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VMworld Hackathon vSphere Client Login UI Theme

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For those of you who attended this years VMworld Hackathon (US/Europe), you may have noticed something different when logging into the vSphere Web/H5 Client? In case you missed it or could not attend, here is a GIF demonstrating what you would have saw:

via GIPHY

No, the VMworld Hackathon environment was not hacked 😉 but instead I had built a very special VMworld Hackathon vSphere Client Login UI Theme for the event. I was also getting tired of looking at our boring blue login screen. Customizing the vSphere Client Login UI has been possible (though not officially supported by VMware) since vSphere 6.0 which I have written about here, here and most recently here (due to vSphere 6.5 Update 1 changes). Having received a large number of requests from folks who attended the Hackathon as well as folks who had heard or saw the customization who wish to replicate this in their own environment, I have posted the instructions below.

This slick customization would not have been possible without the help from Timo Sugliani (thanks dude!) who was the one that made me aware of the two of the creatives that then gave me the idea to combine them into a vSphere Client Login UI Theme. The first is V for Vendetta image which can be found here and the second is super slick interactive Bootstrap animation which can be found here. Lastly, I added my own touch by using a Mr. Robot font from this site here which goes really well with the overall theme.

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Enhanced Linked Mode (ELM) vs Hybrid Linked Mode (HLM)

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In the last few weeks, albeit due to VMworld, I have seen a large number of inquiries from customers regarding the existing vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode (ELM) as it compares to the newly announced Hybrid Linked Mode (HLM) feature. In some cases, certain assumptions were being made based on what was initially announced and I think that also led to some confusion on what the future holds for both of these capabilities. Hopefully with this article, I can help clarify the differences between ELM and HLM and their respective use cases. I will also quickly touch upon some of the future thinkings for both of these features as they were discussed at several VMworld Sessions both in the US and Europe.

Disclaimer: Hopefully folks are familiar with the standard VMworld Disclaimer slide that is shown before any session which states features are subject to change and must not be included in contracts, purchase orders or sales agreement of any kind. I am sure many of you have memorized it by now, but this is a good time to re-iterate that point, especially as we talk about futures 🙂

Current

Lets start off by reviewing what we have today and explaining the differences between ELM and HLM.

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Direct playback URLs for all VMworld 2017 US & EU Sessions

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This is probably the shortest blog post ever but I have just published the direct playback URLs for all VMworld 2017 US and EU Sessions which can be found by visiting http://vmwa.re/vmworld2017

UPDATE (10/16/2017) - Huge thanks to VMworld Team, they have just posted the PDF decks for the majority of the US/EU sessions on VMworld website. You can access them by simply logging into the VMworld site and going into the Content Catalog, select a session and there should now be a download button for sessions that have their deck posted. In addition, I have also pulled all the PDF URLs into my direct playback URL pages for both US/Europe. You can find those by visiting the link above.

Enjoy!

VMworld Hackathon 2017 Highlights

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This was our second year running the Hackathon at VMworld and Alan and I could not have been more pleased with all the positive and supportive feedback that we have received. The Hackathon was definitely a highlight for us as it was for many other VMworld attendees. Having said that, the Hackathon did come in a very close #2 for us in VMworld Europe as our very own Alan Renouf took center stage with our CEO Pat Gelsinger for the Day 1 Keynote which you can watch here.

There were so many great highlights at both the US and Europe VMworld Hackathon, it was hard to just mention a few. I thought I would be nice to pull together all this content and share it back with the community, especially for those who missed out on the Hackathon this year and have now regretted not joining 😉 Do not worry, you can make up for it next year! It was also very cool to see the VMworld Hackathon influence the VMUG Community with the Pittsburg VMUG running their own "mini" Hackathon which they dubbed #PGHlittlehacks, you can read more about it here.

I also wanted to give a huge thanks to the VMware Code team, if it was not for them and their support, the Hackathon would have not been possible. Not only did we double the size of the teams by 2x for both US (7 to 15 teams) and Europe (5 to 10 teams), but we also recieved a larger budget this year for better hardware, giveaways and more activities like the Hackathon Trainings. If you are not part of VMware Code, be sure to sign up here and also be sure to give them feedback on things you like at the Hackathon as well as things we could improve on. You can reach them on Twitter @vmwarecode or Slack them https://vmwarecode.slack.com. I also wanted thank our esteemed judges here and here for taking time out of their busy VMworld schedule and spending several hours with us, we know you could have been anywhere, but you decided to hang out with us! Lastly, thanks to the VMworld TV folks for stopping by and having a chat with us.

Alan and I really appreciate all the kind words that we have received in the last few weeks and we hope to see you in next years VMworld Hackathon!

FYI - In the coming week, I will be posting more information about the Hackathon hardware BOM as well as the slick vSphere Web Client UI customization, so stay tuned.

Blogs:

Twitter Comments:

Videos:

VMworld TV Interview:

Time-Lapse Video by Lars Troen:

Hackathon Team Presentations by Lars Troen:

Pictures:


             US Pictures - https://github.com/lamw/vmworld-hackathon/tree/master/2017-USA-Pictures


             Europe Pictures - https://github.com/lamw/vmworld-hackathon/tree/master/2017-BCN-Pictures

US Hackathon Training:

US/EU Hackathon Github Repos:

Hackathon Hardware/Software BOM:

Direct playback & download URLs for VMworld EU 2016 sessions

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I had several folks ping me on when I would be publishing a nice consolidated list of VMworld Europe 2016 breakout sessions like I did for VMworld US. I took a look at the VMworld EU site last night and it looks like only 71 sessions have been published so far. In any case, I worked a bit of magic and was able to generate a list of playback URLs for the published session thus far. You can find the list on my Github repo: https://github.com/lamw/vmworld2016-eu-session-urls

UPDATED (11/01/16) - Just updated Github repo to include direct download URLs, grab them while you can 😀

Note: Similiar to the VMworld US based sessions, Media Site could make further changes which may render the URLs invalid or requiring additional authentication. I will try to update them as they change but so far, they seem to work without any issues 🙂

Few #migrate2vcsa VMworld sessions & HOL worth checking out

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One thing that I had noticed at VMworld last week was that there was a lot of excitement and buzz coming from our customers/partners around migrating from a Windows based vCenter Server to the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with the awesome #migrate2vcsa stickers that my buddy Emad had created.

migrate2vcsa-sticker
or the killer #migrate2vcsa apparel ...

In all seriousness, I do think our customers are genuinely excited about this upcoming migration capability and the value of the VCSA over the Windows vCenter Server. This is especially true for simplified lifecycle management from deployment (Day 0), configuration (Day 1), patching and upgrade (Day 2) of the VCSA. Customers not only benefit from the operational aspect of the VCSA, but it also allows them to reduce their overall Windows licensing footprint for both the vCenter Server as well as the backend database which is usually a Microsoft SQL Server or an Oracle Database. I do understand that this is not the goal of all customers, but I also know of many customers who do appreciate this additional CapEx savings.

At VMworld this year, there was a ton of coverage across a variety of topics for the VCSA including Migration, Deployment, Management, Operations and most dearest to my heart, Automation which spans all of these areas. I thought it would be useful to share some of the content in the form of publicly available VMworld sessions that you can view regardless if you attended VMworld or not. I know many of you have been asking about the VCSA Migration Tool and all I can say is check out the resources below and stay tune for an update real soon 😀

#migrate2vcsa Sessions:

#migrate2vcsa HOL (simulation):

I just found out about this, but it looks like our Hands-On-Labs folks also built a nice VCSA Migration simulation HOL (http://docs.hol.vmware.com/hol-isim/HOL-2017/hol-1710-vcsamigration.htm) that you can try out which gives you a sneak peak at a Tech Preview of the VCSA Migration Tool. You simply follow the instructions to the right and it walks you through the simulation and highlighting what you need to perform via the orange colored icon. I thought this was a very neat solution for folks to get an idea of how something works without having to sit through hours of content. migrate2vcsa-hol

Lastly, here are some of the general vCenter Server / VCSA sessions that are also worth checking out.

General VCSA Sessions: