12-12-16 whiteboard session with the @nycvmug - recap!

Our first NYC VMUG whiteboard session was a success! We had a great group come in with various expertise levels - some like Niran even drove in from New Jersey! 

We managed to get some pics. I think I win the funny face award. You can only be in awe of the talent in the room, with everyone coming to share technical knowledge, meet new friends and have a good time!

In alphabetical order:

Anton Z (multi-VCAP, vExpert) @AntonZnyc

Ariel Sanchez (multi-VCAP, vExpert, VMUG leader) @arielsanchezmor

Azarya Shaulov, in green long sleeve shirt (VCAP, vExpert, host) @az_ny

Ganshyam Daga (virtualization consultant) @gdaga12

Michael Martino, next to whiteboard with collared shirt (multi-VCAP, vExpert, VMUG Leader) @wildcard78

Nick Scuola, in the middle (VCAP, vExpert hopeful) @NScuola

Niran Even-Chen (Double VCDX, vExpert, VMware employee) @NiranEC

Prabhu Barathi (VMware employee, SE for NSX) @prabhu_b

Extra pics:

We really appreciate every person that came to share and help the others, and especially Azarya for arranging the meeting space and making everyone feel welcome! We can't thank his employer, Touro College, and his management (and all in the IITS department) enough for fostering the spirit of user groups. Learn more about the Touro College and University System at www.touro.edu

We will continue doing these as time permits. Please follow the @nycvmug twitter account and attend the NYC VMware User Group meetings to keep up to date of when the next one will happen. As always, we really encourage creating a twitter account to get more involved with the vCommunity!

December whiteboard session with the @nycvmug

Hi everyone,

We're happy to confirm the details for our first "NYC VMUG whiteboard session". This is not a traditional VMUG meeting with a sponsor; it's really just a small room with two whiteboards and a TV to connect the laptop, where fellow VMware users can come and discuss ideas, projects, or whatever suits their fancy. 

Some of you will remember we announced this at our October VMUG meeting:

"VMware User Group Whiteboard Meetings

Azarya has asked for permission to use rooms from work for smaller, non-sponsored whiteboard sessions in an informal setting. These are great for those studying for their VCP, VCAP and VCDX certifications, those who want to talk their VMware designs with peers, and to get more involved in the community and look for general help. They will be announced via the @nycvmug twitter handle - since they aren't sponsored there's really no requirement so we will try to have them monthly or every two weeks."

If you come, you will learn something, and meet someone, so it's a great opportunity. We have asked several of the VMUG members who have advanced certifications like VCP and VCAP to assist, in case there are people studying for the certifications who would like any tips or clarifications.

Here are the details:

• Monday December 12, 2016 , 6pm
• 500 7th Ave - very close to Times Square, so transportation should not be an issue
• 10 people max - have to register with @arielsanchezmor @az_ny or @nycvmug to be added to security list before 4pm on the day of the event

Once you register you will get the building security instructions. This event is free, but there is no sponsor. This means a couple of things; 

• there is no set agenda, we don't know at what time we will be finished, it will depend on your level of interest in the current conversation. You are free to leave if you got what you wanted
• you can count that we will look for a burger/beer afterwards, but since we're each paying for our own stuff, don't expect a big party, just some guys that got together in a bar to keep talking!

Really look forward to seeing you there and making these a normal occurrence. The power of community is amazing, and all you have to do is show up and participate. Make new friends, get a question answered, help someone else!

Please remember this is a technical event for VMware users and administrators to "geek out", not a networking or recruiting type of meeting. If there is any question please reach out to @arielsanchezmor @az_ny or @nycvmug :)

NYC VMUG October 2016 update

Event Agenda

NYC Agenda
Time:      Session:
8:30 AM    Breakfast and mingling
9:00 AM    VMUG announcements
9:15 AM    SimpliVity Introduction
9:30 AM    User Presentation - HCI concepts with Nick Scuola @NScuola
10:00 AM    SimpliVity Technical Presentation
10:30 AM    HCI questions/free forum
10:45 AM    VMworld Update with VMware's Rich Bean
11:15 AM    User Presentation - vCenter 6.0 topologies with Anton Z @AntonZnyc
11:45 AM    Raffles and Closing

News and Updates

Congratulate the new NYC area vExperts

Anton Z @AntonZnyc
Azarya Shaulov @az_ny
Stalin Pena @stalin_pena

VMware User Group Whiteboard Meetings

Azarya has asked for permission to use rooms from work for smaller, non-sponsored whiteboard sessions in an informal setting. These are great for those studying for their VCP, VCAP and VCDX certifications, those who want to talk their VMware designs with peers, and to get more involved in the community and look for general help. They will be announced via the @nycvmug twitter handle - since they aren't sponsored there's really no requirement so we will try to have them monthly or every two weeks.

Other User Groups we're attending

Several of us are assisting other NYC User Groups (found in meetup.com) for example the NYC BSD User Group, Google SRE and the NYC OpenStack group. Feel free to browse and reach out if you are interested beyond VMware and want to coordinate assisting!

VMware related events

Nutanix .Next tour
Dr Strange premiere with Zerto Nov 4 here

The NJ-NYC UserCon #vBrownBag Tech Talks videos are online!

As you may remember, we had the opportunity and pleasure of having recorded #vBrownBag sessions included as part of the agenda in the NJ-NYC VMUG UserCon last June 23, 2016. You can read all about it here.

Each presenter was told in advance that they only had 10 minutes to convey a "non marketing or sales, but technical, teach us something!" type of session. This type of presentation typically yields all manners of information nuggets which are hard earned and thus highly valued. This is one of the reasons why vBrownBag has grown so dramatically, both online and in actual conferences. You can read all about vBrownBag here, and sign up for future activities (online in several regions/ time zones, or for live conferences, such as VMworld 2016!). 

One thing that I was amazed of was how few people in the NJ and NYC area knew about vBrownBag. Once you delve into the vBrownBag community you will find that there is nothing else that provides this quality of content for so little (ie, free). Even though most will agree that vBrownBag started as a VMware focused podcast, the truth is it covers whatever is hot in the infrastructure management world, since it obeys the wishes of its community. There are several podcasts dedicated to Cisco, OpenStack, Devops topics and career advice. A big focus is also on helping people study for certifications, which is rare in the sense that you can cover all the blueprint items in one hour videos for the price of a Youtube search :)

What I personally love about vBrownBag is the flexibility and the sense of community you are able to create, even if across large distances! I'm blessed to have been able to learn from, contribute, and now also be part of the production behind the scenes. VMUG and vBrownBag have the same objective in mind, which is all about the user.  Remember that although vendors are allowed to present, the vast majority of videos were created by one of your peers who decided he could contribute some of his time to others.

Getting back on track - after taking the videos and attempting to insert the PPTs inside them so the slides were readable, we've uploaded them in the official vBrownBag Youtube channel and they are now available for everyone worldwide to enjoy. Thanks again to our presenters who so graciously accepted the opportunity to help others!

Speaker Twitter Talk Title (with link to video)
Prabhu Barathi prabhu_b "Network Virtualization – what it is and what it isn’t"
Julie Starr jmarions "Policy’s Security Groups: the key to NSX’s Service Composer"
Stalin Pena stalin_pena "Microsegmentación en VMware NSX" (spanish)
Anton Z IamAntonZ "Horizon View - Tips and tricks for power users"

• Prabhu Barathi is an NSX SE covering the NYC area. He's the nicest guy you've met and he's doing an excellent job of helping vSphere administrators embrace NSX. He's going to condense all that experience and present on what NSX can do for your business problems.
• Julie Starr is a firewall specialist within the VMware Network and Security. She has authored some of the firewall deep dive posts in the VMware blog. We're especially thrilled to have someone this technical go deep on one aspect of NSX and being able to record it for the world!
• Stalin Pena is a VMware customer working in NYC. He has several certifications, most impressively VCIX-NV, and is currently pursuing his VCDX-NV. We're thrilled that he will offer his session in spanish, which is a first for the UserCon, and we will be able to record it for vBrownBagLatam!
• Anton Z is also a VMware customer and a long time contributor to NYC VMUG events. He has presented three times, in each displaying the tricks and tips he uses to make surehe gets what he needs out of each version of Horizon View. In this talk he will give his best tips and tricks for the latest version.

Re-cap of the NJ/NYC VCDX workshop

The NJ/NYC VCDX workshop was a very successful event that we are very proud of. Even with a last minute cancellation, we were able to get an attendance of 10 very interested VCDX hopefuls. 

The venue, courtesy of Anton Z, was spectacular, and the two VCDX's (Niran Even-Chen and Agustin Malanco) that delivered the workshop were great at conveying the most up to date information while keeping the session lively. We were able to dive deep into the questions that the audience had; several details of the blueprint and the overall documentation process, which had stumbled our group, were cleared up. Thankfully, we were able to stay a bit later than anticipated and in the end everyone came out highly satisfied with the workshop!

I'm sure when we mention it in the UserCon (happening the very next day) more people would have attended if they could. If you are just hearing about this and would like to get involved with a group preparing for the VCDX certification, I'd love for you to reach out - we are still at a point were newcomers can get a lot of value. I'd also like to get your information so that we can prepare an "interested in VCDX" list for the VCDX program and submit a formal request for an official workshop for the area in 2017.

Below some pictures. Attendees were, from left to right:
Anton Z, Niran Even-Chen, Agustin Malanco, Jorvin Martinez, Carlos Munoz, Melissa Palmer, Azarya Shaulov/Ariel Sanchez, Ariel Antigua, Stalin Pena, Mike Martino and Ankit Mehrotra.

If I get any more pictures I'll post them here as well.

Twitter handles from the NJ/NYC area

Twitter is a great platform to rapidly connect with others that shame the same interest. One of the best features is that followers is not the same as friends. Anybody can be a follower, and very few people impose restrictions on others from following them.

I find it works very well for VMware enthusiasts since it's encouraged by the company itself and there are very well established hashtags. Some of the coolest vCommunity efforts have happened thanks to twitter's worldwide reach with simple hastags like #vExpert, #VCP, #VCDX and #vBrownBag.

So without further ado, here are twitter handles of VMware users (everything from customers to partners and VMware employees) that are in the area and maintain a personal and public twitter presence. Please reach out to the official @nycvmug handle if you want anything corrected in this post or you don't want to be listed for whatever reason.

Alex Lopez   @iVirtuAlex
Ankit Mehrotra   @vAnkit17
Anton Z   @iamantonz
Ariel Sanchez   @arielsanchezmor   English, Spanish
Azarya Shaulov   @az_ny
Ben Liebowitz   @ben_liebowitz
Carlos Castellanos @XLinkTech
Elmer Valdez   @_elvaldez
George Varghese   @PianoBiju
Greg Laub   @GregLaub
Ivan ??   @mlgSilver
Janak Panchal   @janak0611
JM Lucier @JMLucien
Jorvin Martinez   @jorvinmartinez
Jose Restrepo   @Jose_RestrepoNY
Matt Liebowitz   @mattliebowitz
Melissa Palmer   @vmiss33
Michael Martino   @wildcard78
Michael Valdes   @valdesnyc
Michael Wilson   @m1kew1lson
Nick Scuola   @NScuola
Niran Even-Chen   @NiranEC
Omar   @vMOmar1
Pawel Czopowik   @PolishPaul
Pete Walker   @vPeteWalker
Prabhu Barathi   @prabhu_b
Stalin Pena   @stalin_pena

vBrownBag TechTalks in the NJ/NYC Usercon!

This June 23 we're doing a new experiment in the NJ/NYC Usercon. Teaming up with vBrownBag, we have accepted four technical sessions that will be recorded and put later in the vBrownBag YouTube channel! 

This is similar to the TechTalks format that is used in VMworld and other conferences. The presenter gets up on a stage and gives a 10 minute, but highly technical, talk. Real state in the UserCon is always at a premium, but working with VMUG we were able to get a space in the "Hudson Foyer" (close to where registration and food is served, which is a high traffic area).

It's time to introduce the speakers. Each one of them has helped the area before in either VMUG sessions or local Social Labs.

• Prabhu Barathi is an NSX SE covering the NYC area. He's the nicest guy you've met and he's doing an excellent job of helping vSphere administrators embrace NSX. He's going to condense all that experience and present on what NSX can do for your business problems.
• Julie Starr is a firewall specialist within the VMware Network and Security. She has authored some of the firewall deep dive posts in the VMware blog. We're especially thrilled to have someone this technical go deep on one aspect of NSX and being able to record it for the world!
• Stalin Pena is a VMware customer working in NYC. He has several certifications, most impressively VCIX-NV, and is currently pursuing his VCDX-NV. We're thrilled that he will offer his session in spanish, which is a first for the UserCon, and we will be able to record it for vBrownBagLatam!
• Anton Z is also a VMware customer and a long time contributor to NYC VMUG events. He has presented three times, in each displaying the tricks and tips he uses to make sure he gets what he needs out of each version of Horizon View. In this talk he will give his best tips and tricks for the latest version.

Here is the detail on the NJ/NYC UserCon vBrownBag talk schedule. Please make sure to attend and take advantage of the opportunity to get questions answered and make new friends!

Time Speaker Twitter Talk Title
1:10 - 1:20pm Prabhu Barathi prabhu_b "Network Virtualization – what it is and what it isn’t"
1:25 - 1:35pm Julie Starr jmarions "Policy’s Security Groups: the key to NSX’s Service Composer"
1:40 - 1:50pm Stalin Pena stalin_pena "Microsegmentación en VMware NSX" (spanish)
2:45 - 2:55pm Anton Z IamAntonZ "Horizon View - Tips and tricks for power users"

Giveaways details for the 2016 NJ/NYC VMUG UserCon

The biggest VMUG event all year for the New Jersey and New York City region takes place this June 23! Our User Convention (UserCon) is the highest attended event all year, and with good reason. It's in a beautiful venue overlooking the Manhattan skyline with excellent presentations, lots of updates from the many vendors that come into town anxious to get your attention, joined with good food and even greater company.

You can check this event's details here

https://www.vmug.com/nynjvmug

Please take a moment to register if you haven't done so. This way you can also get a calendar reminder into your work email, and very importantly, plan to take the day off work, since it's a full day event that starts early morning, has breakfast and lunch, and finishes late in the afternoon.

We're very excited to announce the prizes that all attendees will be able to participate for. It's always fun to figure out what our users could be interested in. This year we have given options for both new and seasoned VMware enthusiasts and general IT people. I'm listing them in order of price and quantity:

Every attendee 
Will get a small token of appreciation that we hope all of you will find useful.

The first 20 or so attendees 
Will get a highly anticipated print book - the official VCP6-DCV Study Guide which just recently came out! This is a very popular option so make sure you arrive by 8am to be one of the first to arrive, and take advantage of more time with fellow colleagues.

Three separate SSD winners
Will get one 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD! Whether for your desktop, laptop or homelab, replacing a mechanical drive or smaller SSD for a bigger one is always good, and these are probably the best ones out on the market today. Anybody in IT can appreciate this gift. This gift will be mailed directly to the home of the winners.

Three separate VMUG Advantage winners
Will get one code for a free VMUG Advantage subscription. VMUG Advantage has many benefits, but the perennial favorites are the discounts for training/VMworld/certification exams and having year-long homelab licenses. If you are just beginning your VMware journey, this is the push you need. At a possible $2000+ of savings, these are normally a steal at $200, but you can get one for free at this event!

Now come the big three
Inspired by the awesome work @lamw and others have been doing with the Intel NUCs, and realizing that the typical homelab bill of materials is a bit pricey, we've chosen three configurations that will let homelab users of all levels to tinker and geek out. In case you don't win and are looking into building your own, we've left all the component details here as well. Hopefully this is the start of a VMware/NUC community in the area that meets and shares tips in the VMUG presentations!

The NUCs are great platforms to jumpstart your homelab and to learn VSAN, while having a high WAF (wife approval factor) since they feature low noise and electricity consumption. Many people hook them up to TVs and figure out how to make them dual boot systems so they can act as Media Center PCs when not running VMware labs.

All of these will be mailed directly to the winner, so don't worry about walking through public transportation with hundreds of dollars worth of hardware. You just worry about participating in the Usercon :)

One lucky winner gets a "One-node Hybrid VSAN"
An excellent option for running a nested lab or be expanded with similar nodes, perfect for VMware VSAN! It includes:

• 6th gen i3 NUC maxed out with 32GB RAM and an extra GB NIC through USB adapter!
• 256GB SSD (m.2) and 1TB SATA Hybrid HD (2.5”) - it may be hybrid VSAN, but these are top notch disks!
• VMUG Advantage subscription included so you can push it to the limit as soon as it boots!

The component details for this prize are here.

One lucky winner gets a "One-node All-Flash VSAN"
An excellent option for running a high performance nested lab or be expanded with similar nodes, perfect for VMware VSAN! It includes:

• 6th gen i5 NUC maxed out with 32GB RAM and an extra GB NIC through USB adapter
• 256GB NVMe SSD (m.2) and 1TB SATA SSD (2.5”) - top quality drives!
• VMUG Advantage subscription included so you can push it to the limit as soon as it boots!

The component details for this prize are here.

And finally,

One very lucky winner gets the big home lab, "Two NUCs and a Synology"
What nested? You want to run ESXi on bare metal, and that requires dedicated hardware and some solid shared storage. With this kit, you can run DRS and HA tonight, while enjoying excellent upgrade options if you want to play with VSAN in the future.

• Two 6th gen i3 NUCs, each maxed out with 32GB RAM, each with an extra NIC
• Synology DS1515+ with 4x3TB 5400rpm drives (one slot open for future SSD or extra drive!)
• VMUG Advantage subscription included so you can push it to the limit as soon as it boots!

The component details for this prize are here.


In total around 30 people will walk out of the Usercon with even more motivation to achieve more and be better in their VMware journey. We hope to see you there, and hope that you enjoy these giveaways!

As always, please leave a comment with anything we can improve. We definitely want all the input we can get!

NYC/NJ VCDX Workshop confirmed for 6/22/2016

This year the NYC/NJ area did not get a sponsored VCDX workshop in the official VCDX calendar. Karl Childs, who manages the program, was however very helpful and tried to get one going with one month's time. When that was proving difficult, he was open to the possibility of the local VMUG group arranging a room and doing a workshop in "vCommunity" style.

One of our most active members, @iamantonz, offered a phenomenal space very near to the UserCon location (which happens the next day), and with the Karl's/VCDX program's blessing, a local double VCDX (#142), Niran Even-Chen, graciously offered to cover his transportation expenses and spend an afternoon giving us the workshop!

The vCommunity VCDX workshop for NYC/NJ details are as follows:

Date: June 22, 2016
Time: 12:30 - 4pm (starts at 1 pm sharp)
Address: 2 2nd St, Jersey City, New Jersey (this is actually much closer to NYC than it is for much of New Jersey)
Parking: there is street parking and paid parking in the same building
Who should attend: All people interested in the VMware Certified Design Expert program, either thinking of the future or already in progress
What should I bring: Lots of questions. It would be great if you are familiar with the VCDX application process so you can focus on more difficult questions
Capacity: ~10 attendees plus VCDXs (please coordinate with Ariel Sanchez through twitter to secure a spot)
But I don't have twitter You should! Go sign up.
Cost: In theory this is a free event (although there is no sponsor, we didn't have to pay for the space thanks to Anton). However, we will take the VCDX for dinner afterwards as a token of appreciation for their time and willingness, so if you want to help with the dinner bill you are more than welcome!

Will the VCDXs be able to review my design in this workshop? 
Unfortunately we have limited time, and also, sometimes current VCDXs are also panelists - this prohibits them from performing meentoring duties. I would suggest you join a local or internet group if you would like to share ideas with like minded individuals (contact your VMUG leaders, the #VCDX hashtag, etc.). There is a small core of VCDX hopefuls that have started meeting and most will attend this workshop so it's a great place to make these connections. Additionally, this link is a great place to start in getting a VCDX mentor.

How many VCDXs will attend?
Niran was instrumental in getting this going, as one is the requirement. However, he also brought us some great news - we are privileged and will also have the participation of another double VCDX, Agustin Malanco, VCDX #141. This is an excellent opportunity for the Spanish speaking community in the area since Agustin comes from Mexico and can answer questions in both English and Spanish. 

We are also reaching out for other local VCDXs who may attend - please contact @arielsanchezmor if you can make it. Also, we wiIl be having our big VMUG Usercon the next day, so I'm hoping that any other VCDXs that fly in can also drop in and give a hand and stay for a drink after. 

I will keep this post updated with any and all news. Also, if you are interested in becoming a sponsor and would be interested in providing a venue, paying for dinner, or both, please reach out to us as well!

Your local NYC VMUG leaders

This is a short post so you can recognize and contact the NYC VMUG leaders. All of are available through twitter and in person at the various events. They are friendly and passionate about you taking advantage of this community.


Mike Martino https://twitter.com/wildcard78

Jorvin Martinez https://twitter.com/jorvinmartinez

Greg Laub https://twitter.com/GregLaub

Ariel Sanchez https://twitter.com/arielsanchezmor

A focus on our users

NYC is a vibrant city that has lots of excellent VMware professionals. We realize not everybody can assist when an event comes around, but we still want to hear from you year round. We want to make this blog a resource for the NYC VMware users as much as the VMUG meetings are. 

Some examples of ways this blog can be used by you:

• If you have a blog, we would like to do a small profile on you and list it in our links.
• If you don't have a blog but would like to do a guest post, this is a great platform to do it
• If you are speaking at a public event and would like some promotion, we can work together with you and make a post here
• If you attended a local event and would like to make a review in this blog we can work together

The blog is open to many other ideas where it would make sense to use it. It also serves as a slower, longer format communication platform. Reach out to the VMUG leaders or leave a comment on this post and we will do what we can to help you!

Welcome to the NYC VMware User Group blog!

Welcome to a new format of communication with your NYC VMware User Group. The blog format works well for announcements and event recaps, and we expect to have collaboration for blog content from our VMUG members.

We do recommend twitter for the most up to date information and the fastest response to any question. The twitter handle is @nycvmug - direct link is in the Useful Links section on the right, as is also the link to our next event and our workspace in vmug.com