An IT Professional with over 20 years’ experience with broad consultative, technical and managerial experience. Currently a solution architect working with customers and partners to architect and deliver hybrid cloud solutions using the VMware and other leading IT technologies. Leading and supporting business transformation programs, digital enterprise enablement programmes covering organisations in both private and public sectors.
A former leader of the Bristol and South West VMUG (VMware User Group)
Simon holds multiple high level industry certifications for IT Architecture, Cloud Management and Automation. He is also a proud member of the vExpert community, holding the vExpert accolade from 2014-present, as well as being selected for the vExpert Cloud Management sub-programs.
Simon is currently working for Xtravirt as a Solution Architect and can usually be found on twitter @simoneady
Having been a VMUG member for several years and now a VMUG leader I have seen the value of being a VMUG member and attending the meetings/events/conferences continue to increase.
So why do I think you should you go? If you are using VMware technologies/products in your workplace or you are regularly consulting on said VMware products, the VMUG events are in my opinion invaluable.
It simply doesn’t matter what experience/knowledge you have of the products, whether you are very new to virtualization or an old hand I guarantee you will come away from any VMUG meeting having learned something useful or dare I say been a great source/help to others whom you have met and networked with.
Recently when do a fresh install of vRealize Automation (vRA) 6.2 I came across the following error after configuring the first end point.
Error log example
DataBaseStatsService: ignoring exception: Error executing query usp_SelectAgent Inner Exception: Error executing query usp_SelectAgentCapabilities
and Error processing ping response Error executing query usp_SelectAgent Inner Exception: Error executing query usp_SelectAgentCapabilities First of all I checked to see if the end points were working which in this case they appeared to be, but I wanted to clear the error before continuing the install.
For several months now we have seen glimpses of vROps by way of limited blog posts and the HOL demo’s so it was great to see it finally released.
So what is it like out of the box?
vROps 6.0 Release notes
The first clear change is the move away from 2 VMs in a vAPP and consolidation down to 1 VM which is then easily scalable to more as you require.
vCOPs resources If you have spent time working with vCOPs you will be aware of the numerous and widespread resources out on the net to help you install and fine tune your deployment. Given there is a lot of content out there that is not always easy to fine immediately I wanted to collate a useful list for my own use and to share with others.
Still a work in progress.
As this was my first VMworld I am not ashamed to say I was really stoked about attending, many of my peers have attended in the past and were going to attend.
I flew in on the Sunday evening so that I could register early on Monday for partner day, however I did miss the chance to attend what turned out to be a very popular and very full Rockstar event on the Sunday evening.
So recently I came across an error in the vSphere windows “fat client” when trying to use the search field.
So a quick look at the VMware knowledge base brought up the following article
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2063020
So I went ahead and followed the KB artricle and then tried to search again.. the following error was generated.
Also while logging into the vSphere web client the following error appears.
I had access to the SSO components etc.
Fairly recently i attended the annual VMware vForum London 2014 at Wembley stadium!
If you have never been to a vForum i would certainly recommend it as it offers the chance to not only attend excellent and pertinent sessions but there is also the opportunity to network and visit the large vendor hall which as ever was a busy place!
Keynote and sessions The opening keynote by @joebaguley (Joe Baguley) was excellent and as challenging as ever one aspect that stood out to me personally was the question “where are you on your journey?
On the 3rd of June we had our second South West UK VMUG and I am pleased to say it went superbly well.
As before we held it at the Mshed facilities in Bristol.
We had a great day with many sessions from sponsors,vendors and community speakers alike!
Big thanks go to our speakers that day who were..
Justin Rohan - @justinrohan - Nimble Storage - Sponsor James Smith - @james55smith - PernixData - Sponsor Julian Regel - @jr_on_the_cloud - Community session on vCD Adam Bohle - @adambohle - VMware - vCAC session Jonathan Medd - @jonathanmedd - Community session on PowerCLI/Automation Richard Munro - @RikMunro - VMware - vCHS Session One of the South West UK VMUG leaders Barry Coombs took a fantastic time lapse video of the day which can be viewed on his blog site.
Recently I had the good fortune to be invited along to a blogger briefing with Satyam Vaghani CTO and Co-founder of PernixData.
Those of you not in the know Satyam already has quite the track record, more notably for authoring 50+ patents, Principle engineer and Storage CTO for VMware (10 years). So it is safe to say he knows a thing or two about storage and related technology!
Nine of us (bloggers) were in attendance.
This was the second online event I have attended in the last few months, the first being the VMUG Virtual event back in January. One of the aspects I enjoyed the most about that event was being able to chat to many well known and familiar faces from the wider community.
In this recent event there was a lot of focus on the various offerings from VMware with a good deal of focus on VSAN, NSX, Horizon and vCHS but certainly not neglecting their other offerings.
