Category Archives: Community

Attending The Global MVP Summit 2013 (November 18-21)

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We have Windows 8.1 running on our desktops & laptops and meanwhile Windows Server 2012 R2 is crunching numbers in our (virtualized) data centers. So it’s time to grab one of those magnificent British Airways Boeing 747 aircraft seats once again and make my way to SEATAC. No rest for the wicked. BAS7400066

Yup, but for now I’ve parked myself in LHR whilst waiting for my flight. Soon I’ll be in the air again for the long haul to the USA. I’m off to Washington State, Seattle to be exact, and from there to Bellevue/Redmond. You might have guessed where I am going already, indeed to the Microsoft campus. I’m attending the Global MVP Summit 2013, November Edition. image

Apart from that magnificent educational & networking opportunity I will spend a lot of the “free” time discussing technology, visions & strategies with my peers and Microsoft employees. I’d like to thank the latter for their patience with me when bugging them with questions Smile. To my buddies, acquaintances & connections, I’ll see you soon. We have a lot to learn & discuss. That’s one of the reasons I’m off a bit earlier. It helps with the jet lag but it also gives me time to meet up with friends and acquaintances I’ve made in the Puget Sound area and talk shop. This helps to keep in touch with what’s happening over the world and to understand where their priorities are, what’s keeping them occupied. While I’m a firm believer in remote and teleworking there is value in getting your boots on the ground every now and then. It prevents tunnel vision and helps avoiding  teleology in our views while enhancing early detection of small trend changes to whole sale tectonic shifts. This is not to be confused with thinking you have a crystal ball or anything.

To my readers & community members I’d like to extend the invitation to pass along feedback to Microsoft. They do listen. So leave a comment, send me a mail (contact via Blog) or ping me on Twitter.

In case you don’t know, everything discussed at the MVP Summit is under NDA, even for MVPs of another expertise. So basically bar some tweets to find our where other MVPs I’ll be going dark.

Presentation & Demos E2EVC Rome 2013

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Well my E2EVC presentation has been given and it went well. Sweet experience for the 20th edition of this excellent community conference.

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Thank you to all those attendees that attended my session. I hope you enjoyed it, learned something and got a taste of experimenting with some of the perhaps lesser know features at your disposal in Windows Server 2012 R2.

A big thanks to Alex and Clare for the splendid organization of E2EVC for the twentieth time!

For more information on VMQ & vRSS go here: https://blog.workinghardinit.work/2013/10/23/windows-server-2012-r2-virtual-rss-vrss-in-action/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2013/09/10/vmq-deep-dive-1-of-3.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2013/09/24/vmq-deep-dive-2-of-3.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2013/10/22/vmq-deep-dive-3-of-3.aspx

For a good start on SMB Direct with iWarp or RoCE go here: https://blog.workinghardinit.work/2013/08/28/adventures-in-rdma-the-roce-path-to-windows-server-2012-r2-smb-3-0-glory/

You can download the presentation here. The video of the session will be made available later by E2EVC so you can see the demo.

Just to make you all drool for the video to become live here’s a screenshot of what DVMQ/vRSS can achieve. Just pushing it to the limit. No, this is not “Photoshopped” I have witnesses Winking smile. That’s a W2K12R2 VM receiving 37.4Gbps of traffic. That will do or most of you I guess until 100Gbps NICs are the standard LOM on your future computing device.

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By the way some people really loved some of the drawn art I used in the presentation. For these I owe thanks to Kathy Sierra and her great blog art. It’s a shame she felt the need to go dark.

More stuff is in the work as working hard in IT never fails to deliver more good subjects, findings and results to blog about.

If you’re a managerial type and feel offended, you probably should, as you’re doing it all wrong Smile. Otherwise you would have smiled because you have a sense of humor and nodded at the mistakes of your colleagues.

E2EVC Rome 2013–Attending & Speaking

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I’m attending and speaking at the E2EVC (Experts2Experts Virtualization Conference) in Rome, November 1-3.

I’ll be doing a talk on networking features in Windows Server 2012 R2 & Hyper-V. The good, the bad & the ugly. And no, no SDN talk. It’s about the other stuff.

“Session Topic: Networking Options For Virtualization in Windows Server 2012 R2
Short description: In Windows 2012 R2 there are many networking options available to optimize for both speed & redundancy. Let’s talk about some of them and see where and when they can help. The biggest problem is thinking you need  all of them or wanting all of them. Others are knowledge& complexity. Join us for a chalk & talk discussing all this. Some fellow MVPs will be there and we all have different experiences in different environments.
Presenter: Didier Van Hoye, Microsoft MVP”

It will be an interactive chalk & talk based on testing & experiences with these features & demos if the internet holds up.

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It’s a suburb non-commercial, virtualization community Event. It brings the best real life  virtualization experts together to exchange knowledge and to establish new connections. Lots of presentations, Master Classes and discussions going on both the attendees, vendors product teams & independent experts.

Now this is a conference where marketing & marchitecture is shot down fast & hard. But always in a friendly way. These people are all working in the sector and they have to keep it real. They have a business & a livelihood that depends on them delivering results, not fairy tales & management pleasing BS. These people tell you what you need to know, not what you want to hear.

Look at the turnout for this event, this twitter list reads as the “Who’s Who In Virtualization”: @pcrampton, @joe_elway, @shawnbass, @ThomasMaurer, @Andrea_Mauro, @hansdeleenheer, @drtritsch, @WorkingHardInIT, @HelgeKlein, @JimMoyle, @neilspellings, @andyjmorgan, @KBaggerman, @CarlWebster, @bsonposh, @gilwood_cs, @E2EVC, @KristianNese, @_POPPELGAARD, @barryschiffer, @RemkoWeijnen, @IngmarVerheij, @WilcovanBragt, @david_obrien, @Microspecialist, @virtualfat, @LFoverskov, @virtuEs_IT, @stibakke, @granttiller, @Easi123, @ChrisJMarks, @arbeijer, @znackattack, @ShaunRitchie_UK, @Rob_Aarts, @StefanKoell, @EHouben, @crachfahl, @JeroenTielen, @plompr, @Gkunst, @drmiru, @espenbe, @marcdrinkwater, @DocsMortar, @AlBayliss, @wedelit, @pzykomAtle, @LoDani, @fborozan, @JeffWouters, @mrpickford, @smspasscode, @schose, @rvanderkruk, @TimmBrochhaus, @HansMinnee, @JZanten, @Sargola, @JaspervanWesten, @airdeca_nl, @danielBuonocore, @PeppelT, @TondeVreede, @pcortis, @ConorScolard, @CarstenDreyer, @arnaud_pain, @RoyTextor, @saschazimmer, @abstrask, @loopern, @PulseITch, @joarleithe, clarecoops9, @rfolmer, @wimoortgiesen  …

Here’s the conference agenda: http://www.e2evc.com/home/Agenda.aspx

See you there Smile and I’m looking forward to seeing my community buddies!

Join me for aTechNet Live Meeting: Hyper-V Storage Efficiencies & Optimizations in Windows Server 2012 R2

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So you have been  playing with or down right seriously testing Windows Server 2012 and perhaps even Windows Server 2012 R2. That’s great. Many of you might have it running in production or are working on that. That’s even better.

Windows Server 2012 has brought us unseen capabilities & performance enhancements that make it a future proof fundament for many versions to come and it is ready for the ever accelerating pace of hardware improvements. R2 has fine tuned some points and added improvements that are stepping stones to better today and even greater in vNext. I’d like to invite you to a free TechNet Live Meeting on Hyper-V Storage Efficiencies & Optimizations in Windows Server 2012 R2 and look at some of these capabilities with me.

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As a virtualization guy two subjects are very dear to me and that is networking & storage, and this event is about a subset of the storage improvements. You might have heard about ODX and UNMAP but you have not had the change to play with it. You have read about the tremendous scalability of the IOPS in a VM and about large sector support for the next generation of hard disks drives. Well some of these we’ll demonstrate (ODX, UNMAP, Dynamically expanding VHDX performance) if the demo gods are with us. Others we’ll discuss so you’ll know where this comes into play and how you’ll benefit from them even without realizing you do. So without further delay register for the free TechNet Live Event here.