output you will get (this is from an html file and heavily edited to anonimize it)

The complete script, please do use and abuse it to your own taste as I have done with the original:

#########################################################################################
#																						#
# Get List of Desktops that are not available or connected		 						#
# This is based on the script posted here:												#
# https://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2017/01/vmware-horizon-7-powercli-6-5.html				#
# Required:																				#
# Powercli 6.5 Release 1																#
# The VMware.Hv.Helper Module from https://github.com/vmware/PowerCLI-Example-Scripts	#
#																						#
#########################################################################################

#region variables
#########################################################################################
#								Variables												#
#	Password files need to be filled firs using:										#
#	Read-Host -AsSecureString | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Out-File 'filename.txt'		#
#	Enter password and press enter														#
#	vCenter things have been marked out but I left them in here 						#
#	because they might be usefull for when someone else uses this script				#
#########################################################################################
$cs = "connectionbroker"														# Horizon Connection Server
$hvcsUser= "Service_Account"													# User account to connect to Connection Server
$hvcsPassword = get-content .\hvcs_Credentials.txt | convertto-securestring		# Password for user to connect to Connection Server
$csDomain = "domain"															# Domain for user to connect to Connection Server
$hvedbpassword=get-content .\hvedb_Credentials.txt | convertto-securestring   	# password to access event database
$mailto="user@domain.com"														# Address to send the status mail to
$mailfrom="connectionbroker@domain.com"											# Address to send the mail from
$mailsubject="Overview bad VDI desktops"										# Mail subject
$smtpserver="mailserver.domain.com"												# Mail server			
#$vcuser="vcuser"																# User account to access the vCenter server
#$vcpassword=get-content .\vCenter_Credentials.txt | convertto-securestring		# password to access the vCenter server
#vc = "Enter vCenter name"														# vCenter Server



$baseStates = @('PROVISIONING_ERROR',
                'ERROR',
                'MAINTENANCE',
                'DISCONNECTED',
                'AGENT_UNREACHABLE',
                'AGENT_ERR_STARTUP_IN_PROGRESS',
                'AGENT_ERR_DISABLED',
                'AGENT_ERR_INVALID_IP',
                'AGENT_ERR_NEED_REBOOT',
                'AGENT_ERR_PROTOCOL_FAILURE',
                'AGENT_ERR_DOMAIN_FAILURE',
                'AGENT_CONFIG_ERROR',
                'UNKNOWN')
				

#endregion variables

#region initialize
###################################################################
#                    Initialize                                  #
###################################################################
# --- Import the PowerCLI Modules required ---
Import-Module VMware.VimAutomation.HorizonView
Import-Module VMware.VimAutomation.Core

# --- Connect to Horizon Connection Server API Service ---
$hvServer1 = Connect-HVServer -Server $cs -User $hvcsUser -Password $hvcsPassword -Domain $csDomain

# --- Get Services for interacting with the View API Service ---
$Services1= $hvServer1.ExtensionData

# --- Connect to the vCenter Server ---
#Connect-VIServer -Server $vc -User $vcUser -Password $vcPassword

# --- Connect to the view events database ---
$eventdb=connect-hvevent -dbpassword $hvedbpassword

#endregion initialize

#region html
###################################################################
#                    HTML                                         #
###################################################################

$style = "<style>BODY{font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;}"
$style = $style + "TABLE{border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse;}"
$style = $style + "TH{border: 1px solid black; background: #dddddd; padding: 5px; }"
$style = $style + "TD{border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px; }"
$style = $style + "</style>"

#endregion

#region main
###################################################################
#                    Main                                        #
###################################################################
$Problemarray=@()
#Write-Output ""
if ($Services1) 
	{
     foreach ($baseState in $baseStates) 
		{
           # --- Get a list of VMs in this state ---
           $ProblemVMs = Get-HVMachineSummary -State $baseState

           foreach ($ProblemVM in $ProblemVMs) 
		   {
		   			$lastevent=get-hvevent -hvdbserver $eventdb -timeperiod 'day' -messagefilter $problemvm.base.name
			
				if ($lastevent.events){
					$lasteventtime=$lastevent.events | select -expandproperty eventtime -first 1
					$lasteventmessage=$lastevent.events | select -expandproperty message -first 1 
					$lasteventusername=$lastevent.events | select -expandproperty Username -first 1 
					}
				else{
				$lasteventtime="Last event is longer then 1 day ago"
				$lasteventmessage="Not Available"
				}
			$lastmaintenancedate=(Get-HVMachine -machinename $problemvm.base.name)
		   	$item = New-Object PSObject
			$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Name -Value $problemvm.base.name 
			$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name State -Value $problemvm.base.basicstate 
			$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Pool -Value $problemvm.namesdata.desktopname
			$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Last_event_time -Value $lasteventtime
			$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Last_event_user -Value $lasteventusername
			$item | Add-Member -type NoteProperty -Name Last_event_message -Value $lasteventmessage
			$Problemarray+= $item
           }
		}
	
		if ($problemarray)	
			{
			$mailbody=$Problemarray | sort state,name | convertto-html -head $style -property  name,state,Pool,Last_event_time,Last_event_user,Last_event_message | out-string
			send-mailmessage -smtpserver $smtpserver -to $mailto -from $mailfrom -subject $mailsubject -body $mailbody -bodyashtml 
			}
		else
			{
			send-mailmessage -smtpserver $smtpserver -to $mailto -from $mailfrom -subject $mailsubject -body "No problems found in the Horizon View Environment" 
			}

     Write-Output "Disconnect from Connection Server."
     Disconnect-HVServer -Server $cs -confirm:$false
		} 

else 
	{
     Write-Output "Failed to login in to Connection Server."
     
     }
# --- Disconnect from the vCenter Server ---
#Write-Output "Disconnect from vCenter Server."
#Disconnect-VIServer -Server $vc
#endregion main

 

 

Talking PowerCLI against Horizon view (basics)

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You know that VMware product that really lacked on the PowerCLI front called Horizon View? Well from PowerCLI 6.5 R1 it finally (try to imagine saying this like The Rock : Finally Powercli has come to Horizon View!) has its own module that you can use to talk to Horizon View and the View API’s.

Offcourse i am not the first to write about it and lots can already be found at the above link to the VMware blog by Graeme Gordon but I did want to share a couple of easy commands with you. I will not bore you with how to set it up because that’s already perfectly explained in Graeme’s post.

First we need to connect, looks like the connect-viserver right?:

connect-hvserver SERVERNAME

you will get a popup box for credentials, I haven’t found an option yet to do something like new-vicredentialstoreitem yet but you can use a hashed password in a text file.

Now for example to retrieve all disconnected desktops

Get-HVMachineSummary -State DISCONNECTED

This can be changed to whatever states are available for desktops.

One of the things Horizon View always lacked was proper reporting for desktop counts i.e. how many desktops are in what state. Lots of people had to use things like scripts that counted them from the adam database (sloooooow) or used tools like the VMware Horizon toolbox 2. To get a count is now really easy with powercli, just repeat the above command and do a count on it.

(Get-HVMachineSummary -State DISCONNECTED).count

For me this was a matter of a second with over 900 desktops available.

Want some information about a single desktop?

get-hvmachinesummary -machinename "machinename" | fl

In short you can find anything you want with the command or by using the View API’s. Since I am not an APi expert myself I would recommend heading over to the API browser and see what you want to use.  In my next post I will dig into the command a bit more by grabbing the script from the VMware blog post and editing it more to my taste.

Can you smellllllll what The Rock is cooking?

Getting Started with Altaro VM backup 7 (part 1)

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One of the perks of being a VMware vExpert is that you now and then get licenses for and a chance to play with new software. Since I needed a backup solution for my lab I remembered a couple of Backup software builders int he list of companies that support the community. From this list I decided to give Altaro a go and requested the vExpert NFR License. Within a day I received the license and it turned out they just released a brand new version of their software: Version 7!

You can go to Altaro’s website to see what’s new in this version.

The mail contained a download link to the software and after a while I had a new (backup) vm rolled out (someone who wants to sponsor a NUC with 32GB RAM for me? ML150G6’s are slooooooow). Installing the software is next next finish so I won’t bore with that. One thing I noticed is no requirement for a database server. Let’s hope my disks are fast enough for what Altaro does.

This post is in no means a deep dive in what Altaro can give you. It’s a step by step guide to set it up and get started with the product. Also I show some features that are present in the console. Except for the NFR license Altaro has had no influence on this post itself.

Getting Started

The first thing you see after the installation is the Welcome screen that let’s you choose to connect to a local or remote server. Just select this machine (I like it that they mention the required port for the remote server though!)

Next up is the Quick Setup screen, select add Hyper-V / VMware Host (duh)

So here you can select between loose ESXi hosts and vCenter, I selected vCenter.

Enter the vCenter’s dns name/ip address and proper credentials (yes I am lazy in my lab) and next (it wil test the connection itself anyway. Under port settings you can set alternate ports if required.

Altaro will now recognize and add the ESXi hosts that are added to the vCenter server. It had no problems with my LABESX01 that is powered down. Hit finish to end this.

You are taken to the hosts screen where they show running on a trial license.

You can hit the 30 days remaining to add licenses, the licensing options will be shown.

The license can be added with the appropriate button. Enter the license key and select assign license.

You need to repeat this for all hosts!

After this I went back to the quick setup screen to add storage. Altaro has several options to write to but I added a couple of cmdk’s to the backup server that run on local slow as **** sata drives on this server.

Select physical disk

Select the disk (yes these screenshots are mixed up), create a new folder if you want and choose select .

When the storage is added you can link vm’s to the storage by drag & drop.

back to the quick setup i went and choose to create the first backup. this will take you to the take backup screen, select the vm to backup and hit take backup.

Schedules

I decided to remove the original schedules and add a new one. The time might look strange but during the daytime no-one is home and I ain’t playing with it unlike in the evening and sometimes nights. After deleting the old ones click Add Backup Schedule

Select the time and days you want to run the backup at.

When the schedule is created drag and drop the vm’s to the schedule to link them. Don’t forget to save these settings at the bottom.

Retention

Setting retentions is fairly easy, by default vm’s are linked to the 2 week retention policy. If you remove them by clicking the X they wil get moved to the Never delete policy! Please be aware that after adding a retention time I wasn’t able to remove it so this might get cluttered easily.

Notifications

Fairly basic stuff in here, you can get notified by email or events int he event log.

Advanced Settings

Not that extremely advanced but under advanced settings you can select deduplication, encryption, iso’s to be backupped and if Change Block tracking needs to be used. The last option is exclude drives where you actually select the vmdk to exclude so make sure what vmdk is what drive or mapping.

VSS Settings

Under VSS Settings you have the option to select application consistent  backups and to truncate logs.

The Master encryption Key

.The name says enough about what this does.

The End of part 1

In this part one we got started using Altaro Vm Backup 7 and viewed some of the options In the management console. In the next part we’re going to see if we can actually restore files, maybe start a vm from backup and see what the sandboxing does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

VMworld 2016 US Part 4 – the last one!

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So right now it’s thursday evening and here I am in my hotel room too damn tired to even go outside. VMworld is a wrap and wow it was awesome. Yesterday I had 2 more sessions. First a quick vExpert session at the Docker booth where we got a nice vExpert embroided hat.Then it was time to get the vExpert Raspberry Pi 3 at the Datrium booth. Men they had big issues on getting them in but succeeded at last so thank you very much for that! I ended with a Rubrik session with Chris Wahl that was pretty good. In the evening it was time for the biggest party of them all at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. To be honest I think the sound of the bands sucked and the music of the dj’s wasn’t good either but I had an awesome time playing all the games, talking to people ad even made a lap in 1 of the 50! Rental cars that wil probably be going back to budget with hardly any tires left.

So today was the last day and I did only 1 session and that was about troubleshooting Horizon and killed the time by doing some labs and hanging at the vBrownbag area where I learned a lot by listening to the sessions. This space just seemed to be vExpert HQ the whole week.

All in all I think this was the best way ever to experience your first VMworld. I really want to thank all vExperts for welcoming me in the community because I don’t think I would have had such an awesome experience without you guys!

VMworld 2016 US report part 3

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Wow it’s wednesday already, time flies at VMworld! Yesterday again was an awesome day, first the 2nd keynote and after I had to head out to the Luxor for the Inner Circle fireside chat.

The Inner Circle is a group of about a 1000 people that is engaged by the VMware Customer Advocacy program. We have our own forum, weekly polls on the site and surveys by mail. Our feedback gets handled by VMware on a high level and personally I really have the idea that they listen to us. The fireside chat they had an idea of how to do it but it ended as an organized free for all where VMware received honest, harsh but really good feedback. In short they got slaughtered on several topics. They did not expect this so it was good to see that they seemed to handle it pretty wel. Later in the day I went to stop by at their boot hand asked them to get more vExperts involved because I think we are exactly the kind of people that can give this feedback.

Because of the Inner Circle session running way over time and me getting hungry pretty bad I missed the uem 9 sessions so I hope that one is recorded. My final session of the day was the vSphere 6.x Host Resource Deep Dive by my fellow Dutchies Frank Denneman and Niels Hagoort. This session was soo deep the entire Mount Everest might fit into it. Really good stuf and very useful.

After the sessions it was partytime! First a quick beer and a snack at the Inner Circle reception and after I hopped on the bus to The Mob Museum for my first vExpert party. First we had our mugshots taken. We got a print but also digitally by mail so please check mine on Twitter. We had great fun over there and had Pat Gelsinger over doing a Q&A for over an hour! Best quote? Hyper-V is free as a puppy!

Today I had a hard time waking up, not getting out of bed but during my first session at 8 am I was not paying enough attention at all. But still it was a good session on how to architect a HA resilient scalable mobility & desktop environment. After that I had a session about troubleshooting avSphere 6 environment by a couple of GSS guys and picked up a lot of good stuff!

vExpert 2016

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Last friday I received word that I was added as vExpert in the 2nd batch of 2016. After several people nudged me to apply for this I went ahead but never expected to be chosen. vExpert is no technical title but more of an award for people who have done things for the VMware community like speaking at Vmug’s (which I did but failed at), blogging, tweeting en being an advocate for it with your employer or customers. I never did the things I did last year for this goal but it’s an awesome acknowledgement.

I hope to be able to keep contributing to this awesome community and will do so as long as I have content. The first thing will be speaking at the vBrownbag sessions at VMworld US 2016!

vExpert-2016-Badge