Upcoming VMUG Events
I’m extremely honored to have the opportunity to help support VMware User Group (VMUG) meetings all over the world. I will be speaking at a few upcoming events; if you’re going to be at one of these events, I’d love to meet you, say hi, and chat for a bit. Here are the details.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016 I’m really excited to be back in Sydney again for an opportunity to speak at the Sydney VMUG UserCon (see the event page for full details).
Thursday, February 25, 2016 Two days after the Sydney event I’ll be in Melbourne to help support the Melbourne VMUG UserCon. (More details here.)
First week in March 2016 The dates for these events are still being finalized (I’ll update this post when I have more details), but I’ll be in South Africa for a series of VMUG events there as well (Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town). This will be my first time in South Africa, and I’m really looking forward to meeting and talking with customers there.
Aside from these VMUG events, if you’re in one of these regions, are a current (or potential) customer of VMware, and you’d like to meet to talk Continue reading
Full Stack Journey Episode #1: Bart Smith
In this first-ever episode of the Full Stack Journey podcast, I talk with Bart Smith (old GitHub account migrating to new GitHub account, YouTube channel). Bart shares some details about his journey from being a Microsoft-centric infrastructure engineer to what he calls a cloud-native full-stack engineer. Here are some notes from our conversation, along with some additional resources Bart wanted to share with readers/listeners. Enjoy!
The podcast audio recording is available on Soundcloud.
Show Notes
- His journey started in June 2014 as a result of the Microsoft announcement regarding support for Linux and Kubernetes on Azure—this really indicated a shift in the industry.
- Bart’s view is that a full-stack engineer knows about operations, the hardware stack (compute, storage, network), the software (network, operating system [OS], management, logging), and most importantly knows how to “code” an immutable infrastructure. An operations full-stack engineer can read code, work with developers, and be part of a DevOps team of support DevOps teams in deploying code into production both to on-premises solutions and off-premises solutions.
- IT folks don’t need to be strictly involved in software engineering to benefit from a journey toward a more full-stack role.
- His journey from Microsoft-centric engineer to Continue reading
Launching a New Podcast
After quite a bit of deliberation and planning, I’m excited (and nervous!) to announce the launch of a new podcast, titled “The Full Stack Journey Podcast”. Here are the details, structured in a Q&A format.
What topics does this new podcast cover?
The focus of The Full Stack Journey Podcast is to talk about the journey to becoming a full-stack engineer. That term is a bit of a loaded term—some people like it, some people don’t, and there’s some disagreement over exactly what it means. I use the term to describe someone who can work at multiple layers of the modern data center stack, crossing between different silos. This isn’t to say that a full-stack engineer is an expert in all these areas, but it does mean that a full-stack engineer has at least some knowledge and experience in all these areas, with expertise and experience in at least one of them. The podcast aims to provide real, relevant, practical information at helping people with their “full-stack journey.”
Why is the idea of becoming a full-stack engineer important enough to warrant launching a podcast?
I strongly believe the future of the infrastructure engineer does not lie in being Continue reading
My Getting Things Done Setup, Circa Early 2016
Almost six years ago I shared my (then) current Getting Things Done (GTD) setup, in which I described how I used various tools, techniques, and applications to try to maximize my productivity. I’d been toying with updating that post, but I wasn’t sure that anyone would find it useful. However, a recent e-mail from a reader indicated that there probably is some interest; with that in mind, then, here’s an update on my GTD-like setup, circa early 2016.
Before I dive into the details, a couple quick notes:
- First, I call this a “GTD-like” setup because it doens’t necessarily strongly adhere to all the tenets of Getting Things Done. I’ve adapted the system to fit my particular role and responsibilities, which is something I strongly encourage every reader to also do.
- Although I’ve previously discussed moving away from OS X (and this is something that I continue to evaluate and explore), this is—for now—a decidedly Mac-specific system. It’s probably possible to emulate a similar system on other platforms, but I leave that as an exercise for interested readers.
If you read the 2010 post, you may recall that I think of my workflow as having three “layers” of applications:
Docker Team’s Favorites from 2015
It’s hard to believe that 2015 is almost over! We saw lots of great content from the Docker community this year including blog posts, tutorials, conference sessions, meetup talks and more – check out our curated collection of community content … ContinuedYour Docker Agenda for January
There are tons of great Docker events all around the world to help you kick off the new year. From webinars to workshops, meetups to conference talks, check out our list of events that are coming up in January. Official … ContinuedLooking Back: 2015 Project Report Card
In early 2015, I posted a look ahead at my planned 2015 projects, where I took a quick look at some of the self-development projects I set out for myself over the course of 2015. In this post, I’m going to review my progress on those 2015 projects.
The 2015 projects were as follows:
- Complete a new book
- Make more open source contributions
- Expand to a new configuration management solution
- Complete a “wildcard project”
So, how well did I do? Let’s take a look.
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Complete a new book: Technically, I haven’t (fully) completed a new book, but given that my new book project with Jason Edelman and Matt Oswalt on network automation is available now as an Early Access edition, I suppose this should count for something. Strangely enough, this wasn’t the book project I had in mind at the start of 2015, but sometimes things like this take unexpected turns. Grade: C
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Make more open source contributions: I expected this one to be easy, but it turns out that this is the area where my performance is the worst. I submitted a pull request to Terraform (for a docs update), but I did not make the contributions Continue reading
In Memoriam: Ian Murdock
Dear friends and members of the open source community, It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night. This is a tragic loss for his family, for the Docker community, and the … ContinuedTop Posts of 2015
As an eventful 2015 draws to a close we wanted to take a look back at the top posts of 2015.
Red Hat Acquires Ansible, The Open Source It Automation Company.
The title should come as no surprise, as many have predicted such an acquisition in the past. The similar open source ideologies, the technology fit, the executive team's open source background and the rapid adoption of Ansible in the enterprise certainly draw parallels to the world's leader in open source technology.
What was once a prediction is now reality, in just a little more than two years since Ansible, Inc., opened its doors, and we are thrilled! READ MORE
Managing VMware vSphere Guests With Ansible Tower
There are lots of ways to enable self-service VMs within an organisation - what some might call 'a private cloud'. However, these usually require layers and layers of complex software. What if you could leverage your existing hypervisor and 15 lines of code to do the same? And what if those 15 lines became an even simpler single click?
Ansible Core contains a module for managing virtual machines in VMware vSphere environments called vsphere_guest. Using this one module we can talk Continue reading
Top Posts of 2015
As an eventful 2015 draws to a close we wanted to take a look back at the top posts of 2015.
Red Hat Acquires Ansible, The Open Source It Automation Company.
The title should come as no surprise, as many have predicted such an acquisition in the past. The similar open source ideologies, the technology fit, the executive team's open source background and the rapid adoption of Ansible in the enterprise certainly draw parallels to the world's leader in open source technology.
What was once a prediction is now reality, in just a little more than two years since Ansible, Inc., opened its doors, and we are thrilled! READ MORE
Managing VMware vSphere Guests With Ansible Tower
There are lots of ways to enable self-service VMs within an organisation - what some might call 'a private cloud'. However, these usually require layers and layers of complex software. What if you could leverage your existing hypervisor and 15 lines of code to do the same? And what if those 15 lines became an even simpler single click?
Ansible Core contains a module for managing virtual machines in VMware vSphere environments called vsphere_guest. Using this one module we can Continue reading
Next-Generation Network Engineering Skills
There’s no question that the networking industry is undergoing significant changes. Sparked in part by software-defined networking (SDN), this sea change now includes an expanded focus on application programming interfaces (APIs), automation frameworks and toolkits, and improved manageability. As the industry undergoes this change, though, networking engineers must also undergo a change.
To help address this change, I’m very excited to announce a new book project targeting “next-generation network engineering skills.” I’ve joined forces with two folks that I really admire—Jason Edelman and Matt Oswalt—to write a new book focusing on the skills we believe are essential for the next-generation network engineer:
The Early Access edition of the book is available now. If you’re familiar with O’Reilly’s Early Access program, you know that this is an incomplete version right now, but you’ll get regular updates and the final version of the book once it is complete. Plus, you get to provide feedback to us (the authors) while we write, which in turn helps improve the book. (And we greatly desire your feedback!)
So what’s in this book? Here’s a quick look at some of the topics we’re tackling:
- An introduction to Linux, written from a Continue reading
Running Ansible Through an SSH Bastion Host
This post will expand on some previous posts—one showing you how to set up and use an SSH bastion host and a second describing one use case for an SSH bastion host—to show how the popular configuration management tool Ansible can be used through an SSH bastion host.
The configuration/setup required to run Ansible through an SSH bastion host is actually reasonably straightforward, but I saw a lot of incomplete articles out there as I was working through this myself. My hope is to supplement the existing articles, as well as the Ansible documenation, to make this sort of configuration easier for others to embrace and understand.
Prerequisites
There are two key concepts involved here that you’ll want to be sure you understand before you proceed:
- You’ll want to make sure you’re comfortable with using an SSH bastion host. If you don’t understand how this works or how to set it up, I recommend you spend some time on this topic first, as it’s crucial to how Ansible will behave/function. This article by Grant Taylor has some good information.
- Spend some time making sure you know how to use SSH multiplexing. This is useful for Ansible in general, but Continue reading
Docker Online Meetup #30: Docker Trusted Registry 1.4.1
We recently hosted a Docker Online Meetup that was all about Docker Trusted Registry. Software Engineer Tony Holdstock-Brown demoed DTR 1.4.1 and discussed the latest features including: – Image deletion and garbage collection – Set up, and manage user accounts, teams, organizations, and … ContinuedDockerCon 2016: Registration and CFP Now Open!
Both conference passes and the Call for Papers for DockerCon 2016 are now open to the public! Join us for DockerCon 2016 at the Washington State Convention Center in beautiful Seattle, Washington on June 19-21, 2016. We strongly recommend registering … ContinuedDocs Spotlight: Keeping the FM in RTFM
Crafting and maintaining high quality documentation is something we all know is very important. Reputable documentation is much more than the result of fantastic product or project management - especially when we're talking about community-driven documentation. Open source communities in particular like to reference "RTFM" (Read the Fine Manual, for the cleaner acronym explanation), but that's only helpful when the "Fine Manual" contains quality documentation. For projects like Ansible, it is our active users that make all the difference, and with their contributions and efforts we are able to help provide the great documentation that supports Ansible. But, that also comes with some caveats.
Many people contribute to open source projects so that they may "scratch their own itch." Whether this works well or creates clunky and cluttered code is not up for debate in this blog post, but how well it works in relation to open source documentation is debatable. Often contributions boil down to very bare bones coverage of a feature or implementation, other times the only contribution made is a typo fix. And while even the small fixes are helpful, these are not the contributions that make the docs great (better, yes, but not yet reaching Continue reading
Docs Spotlight: Keeping the FM in RTFM
Crafting and maintaining high quality documentation is something we all know is very important. Reputable documentation is much more than the result of fantastic product or project management - especially when we're talking about community-driven documentation. Open source communities in particular like to reference "RTFM" (Read the Fine Manual, for the cleaner acronym explanation), but that's only helpful when the "Fine Manual" contains quality documentation. For projects like Ansible, it is our active users that make all the difference, and with their contributions and efforts we are able to help provide the great documentation that supports Ansible. But, that also comes with some caveats.
Many people contribute to open source projects so that they may "scratch their own itch." Whether this works well or creates clunky and cluttered code is not up for debate in this blog post, but how well it works in relation to open source documentation is debatable. Often contributions boil down to very bare bones coverage of a feature or implementation, other times the only contribution made is a typo fix. And while even the small fixes are helpful, these are not the contributions that make the docs great (better, yes, but not yet reaching Continue reading
Docker Webinar Q&A: Intro To Docker Security
Today, security is one the biggest topics within the enterprise world and tops the list of enterprise IT initiatives. As companies have begun to adopt containers within their environments, they have realized the security benefits that come with them as … ContinuedTechnology Short Take #58
Welcome to Technology Short Take #58. This will be the last Technology Short Take of 2015, as next week is Christmas and the following week is the New Year’s holiday. Before I present this episode’s collection of links, articles, and thoughts on various data center technologies, allow me to first wish all of my readers a very merry and very festive holiday season. Now, on to the content!
Networking
- Looking for a step-by-step install guide for VMware NSX? This one is a bit older (refers to NSX 6.1 and the current release is 6.2), but you might find it helpful nevertheless.
- Ray Budavari—who is an absolutely fantastic NSX resource—has a blog post up on the integration between VMware NSX and vRealize Automation. This first post (judging by the “part 1” in the title this will be a series) is a bit light on details, but I’m hoping future posts will dive deeper into this topic.
- Mustafa Akin has an article on Docker’s new overlay networking functionality. He describes how to set it up (on both VirtualBox and Digital Ocean) and provides some high-level performance information as well.
- If you’d like to play around with Cumulus Linux but don’t Continue reading