Following on from my initial run of vExpert 2023 polo shirts last year, I’m now pleased to offer vExpert 2024 branded clothing. But this year I’m adding T shirts to the mix!
I received a T shirt last year by mistake and can confirm they are very comfortable to wear. (50% cotton and 50% Polyester mix)
As you can see from the picture the finished effect is quite good.
Navy T Shirt and Black Polo
Delivery
I don’t really want to start international shipping, but there are other ways, maybe someone is coming to a UK VMUG or other IT event, in which case delivery can be made in person. Maybe you have someone from the UK coming out to your country.
Update – I will be attending Nutanix Next In Barcelona 21st – 23rd May 2024
How do I get one?
Colours Keeping it simple both shirts are available in 7 colours, but obviously you can’t put a white logo on a white shirt.
Sizes
Measurements
S
M
L
XL
XXL
3XL
4XL
Tolerance +/-
Chest (Inches)
36”
40”
44”
48”
52”
56”
60”
1.5”
Costs
As per last year I can do the polos for £15. The T shirts I can do for £13 with delivery in the UK using Evri for around £3.00 ( If you want other postage this can be arranged, if you know Evri don’t deliver to you please mention in your email)
Ordering
So, if you’re interested, please send me an email with:
After the success of the first vBeers last year I thought it was time to arrange another one. I’ve picked the same venue ‘The Steamtown Brew co‘ in Eastleigh.
This is a local micro brewery and the beauty is it’s a 5 minute walk from Eastleigh train station, on the mainline from London Waterloo.
This is a BYOW (bring you own wallet) event but don’t let that put you off.
Steamtown has a big reputation locally for beer and burgers so what have you got to lose, feel free to check out the menu and did I mention its close to the train station.
I would love to see anyone who’s interested in all things VMware there. Maybe you want to come and discuss the recent Broadcom merger issues, maybe you are a new vExpert in the 2024 release or maybe you’re interested in joining the community. There should also be a couple of vExperts here so if you want to find out how to become a vExpert, come along for a chat.
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the recent Commvault SHIFT event in London.
Commvault have made the leap from a Data Protection company to a Cyber Resilience company.
So what’s in a name? I think to understand that, you need to understand what Cyber Resilience is?
I found a couple of meaningful definitions.
Cyber resilience is the ability of an organization to enable business acceleration (enterprise resiliency) by preparing for, responding to, and recovering from cyber threats. (Opentext)
Cyber resilience combines data protection and security – taking an inside-out approach to keeping data safe (Netapp)
So now we know what it means how does Commvault deliver this.
Like every other Data protection company they provide backup and recovery, fast ransomware detection and recovery through their unique Metallic AI engine. But today I want to focus on Cleanroom Recovery.
Cleanroom Recovery is a comprehensive testing and failover offering that enables organizations to mitigate cyber risk effectively. It provides a safe and isolated environment for:
testing cyber recovery plans
conducting forensic analysis
helping to ensure business continuity in the event of a breach
Cleanroom Recovery is an offering for both software and SaaS customers. Cleanroom Recovery facilitates automated recovery of the control plane, integration with a tertiary copy of data in Air-gap Protect, and a streamlined, easy-to-use recovery wizard. This will provide the ability for clean and easy restores in a new uncontaminated Microsoft Azure tenant.
Key capabilities include:
Comprehensive testing environment: Cleanroom Recovery provides a safe and isolated environment where organizations can test their cyber recovery plans without the risk of disrupting production systems.
Secure forensic analysis: Cleanroom Recovery can be used to conduct forensic analysis of known infected systems and identify the root cause of an attack.
Faster recovery times: Cleanroom Recovery can help organizations recover from cyber attacksfaster by providing a streamlined recovery process.
Reduced downtime: Cleanroom Recovery can help organizations minimize downtime by providing a production failover solution.
I believe that Cleanroom Recovery is the killer app in the Commvault Arsenal that you will find a use for.
It will allow you restore your environment or single application to a cloud environment, effectively testing your backups by building an air gapped environment.
Using Commvault automation it will allow you to continually test recovery so that you know your backups are 100% reliable. Additionally, the automation can perform a number of tests for you.
you can run production from the cloud or restore to the cloud should you question the integrity of your data.
For more information you can check out the Commvault Cleanroom Recovery resources here https://tinyurl.com/3pf9tbmc
I must admit to being rather lax in perusing the VMware Explore Content Catalogue this year, but a number of recent tweets highlighted to me how many of my friends from London VMUG are presenting, so I thought I would put a list together.
I’ve found nine so far and if I have missed anyone please reach out via Email, LinkedIn or Twitter DM me and I will add you to the list.
Some interesting timings have appeared, myself and Rob Bishop are going head to head on Tuesday at 11:45, and Amit Panchal and Anthony Poh are going head to head on Wednesday at 9am.
There appears to be spaces available for most sessions, but there is always the waitlist, or you can just join the queue for getting in and hope there is space available. From my personal experience there normally is.
Name
Session
Date / Time
Link
availability
Andrew Nash
VMware Community Panel: Level Up Your Career Through Community Participation [VIB2311BCN]
Next week is VMware Explore in Barcelona. I like the think of it as the natural home for any vExpert.
I’ve been lucky enough to attend every VMworld / Explore since 2015, minus the two covid online events for 2020 and 2021, that’s still six in a row. But this year it’s very special for me as I’m going as a speaker.
I’m joining Corey Romero and a community panel of vExpert’s to discuss how the community has helped me grow in my personal life and career as well as hopefully encouraging the next generation of people to become involved in the community.
Corey put out a request for volunteers so I submitted my application and was thrilled to get selected. It’s no secret to me that this is the pinnacle of my vExpert career. It would be wrong of me to say I’m not nervous as this will be my biggest public speaking event to date but I’m up for the challenge.
Look I’m a speaker!
The 5 of us on the panel are:
Corey Romero, Senior Community Manager, VMware. @vCommunityGuy
Brian Graf, Director, VMware{code} Community, VMware. @TheBrianGraf
Christian Mohn, Chief Technologist SDDC, Proact IT Norge AS. @h0bbel
Tim Burkard, Staff Technical Learning Engineer, VMware. @v_gandalf
oh and me Andrew Nash, Principal Systems Engineer, Motorola Solutions. @andynash99
If you’re interested in coming to see our session its going to be In the community area, you can add it to your schedule by selecting here
VMware Community Panel: Level Up Your Career Through Community Participation [VIB2311BCN]
A few weeks ago, I received an email from Toolstation talking about personalised workwear, I was intrigued by the offer and decided to give the vExpert logo a go.
After some playing around with the application, I decided to pay the setup costs for the vExpert logo in a single colour which was a reasonable £10.00.
As you can see from the picture the finished effect is quite good.
I’ve decided I will offer the design out and see if anyone is interested, and if I can get an order in quickly before VMexplore I may be able to deliver in person to save the postage.
I’ve already had some interested from abroad but I’m not a company and I really don’t want to start international shipping as I’ve been burned bringing items into the UK from abroad.
However please see above – maybe you or a friend is going to Explore?
How do I get one?
Colours Keeping it simple the polo is available in 7 colours, but obviously you can’t put a white logo on a white shirt.
Sizes
Measurements
S
M
L
XL
XXL
3XL
4XL
Tolerance +/-
Chest (Inches)
36”
40”
44”
48”
52”
56”
60”
1.5”
Costs
I think this can be achieved for around £15 a shirt with delivery in the UK using Hermes for around £3.00
Ordering
So, if you’re interested, please send me an email with:
Colour
Size
Quantity
Delivery address
VMexplore – If you’re coming to VMware explore then let me know and I will try to expedite the orders. (No guarantees here)
Link to your vExpert directory entry.
And I will email back with some payment details.
Please email me at AndysPolos@outlook.com
Update 23/10/2023 first batch of polos ordered, hopefully to arrive before VMexplore Europe.
I would like to invite everyone to attend the inaugural South Coast vBeers on Thursday 5th October 18:30 onwards.
Those of you who know me will know I’ve been bouncing this idea around for a couple of years now, first covid got in the way and then I had a close family death to deal with. But now its time!
After some extensive research I have picked a local venue “The Steamtown Brew co” in Eastleigh.
This is a local Micro brewery and the beauty is it’s a 5 minute walk from Eastleigh train station, on the mainline from London Waterloo.
This is a BYOW (bring you own wallet) event but don’t let that put you off.
Steamtown has a big reputation locally for beer and burgers so what have you got to lose, feel free to check out the menu and did I mention its close to the train station.
Please come along to discuss all things VMware, maybe you’re back from VMexplore with stories to tell or going to Barcelona in November and looking for some friendly advice. There should also be a couple of vExperts here so if you want to find out how to become a vExpert, come along for a chat.
It would be really great to get some interest so speak to your friends, colleagues, and VMware Admins!
Next week is the second London VMUG this year, so if you’re interested in all things VMware then come along and meet some of the nicest people in the VMware community, we don’t bite and everyone is welcome.
The event is at TechUK, home of the London VMUG at 10 St Bride Street, London, EC4A 4AD (just off Fleet Street) and is running from 9am to 4.30pm. And I dare say there will be some informal vBeers afterwards in a local hostelry.
Checking the agenda, I’m excited to see my good friend and London VMUG superstar Chris Bradshaw presenting on Improving your IT Documentation, I for one am sure I will be gaining some top tips from Chris.
So, what else is on I hear you ask? It’s a full day with 7 sessions covering everything from NSX, Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), Cloud, designing and documentation. It’s great to see some new presenters as well as some of the familiar faces of the #VMcommunity we know and love.
The event is sponsored by two of the best companies around, they both give so much to the #VMcommunity and #vExpert program.
Runecast, whose product I absolutely love by the way and have blogged about in the past. Runecast allows CISOs and Security teams to automatically identify, assess, manage and remediate vulnerabilities, all through a single platform and I will be looking forward to seeing their session with Paul Donnachie
Xtravirt is a modern cloud consulting and managed services firm focused on unlocking the full potential of cloud and business. They are no strangers to London VMUG as some of the London VMUG legends have passed through their employment at some point in time. It will be great to see Gareth Lewis presenting his session on Migrating to NSX.
Back in early June Commvault announced several new security capabilities across its entire portfolio signalling the next phase in its evolution helping businesses secure, defend, and recover their data to meet increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats head on.
Who are Commvault
Commvault are an enterprise data protection leader for today’s global businesses and the first data protection vendor to introduce cyber deception.
Commvault has spent the last four years redefining and expanding the capabilities of its platform to bridge the gap between IT and security.
Commvault has redefined data protection to include early warning technologies that help to secure against threats before they happen, defend enterprise data if the environment is breached, and ensure recoverability so customers and their data remain resilient in the face of evolving cyber threats. The only data protection vendor with early warning, in-depth threat monitoring, and cyber deception for production and backup environments, Commvault can detect threats in as little as five minutes versus the industry average of 24 hours. Through early detection of zero-day and insider threats, Commvault technology helps protect data against breaches and cyber-attacks.
Features included in Commvault’s security announcement on the 7th of June include:
Commvault Cloud Command – Available at no cost as part of the platform. A single platform with a single code base and single UI, offering universal management for all Commvault offerings in an integrated dashboard that provides full telemetry and observability into key Commvault software indicators. Delivers health-at-a-glance, risk levels, security and recovery indicators, and beyond for Commvault investments from a single source.
Commvault Risk Analysis – Powered by machine learning (ML), Commvault Risk Analysis quarantines and deletes sensitive data, giving organizations the ability to discover, analyse, and secure sensitive data to prevent cyber exposure and potential data exfiltration.
Commvault Threat Scan – Inspects backup content to identify encrypted, corrupted, or suspicious datasets. Businesses can use Threat Scan to locate and quarantine malware and threats from backup content, ensure clean recoveries and prevent reinfection.
Commvault Auto Recovery – (formally known as Disaster Recovery) Cyber analysis tool that tests recovery readiness at scale and provides forensic analysis to determine validated and sanitized points of recovery and prevent future incidents. Allows organizations to easily and securely recover workloads at scale from cyber-attacks with minimal data loss and downtime.
ThreatWise Advisor – Delivers integrated logic into Commvault backup environments to intelligently recommend decoy placement.
Ecosystem integrations – Protecting the most workloads requires strong technology and engineering partnerships. To that end, Commvault also announced it has collaborated with CyberArk and Microsoft to integrate Commvault’s technology with their respective, industry-leading security platforms. By expanding its security ecosystem, Commvault is helping organizations enhance their security posture through automated incident response, better collaboration, and deeper insights into the threat landscape.
If you want to know more information, then please check out the following links.
With this latest release Commvault has become a gamechanger, for all your hybrid and multi-Cloud needs, now and in the future. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Azure, Google or Oracle, the new data protection capabilities are there to simplify management and costs. With enhanced data security and protection to help mitigate against ransomware which is still there out there and changing every day. They are the first data protection company to release Azure restore points via a new API to allow application consistency, clearly showing how close they are working with Microsoft. When it comes to security the SIEM integration is second to none, you can export your Commvault data to any SIEM of your choice, bridging the gap between IT and security. On a personal note, as an administrator of CyberArk I’m excited to see the new integration between Commvault and CyberArk, taking the protection of my most important data (credentials) and securing it using the latest best practices.
Please note that whilst this content was not provided by Commvault this is a sponsored post.
Next week is the first London VMUG this year after what feels like ages and we are finally back to in person events. So If you’re interested in all things VMware then come along and meet some of the nicest people in the VMware community, we don’t bite and everyone is welcome.
The event is at TechUK, home of the London VMUG at 10 St Bride Street, London, EC4A 4AD (just off Fleet Street) . It is running from 9am to 4.15pm and I dare say they will be some informal vBeers afterwards in a local hostelry.
So what’s on you ask, well here is the agenda and it’s a packed day covering everything from NSX and Ansible to Workspace ONE, VMware Cloud Foundation and Aria. It’s great to see some new presenters as well as some of the VMUG legends we know and love.
The event is sponsored by Stickermule where everyone gets their VMware community stickers from, So a big thank you to them as without sponsors this event couldn’t happen.
Do come along and see what it’s all about, you can pre-register here or just turn up on the day Hope to see you there.
andy nash 