Category Virtualization

This is the contest which is a pre-requisite to compete in the “Get On The Bus” contest!

Here is a basic walk-through of the game!

After using your Live login credentials, login and you’re ready to play!

You’ll be set to play and in my case, welcomed back showing your current achievements!

I’ll breakdown what each of these achievements are, what they mean and how to get them!

	Triple Threat: Correctly answer 3 questions in a row
	Speed Demon: Answer a question right in less than 5 seconds without using a voucher
	Voucher Saver: Finish a whole episode with at least 5 vouchers left
	Socialite: Have at least 10 people in your friends list
	Academic Achievement: Answer a total of 25 questions correctly
	Intellectual Achievement: Answer a total of 50 questions correctly
	Brainy Achievement: Answer a total of 100 questions correctly
	Gifted Achievement: Answer a total of 200 questions correctly
	Rookie Achievement: Complete a full episode
	Newton Achievement: Complete a full season
	Einstein Achievement: Complete the entire IT Professional set of questions
	Turing Achievement: Complete the entire IT Developer set of questions
	Certifiable Achievement: Complete all of “ARE YOU CERTIFIABLE”
	Quick Draw: You are answering questions at lightning speed
	Congratulations: You have earned vouchers in all 3 mini games
	Congratulations: You got 10 questions in a row correct

And you may notice that some of these are Greyed out – Seriously, how on earth you get “5 vouchers” in an episode, let alone having vouchers left is beyond me! The max I’ve gotten is 4 vouchers and that is with getting all answers correctly in 1 or less seconds! So I have NO idea what you do there!

Then you play the game, and you get a score like this! and you’re set for the contest!

Good luck out there, I encourage you to ACT NOW! Before Monday when the contest closes! If you have any questions let me know!

What’s that you say? A free trip?! Where do I sign up, how can I win?!

If you missed my previous post Get On The Bus to TechEd! Deadline April 6th! there is an amazing opportunity to win not only recognition, food folks fun and adventure, but also a free ride all the way to TechEd!

The formal site for this contest has all of the details as does my above mentioned post, but just to give you a feel of what is required.   You are expected to:

Play the Are You Certifiable Game and generate a score.

Write an Essay and publish it online, typically via a blog.

You get extra points if you create a video and make it available.

And then fill out your registration which you can find here and you’re on your way!

It’s very easy, and this weekend is the last chance to do it before it expires Monday at 9AM PST

Get on there, generate and compete! I really want to go, but I also really want to compete and make sure as many people as possible have this opportunity to not only Get On The Bus, but also to potentially attend TechEd as it’s an amazing opportunity and place to visit!

Also, if you have any questions about any of this, don’t hesitate to ask me, or certainly the folks over at MSLearning, but I’m a third party who WANTS you to succeed, so that’s a win :)

Yea, you heard it right! Microsoft unveils program after program to help get people jobs, keep you in jobs and ofcourse increase education and awareness, which certainly helps in the whole job scenario!

So, let me show you just what DreamSpeak has in store for you!

Well, free training and education, vouchers! books and videos!

The MCTS Free Voucher program is tied to education and being within the schooling system, so do account for that in the account you login with in order to be able to access and obtain your free voucher!  If you choose any of the various schools, it will show you what the expected address type is to look like (looks like a security risk/flaw to me.. but what’s a free voucher amongst friends! ;))

I know some of you have been waiting patiently for MBRAlign after finding out that your ESX Virtual Machines have been out of alignment all this time (A common trend which affects nearly everyone who uses ESX!)

Well, the wait is over! Now you can actually go and download MBRAlign directly from the NetApp toolchest, without having to wait for someone (like me;)) to give you a copy to download! (I do appreciate you asking, and am more than happy to provide you the tools in any event :))

If you’ve used the MBRScan tool before, in order to determine if your machines are aligned or not, that is still available as part of the VMware ESX Host Utilities Kit (v5)

And now you can download MBRAlign directly from the NetApp Toolchest! Hoorah!  I implore you to please read the mbralign.pdf first before you do anything!

For some additional information on this, I encourage you to check out the NetApp community article which echos a number of these statements.

UPDATE – mbralign is available from the ToolChest on the now.netapp.com website

So, check it out, let me know if you run into any problems or issues and I’ll see what I can do about em! ;)

Dell apparently sat back yesterday, watched all of the Cisco UCS announcements, and then said “I only see what I want to see” and apparently, all Dell sees is a Blade Server. Doh!

In this article Cisco Blade Server Misses the Mark Rick Be from Dell had the following to say:

17 March , 02:00 PM

Virtualization is undoubtedly a hot topic in the industry, especially today. After much anticipation, Cisco finally announced its “Project California.” As expected, Cisco launched its Unified Computing System (UCS), a blade server appliance designed for virtualization.

There has been a lot of discussion about what this means for Cisco’s partners in the virtualization server market. Are we partners? Are we competitors? Yes and yes. Dell continues to have a strategic networking partnership with Cisco to provide comprehensive solutions to our customers – today’s news does not change this.  Am I worried that Cisco’s new appliance will take away business from Dell? Not at all.

We’ve seen this before. Companies bring to market solutions that address a narrow population of customers or a single IT issue. While Cisco is a leader in the networking space, the server market is a very different ball game. CIOs aren’t looking for proprietary, appliance-like products like UCS because they drive up TCO and create more complexity. This is where Cisco has missed the mark.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the excitement about virtualization that Cisco’s news has generated is great. This is a technology that has revolutionized business computing and I am particularly passionate about it. It seems, however, that Cisco is a bit confused about what customers want and need from virtualization solutions.

When I am talking with customers, there are common themes that come up about what businesses want:

• Options and open standards – Flexibility is key to long term survival in today’s economy and this is what Dell delivers better than anyone else. Companies need more from a supplier than specialized, high-priced solutions. Businesses are looking for the whole package – a technology partner that can help them address and manage their large data sets, edge of the network workloads and everything else.
• Better total cost of ownership – Customers expect that innovation in IT will be focused on lowering the cost of operations WITHOUT significantly raising the price for the hardware.
• Simple management – Customers need the ability to manage their hardware locally. This is not possible with HP’s Virtual Connect –unless you have a 100% HP data center. And it does not appear to be possible with Cisco blades.

Dell’s strategy to simplify IT resonates with CIOs because it helps their organizations reclaim the most valued business resources: people, time and money. You will see exciting news from Dell in the coming months. Soon, we will introduce our totally redesigned Nehalem-based 11^th Generation PowerEdge virtualization servers. And you will also see us expand out partnerships to offer even more options for business looking to build open, flexible and powerful virtualized environments. Stay tuned.

I absolutely agree Flexibility is key for long-term survival, and reliability is paramount for survival period.    Look no further than Cisco for an example of what reliability is while establishing what open standards are, and how they’ll be pioneered and delivered upon.   It will be Cisco’s story in the future than when you think of Virtualization, you will think of Cisco and their significant role in the Datacenter and beyond.