AVG Free update kill your PC?

Yeah me too :).

I have liked AVG Free as a way to protect my personal stuff for a while now. But last night I was informed by the latest edition of the client that I needed to reboot due to an update.

So I was putting that off until today. But alas, when I did do a reboot my PC was stuck in a reboot loop due to a BSOD related to a AVG component. Reboot happens when trying to go into Safe Mode as well.

How do you fix this?

Well I don't know about what you personally would do. But here is what I did to restore my system.

 Instead of trying safe mode let it try and launch start-up repair.

It won't be able to fix it. When that is done you click "finish" and then the Advanced Options link.

From there choose the command line option.

Then go to the root of your OS drive usually C:\. Once there cd to program files (x86)\AVG, then rd AVG10 /s. answer y and then proceed. That will forcefully remove ALL AVG files and you can then restart your PC.

How to build a team. - Part 1 -

In my recent adventures, many people have asked me how I would build a team. Due to the current marketplace trend in moving fast in trying to create a Data Center practice this has become more and more common.

Some of the questions that I would ask if I was going to build a team are below:

So how would you properly build a team that was geared to thrive instead of just survive?

How do you plan to keep talent?

How can IT leaders avoid boring talent?

To that end the below points can assist anyone trying to build any team. Especially the human aspects of making that team be cohesive, well respected, intelligent and bonded together like concrete.

Goals and Mind-share -

For this team Goals and Mind-share must be aligned. Team members must understand the import of the team direction and goals. Team members might not always agree with the route taken to achieve the goals but, when the team understands the goals and direction a team member can usually forgive a perceived error in the chosen route.

Allowing team members to gain mind-share is important. As a leader of that team you must be ready to listen and hear them at the same time. More times than not your team will surprise you with the levelheadedness and intelligence they can bring to bear on a specific matter. Make sure that everyone knows who everyone else is, in a team like this there isn't really a spot for EGO. Make that known and deflate the need for EGO and some amazing things will happen. As a team builder/IT leader you need to keep that going.

One key need in being able to build a team that you can do this with is finding the "SPARK", or the X-factor, or passion. Whatever you call it that is the key to keep this team burning hot with talent.

Group Mentality -

Make sure that the team and you as a leader foster the attitude that the group is more important than the one. Once that is complete make sure that you and the team show the following chain: Client is more important than the group, Group is more important than one person, and as a team member I can help make that impact on the group and client positive. I as a team member can indeed contribute.

--That is it for now more tomorrow--

West Michigan VMUG, and recap! Great Stuff!

It's about time.

So originally the West Michigan vmware User's Group started with John Peck (from Herman Miller) and Joe Harnish (I think Joe is with Metro now). For reasons I am not privy to the VMUG had died off in the last 14 months or so. Finally it has been revived. Russ Shearer (Meijer), Gary Coburn (Vmware SE), and some other good guys that I have not yet had the chance to meet have got it back up and going. Thursday was the first official meeting.

The agenda was the normal User Group Flow. (Sponsor, Vendor, Customer)

Sponsor presentation on the "cloud". **

**(Just so that everyone knows, I want to be perfectly clear. Virtualization is NOT the cloud. Virtualization is a cloud enabling technology. The presenter mis-stated that Virtualization IS the cloud. That is not correct. According to the NIST definition the cloud is a model for delivering resources that have specific service models and rapid "low-touch" provisioning. So, while Virtualization is a big help to the could, it is not in itself the cloud. I think that the presenter knew that and just mis-spoke.)

vmware VDI stuff.

A really good customer presentation on VDI 101 basics. (Less slides brosef. Less slides.) ;)

Spectrum did a great job on both the documentation and presentation of the journey from current to future state. vBlock insights and configuration models that lend themselves to the workload that spectrum runs was neat to see. Knowing where Spectrum sees the benefits and issues with the vblock approach is cool. I really thought that it was great that Mark West knew that vBlock is not a panacea but a solution pathway. Mark really illustrated well why certain standards would be taken care of in First, Second, and Third steps. Understanding the financial, business process, along with the workflow issues that this solution will solve really cemented again what we must do as IT professionals. By using business acumen and understanding the requirements involved not only can IT become less of a "vacuum", but IT can be a better contributor to the success of the business.

All things considered it was a good start.

Things that need to happen. More interaction, bigger attendance, and topics people will get excited about.

VMware if you are reading this ... invite some of the bloggers in the industry! Chad, Vaughn, Duncan, Mike, Frank .... any of these guys.

Final bit of Advice? ... If you are in the West Michigan Area . . . BE AT THE NEXT VMUG!!!!

See you all there next time.

3.0 ... then 3.1 ... now v3.2 :).

Nick has fixed a couple more things in the Celerra VSA.

Pick them up over at Re-Roll for Initiative :) .

Looking at one of Cisco's newer acquisitions Tidal and getting back into Exchange with SP1 roll-up 1 coming out for Exchange 2010 Here.


Chappy.

Celerra VSA v3.1

If you have ever used Nick Weaver's Uber VSA for EMC Celerra, you might think that this is a great way to get your own personal Celerra to start playing around with. You know what I would agree with you :). Nick released  version 3 a little while ago ... I had some issues with adding disks to the OVA and then I check his blog today and guess what. Nick found the issue and fixed it. Also there was an SRM bug that was fixed. The 'discoverluns' command seems to have had an issue with iSCSI replicated sessions.

Grab it over here at NICK's blog.

This version also includes DART 6 with Unisphere ... cool stuff.

Long time :).

So updates have been sparse at best!!

I'll be working on fixing that in the next few weeks. Things have changed for me as far as the job and a bunch of other stuff.

I just took the nerd test V2 ....






Awesome!!! I <3 my geekdom.

VCAP-DCD and vSphere4 training.

I got a pleasant email today from my company asking me to schedule my vSphere4 : Design workshop and to prep for my VCAP-DCD.

Since the test hasn't been released just yet (expected soon). I will have to take it probably in Sept. Either way I will let you know what both the training and the test is like.

Talk to you guys soon.

Not aware ESX was going the way of the dodo?

Check out Phil's Mental leftovers HERE.

VMware has been trying to make the move to COSless for a bit now. As Phil points out VMware made it official.

Interesting stuff for sure.

vSphere 4.1 ... You know.

vSphere 4.1 is out and in the wild now.

No need to regurgitate the new features. When I get it up in the lab I'll let you guys know.

RTFM ...

If you came here from RTFM or if you think I am mad at Mike L. Please be assured that I was not trying to berate him. Mike is an AWESOME guy and I have used RTFM and it has pulled me out of jams a couple of times. So I am appreciative of his contributions to the VMware community.

tldr ; Mike is a good dude. I will not send ninjas to his house. If that's not clear enough ... sorry :).

More vLAB stuff.

So it has been slow going for the moment due to some personal challenges that I have had. So it is my fault and my fault only for not following up as fast or pushing this harder.

Darryl and I have been working over the weekend to make sure that we have a working web presence that can handle the outward facing collaboration and stuff.

This vLAB would be free for people to use and since one of the goals is to encourage community involvement, we are working on a points-based system that rewards individuals for contribution of both content and solutions for real world scenarios.

Another exciting feature is that vThought would provide high-quality "no-cost" consulting to clients provided that the clients donate to the vLAB in order for us to keep this moving forward.

I have finished some of the last DNS changes and we should be live here in the next 24 hours.

Community Virtualization Lab and stuff.

I know that this idea is in beta for some folks right now. But I would like to see this happen since I know not everyone can afford a nice hardware set for a LAB.

Below is a snippet from my Linkedin discussion post.


Would any of you fellow VCP'ers be interested in a community Lab that is managed by certified VCPs that is provided at no cost?

This lab would be partially funded by clients obtaining VMware, Storage, and general IT advice at no charge to them. The "payment" would be a contribution to the vLAB. It could be storage/servers/network etc. Please let me know your thoughts. I am in the process of setting up the website for it.

www.vthoughtinc.com <- If you are UBAR with HTML and/or Flash let me know if you can help with the page since I am junk at it :).

At this time the gear I am planning for installation into the lab is below:

Newer Stuff:
2TB iSCSI RAID array on the vSphere 4 HCL. (Qnap 839-pro)
Whitebox Dual opteron dual-core with Ultra 320 SCSI local storage.
3Com 5500G - EI 48 port gigabit switch
ASA 5505

Older stuff:  :[ older single core XEON's MEH...
Dell Poweredge 2850 - Dual proc 6GB Ram and
IBM x442 - 32GB ... Quad Xeon Box

Want to donate or assist in the project? Let me know here by commenting.

I will get a page and an email set for the community vLab stuff soon.

A Note to management when dealing with High-End talent or the "SPARK".

Ok. A little background on this.

First, I have always been a big proponent of the upper layers of management being able to recognize talent and retain it by giving both the challenge and reward programs. Many SPARKs want and need the challenge of complex work to be happy with the occupation that they perform. Also there is a need to reward SPARKs for the work that they perform.

Example:

If a SPARK works over 35 hours in 2 days and provides a solution to a client under budget and on-time or close to on-time. What do you do? Do you say "thanks" and then give the SPARK the "wink" and and a pat on the back? If so you probably just lost one of your best employees!

WHY? I said "thanks". Then I gave the person a small gift. Isn't that enough?

Probably no!

That SPARK that delivered that Item to the customer in good time and working massive hours isn't interested in a $25 Barnes-and-Noble gift card. Come on this person just made you look like ATLAS to your customer. As a manager or owner you are going to retain that customer and the relationship just got stronger. As an owner yeah this person put a ton of hours in ... but as an owner you didn't have to draw the project out and your overall profit is higher. Any SPARK worth their respective salt knows what they did, how it impacts the client, and how the benefits are gained by owners and managers. Most SPARKs want a piece of that action. The challenge was to perform the work and provide the value. The reward should be input into the business model and how people are treated in order to properly retain and benefit them.

So many times I hear that when a SPARK (or very talented and intelligent person) leaves an organization the owners and managers do some of the MOST STUPID and IDIOTIC things to that person. It's insane.

I have one thing to say on it : LOSE GRACEFULLY!!!! It's nuts to think that you can maintain SPARKs forever! SPARKS need new challenges and rewards to continue to thrive and grow. So many "old-style" thinkers get so little of what motivates people and SPARKs it's crazy. These same "old-school" thinkers believe that grinding someone into the ground and smashing them when they leave gets you something.

The only thing that you get is a BAD name! A VERY BAD name!

Involve a SPARK in planning, in business direction, and in the rewards you give them. If as a manager/owner you pulled a SPARK in and said that you wanted some help on determining what to reward them with you'll get a BIG answer ... possibly one that is WAY more than your planned spend. Don't be afraid tell them the limitation and then give them a path to get the reward. Just don't make the path impossible.

Either way this is too long already. Let me know if you have any questions. Let's have an open discussion about management! :) Then we can let them read it and see if they get it yet.

PIECE!

vSphere 4 Update 2.

This has been released and it fixes some nice items.

It also makes sticky the pervasive NMP RR IOPs = 1 setting if you are using that at the moment. So that means the setting will stay persistent between ESX Host reboots. Which is nice so that you don't have to remember.

You can grab vSphere 4 Update 2 Here : LINKZORED

Also please be aware that there is a issue with the .NET patch (KB908773) which could cause some issues if you are running any Sphere Client prior to vSphere 4 Update 1.

Here is a link to the KB Article : ZOMG Fix my Client :)

VM Teleportation. (Beam me up Scotty for VM's)

Take a look at what Chad Sakac introduced ....

Cool stuff for sure.

BEAM ME UP!

vSphere 4.1 features.

Some of the new features for vsphere 4.1.

*Note ... iSCSI Boot from SAN.

Expect to see more iSCSI SANs :) !!!

Linky - AWESOME : )

May the 4th Be With You!

May the 4th be with you!

Advanced VMware Certifications.

The new VMware certs have names and paths. The official announcement from VMware is forthcoming. To all the VCP3's out there ... you have to upgrade in order to get these.

Cool Stuff. Be sure to plan ahead as you progress.

Link to Stuff here :).

Network World. SWEET!

So NW just published an article on iSCSI & Fibre ... it's not a comparison article, but a why not? type argument.

Check it out here:

LINKY

Shout out to Jim Duffy. A great dude to speak with and a nice guy to boot. I really respect Jim for the attitude he had when we discussed this subject.

Going to have some time this weekend to do more UCS and iSCSI stuff. I hope to have some more information for you guys soon.

UCS & iSCSI.

Lab is almost there ... just a couple of config changes and then we plug the UCS FI's into it and see if we can get it to work :).

Probably won't make any progess until the weekend on this. But I'll keep you up-to-date on all the progress.

UCS & iSCSI

Can you boot UCS from an iSCSI SAN, without local disk?

Interesting question. In the next few days some guys and I are going to see if we can make a stateless UCS environment with iSCSI.

-Stay Tuned-

VMware Workstation 7 Key.

If you are like me then at times you may have misplaced your VMware workstation key. I am running ver 7.0.1 on Windows 7 64-bit.

Due to this you might have to do a touch more digging. It's true you can search the registry but come on we all know that is a HUGE pain in the bum.

Here is the shortcut: The tricky part on 64bit versions of windows is the 3rd tree.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Wow6432Node/VMware, Inc./VMware Workstation/License.ws.(your version here)

Then in the right-hand pane the Serial key is the one your after.

Hope that this helps.

Talk to you again soon.

Cloud Storage.

With the latency and need of faster storage in the Data Center, Nicole brings up a good point in the post below.

Can you provision high-performance storage in a Cloud that will provide storage to a separate Cloud infrastructure? I was thinking about this and with the network guys having a love affair with iSCSI and it's associated technological topologies. Could you have a low-latency storage system on-demand in the Cloud (Public Cloud NOT Private Cloud). Currently it's not quite there to provide FC-like low latency storage to compute nodes. If you have a server that uses iSCSI you could potentially have that speedy enough to house it in a Public Cloud. Your design would require some good DR.

I can see a SATA based array hooking up to an Ethernet drop. At that point you could use some of Cisco's MDS line to provide FCIP WAN acceleration and provide storage to a completely different Cloud .... reliability would be an issue.

The Cloud in a Cloud in a Cloud

I was meeting with some IS Directors a month or so ago and they asked:

How do I better understand how all these "cloud" offerings interact with each other?

So, assuming that you use the cloud for storage, but you use another cloud service for a specific application and have all this served to a VDI client....That's alot of movement in the cloud. I understand his concern for the security of this data, but also the importance that these partners work together.

I would think that strengthens the cloud vision that host all cloud services out of the same DC. I believe you can clearly have different clouds for unrelated things like conferencing with Webex where you host the service and it clearly does not interact with many other parts/pieces, but what about the clouds within a large cloud. All this has my head in the clouds.

A plea for MOAR content :) !!

Njo, Milton, and Pete.

Please post some cool content. I would like to have some more stuf other than just my ramblings :).

Storage Question.

So the last question put the following constraints on a virtualization design and implementation problem.

Let's Review:

The constraints were that you have performance issues due to storage latency.

You have no budget the ONLY things that you can leverage is the extra hardware from the virtualization project.

So the only solution that makes sense whether it's the best is not a question.

One (I stress) one of the workable solutions is to acutally put the latency sensitive application back on physical hardware until you can ensure the storage state. Now what I mean is you can still keep it a VM but you toss it on a dedicated box with ESXi (no cost). Then using the local storage options that you have open to you create the least latency and fastest sub-system that you can.


Do you agree? Is there a solution that you think might work just as well?

Let me know. That is what the comment section is for :).

Talk to you guys soon.

Some UCS/Virtualization/Storage items.

So in general UCS is gathering some great traction. Along with Virtualization it's pulling storage pretty hard as well. One of the things that I continue to see is the underestimation of resourcing for storage in a virtual environment.

Let's now take a look at the eco-system of storage in a virtualization context with Cisco's UCS providing the vCompute platform. In this specific scenario it is entirely possible to achieve a very nice consolidation number.

But your storage doesn't need to be sweet ... right ? Wrong! Let's take an example. You consolidate 10 servers onto 1. One of the servers was VERY storage intensive but CPU cycles remained very low. This was due to a specific application that didn't like Storage latency.

But the decision that was made was to deploy these VM's onto an iSCSI connected RAID 5 array. This is a S/W iSCSI initiator connected storage device. You have 10 VM's and your storage sensitive VM is having massive issues. So what do you do? Where did it all go wrong. The planned storage implementation has enough disk space but the IOPS profile and connection choice is all wrong for the intended purpose. So how can it be fixed the budget is spent and the storage doesn't support online RAID level migration along with the fact that even if you could migrate the RAID level you would be completely out of storage. What can be done and how do we do it?

Well that's a case for another post. But if you ever end up in a position like this it's going to be a tough spot and it is possible that there might not be a good answer.

Talk to you tomorrow and I'll post about this again.

Why Tiggers DO NOT like Safari :).

So I finally got some gear for the lab at work and it's really taking shape. I then used safari to download the latest Celerra VSA from Sakac's blog and it comes down in a .ova.tar extension. No problem I have winrar and I can bust it out into a new format. So I do that and attempt an import but no go. Work with the un-tarballed ovf file thinking that was a problem. Spent a couple of hours on it and then went home frustrated as all heck. I get home and think myabe both work downloads were corrupt. So I pull it down through my favortie browser Chrome. It comes down as a straight OVA and I just was like "No WAY". After a big forehead slap I came into the office and renamed the file. DOH!

That is why Tiggers DO NOT like Safari :).

It's Magic, It's wonderous . . . It's an iPhone that can't make calls.

Welcome to the iPad:

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Looks nice and it's cool but it's just missing some key things.

Nope not going to get one. Now add bluetooth and the option to make calls. Along with a touch more ooomph in the processor department, then we'll talk.

-OUT

Nice reasonable laptop workstation w/o the unreasonable cost.

This Asus G73JH laptop comes with 4 DIMM slots and a core i7 proc. Connect it to some iSCSI storage and BAM! Nice VM homelab.

Details via Engadget! - Link is here - http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/05/asus-rog-g73jh-launches-with-core-i7-radeon-hd-5870-bragging-r/

It's gotta a new cooling design so that your reproductive parts don't need to be iced down during heavy usage. Don't lie you know what I'm talking about.

Thinking that something this nice must cost the same as a DELL M6500? I checked and it's going to retail for less than $2000. AWESOME!!!

VMware Player creates VM's ... WHAT?!!

So I admit it I have been out of the loop on VMware player for the good bit of 2 years. I have been using workstation for all my VM creation and testing stuff. Then I check out the www.yellow-bricks.com post on creating an ESXi thumbdrive install with VM player and I was like "hold, on, wait a minute.". So it's not new to all you smart people but I guess that you can now create VM's with VMware player. So here is to all you people smarter than myself :).

Here is the link to the post : http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2010/1/10/vsphere-esxi-4-0-on-a-usb-memory-stick/!

Cool Stuff to know no doubt. :)

Talk to you guys again soon.

OH - P.S. Check out Sakac's post at virtual geek if you want to work at EMC! :P

edit ... spelling errors. Fast typing 4tl.