VMworld 2010 – the EMC Hands-on-Lab

While not the scale of the VMware HOL, as discussed here (7.6 BILLION IOs served!!!), but as far as I know, this is a VMworld first….

So – as I noted, when the vendor community bands together to support VMware in their HoL, by definition, it means we all recognize that it’s not about us, but us supporting the belle of the ball :-)  

But, many customers told us they wanted to really play with all the 60 or so VMware/EMC integration in a hands-on context, no sales, no marketing, no baloney – put our money where our mouth is.

So – the team went to work, and build the EMC Hands-on-Lab.   Here’s what it looked like BEFORE the craziness started.

One funny “behind the scenes” was that the VMAX service processor was mangled during shipping, and literally got replaced hours before the show started :-)   The joys of trade shows :-)

What did it consist of?

Each attendee had their own vCenter VM and dedicated vSphere ESX 4.1 host.  There were two networks, a public and a private network.  The public network allows the attendee to connect via RDP to their own dedicated “jumpbox” where they could access Avamar AVE, RSA enVision, a View 4.0 server, the Celerra Plugin for vCenter, Virtual Storage Integrator, two Celerra VSAs (DART 5.6.48 and 6.0), a virtual VPLEX, and a virtual Iomega NAS.  These were all running as Virtual Appliances.   People used WYSE terminals, iPads and other clients to connect to the View session.

On the public side, we had the physical stuff - a single Data Domain DD660 that all attendees shared, a VMX SE (single engine with Ingenuity 5875) and lastly both an Iomega IX12 and IX4. 

Attendees had the opportunity to:

• Create virtual desktops, register them to VMware View 4 and monitor the creation/deletion process via RSA envision
• View storage details with VSI (both block and file storage)
• Enable and test VAAI with VMAX storage (xcopy, cloning lab) – yes this does mean we were using pre-GA Enginuity code that supported VAAI, and YES, it means it’s close for VMAX customers.  EMC Unified has full VAAI support now.
• Provision VM templates from Data Domain storage, as well as test deduplication/compress results by copying VDI user data to a dedicated share, as well as comparing to a traditional NAS that didn’t have deduplication to see the results
• Configure a VPLEX Metro environment on a virtual VPLEX
• Take a tour of the EMC Unisphere GUI using DART 6, provisioning NFS storage and review the configuration
• Create and configure Avamar AVE backup jobs with VADP and compare/contrasts backup times with/without
• All labs were collectively monitored by a “master” RSA enVision server that displayed real-time results on the big monitor

Each attendee had the choice of walking through the entire 7-part lab or merely choosing one or more that suited their interest. 

This was the lab manual:

While clearly much smaller than the VMware HoL (room for about 10 people vs 480) and also only available during the exhibitor floor hours (as opposed to all day), we we had over 250 different attendees visit the lab during the 20 hours it was operational, and the feedback was great.   One customer’s feedback:

“As I was describing, the hands on booth was THE most valuable thing on the show floor this year. Going through all the labs, ALL 7 of the labs I was impressed with the amount of detail given in each of the labs presented there. It was great to be allowed to tinker with the new technology that EMC has to gain a better understanding on how it can fit into our existing environment.  I'll take away a better understanding of what technologies I'd like to have in my environment and be able to prioritize the POC requests easier after gaining the experience of the Hands ON Labs. A great big thanks from me to the army you must have had working on this project and a hope that EMC will provide future opportunities like this one at VMworld 2011”

For those interested, yes, we are planning on doing it at VMworld Copenhagen also…

Thanks go to some key folks who helped make this happen:

• Stephen Spellicy
• Chris Horn
• Tee Glasgow
• Dave Robertson
• Praphul Krottapalli
• Brian Lewis

So – what did we miss?  What should have been part of the EMC/VMware HoL but wasn’t?

Comments

[Simon gallagher]

Are those virtual VPLEXes going to be available for download?

[Dave Robertson]

What a long week! but I hope customers really got value out of test driving all of our great products. Thanks everyone who showed up!

[Aus_effendi]

I did all 7 of the labs and found it to be very very useful. Thanks much for having this available. One of the highlights of my VMworld experience.

[Mike Foley]

A shout-out to David Brockelmanpost who pulled the big screen enVision display together in record time! Both he and MJ Knudsen were onsite, ready to roll on Saturday only to be caught behind the VMAX issue.

I've gotten some good feedback on the enVision lab I built. I'd love to hear more! mfoley@rsa.com if you have any input. Also, if you have any ideas for future RSA HOL labs, please let me know. I'd love to repeat this at the RSA Conference!

The whole experience was awesome!
mike

[Chad Sakac]

@Simon - I'm finding a way to get the VPLEX VSAs posted... Stay on me, Simon!!!

[Simon Gallagher]

Thanks Chad, you just know I'm going to bug you about this in CPH next week, oh and the clarion VSA :)