SeanClark.us

It was the night before WuPaaS and all through the house, not a tweep was stirring except those dudes already in San Francisco that everyone hates………at least till they get up there.

I really don’t have the patience to smoke out an entire “night before _______” blog post, but I did want an excuse to practice typing on the iPad without a keyboard prior to VMworld. I have to say. I think I still type faster on my Blackberry Curve, but my iPad Fu is getting way better. I think my biggest issue with leaving the laptop at home this year will be more with website compatibility than with iPad skilz.

Heading to my 5th VMworld tomorrow, and 2nd Vmunderground party. I am stoked, because I have a good feeling about the announcements and the ideas we’ll be exposed to this year. I have all Sunday afternoon open in San Fran, so give me shout on Twitter if you’d like to meet up. So it looks like my Monday and Tuesday nights late are pretty wide open. Give me holler if there’s s party I should consider.

I can be found on Twitter at @vSeanClark. Have a happy VMworld!!!

Dude! There is an iPad Wordpress app. I might actually blog more know. Provided I have my wireless keyboard with me. (I hate typing on an iPad).

This is test one to my seanclark.us orphan blog. Next up will be adding a second blog (likely http://vmunderground.com. Here goes nothing.

I’m getting the itch to dust off my ruby skills and get back into some software development in my spare time.  Mostly because I’ve been immersed in cloud computing technologies for the last 5 weeks and I’ve become aware of two technologies that will be help automate all that is cloud:  puppet and chef.  Both are written in the coolest language I’ve every worked with: ruby!  This exciting to me because I was a former ruby/rails developer and was kind of missing that type of work and now I’ve found an area of intersection for ruby with cloud computing.  Rock on!

So before getting started with some cloud app dev in ruby and/or puppet and chef, I needed to check out what is new in the ruby and RoR (ruby on rails) world.  I’ve probably missed quite a lot in the last 3 years since I was actively hacking out RoR apps.  Here are the tools and resources I’ve (re)discovered and will be starting with:

Launchpad Resources

• Ruby on Rails resource to resources –  http://rubyonrails.org/
• Ruby Language main page – http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/

Infrastructure Automation (Cloud)

• Chef  - http://www.opscode.com/chef
• Puppet – http://docs.puppetlabs.com/guides/introduction.html

Editors

• VIM baby! I’m old school.  Vi-like editors are not for everyone, though.  But you can get VIM for linux, Windows and Mac.  I’m starting out with VIM on Ubuntu linux.  -  http://www.vim.org/index.php
• And there’s now a Ruby on Rails features for VIM –  http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1567
• Textmate is a Mac-only client. Probably most popular Ruby editor for Mac.  When I’m home (2 Macs), I might take Textmate for another testdrive, but not to excited about forked out cash for this endeavor….yet – http://macromates.com/
• More IDEs and editors at the bottom of this page might get my time: http://rubyonrails.org/download.  But for now I’m going old school.  If I can be more productive some other way, I’ll definitely give it a shot.

Deploying Rails Apps

Last time I was active in RoR dev, the preferred deployment method was changing every 9 months.  I was not disappointed to learn that there have been some big improvements in simplicity and speed for deploying Rails apps.  Here’s the latest:

• Phusion Passenger –  http://www.modrails.com/ – I’ll be starting here and will see if it truly is as simple as it states.  I’m hoping so.  As cool and easy as Ruby and Rails make development life, deployment and hosting has always been somewhat of a PITA.
  • If Passenger falls on its face, I’ll just fall back to what I know: Mongrel -> http://github.com/fauna/mongrel
• Don’t forget you can also use jRuby to run your RoR app on any Java Virtual Machine, and Warbler can be used to package any Rails app as a .war file for deployment to java app servers like VMware SpringSources lightweight tcServer .  This seems like a great way to “infect” your Java org with the goodness of Ruby on Rails AND VMware at the same time.
• Database layer I’ll probably default to MySQL since I have the most experience in this space.  But I’m very interested in exploring more scalable options and will also be looking to “NoSQL” options to address use cases that need web-scalability.

Well, that’s my starting point for this week.  Hopefully will have time for more posts on my journey back to ruby as time allows and I get some reps under my belt with some of the above mentioned items.  In the meantime, if you have questions about starting off with Ruby and Rails and cloud hosting and management of these types of apps.  I’ll be glad to share my experience since it will be very fresh in my mind.  Feel free to tweet me at @vSeanClark and I’ll be glad to point you in the right direction.

VMware has opened up public voting to allow you to have a say in what sessions you’d like to see at VMworld.  You can vote as many times as you’d like, but just once per session.  This is a great idea to allow us some say in choosing non-commercial VMworld sessions.

My good friend, fellow Pella resident, and VMware/Citrix shaman, Tait Smock and I have jointly submitted a session titled 100% virtualization leads to 100% protection which you can find under the Private Cloud – Business Continuity section.  It should be a good ride for folks wanting to learn about real world 100% virtualization efforts within healthcare to help drive better disaster recovery.  Folks with Meditech Client/Server will also want to pick Tait’s brain for tips and tricks on virtualizing that beast of an app.  Below is the summary of the submitted session:

100% virtualization leads to 100% protection -

Pella Regional Health Center realized the power of VMware to dramatically improve their disaster recovery capability with VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM). They achieved 100% virtualization of their core application, Meditech Client/Server, in January 2010. This enabled them to realize the full benefits of VMware SRM, transforming their disaster recovery time from days to hours.

More Suggested Sessions

While you are on that page, I also suggest you vote for a few other great speakers.   I can highly recommend voting for the first 3 on the page.  The speakers are all good guys and know their stuff, even if one of them isn’t Dutch.  :)

APPRO Systems: Warm Site Recovery Using vSphere, NetApp, SMVI, PowerCLI, & PoshOnTap –  Speaker: Jase McCarty

Planning and Designing an HA Cluster That Maximizes VM Uptime – Speaker: Duncan Epping

Disaster Recovery the Dutch way: Cheap –  Speaker: Gabrie van Zanten

It is a gorgeous morning in Pella, Iowa and the tulips are in full splendor.  Birds are chirping and we have yet another perfect spring day to be thankful for.  The Drake Relays are in full swing and I’m looking forward to a weekend of elite track and field action in my own backyard.  In short, life is good and it feels like the perfect beginning to a new chapter in my professional life.

On Tuesday, I will be diving out of the airplane and entering the world of VMware virtualization consulting.  In the past I have typically worked for software development shops, VARs, a hospital, and I even farmed for a character-building 6 month stint with my in-laws back in Manning, Iowa.  Yes, that’s right.  The bacon you were eating back in late 2002, early 2003 might have come from a pig I helped care for (or cussed at).  I actually got my Oracle certified DBA cert while farming those 6 months.  I guarantee, that nothing motivates you to pass an IT certification more than power-washing manure out of an empty hog barn.  Nothing!  But I digress…..

I’m off to a new way to put bacon on the table for my family.  I will be working as a VMware Architect [not for VMware PSO] working on capacity planning and how to best provide hybrid cloud computing resources for the many servers at a Fortune 500 company.  From everything I’ve heard, it’s a top notch company to work with and a great community to live in.  I’m excited, and fully expect to throw myself into the vSphere VCDX preparation starting next week and will likely turn the bulk of my research into cloud computing tech rather than the VDI focus of the last year and a half.  It’s definitely going to be fun ride and a great challenge to rise to to.

But this change isn’t all rainbows and unicorns (weaponized ponies).  It has definitely been a bittersweet decision for me, as I have to leave a great team of of people and a great company with awesome customers.  Alliance Technologies has been my work “home” for almost 5 years of my 10 year IT career, launching my IT career in 2000 when I was a programmer/DBA.  In 2007, they were gracious enough to have me back and help build up their VMware practice and apply my trade.  But for the last year and half, I have focused a large part of my work and research on Quest vWorkspace and “VDI”.  It has been fun to watch the Alliance Technologies vWorkspace practice grow and thrive.  Alliance Technologies has a great group of engineers and sales professionals that “get VDI” from their years of experience with Citrix, VMware and now Quest vWorkspace.  It will be fun to watch their continued growth and success in the coming years.    Thank you, Alliance Technologies and good luck!

So with that, the cat is out of the bag.  I’m excited for this new chapter and this new challenge.  It’s definitely going to be a interesting and rewarding few years.  Look out VMware and Cloud architect gurus, you’ll probably be seeing and hearing more from me as I pick your brain and bounce ideas off you.  I hope that I can help return the favor at least once or twice as well.  If not, I can at least pay up in a beer at the next VMworld.