Amazon Web Services is taking over the world! (of IT)

I have recently found my self back in USA jobless.  I loved my time in Thailand, but after being laid off I felt it was best to return to USA.  USA is (was?) the mecca for all things IT after all.  Having been in IT for something like 20 years, I occasionally have to retool my skill set.  I think every long term IT person does this.  Having been stuck in a rut professionally speak, the technology landscape changed without me noticing too much.  Google and AWS datacenters have spread like wild fire.  I decided I needed to get a better look at AWS.  Nothing against google, I just don't know how to break into their training model.  I found a free beginner course for AWS, but then came across a smoking deal thanks to slickdeal.net website.
https://slickdeals.net/f/12845278-amazon-web-services-certified-architect-developer-bundle-lifetime-access-14?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV2Algo1
For $14 and lifetime access, but you only have 18 more hours to buy the course (at 96% off?!).  I don't usually promote such things, but even I had to say "wow".
Here's amazon's website where you can cross reference the courses.
https://aws.amazon.com/training/


You get a little over 40 hours of training and should be prepared for 2 certifications.  I'll do a follow up post to let you know how I did, but this offer is only good for a little while.. hopefully I didn't waste $14 haha.

The elusive trombone error message

Hello fellow techies,  you're here, because you do what I do when you get an error message. you google it.  Who is killing the application?  Is it Dr. Watson in the library with a Pipe (wrench)?  Or perhaps Professor Update has come for his monthly visit that's even more unwelcome then your girlfriend's?  Generally googling leads you to some user forum or blog that keys off the exact error message you had "unable to wax the trombone 374". (if you're a short attention millennial that just jumped to the error message and what comes after it... you missed out on the inter-monologue... return to home, do not pass go.  Dead Pool guys, I'm expecting an email some day.  I'm looking at you Ryan Reynolds.)  If you're really unlucky, you get some "dreaded techy white paper" that just happens to use those words somewhere in the article and you have to read a bunch of crap before you realize you're barking up the wrong tree.  I put the dreaded white paper in quotes, because most people dread reading them unless you're on the spectrum.  If you do have asbergers, well.. what the hell are you doing reading this?  You've already read the application error logs and found the problem.  Isn't it time for your weekly re-re-degauzing of hard drives?  You know those machines aren't 100% right?  Sure you do.. so crack those cases open and get to tacoing some platters.  Go on, you have a tendency for violence anyway, so let it out in a constructive way.. 

(is he gone?  .. ok, let's continue)

where was I?  Oh right.. the greasy trombone error message the poor application keeps getting side swiped with.  (Ryan Renolds you have ruined my inter-monologue voice.. it's not even my own anymore.. it sounds like RR (I'm not writing your name out anymore.. it's too long.  Come on, isn't it a known hollywood thing have a short name.  Come on.. look at mine.  Hollywood memorable name like Arnold Swartzene.. wait.. no.. I mean Sylvester Stallone,, ack!  .. uhh.. Leonardo Decapri..  damnit.. this is not going my way..  Cher!  ha!  boom.. Prince.. maybe I was supposed to be in the music business.  Jason Ice Hess... too many "S's".  Jason T Hess. nah someone with say transvestite. hmm... Chris Pine!  there it is.. Chris Pratt too!.. love you guys!  Thanks for saving my article.  Still love you though Ryan.  I think I'm giving up on the techy part of this post.  This stuff is just falling out of my sleep deprived head.. body.. maybe other parts (RR probably drops it out his butt hole).  How is it that Dead Pool 1 and 2 are "trending" for years now?  Well.."trending" according to the last flight I was on, but I'm not sure that Hong Kong airlines is a proper source for "trendiness".  Is there really that many people with sleep deprived, caffeinated (we'll just say it was "Coke aCola".. still looking at you RR and DP writing staff), inner thoughts that ramble on like this?  

ok I should wrap this up.. techies.. go check on Mr. Asbergers.  Do NOT try to stop him if he has begun though.  They do not do well with leaving things unfinished.  I swear man.. I bet Isaac Newton knew a guy on the spectrum when he came up with the 1st law.  (wait.. was newton on the spectrum?.. is that how we jump ahead evolutionarily?) If you think you're up to being an equal and opposite force to Mr Berger.. well have at it, but don't say I didn't warn you.  Better bet, buy him a coke.. ask him to look at the missing trombone error message.  He'll have it figured out in an hour.  You can then take credit for the fix at the next staff meeting he skips out on (he doesn't care about credit and is really uncomfortable in t e staff meeting.. win win).

Jason Hess

(Thanks CP.. you da man... unless RR calls me and says he has a problem with you. this post has a pretty heavy gay vibe..(bro-mance even.. bro-mancing the stone!?  how has that not been pitched in Hollywood yet?  Will Farrell and that shake and bake guy?  Dwayne Johnson and the 4'2" guy with a big mouth.. their into jungle movies lately..)  but don't get the wrong idea.. I'd punch all of you in the dick just to smell one of Gal Gadot's farts.. (wait.. wonder woman.. how come Superman never got on that?  I mean.. come on.. you're telling me he's perfecting happy holding back with Louis Lane!?  Might as well tell a Klingon he can only bang humies now (man I really wen full nerd there.. ehh.. it happens..it's my blog, suck it))  no..I'm too old for fart sniffs... oh but Rucy Ru 2..,, man.... I bet she smells like jasmine... sure's it's racist, but I don't care.. it's been a long time since I smelled beautiful #pitchblack #vindieseil #callmeINeedaNewJob #andsleep

VMworld 2013

I sure there are a lot of these posts going up, but here's the highlights I managed to learn about.

NSX - it's a big deal.  Think 1000v without the Cisco IOS.  Think parity bits and raid 5 "controllers" instead of VSM pair in "Raid 1" (this is the new virtual networking "plane").  I wonder what the cost associated with this new hotness.

vSphere 5.5 = much better SSO setup.  SSO has never been my favorite thing or even idea in 5.1. 5.5 is a great step forward even though I still don't like how its been forced on us.  I have a background somewhat different than what I suppose a lot of the world deals with I suppose.

VCHS = VMware "hybrid" cloud (competition for amazon.. But much easier to get in and more importantly.. Back out of.). Will be interesting how well this cloud is or isn't accepted in the world.

Lots more caching options with SSD.. Too many actually... Do we need all of these options?  I suppose, but I doubt anyone will actually use all of them in 1 environment.

Puppet = it's like seadoo apparently. "Everybody's doin it"

vCenter Server Appliance (V5)

This appliance is new to me.  I heard there was an instance of vcenter appliance rather than server dating back as far as 2.5.  I have never seen it until this version 5 though.  It's built on SUSE linux 11 SP1 "for VMware".  First thing I want to note is root did work as a login for the web interface (https://yourapplianceIP:5480) with a password of vmware.  I couldn't find it documented anywhere for this beta copy.. so it was just a lucky guess.  Once I logged onto the webinterface once I was able to logon to the consol with the same root/vmware.
I chose to use "embedded" as the database option.  I had stood up a sql2008 instance for this, but oddly that selection was missing from the drop down menu.  Only embedded and oracle.  I wonder what the embedded DB really is.. MySQL?  I heard a rumor that vmware was working on their own DB.. could this be it already?  the "db2" folder under /opt would eluded to a db2 instance.. but I find that rather odd.  it says version 9.7.2 if you're curious.  I asked more about this and hear it will move to postgres at sometime in the future, but for now it is in fact db2 and only oracle being the other alternative.
On the upside, they embedded the vi client back into the home page instead of linking out to the vmware site.  I understood vmware's thinking to have it on thier home site to ensure a more current version is proliferated, but for isolated environments (like my lab) it sure is convenient to have at least some version of the client readily available.. thanks vmware for the new vCenter Appliance!

ESXi5

In my previous post I talked about the upgrade of vcenter to vsphere 5 (this is beta code, so if you're reading this and the release is out.. well go find an updated blog post too!..lol).  The upgrade for my ESXi hosts was done from VUM.  I uploaded the iso for the installable ESXi5 to VUM and "pushed" the upgrade to the hosts.  Not much to report other than screens looked a little different.. I had to increase the ram on each host from 2 gig's to 2.5 gig's for the upgrade to proceed.  Also, it complained of "3rd part" packages that weren't going to be compatible.  These hosts were actually VM's that I didn't fo much with.  There were 2 different sub rev's of 4.1, but both upgraded fine.  So I mounted up some NFS storage off a 2008R2 (in my lab.. it was also the domain controller) server.  Now I thought I'd roll out a new VM.  I noticed there is more options for choosing your network setting during creation as well as a grayed out option for "Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed","Thick Provision Eager Zeroed", and "Thin Provision".  I'm assuming mine was grayed out because this is NFS storage.  Still it's good to see the "Zeroing out" has bubbled up to the GUI.  Although it was grayed out.. it did have the radio button for "thin" selected for my nfs VM.  Good thing since I don't have a lot of space to play with.
Sure enough, I created a new vm on local storage and all the options were available for thick/thin.  So, let's talk about this "Zeroing out" of VM's.  What does it mean?  What is the difference between a lazy zero and a eager one?..lol oh the words techies use..
Rather than repeat techie jargon.. have a look at this thread on the vmware community if you want more background on zero's:
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/263289
This is where my lab has become so slow.. I don't want to go on living.  Ok, that's a bit much.. but again.. you get the idea.  Come on money bags company o'mine.. give us at least some shared time on some horse power hardware!

First look at vShpere5

vSpere 5 must be right around the corner since VMworld is coming up and we've read/heard about some "leaks" about it.  I got my hands on a beta copy of vSphere 5 yesterday.  So, to the lab I went... and by lab, I mean vm's inside my laptop.  I'm probably in some "Non-Disclosure Agreement" with vmware with this software, so I'll be generic in my information.. sorry.. I like my job.  I would have liked to include screen shots.. but like I said... I like my job and there's an NDA of some sort I'm sure.
First thing to note: there is an in place upgrade for vCenter.  There's lots of talk about a vcenter appliance, and apparently there has always been an appliance out since vcenter 2.5.  The only limitation I'm aware of so far is the new appliance doesn't support linked mode vcenter appliances.  Something about needing windows to tie into AD for replication services.  Back to the upgrade..
So.. in place upgrade.. local sql express (hey this is in my laptop.. what do you expect!..lol) so upgrade the DB as well.  It warns about VUM being an old version and it'll probably break until it's upgraded as well./
vCenter Agent Upgrade?
This option is an automatic upgrade for all the host's vcenter agent.  This doesn't upgrade the host to esxi5.. just an update to the agent that vcenter uses to talk to the host.
I got an error regarding my FQDN, but I'm in a domain... I tried a host entry, but no luck.. pushing forward regardless..
There's a new (to me) option to increase the number of ephemeral ports right at the end of the install.  Probably put there due to large vmware view installations.  It talks of more than 2000 vm's to check the box.  I don't know how many ports it would have set if checked.
There's a new vCenter Inventory Service.. what's that do?  Sounds like it inventories stuff.. and if you ever worked retail.. you'd thank god if there was a service you could hire to do it for you.. I digress.
So, post install.. fire up the 4.1 client.  Prompts to run the installer for a new version.. sweet.
After we get in, we'll hop back out and upgrade VUM too.. then my 2 esxi hosts.. then I'll make lunch.. perhaps I'm noting too many activities without any substance.. Did I mention there's an NDA at play here?
Drats.. my hosts are in a disconnected state complaining about the host agent upgrade.  My laptop isn't exactly the fastest hardware, so maybe it'll just take some time.  It's complaining about not having enough space and pointing me to KB1016262 which is for 4.1, but much to my dismay.. I now realise my hosts were not running a very current version of software... not even update 1.  Don't be like Jason folks.. update your hosts to the latest version of 4.1 before attempting an upgrade to 5.
Woo hoo.. that wasn't as bad as I thought.  Somewhere around the 4.1 update 1 time frame the syslog would fill up the scratch area.  I just set the syslog in the "advanced settings" to the local datastore..maintenance mode.. reboot.. and wala.. it connected and updated the vcenter host agent.  As it turns out.. I had 2 different versions of esx4.1 on my hosts.. again.. don't be like Jason. but setting the syslocal to local datastore did fix the agent issue on both versions... or was it just the reboot cleared up enough space for a few minuets to get the agent on?  I tried to enable HA but not that agent is failing due to disk space as well.. ugg.
On to upgrading VUM (5.0.0.8039 btw) and I'll fix the hosts later.. or never.
Woo.. new things afoot here.  No more is there even an option to patch VM's.  I had heard a rumor of this.. and most places don't use these feature anyway, but if you are one of those shops.. you'll need a new patching tool if you upgrade to vSphere5.  Also, all hosts need to have some version of 4.x since 3.x upgrades are not supported either.
This is enough gibberish for one post.. I'll start another for the host upgrades and note the list of other tools now available on the install screen for vcenter.

Data centers in a box?

So I've become aware of a growing trend of "Datacenter-in-a-box". Some call them integrated stacks, cloud computing in a block, etc...
Long story short, corporations struggle with different silos within their organization all coming to agreement on products to buy. Some of these DIB's (just coined that acronym.. Use it at free will but make me famous.. I'm narsasitic like that) are able to bring a proven packages from PO to fully integrated in 30 days. We all know of some corporations that get so wrapped up in themselves that it can take 6-9 months to get a new system fully up and running. So let's say you were in upper management and wanted to entertain the idea of one of these solutions. Which one should you pick? Are they all pretty similar or are there vast differences besides just what vendors are involved? I've only researched a few and already pretty lost myself. Generalizations are pretty easy to make, but what really matters is what you are going to be happy with? If you're biased to a particular vendor, the decision is pretty easy as most only offer 1 DIB, with different models depending on how much power you for see needing. These things are very powerfully and somewhat expensive. Keep your big picture in mind and they generally are very cost effective though.
Jason