Last year I decided to refurbish my home office, to create a space that enables me to do my work in the most optimum way and of course that is pleasing to the eye. The first thing that came to mind was a whiteboard and a really big one. So I needed to build a wall to hang the whiteboard, as the room didn’t have any wall that could hold a whiteboard big enough. After completion of the wall, a 6 x 3 feet wide whiteboard found its way to my office.

Although its 5 to 6 feet away from my desk I realized I didn’t use it enough due to “distance”. Sitting behind the desk while on the phone or just using my computer I found myself scribbling on pieces of paper instead of getting out of my chair and walk over to the whiteboard. So I needed a small whiteboard I could grab and use at my desk, sounds like a plan however I like minimalistic designs where as much “clutter” is removed as possible. I needed to come up with something different, enter the whiteboard desk!

Whiteboard desk
Instead of buying a mini whiteboard that needs to be stored when not using it I decided to visit my local IKEA shop and see what’s available. Besides “show your desk” threads I hit ikeahackers.net on a daily basis. While looking at tables, I noticed that the IKEA kitchen department sells customized tabletops. Each dimension is possible in almost every shape. I decided to order a 7 feet by 3 feet high-gloss white tabletop with a stainless steel edge. The Ikea employee asked where to put the sink, she was surprised when I told her that the tabletop was going to function as a desk.

I chose to order the 2 inch thick tabletop as I need to have a desktop that is sturdy enough to hold the weight of a 27” I-mac and a 30” TFT screen. The stainless steel edge fits snug around the desk and covers each side; it doesn’t stick out and is not noticeable when typing. It looks fantastic however the downside is the price, it was more expensive than the table top itself. The alternative is a laminate cover that looks like it will be worn out easily, while spending most of my time behind my desk I thought it was worth the investment of buying the real thing.

The high-gloss finish acts as the whiteboard surface and works like a charm with any whiteboard markers. I left notes on my desk for multiple days and could be removed without leaving a trace.

The tabletop rest on two IKEA Vika Moliden stands, due to the cast of the shadow its very difficult to notice that the color of the stands do not exactly match the color as the stainless steel edge.

The whiteboard desk is just an awesome piece of furniture, when on the phone I can take notes on my desk while immediately drawing diagrams next to it. It saves a lot of trees, saves a lot of time scrambling for a piece of paper and a pen and decreases clutter on the desk. The only thing you need to do when building a whiteboard desk is to banish all permanent markers in your office.

It would be awesome to see what your workspace looks like, what you love about your workspace and maybe show your own customizations. I would love to see blogs articles pop up describing the workspace of bloggers. Please post a link to your blog article in the comment section.

Whiteboard desk is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

TA 1682 – vSphere Clustering Q&A
Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman will answer any question with regards to vSphere Clustering in this session. You as the audience will have the chance to validate your own environment and design decisions with the Subject Matter Experts on HA, DRS and Storage DRS. Topics could include for instance misunderstandings around Admission Control Policies, the impact of limits and reservations on your environment, the benefits of using Resource Pools, Anti-Affinity Rules Gotchas, DPM and of course anything regarding Storage DRS. This is your chance to ask what you’ve always wanted to know!

Duncan and I conducted this very successful session at the Dutch VMUG. Audience participation led to a very informative session where both general principles and in-depth details were explained and misconceptions where addressed.

TA1425 - Ask the Expert vBloggers
Four VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDX) On Stage! Are you running a virtual environment and experiencing some problems? Are you planning your companies’ Private Cloud strategy? Looking to deploy VDI and have some last minute questions? Do you have a virtual infrastructure design and want it  blessed by the experts? Come join us for a one hour panel session where your questions are the topic of discussion! Join the Virtualization Experts, Frank Denneman (VCDX), Duncan Epping (VCDX), Scott Lowe (VCDX) and Chad Sakac, VP-VMware Alliance within EMC, as they answer your questions on virtualization design. Moderated by VCDX #21, Rick Scherer from VMwareTips.com

Many friends of the business have submitted great sessions and there are really too many to list them all, but there is one I would want to ask you to vote on and that is the ESXi Quiz Show.

A 1956 – The ESXi Quiz Show
Join us for our very first ESXi Quiz Show where teams of vExperts and VMware engineers will match expertise on technical facts, trivia related to all VMware ESXi and related products. You as the audience will get 40% of the vote. We will cover topics around ESXi migration, storage, networking security, and VMware products. As an attendee of this session you will get to see the experts battle each other. For the very first time at VMworld you get to decide who leaves the stage as a winner and who does not.

This can become the most awesome thing that ever hit VMworld. Can you think about the gossip, the hype and the sensation will introduce during VMworld? As Top vExperts, bloggers, VMware engineers and the just the lone sys admin (no not you Bob Plankers ) compete with each other. Will the usual suspect win or will there be upsets? Who will dethrone who? Really I think this will become the hit of VMworld 2011 and will be the talk of the day at every party during the VMworld week.

Session Voting is open until May 18, the competition is very fierce and it’s very difficult to choose between the excellent submitted sessions, however I would like to ask your help and I hope you guys are willing to vote on these three sessions.

http://www.vmworld.com/cfp.jspa

VMworld Public Voting is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

Every month Simon Seagrave and I try organise a social get together of like-minded Virtualization enthusiasts held in a pub in central London (and Amsterdam). We like to call it vBeers. Before I go on, I would just like to state, although it’s called vBeers, you do NOT have to drink beer or any other alcohol for that matter. This isn’t just an excuse to get blind drunk.

We came up with idea whilst on the Gestalt IT Tech Field Day back in April. We were chatting and we both recognised that we don’t get together enough to catch-up, mostly do to busy work schedules and private lives. We felt that if we had a set date each month, the likely hood of us actually making that date would be higher than previous attempts. So the idea of vBeers was born.

The second Amsterdam vBeers will be held on Thursday 3rd of February starting at 6:30pm in ‘Herengracht Cafe’ which is placed close to Leidseplein and Dam Square. This venue serves a fine of selection of beers along with soft drinks and bar food.

Drinks will not be paid for, there will not be a tab. When you buy a drink please pay for it as no one else will be paying for your drinks.

* Location: The ‘Herengracht Cafe‘ Amsterdam
* Address: Herengracht 435, Herengracht/Leidsestraat
* Nearest Tram Station: Koningsplein – Lijn 1,2,5
* Time: 6:30pm
* Location: Map

Dutch vBeers is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

HA and DRS book in action is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

Once a tiny little vm found himself in a big bad cluster filled with big vm’s……

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, set down your high shares!

Then the admin installed the LittleBoyBlue patch on the Dike server, and plugged the memory leak.

Odysseus set a CPU limit on the Cyclops-VM so low that Cyclops couldn’t even see. “Who are you?” yelled the Cyclops. Odysseus replied, “My name is No One!” When the Cyclops complained to the Scheduler, it asked, “Who has limited you so badly?” “No One has!” replied the Cyclops…. (BTW who makes a creature with one eye? What a horrible single point of failure to bake into your design!)

But the third little VM had his very own Resource Pool, and he huffed and he puffed and he outcompeted the much bigger VMs who were all sharing their Resource Pool shares…

Just let’s focus on publishing an ebook first…..

Funny: HA and DRS technical deepdive audiobook is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

Early this year Duncan approached me and asked me if I was interested in writing a book together on HA and DRS, without hesitation I accepted the honor. Before discussing the contents of the book I would like take the opportunity to thank our technical reviewers for their time, their wisdom and their input: Anne Holler (VMware DRS Engineering), Craig Risinger (VMware PSO), Marc Sevigny (VMware HA Engineering) and Bouke Groenescheij (Jume.nl). And a very special thanks to Scott Herold for writing the foreword!

But most of all I would like to thank Duncan for giving me this opportunity to work together with him on creating this book. The in-depth discussions we had are without a doubt the most difficult I have ever experienced and were very interesting, both most of all fun! Thanks!

Now let’s take a look at the book.Please note that we are still working on an electronic version of the book and we expect to finish this early 2011. This is the description of the book that is up on CreateSpace:

About the authors:
Duncan Epping (VCDX 007) is a Consulting Architect working for VMware as part of the Cloud Practice. Duncan works primarily with Service Providers and large Enterprise customers. He is focused on designing Public Cloud Infrastructures and specializes in bc-dr, vCloud Director and VMware HA. Duncan is the owner of Yellow-Bricks.com, the leading VMware blog.

Frank Denneman (VCDX 029) is a Consulting Architect working for VMware as part of the Professional Services Organization. Frank works primarily with large Enterprise customers and Service Providers. He specializes in Resource Management, DRS and storage. Frank is the owner of frankdenneman.nl which has recently been voted number 6 worldwide on vsphere-land.com

VMware vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS Technical Deepdive zooms in on two key components of every VMware based infrastructure and is by no means a “how to” guide. It covers the basic steps needed to create a VMware HA and DRS cluster, but even more important explains the concepts and mechanisms behind HA and DRS which will enable you to make well educated decisions. This book will take you in to the trenches of HA and DRS and will give you the tools to understand and implement e.g. HA admission control policies, DRS resource pools and host affinity rules. On top of that each section contains basic design principles that can be used for designing, implementing or improving VMware infrastructures.

Coverage includes:
• HA node types
• HA isolation detection and response
• HA admission control
• VM Monitoring
• HA and DRS integration
• DRS imbalance algorithm
• Resource Pools
• Impact of reservations and limits
• CPU Resource Scheduling
• Memory Scheduler
• DPM

We hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we did writing it. Thanks,

Eric Sloof received a proof copy of the book and shot a video about it.

HA and DRS Technical deepdive available is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

I am born and raised in the Netherlands and best practice is to look left first, then to the right and finally check left again before crossing the road. This best practice served me well and it helped me avoid being hit by a car/truck/crazy people on bikes and even trams and trolleys. But I ask you does this best practice still apply when I try to cross the street in London?

Don’t get me wrong, best practice are useful and very valuable, but to apply a best practice blindly won’t be as lethal as my analogy but it can get you into a lot of trouble.

Best practices is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time and effort to create this entertaining show. Next time I will be viewing this from my TV instead of my 13″ laptop screen and making sure I’ll have the popcorn ready.

But most of all I want to thank everyone who voted for me.
According to you my blog belongs in the top 10 and I’m very proud and honored to be ranked up that high. Thank you very much!

Voted number 6 of top 25 VMware blogs, WOW! is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

To my suprise, Eric decided to nominate my blog as well. I’m really honored to be a nominee amongst the best virtualization bloggers out there. Unfortunately the list Eric is longer that the 10 votes one can cast, so good luck picking the ones who stand out above the excellent crowd.

This is my top 10 blogs;

Duncan Epping
Chad Sakac
Kenneth van Ditmarsch
Alan Renouf
Scott Lowe
Scott Drummonds
Hypervizor (Hany Michael)
Arnim van Lieshout
Arne Fokkema
Gabe Virtual world.

Go vote now before it’s too late!
http://vsphere-land.com/news/time-to-vote-for-your-favorite-bloggers.html

Voting closes at Friday! is a post from: frankdenneman.nl

Trying to create in-depth articles is an excellent way to learn stuff. Most of the time describing a certain subject somehow challenged my current knowledge of that topic and ended up spending ridiculous amounts of time researching that particular subject. More often than not coming across very interesting material not really related to the subject but similarly interesting, consuming even more time. Some articles are more popular than others; these are the top five visited articles this year;

1. Increasing the queue depth
2. Lefthand SAN – Lessons learned
3. HP Continuous Access and the use of LUN balancing scripts
4. Impact of memory reservations
5. NFS and IP-HASH Load-Balancing

Lately I’m running into a few limitations of the free wordpress blog themes, that’s why I’ve decided to move to another site, stay tuned for the URL.
I’m aiming to release the new site at the beginning of next year.

Wrap-up 2009 is a post from: frankdenneman.nl