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My personal selection for VMworld 2021

VMworld 2021 is now taking place virtually for the second time. Even if this is not a real substitute for an on-site event, it is a good source of information in times of pandemic.

VMworld will take place virtually in several time zones between October 5 and 7, 2021. Participation is free of charge. All you need to do is register on the VMworld portal page.

My selection

This list are my selected favorites. The order is purely alphabetical and no ranking. A shift towards Kubernetes, Modern Apps and GPUaaS has been noticeable in recent years. The latter was added in the current year by a Bitfusion with Kubernetes project. However, some classics like Frank’s 60 Minutes of NUMA, talks by Cormac Hogan and Duncan Epping are still part of the must-attend program.

  • 10 Things You Need to Know About Project Monterey [MCL1833] – Sudhanshu Jain, Niels Hagoort
  • 60 Minutes of Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) 3rd Edition [MCL1853] – Frank Denneman
  • Antrea and NSX-T update for Container Networking [CODE2743] – Tuan Loc Nguyen, Rahul Dondeti
  • Architect the Enterprise Data Center for AI with VMware and NVIDIA [VI1501] – James Brogan, Joe Cullen
  • Attach GPU Anywhere with vSphere Bitfusion Extension [VMTN2801] – Tiejun Chen
  • Build and Publish a PowerShell Module to the PowerShell Gallery [CODE2756] – David Stamen
  • Deep Dive on Logical Routing in NSX-T [NET1443] – Francois Tallet, Nicolas Michel
  • Deep Dive on vSphere with Tanzu Updates [APP2063] – Karthik Balachandran
  • Extreme Performance Series: Performance Best Practices [MCL1635] – Mark Achtemichuk, Valentin Bondzio
  • Get the Most Out of VMware NSX Data Center with Advanced Load Balancing [NET1791] – Dan Watson
  • How to measure and improve the performance of your HCX migrations? [VMTN3225] – Agnieszka Koziorowska
  • Live Coding: Terraforming Your vSphere Environment [CODE2755] – Kyle Ruddy
  • Loop, Swoop and Pull – PowerCLI Will be as Easy as Tying Your Shoes! [CODE2744] – Justin Sider
  • Maximize GPU Utilization with VMware Tanzu/Kubernetes and vSphere Bitfusion [VI1624] – Earl Ruby
  • Modernize Windows Apps: Introduction to Windows Containers on Kubernetes [APP1999] – Stuart Preston
  • NSX Advanced Threat Prevention: Deep Dive [SEC1376] – Stijn Vanveerdeghem
  • NVMe/TCP – The Future of Storage Connectivity [MCL2766S] – Paul Turner, Ihab Tarazi
  • Project Monterey: Present, Future and Beyond [MCL1401] – Sudhanshu Jain, Simer Singh
  • The Future of VM Provisioning – Enabling VM Lifecycle Through Kubernetes [APP1564] – Myles Gray, Nikitha Suryadevara
  • VEBA Revolutions – Unleashing the Power of Event-Driven Automation [CODE2773] – William Lam, Michael Gasch
  • VMware Cloud Foundation Tips and Tricks from the Trenches [MCL1025] – Dharmesh Bhatt, Paudie O’Riordan
  • VMware vSAN – Dynamic Volumes for Traditional and Modern Applications [MCL1084] – Duncan Epping, Cormac Hogan
  • vSAN Technical Deep Dive [MCL1654] – Biswapati Bhattacharjee, Junchi Zhang
  • Want to deploy your SDDCLab in about an hour? [VMTN3192] – Luis Chanu, Rutger Blom
  • What’s New in NSX-T [NET2354] – Varun Santosh, Soumee Phatak
  • What’s New in vSphere [APP1205] – Himanshu Singh, Ken Werneburg

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VMware Bitfusion and Tanzu – Part 3: Utilize GPU from Kubernetes Pods and TKGS

This will be a multi-part post focused on the VMware Bitfusion product. I will give an introduction to the technology, how to set up a Bitfusion server and how to use its services from Kubernetes pods.

We saw in parts 1 and 2 what Bitfusion is and how to set up a Bitfusion Server cluster. The challenging part is to make this Bitfusion cluster usable from Kubernetes pods.

In order for containers to access Bitfusion GPU resources, a few general conditions must be met.

I assume in this tutorial that we have a configured vSphere-Tanzu cluster available, as well as a namespace, a user, a storage class and the Kubernetes CLI tools. The network can be organized with either NSX-T or distributed vSwitches and a load balancer such as the AVI load balancer.

In the PoC described, Tanzu on vSphere was used without NSX-T for simplicity. The AVI load balancer, now officially called NSX-Advanced load balancer, was used.

We also need a Linux system with access to Github or a mirror to prepare the cluster.

The procedure in a nutshell:

  • Create TKGS cluster
  • Get Bitfusion baremetal token laden and create K8s secret
  • Load Git project and modify makefile
  • Deploy device-plugin to TKGS-cluster
  • Pod deployment
Continue reading “VMware Bitfusion and Tanzu – Part 3: Utilize GPU from Kubernetes Pods and TKGS”
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VMware Bitfusion and Tanzu – Part 2 : Bitfusion server setup

This will be a multi-part post focused on the VMware Bitfusion product. I will give an introduction to the technology, how to set up a Bitfusion server and how to use its services from Kubernetes pods.

Bitfusion Server setup preparation

A Bitfusion Server Cluster must meet the following requirements:

  • vSphere 7 or later
  • 10 GBit LAN at least for the Bitfusion data traffic for smaller or PoC deployments. High bandwidth and low latency are essential. 40 Gbit or even 100 Gbit are recommended.
  • Nvidia GPU with CUDA functionality and DirectPath I/O support:
    • Pascal P40
    • Tesla V100
    • T4 Tensor
    • A100 Tensor
  • At least 3 Bitfusion server per cluster for high availability

This setup guide assumes that the graphics cards have been deployed to the ESXi 7+ servers and the hosts have joined a cluster in vCenter.

Continue reading “VMware Bitfusion and Tanzu – Part 2 : Bitfusion server setup”
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Veeam – Manage your AWS Data like a Hero

IDC research shows that the top three trigger events leading to a need for cloud services are: growing data, constrained IT budgets and the rise of digital transformation initiatives. The shift to public cloud providers like AWS offers many advantages for organizations but does not come without risks and vulnerabilities when it comes to data.

Veeam has provided several small comic book eBooks that illustrate issues such as ransomware, data sprawl, cloud costs, and data loss in an entertaining way.

Get your copy of this interactive “Choose Your Own Cloud Adventure” e-book.