So, I knew about this contest that Greg Stuart @vDestination was running and I wanted to make sure that YOU knew about it too!

vDestination is sending you to VMworld 2013… for free!!!

Every year since Greg has been doing this, I’ve been telling you about it, and hoping that one of you will win! I mean, ONE of you will win, certainly.. and I want to make sure that as many people get their opportunity for their free pass and all the rest to get there and experience VMworld for themselves!

I’m in the process of writing the 2013 Guide to VMworld as I write this, but you have –10- days to enter and win this contest, so I wasn’t going to let it wait any longer! Get over to vDestination.com and ENTER and hopefully WIN!

Some of you might be asking, “Is anyone else running a contest like this?” Well… a FEW companies were, but they aren’t running it anymore. As in, it’s over.  This may be your last chance.   But also, let it be known… if you’re buying passes for VMworld, Early-Bird discounts are still available and good until June 10th.  So you have 6 days to get $500 off… so if you work for a not-so-cheap-ass company who can send you, get them a discount! :)

GO ENTER! WIN!

Here are some of the top questions I’ve been getting lately since I’ve been here in Afghanistan.

Why the hell are you in Afghanistan?!   What are you DOING there?!

I mean, sure I was a little… obtuse about details, for safety and security reasons when I shared things initially in my post Taking a stand and serving my country; or WTF is @CXI doing in Afghanistan?!? but I think I’m comfortable answering a few of these questions for you :)

So on the initial question, WHY am I here – refer to my blog post above and I think you’ll get that answered pretty easily! But more importantly…

What am I actually doing here!

So, I eluded to doing things with Storage… Virtualization… Cloud… etc.   Well, here is a little low-down at the best I can possibly offer you. :)

In 2011 Afghanistan NATO and International forces had ~800 bases or so, and then started closing down or transferring bases, take the 202 bases closed in 2012 alone and as we are here in 2013, more and more bases are being closed as we ready for the complete draw-down slated to finish Dec 31 2014.   So, you’re asking WTF ARE YOU DOING, STOP STALLING!  :)  

Where I come in, is as these bases start to close up, there’s infrastructure which gets decommissioned, data-centers closed, services shut down or consolidated.   And as the Afghanistan theatre and country lead for Virtualization and all the fun that falls underneath that… Well, let’s just say… There’s a whole lot of fun that falls underneath that! Between the sites which are shutting down and the ones which will continue running for a long time to come. :)  

Hopefully this gives you a little bit of an idea of what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and all of the evolution and change which goes with that!   I’ll provide more details, stories and so much more as time goes on, you can’t even begin to imagine the challenges and woes of high tech infrastructure in a warzone and as applicable I’ll share those stories here, at conference and beyond when I come home!    Also, I’m planning to do some ‘virtual’ VMUGs here for the guys on the ground who haven’t had that experience and if you’re a speaker/presenter who would like to try to remotely present let me know!

Some of you ask about sending me letters, care packages and what-not, feel free to send whatever you’d like to me at the address below!

Christopher Kusek
JNCC-A Task Force Signal
APO, AE 09354

I wish you all the best and don’t hesitate to reach out to me in the short and the long-term!   Eventually I’ll be coming home and the eventual adventures I’ll pursue when I come home, Safely.  :)

So there you are working with your vCOPS and suddenly it reports OMG YOUR VCOPS ANALYTIC VOLUME IS RUNNING OUT OF SPACE!
You know the alert, It’s predicting you have 22 or some arbitrary number of days left! OH NO, WHAT SHALL WE DO!

Well, I highly encourage you to NOT do what I did initially.. which was increase the size of the VMDK and then try to expand that.
A little tip… THAT won’t work! :) I mean, sure you go to visit this little tidbit which indexed so nicely on google..

Expanding the data disk of the vCenter Operations Standard virtual appliance (1.0.x only) (1035655)

Yes, I see that it says 1.0 ONLY but hey, we’re ignoring that fact because we are NOT finding the answer! Well, I’ll save you a lot of time by saying DO NOT EXPAND YOUR DISK, DO NOT DO WHAT THAT SAYS, etc… :)

Instead I would like to point your attention to this little bitty which ChaseHansen on the VMware Communities brought to my attention! Thanks Chase!

Adding additional storage to the vCenter Operations Manager 5.x Analytics or UI VM (2016022)

And allow me to sum it up for you as well…

IF YOU ADD ANOTHER VMDK TO THE ANALYTICS OR UI VM, IT WILL ALLOCATE THAT SPACE TO THE LOGICAL VOLUME

Seriously. Talk about simple, straight forward and probably documented but I was over complicating things and didn’t think to check if so.

Now you too can avoid this problem and hopefully find this answer when your Analytic VM is starting to run out of space! I do particularly like how the article says that doing this ‘should’ add the disk to /data volume (In my case it did… so hopefully they’ll refrain from blessed assumptions ;))

Enjoy my dear vCOP’ers!

A lot of you have been asking about this.  So I thought it about time to finally share just what is going on!    An interesting opportunity presented itself recently to allow me to serve my country in a way I am capable of and more importantly, allow me to do my part to help bring our troops home.     Allow me to provide a little background and context.   I am no warrior, I am no soldier.   I can barely even carry the gear that is the bare minimum used for protection, I can’t even begin to imagine just what the weight of the weaponry involved is!

Allow this visual depiction of my experience of getting blood drawn for putting my DNA on file to give you an example of just how non-capable for soldiering I am!   And why yes I did pass out during the blood draw, really it wasn’t the blood draw so much as the WHERE IS THE VEIN, I KNOW, LETS MAKE HIM PASS OUT! It wasn’t the first time, and I warned them up front this was bound to happen if they didn’t find the vein the first time!

But with all that said and done, I am still physically fit to actually BE here, and apparently, strong enough to at least WEAR this gear when time calls for it!

Though I’m far more accustomed to just wearing a jacket and take photos of myself after not having slept for days and days – Oh, where would I not sleep for days and days? Probably some place like this PAX Terminal which often receives mortar attacks…

But I digress a little.   Back to what I am doing here.   I am no warrior, I am no soldier… I am a technologist, I teach, educate, evangelize, enliven, and solve problems and let me tell you, <REDACTED> <REDACTED> <REDACTED>, Pretty awesome, right?

I’ll be honest, due to the sensitive nature of what I am doing here, what and where I am working on, etc; I am unable to really share a whole lot of what I am doing or what it entails but I can via obfuscation share that I am helping spread the good word, will, and journey of all things that are Storage, Cloud, Applications, Virtualization, Security and more.   You know, all the kinds of things you often enjoy my expose’s of and the like!   The real and ultimate goal of this journey is doing my part to help bring our troops home safely, and ensure that the the infrastructure which helps support and save lives sustains.

This world is a very secretive one but there are parts of that experience often never shared that I’ll be able to reveal as I serve my time here.

Many of you have asked how you might go about sending me letters, care packages, whatever or the like; provided below is my APO for those wondering.

Christopher Kusek
Trace Systems
JNCC-A Task Force Signal
APO, AE 09354

I also have a DoDAAC which is pretty awesome for FAST delivery, but that’s not really needed at all!  A conversation on facebook revealed that USPS has free shipping materials for APO addresses.   Honestly, I really don’t think I need much, I mean I try to be a pretty easy person; albeit vegan food options out here are quite difficult and interesting to say the least…

I do apologize I haven’t been on Twitter much, Internet connectivity here SUCKS and I cannot get to twitter from my work machines, though Facebook works fine, thus I’ve been being as regular there as I possibly can respectively. :)    I cannot stress enough how having a max 5k download speed at times really means, it makes Skyping challenging enough as it is at times. :)

I’ll keep you all updated on my journey, and new and interesting lessons learned from the Warzones, consider me the eyes into this world which often is shrouded from our very eyes in media reports and beyond.    I hope you all are well, and I take steps to ensure my safety on the regular so I’ll be able to return home in this mission to help return home our troops and do my part in the United States drawdown from Afghanistan.

Be well, and I hope this revealed enough to comfort or alleviate any thoughts some of you may have been having! :) Comments, letters and beyond are always welcome! :)

It’s the End of January, 2013 is finally here, so the first thing on your mind should obviously be… VMWORLD!!!

For those of you who attended last year, you might recall OMG I HAVE TO TAKE A TAXI, BART OR CAR FROM THE SFO AIRPORT?!?!

Yea, that’s right. Because you didn’t book your hotel soon enough.  It’s not your fault that San Francisco effectively has like, 3 hotels which aren’t an arm and a leg expensive.   But that doesn’t mean you need to suffer through this indignation again!   Do what *most* of us truthfully did…   We booked our hotels MONTHS and MONTHS in advance!   Here are a few cute little facts:

• Hotels unlike Airline tickets can be booked out a bazillion years in advance
• Hotels unlike Airline tickets can be CANCELLED as close as up to 24hrs in advance without paying any fees
• Hotels will often fill up the “Cheap” rooms as they’re sold on a tiered basis, so you can lock in a good room for a good rate EARLY.

So what does this all mean?

OMG VMWORLD IS AUG 26-29 2013 – BOOK YOUR HOTEL NOW!!!

I mean, you can pre-register if you want as well, but I know some of you won’t know what your training budget looks like, sometimes upwards of DAYS before you’re supposed to attend.   So I encourage you… book your walking distance hotel now from the Moscone instead of booking it days before-hand with a 30-60 minute commute staying at the SFO Airport or somewhere else horribly ridiculous.

And worst case scenario, you don’t get your budget? Well, then just cancel your hotel room and it goes back into the pool, no harm no foul.

Pro-Tip: I’ve actually found that sometimes using the VMworld sanctioned hotel code/etc to actually make the room MORE Expensive, so don’t use that as an excuse.   Get ahead of this before you regret it later :)

THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. HAD THIS BEEN A REAL EMERGENCY, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN COOKIES.