What’s in a name?

/ / @Mike_Colson, EMC, Federation, Pivotal, VMware, vSpecialist / Leave a Reply

Let’s start off with a disclaimer: this blog is mine, opinions are my own. I work for EMC but these views and words are all mine. This isn’t the corporate line being towed.

Others have written about the Federation and how it works, they have touched on the co-opetition that exists between the companies.
So why do I feel compelled to write on it?

Well in part because I really don’t know how to keep my mouth shut. Also because just perhaps I have a slightly different view being new to this perspective. So without further ado:

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Learning Python Part: 1

/ / @Mike_Colson, APIs, Learning Python, vSpecialist / Leave a Reply

I decided it was time to learn a programming language that I could use for virtual environment management and orchestration. There are several that would have worked, PowerShell, Bash, Ruby, but I chose python. I prefer Object based programming and the vast library that the python community has built. There are already builds such as pysphere and pyVim that make the time to functional much shorter.

I am still studying and learning in no way do I understand everything about python. I started using CodeAcademy.com  to get some of the basics. One of my colleagues turned me onto Learn Python the Hard Way so I built some different projects. Easy stuff like Text based games or query calls. The same colleague then turned me onto writing a widget that called a web based API and returned a search function. The API to call was twitter, I initially did a google search and looked at some code snippets.

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VMware IT Business Manager (ITBM) Financial Transparency

/ / @Mike_Colson, Enterprise Design Considerations, Enterprise Solutions, IT Budget Management, IT Business Management, IT Finance, ITBM, Solutions, VMware ITBM, vSpecialist / Leave a Reply

ChargebackShowback is a common request from IT Admins and managers but what they can never answer is what are your real costs associated with running the individual VMs, Desktops, or Applications? What I normally hear is well we can estimate that, or we can ask. The problem with that approach is it’s like any other data crunch garbage in garbage out. The other issue is that a simple Showback or Chargeback aren’t the same thing as financial transparency they are just billing models.

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