From CNC to NTC: A Journey of Professional Growth
Below is a rough transcript of my "From CNC to NTC: A Journey of Professional Growth" session I presented at the 2017 Nutanix Next conference. The slide show is embedded below, and I've included some links which could be helpful on your journey. I hope you enjoy!
So, what are we going to talk about today? Today’s post is one about growth, living up to your potential, and getting out of your comfort zone. It's a story about that guy in the green, that's me 6 years ago
Working as a CNC operator for an envelope factory in Milwaukee. Yes, envelopes are still made here in the United States, I was surprised to find that out in 2004 when I started with the company. I started working right out of high school instead of pursuing a college degree. After bouncing around from a couple of part time jobs, I landed a rather nice paying full time gig at 19.
In high school I was an above average student, but honestly, I lacked motivation and focus. So, when the opportunity to make $12 an hour at 19 years old presented itself, I thought, “Wow, it’s my lucky day”. And the first couple of years, I was doing alright. But after those first couple of years, the day to day monotony of the factory work coupled with minimal increases in wages began to take its toll. It’s that point that my wife suggested I go to school and learn something new.
Tinkering with and repairing computers was always fun for me, so I thought taking the leap into an IT career would be a logical step for myself. But where would I even begin? Did this move make sense for my life? My family? As this was a huge paradigm shift, I wanted to be sure I was prepared. Logically, leaving the factory life would certainly lead to better pay, and an overall improvement in quality of life. Standing in one spot, pressing the same button over and over again, and repetitively lifting certainly takes its toll on a person. I read through everything I could find online about career change. I spoke to the people in my life who already worked in the field. I talked to the IT manager at work. Their consensus was an associate’s degree was the best place to start given that I had no professional IT experience.
Okay a starting point, a 2 year degree, excellent! Where I lived at the time was nestled between two different technical colleges, so again, wanting to make sure I was making the right choice, back to the research. The college I chose turned out to be pivotal in shaping who I became, so I’m glad I took the time beforehand. School picked out, I then I sat down with my wife and looked over the class schedule. As we did not have any children, and my work schedule was set at 7a-3p daily, I was able to easily plan out my evenings of class, studying, and homework. Wanting to make up for lost time by not starting sooner, with my wife’s blessings, and friends motivations behind me, I scheduled class Monday through Thursday, 5p-8p.
Yes, 40 hours of work each week and 12 hours of class. Should be easy, right? The first month or so, cake walk. The motivation of where this would all lead coupled with the excitement of learning something new kept me going like a machine. I set the bar high for myself as well. Since I slacked in high school, nothing less than A’s would suffice in college, especially since I wanted to transfer to a 4 year school after the associates. But, that excitement would wear off and the days would get longer, and longer, and longer. With my weekends getting filled with studying and homework, taking time away from my family, I started staying up until 1 or 2am during the week to get it all done. And, as a diehard Green Bay Packers fan, there was no way I was missing a game on Sunday afternoons.
It became evident to myself and my wife that I had bitten off more than I could chew. That is an important lesson to learn and to be able to admit to yourself. Honestly, it was a big learning moment for me. Knowing that feeling and still being able to tell to this day when things get to be too much, it helps you keep your sanity. There’s a level of professionalism in being honest about not having the availability to take on additional tasks. It does not show weakness or an unreliability. It shows you are dedicated to what you’ve already committed yourself to and care about the quality of work put into it. And, since I committed myself to 4 nights of class this semester, and I wanted to see it through, it became a matter of time management and organization.
Whether you’re pursuing a certification, a degree, or running a project, staying organized and time management are an integral part to success. I cannot stress this enough. Honestly, I hate being micromanaged, as I’m sure many of you listening do as well. But to make it through the remaining half of the semester, I had to sit down and chart my time hour by hour. 8 hours for work, 9 including commute, 7 hours of sleep left 8 hours to divide up between personal responsibilities and schoolwork. Home at 3:30, shower, snack, clean the house, whatever needed to be done until 4:30. Drive to class, class from 5-8, drive home, hang out with the Mrs. for a little bit and decompress. Then it was homework time from 9:30-11:30p. Sleep. Repeat. Monday through Thursday. By Friday I was exhausted, but I could take the night off and do whatever I wanted. Saturday left time for the family and homework if needed, and Sunday, Sunday was football. My reward for sticking to my schedule for the week.
Okay, so timings sorted out, now what to do about 3 classes worth of homework, projects, and exams. It’s funny, that syllabus thingy that’s handed out at the start of class really comes in handy if you’re trying to be organized. I, personally, am a visual person. I needed to see my week and month laid out before me, so like any good IT professional, I turned to a whiteboard. In my living room (I was living in a 1 bedroom apartment at the time) was a whiteboard, with a calendar grid taped to it. I took out that syllabus, well 2 of the 3 as I had to get one that I lost from the professor, and wrote down all of the exams and project deadlines on the whiteboard. Now I could SEE exactly when things were due in relation to my other courses and adequately divide up my time. I also kept a daily planner on me as well. As this was a time JUSSST before smartphones, a trusty pen and paper were always nearby. Should any new tasks arise, it was noted, should I need to rearrange my schedule and I didn’t want something to fall by the wayside, it was noted. For a long period of time, I could have told you what I was doing on the 3rd Tuesday in November 2 years prior by reviewing my schedules.
On that same whiteboard, I kept notes about each project. Those notes were fairly high level, but as I made progress towards completing each one, I would post at what percent complete I felt that project was at. Seeing this in front of me, coupled with the deadlines, was an easy way to keep myself accountable towards getting it done. If the deadline grew closer and that percentage was not going up, I knew I needed to adjust my schedule and focus on that project. This is a process I still incorporate into my larger work projects today.
There’s another piece to my success in that first semester of school, and it happened organically. I ended up with not one, but two people mentoring me. One was a classmate from my CCNA course. He had spent many years in networking and was pursuing the certification as his employer requested. We hit it off right away. He could tell I was new to all of this, so as we worked on labs in the class, or even during lectures, he took the time to explain concepts in greater detail than the professors. We studied together, we worked on labs after hours together. It was an amazing experience. The other mentor was my English professor. All through elementary, middle, and high school, I excelled at writing so I was excited to see how that translated to the collegiate level. I got my first paper back with an “H” written on top. As he was explaining to the class about their grades, he said “Anyone with an H on their paper, see me after class”. Instantly, my heart sank. I thought “H is two letters after F in the alphabet, how bad did I do?”. Reluctantly, I sat in my desk as everyone left. I scanned the room and noted only 2 other students remained. Preparing myself for the worst, the professor began “I bet you’re all wondering what H stands for?” and we nod. He continued, “The three of your papers stood out leaps and bounds above the rest of the class. I would like to submit you for the honors program.”.
I probably should have been pulled over for speeding on the way home after hearing that. I was so excited, I knew I was capable of more than just menial factory work, and now I knew I could actually do this. From that day on, the professor and I would chat quite a bit before or after class. He pointed out that my writing style would make me an incredible technical writer, and helped me craft that into a skill so I could easily communicate across the full spectrum of business audiences. That’s something to this day that I am grateful for, as I use it more than you’d think.
Finding a mentor is something you’ll hear me mention twice in this post. Having someone who’s willing to guide you that’s not emotionally involved, that’s willing to steer you in the right directions, and help you learn from their experiences. That it worth its weight in gold. In this case, I was fortunate that mentors happened upon me organically. You may not have as easy of a time as I finding a mentor, and that’s okay. It’s also okay to openly ask for someone to mentor you. There are many people in our industry who are more than willing to be a mentor. All you’ve got to do is ask.
So, after all of that micromanagement, stress, and reorganizing of my life, how did I do my first semester back to school in 5 years? Straight As, 4.0. Learning from my mistakes, the following semester I lowered my course load to two nights a week. I’m pretty sure that first semester is when I started getting my first grey hairs, and I did not want that trend to continue.
It wasn’t an easy road. Life can throw you some curves during this process. I bought a house. My father passed away, my wife and I divorced, and my full time job went from 40 hours a week to 60+ mandatory. It took me going to school part time in the evenings several years to complete that degree.
But here I am, graduation day. I was so proud of myself, and I felt so accomplished. All I could think about was continuing my education into a bachelor’s degree. I had worked so hard to ingrain the drive to succeed that I didn’t give myself a moment to breath and enjoy what I had done.
Alright, so now I’ve got my degree. Time for that new job, right! Right? I must have applied for 50 jobs and was offered a handful of interviews. Turns out it’s pretty hard to enter a field you have no professional experience in.
This is something any number of you could see in your current situations. It may not be a complete career change, but how do you get your foot in the door at that company you’ve always wanted to work for? How did I finally get that 1 interview that started my career? Networking. Lots and lots of networking. I hate to admit it, but it’s not always what you know, but sometimes it who you know.
In my case, it was a close friend’s sister’s husband’s friend that was hiring for a position. We had chatted a few times in passing on the rare occasion we were in the same place. I knew what he did professionally, and that he could be a good resource to me in the future. Turns out that investment paid off. Letting people know what you’re about, what you’re looking for, and keeping up that image can go a long way in helping you with your career.
I interviewed with a large, multi-national company who was willing to take a chance on a kid fresh out of college who seemed to have the right attitude and motivations. They offered me a position. A three month contract, with a strong possibility of being extended to six months.
So here I sat, job offer in the field I was dying to get into with a place that would provide great experience and growth potential. Do I give up my job of 9 years? 9 years of union seniority, fully vested in the 401k, great benefits, and steady income for what? A 3 month contract that could be thrown out at any moment? What about my bills, my mortgage? How much was I willing to risk to make that leap?
Times like these, you really need to analyze your risk / reward threshold. As you make any decision in your career, thinking about the balance between risk and reward is a great tool to help you make choices that best suit not only your plans, but style as well. What was I looking at? Yes, I could be in dire financial straits if I ended up unemployed at the end of those three months, but, I was also fortunate enough that the VP of the company I was leaving said I could come back should things not work out.
There was still a pretty great deal of risk in choosing to take the contract. What if my former employer rescinded that offer? And more frightening, what if I did take the offer and I completely failed at the new job? To take such a big leap, you’ve also got to be able to stare down any fears of failing. It’s almost cliché to say, but look at times when you fail as learning experiences. If you’ve learned something new, if you’ve grown from the experience, is it truly a failure?
So I did it, I accepted the position and put in my two weeks. If I wanted to enter the world of IT, I needed to take that chance. Just about one month from graduation, I started my new career. Identity and Access management. A fancy title for password resets and creating Active Directory accounts. Nothing glamorous, but it was the foot in the door I needed.
The first few weeks were fun and exciting, but I could see that I would be siloed in this position. I had to keep growing. As I quickly mastered the original duties of my position, I asked to be taught additional tasks that were performed by our team. This provided an opportunity to show management I was worth more than just a 3 month contract. I did everything in my power to show that I wanted to be a full time part of their team and they could trust me with additional work. And guess what, that persistence paid off. Two months into the contract, the 3 other people who were brought on at the same time as I had their contract terminated early. As I was proving to be a vital resource, my contract was extended.
The goal I set for myself when I graduated was that I wanted to be making six figures in seven years or less. A pretty lofty goal. Clearly, I needed to continue to learn and grow outside of my position to make that happen. One of the first things I did was stayed active in the VMUG community. One of the last classes I taken before graduation was “emerging technologies”, which was the colleges VMware certification course. The concept of virtualization blew me away, and thankfully, was a technology that came easy to me. I immersed myself in reading books, blogs, and articles about ESXi and Hyper-V. And this led to another defining moment. I started to build my brand.
We are, as IT professionals, are well versed in the importance of networking with each other and getting your name out there. I took it to the next level, not only did I start networking, but I built a brand. Armed with a name, I created a Twitter account, blog, Instagram, and purchased the domain name ExploreVM. I also locked down my personal Facebook and created a “Professional” account that was public. Because let’s be real, how many of us have photos on Facebook they are not proud of? Lots of work went into making ExploreVM and my professional persona, the image I wanted to portray publicly, highly visible. How many of you currently use Twitter? Twitter can be a great tool for networking, keeping up on technology trends, and a pool of resources when you’re in a bind. If you’re not currently using it, I highly recommend you sign up and start to build your brand.
Remember, this is a very public facet of yourself. Refrain from rants and getting too political. I’ve muted or unfollowed several bright IT minds in the last year on Twitter as they’ve went from meaningful technical content to political tirades and name calling. We’ve all got our viewpoints, and you’re very much so entitled to yours, but a professional brand is not the place for those opinions.
As I Tweeted and blogged, I started to gain a following and was being recognized at events. One of my favorite stories of being recognized was at VMworld in San Francisco. I was walking between vendor parties in the evening when, from across the street, I hear someone yell “Paul Woodward Jr!”. They walked over and joined our group and we had a blast. I made new friends in the industry thanks to being active on social media.
Oh, a quick piece of advice. In building a brand, make sure to lock up your name on every platform you can think of. By doing this, it helps people locate you easier when Googling your name and it prevents anyone else from using the same name in a way that could hurt your brand. Think outside of the box as well. Start with the obvious sites: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, but don’t forget about some that might be less obvious such as Instagram, Pinterest, and even outliers like Google+. I know, Google+ is dead, but when running searches, Google gives priority to Google generated content.
You can see here that explorevm.com is the first result, followed by Twitter, and what’s that? A share of my blog on Google+ is the 3rd result. All of this helps you stay in the top of the first page.
Alright, so now we’ve got a brand, it’s getting recognized, what’s next? In my case, I decided it was time to give back to the community that helped me grow. In 2015, I began speaking at VMUG events. Now, this wasn’t entirely just to give back. Speaking allowed me to continue to grow my brand and earn vendor recognition through programs such as VMware vExpert and Nutanix Technology Champions. The fact that I was able to speak at the .Next conference has a lot to do with my involvement in those programs.
The first time I presented I was nervous, stuttered, and was terrified of any sort of audience questions. I suffered from Imposter Syndrome pretty heavily. If you would have told me in high school that as part of my profession I’d be speaking at 10+ events across 4 states, I would have thought you were crazy. Now, I won’t say I don’t get nervous before I speak, but I love to present and look forward to interactions with the audience. I also find it very rewarding having someone approach you after your session, or at a different conference, and tell you that your session helped them address issues they were having.
The ability to speak in front of people, and speak with confidence is, I’d say, a crucial tool that we all need in our toolkit. If you’re looking to move up in your company, change careers, or even just pitch your project, solid communication skills are a must. Small user groups and local meetups are a great place to begin. And, despite what you may think, people in the audience are not judging you, there not waiting for you to fail so they can make fun of you, they are IT professionals just like you with a desire to continue to learn. Or at least I hope none of you are judging me too harshly.
Well Paul, can you provide us with a real example of how all of this brand building has helped you? Sure! I left that IAM role for a systems administrator position with a small managed services provider in Milwaukee, Wi. Within 6 months, I worked my way into a systems engineer role by passing the VCP, having the desire to always want to learn more, and my rapport with clients. But, despite your best efforts, when the company’s money gets tight and changes need to be made, even the best of us can fall victim to a layoff. In my case, 18% of the workforce was let go, and I was part of it. This happened mid-day on a Friday. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I was calling all of the recruiters that I had met at various events or that had found my LinkedIn. By Tuesday I was already interviewing with companies. That Monday afternoon I sent out this Tweet:
Within minutes I received a direct message from someone who had been following me since before graduation and whom I’d interviewed for my blog several years prior. His company was in need of a datacenter systems engineer and he was wondering if I’d be interested. Thanks to that Tweet, staying social, and building the brand, I was employed again one month to the day of being laid off.
I’m glad I took that interview, because Presidio has been a great place to work that has provided me many amazing opportunities to grow. Does that mean I’ve stopped my desire to grow and learn? No way! I’ve taken the brand further. This year I kicked off the ExploreVM podcast, I’ve had stickers and pins made to give away at events, and I seek out larger and larger events to speak at (although it’s going to be tough to beat speaking at .Next!). I still continue to give back as well. I have a few people in my life that I consider mentors, but now I’ve also taken to mentoring people early on in their careers as well.
To continue to grow and climb, you need to stay on top of technology trends. We all understand the need to continue to educate ourselves. I entered the field as a Windows admin, migrated to a VMware admin, and now, I’m focusing on datacenter, cloud, and automation. If you’re not learning, you’re leaving. You have to keep up with what’s coming in your field to stay relevant, otherwise you’re going to find yourself on the outside looking in.
Now, not all employers prioritize them, but certifications are a great way to learn about new technologies. The training for the exams provides a solid foundation into the tech. And, if you happen to take and pass the exam, that new found cert could be the differentiator between you and a co-worker when it comes to a promotion.
Here are some tactics that I’ve used for many years to help me approach learning new tech and certifications. Obviously not everybody is the same, but these tips have been the most beneficial. Listening to various podcasts during my commute has provided terrific exposure to new technologies. Also, I’ve started using something called the Pomodoro Technique.
Image stolen from Chris Wahl, linked below.
I actually learned this technique years ago from Rubric’s Chris Wahl (at a community speaking engagement; the value of staying involved pokes its head out again). Spend 25 minutes in a highly focused state with no distractions, silence your phone and mute email. This will give you enough time to achieve measurable results without burning out your brain. Remember, your brain can only stay focused for short bursts at a time. After 25 minutes take a break. Run to the restroom, grab a snack or beverage, clear those messages, something to relax your brain for the moment. Then, repeat the process. This is a simple method to help you absorb new information.
And before we wrap up here, I’d like to offer up one more piece of advice. Help your co-workers strive. “Iron sharpens iron. So one man sharpens another” – Proverbs, I think. Some of the best people I’ve worked with are those who are willing to take their co-workers under their wings and help them. It doesn’t need to be a full mentoring relationship, but at least be pleasant and willing to answer questions. I’ve had co-workers come to me with questions, and after a while, they were apologizing for bugging me so much. My response? “It’s not a problem at all. I’m here to help. And frankly, what would you rather have, a coworker who’s annoyed that you’ve asked them so many questions, or a client who’s mad at you for doing something wrong or incomplete because you didn’t know what to do?” The decision seems simple.
Take what you’ve learn online or from conferences and share it with those around your office. Help them stay ahead of the curve and grow technologically. You’ve got the power to help your teammates grow. This will also help you to be looked at as a leader within your company, even if you don’t actually have a leadership role.
And, if or when you do make that jump…
As you move into this leadership role, whether it be titled or not, be a confident but compassionate leader, but also be willing to be a great teammate. We’ve all worked on great teams in our jobs, and we’ve all worked on terrible teams in our jobs. Recall what made those teams great and apply those traits. Look back on the bad team experiences, what was the cause? Refrain from those traits. Ease co-workers away from those traits. Take charge when needed, but also be ready to follow someone else’s leadership with a smile. Remember, everyone’s ultimate goal is the business’s success. It’s hard to grow at a company that’s failing or no longer exists.
https://www.slideshare.net/PaulWoodwardJr/paul-woodward-jr-from-cnc-to-ntc-next-2017-session
Update, 07/10/17: Sign up to watch my session here:
https://nutanix.brighttalk.com/webinar/from-cnc-to-ntc-a-journey-of-professional-growth/
Links
Pomodoro Technique
Chris Wahl's Blog - Bulid your Technical Tool Chest
If you'd like to join the conversation about career development, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), Email, or on Facebook.
Nutanix .Next 2017 Wrap Up: Adding Google Cloud & Veeam to the Party
As the Nutanix Next conference wrapped up for another year, there were a few more announcements since the Wednesday evening keynote, which I originally wrote about HERE. Attendance numbers looked to be around 3800 or so. In 2018, .Next will travel to New Orleans, Louisiana on May 8-10th.
Nutanix & Google Partnership
Nutanix and Google Cloud announced a strategic partnership at Next 2017. The primary focus of this partnership appears to be application mobility and the integration of hybrid cloud solutions. The Nutanix features which will first be available with this partnership include Xi Cloud Services for GCP, Calm for GCP, and Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS with Kubernetes.
This partnership allows users to traverse data stored in GCP, Xi Cloud Services Disaster Recovery, and locally without the need to migrate to one location. Using Calm for GCP, administrators could have one-click deployment of applications across both in house Nutanix environments and Google Cloud Platform locations using application blueprints. Enterprise Cloud OS will be able to utilize Acropolis Container Services (ACS) & Google Container Engine (GKE) to deploy Kubernetes workloads, using Calm Blueprints, either locally or in Google Cloud.
Veeam & Acropolis Hypervisor Integration
Adding another vendor to it's backup and recovery space, it was announced Friday that Veeam will now support the Acropolis Hypervisor. Veeam will utilize a virtual appliance to call AHV APIs. This will allow for agentless backups, as well as application consistent backups utilizing Nutanix Guest Tools. Veeam will utilize native AHV snapshots, and AHV Change Block Tracking (CBT) for periodic image level backups. Veeam Explorers will also be able to be utilized in an AHV environment.
Nutanix X-Ray
Nutanix X-Ray has been introduced as benchmarking and testing tool for on site and cloud based workloads. Some of the initial use cases being proposed by Nutanix include: workload simulation, node failure simulation, snapshot impacts over the long term, and database workload interference. A trial download of X-Ray can be found Here.
If you were not able to make it to the conference this year, several videos have already been uploaded to YouTube. There will also be an Online .Next airing some of the breakout sessions which were recorded during this years conference. That should be live in the next month or so, keep an eye on the Nutanix social media accounts for updates.
For more details on the major announcements from .Next 2017, take a look at the Nutanix News page.
The Nutanix & GCP press release can be found here
If you'd like to join the conversation about Nutanix's new offerings, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest on my podcast, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), Email, or on Facebook.
Announcements from Nutanix .Next 2017: Here Comes Nutanix Cloud Services
Three New Offerings From Nutanix announced at .Next
Officially announced today at the .Next Keynote, Nutanix is entering the realm of cloud services providers with their newest product Xi. Xi will come in two offerings: Xi Cloud Services, and Xi Disaster Recovery Service. Early indications on positioning for Xi Cloud Services appear to be a native cloud extension to the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform, while Xi Disaster Recovery Service looks to leverage rapid and intelligent protection of your Nutanix environment without the need to purchase and maintain separate infrastructure. Nutanix looks to offer these products for early release in November 2017, with GA coming in 2018.
Nutanix will start out with 4 data centers across the United States and expand over time. Long term plans include sites globally as well
Management of the solutions will be done through Prism. Nutanix has stated their goal is to offer an "iCloud like ease of use" when it comes to disaster recovery and Xi given that there is no new software to install and clients can experience "instant" provisioning of a recovery site. Enterprise Cloud OS will act as the go between for the local sites and Xi DR hosted locations.Xi DR also offers non-disruptive fail over testing for readiness & compliance purposes, as well as site to site encryption of data. Subscriptions will be available based on RPO, with RPOs as low as 1 hour.
Coming off of last year's acquisition of Calm.io, Nutanix also announced Nutanix Calm. Rather than just re-branding Calm.io, the product has been integrated into Prism. Much like Xi, calm has two initial offerings. Nutanix Calm provides application automation and life cycle management for the Nutanix Cloud Platform as well as public cloud offerings. Nutanix Marketplace allows organizations to fully automate the provisioning of hybrid cloud architectures, scaling both multi-tiered and distributed applications across different cloud environments.
Blueprints will be offered against varying cloud providers, and will also be managed through Prism. Pricing & licensing is currently being worked out, but early indications are that will be be on a per VM basis and scale out. To start out it's life, Calm will exist next to Marketplace, but eventually will be merged. Calm 1.0 will be released summer of 2017, with a 1.1 & 1.5 release expected about every 8 weeks respectively. 1.0 is going to offer support for AWS & AHV, with ESXi being added in 1.1. Look for Hyper-V, Azure, and Container support with Calm 1.5.
The final major announcement coming from .Next is Xtract. Xtract is a one click experience to simplify the on-boarding of VMware VMs to AHV. Xtract for VMs will be made public beta on June 30th, with full GA expected in Q1. Xtract for DBs will go GA on Friday June 30th as well. Nutanix states that Xtract offers agentless migrations with near-zero downtime. The migration will retain network configurations and automatically insert AHV drivers into the VMs.
If you'd like to join the conversation about Nutanix's new offerings, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest on my podcast, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), Email, or on Facebook.
Nutanix & IBM Announce Strategic Partnership
Nutanix and IBM Announce Strategic Partnership
Nutanix moves to be first hyperconverged offering on RISC architecture
On May 16th, 2017 Nutanix and IBM announced a multi-year partnership to bring Nutanix software to IBM Power 8 series hardware. The solution using Nutanix AHV, will be available on Linux on Power Systems. Applications such as WebSphere, open source databases like MongoDB and Casandra, and emerging technologies/cognitive computing are the initial use cases being called out by Nutanix. The goal is for IBM users to be able to experience Nutanix's cloud-like ease of use and flexibility, positioning Power systems for greater use in the evolving data center world. This move helps Nutanix extend their reach into the Forbes Global 2000 with IBM's foothold among the companies on the list.
As this is a partnership announcement, more technical details will become available once the products are announced. Nutanix anticipates the products will be announced at the end of June at their .Next Conference. What is known now is that Prism Pro will be functional across x86 and non-x86 clusters. However, individual clusters cannot contain both x86 & RISC architectures. The same cluster licensing available for other Nutanix solutions will be offered with the IBM products. Pending the results of testing, Nutanix expects both all flash, and non-flash nodes to be supported.
The Nutanix.Next Conference runs June 28-30th 2017 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Not only will I be in attendance, but I will also be presenting. Keep an eye on ExploreVM.com & Twitter for updates and announcements from the conference.
If you'd like to join the conversation about Nutanix's new offerings, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest on my podcast, reach out to me on Twitter, Email, or on Facebook.
Official Nutanix Press Release
Nutanix Software on HPE ProLiant & New Pricing Models: Nutanix Go!
Nutanix Software on ProLiant Hardware & Nutanix Go Pricing Model
Nutanix Software on select HPE ProLiant Hardware
Today Nutanix announced that they will support Nutanix Software running on select models of HPE ProLiant hardware. Nutanix claims that this is part of their mission to "Set customers free from their silos of IT so that they can focus on the apps and services that power the business.". This announcement is similarly in line with last August's announcement of Nutanix on Cisco UCS. This will not be an OEM offering, rather what Nutanix is calling a "Meet-In-The-Channel" solution. Interested customers will purchase the Nutanix software from a channel partner, and the hardware from an authorized re-seller or HPE directly. Either the re-seller or the channel partner will integrate the two for the end customer.
Currently under final testing, Nutanix anticipates that the solution will be production ready by the start of the 4th quarter, 2017. They also said should testing go well, it may be available sooner. Bundling will be done in the same manner as the Nutanix/Cisco UCS release, with support and software subscription included. The pricing will be on a per node basis for a fixed term of 1, 3, or 5 years. This, they feel, will provide a complete solution. Acropolis Pro and Ultimate Editions are the first Nutanix Hypervisors to be certified on the HPE platform, as Nutanix wanted to offer the most feature rich editions to HPE's global customer reach.
Support for this solution will be handled the same as the UCS Nutanix deployments. If there is a hardware issue, the customer contacts HPE. If there's a software issue, call Nutanix, and when in doubt, call Nutanix. Both Nutanix and HPE are members of the Technical Support Alliance Network (TSANet), so support hand-off between vendors should be seamless. At this time, Nutanix will not support mixed clusters of Cisco UCS & HPE ProLiant.
Nutanix Go: Pay As You Go Pricing
Being touted as a pay as you go offering for the on premises cloud, Nutanix also announced their Go pricing model.This model, which is immediately available in the United States, allows customers to rent Nutanix branded NX hardware for terms as short as 6 months, and as long as 5 years, with varying renewal offerings in between.
Customers will have the capability to scale up their solution during the term length, and return the hardware at the end in Nutanix supplied shipping materials. Similar to cloud, this allows customers to scale their physical infrastructure up and down as demand dictates. Nutanix claims that this pricing model helps to reduce some of the risk of projects, especially if the full scale of the project is not known at the start, or if the project viability is in question. They anticipate a quicker return on investment for a smaller sum of money for a shorter period of time versus a large, up front purchase.
Customers can reach out to their preferred Nutanix channel partner for further information, or to get set up on the Go pricing model. All billing after the fact is handled by Nutanix directly. Much like many other solutions, longer term agreements will yield better pricing versus short term contracts. The Go model is priced with a single SKU which includes hardware, software, support, and entitlements. The model is priced per block per term.
If you'd like to join the conversation about Nutanix's new offerings, have any show ideas, or would like to be a guest on my podcast, reach out to me on Twitter (@ExploreVM), Email, or on Facebook.
Clash of the Clouds - Datacenter Madness
I had the honor of being part of Actual Tech Media's Datacenter Madness webinar series. The series was also sponsored by Nutanix and Intel. As part of the Nutanix Technology Champions program, I was asked by Angelo Luciani if I wanted to participate. I had to jump at the chance to participate in my first webinar after many years speaking live at VMUG events. My segment of the 4 part webinar was a discussion on On Premises versus Hosted Datacenter deployments. Below are the notes from my answers, as well as some of the links to the studies I mentioned in the webinar.
On premises vs. Hosted Deployments
Speakers: Stephen Foskett and Paul Woodward, Jr.
Are IT teams playing a home or away game? We’ll explore whether
cloud will be a logical extension to on-prem data centers as it is in
personal devices (iPhone to iCloud and Android to Gdrive) with
seamless cloud extensions, or if organizations move to a cloud-first
world where most of their workloads sit in either a hosted private or the public cloud.
(This first comparison isn’t on-prem versus public, but on-prem versus hosted [both being private]. We can extend it to be public too, but that is part two.)
How much non-IT sanctioned application activity do you think is taking place in the typical enterprise?
2013 study - 200 businesses
7 of 10 organizations utilizing unsanctioned cloud services
71% utilize something like Gmail or Dropbox to get work done despite it not being approved by IT
77% predicted an increase in their use of cloud services
2015 Gartner study said they anticipated 35% of IT expenditure to be on shadow IT services
2015 Brocade survey - 83% of CIOs report seeing some sort of unauthorized IT services in use
http://www.itproportal.com/2015/11/20/why-shutting-down-shadow-it-stifles-innovation/
http://converge.xyz/2016-the-state-of-shadow-it/
http://www.itp.net/603235-unauthorised-cloud-adoption-growing-issue-for-cios
Are companies really trying to get out of the data center business or are they just seeking more efficient ways to operate these environments?
The bottom line rules us all, it is to operate in a more cost efficient way
Same 2013 study - top answer for cloud migration was due to cost reduction
2015 Brocade survey - 90% of those CIOs surveyed had adopted some piece of cloud computing / As a Service offering
What role do cloud service providers play versus the public cloud providers?
Smaller, more localized
In some cases, you can actually tour these facilities
Better working relationship with the provider
Allude to the concept of managed services and infrastructure hosting / collocation.
Managed services is a great example, I worked for a managed services provider that offered a private cloud service.
Many small/medium sized businesses can offload some, if not all of their infrastructure to those sites
No need to keep up with hardware maintenance, patching, and updates
Who do you think enterprise IT pros and risk managers trust more – local IT security experts or vendors or cloud service providers security staff?
Working for a vendor, we see a lot of companies reaching out to us for our expertise
It takes time to build that trust relationship
With local experts, they generally know the risk profile of the local community, and have a better feel for risk tolerance of an individual organization that they know personally.
It depends on the enterprise - does the org trust IT and see value in their IT?
If, so I would assume that they would trust their local IT more, and use the vendor to keep them in check
Otherwise, if they don't trust IT, they would definitely trust the vendor more
As I work for a vendor, we do see a lot of organizations coming to us for our expertise. That being said, it varies greatly from business to business. Some businesses have lost trust in their local IT departments, and with many high profile hacking cases in the news lately, some companies still do not trust a provider to protect their data
How do the economics play out for on-prem deployment versus service providers versus cloud
What does your company value more - OpEx reduction or CapEx reduction
Going to the cloud means you're investing less in hardware up front
Cloud is also just leasing space, your cost remains the same or goes up versus a one time purchase
If you'd like to join in the conversation, or be a guest on my podcast, reach out to me on Twitter or email me!
2015 Year in Review
Well everyone, it's that time of the year again! Nestled between Christmas day, New Years Eve, and obscure college football bowl games (what do you mean you didn't watch the Marmot Boca Raton Bowl?!) we find the obligatory year in review posts! So, without further adieu:
2015 Year in Review
"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me"
- David Bowie
2015 brought me some of the biggest changes one can go through in their lives. First off, on March 14th (yep, Pi day!) I married an amazing woman that, without her love and support, none of what I do would be possible. It was an awesome day with great friends, family, and, given the time of year, perfect weather as well. To this day I still look at her and wonder how I got so lucky.
Another big change wasn't so positive to start, but it certainly ended up that way. I've been in IT for a few years now, and both times I changed employers, it's been due to budget cutbacks and restructuring. In October, I was part of a large workforce lay off. Thankfully, this was only a minor setback as I had a signed offer letter one month to the day that I was let go. I've moved from the small business MSP (managed services provider) realm to the SMB consulting world.
This shift will allow me to work in larger environments utilizing technologies I would not have had a chance to use previously. The company also fosters a great culture which embraces fun, teamwork, and solid family/work life balance. My new employer also values growth and training as much as I do (we will touch more on that in the goals for next years section). Needless to say, I'm excited to see what the next year will hold for me in this new role.
"If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there"
-Scott McKenzie
Fulfilling a long term goal, I finally made it to VMworld this year! All I can say is WOW! So much do to and see, I was exhausted by the last day. The first time I stepped into the vendor hall, it was a touch overwhelming, but not long after I was bouncing around from booth to booth collecting valuable info for existing projects and new products we could offer our clients. Being my first trip, and not being certain I would be able to make it back in 2016, I tried to cram as much in as I could. I found tremendous value in the sessions and hands on labs.
Being such a large gathering of virtualization gurus, I was finally able to meet some of the bloggers, Tweeps, and vExperts who I've only had online interactions with up to that point. It was awesome having someone walk up to you and say "You're ExploreVM, right? Hi! I'm..." or hear "PAUL WOODWARD JR!" shouted from across the street. I made many new connections and friends at VMworld, fully enjoyed the vendor parties, dinners, watched some new hashtags take off, and shared some great oysters.
While at VMworld, despite being so busy, I did find time to take and pass the VCP6-DCV. Originally in 2015 I had set out to pass the VCAPs, but with the wedding, I didn't feel I was able to devote enough of my time to preparation. So , in their place, I set my sights on renewing my VCP. I took the last available testing time on the last day of VMworld. This allowed me to take some time in the mornings and evenings to cram in a bit of studying into my already busy schedule, as well as utilize a few sessions as a study reference as well.
After I had passed the exam, I was exploring San Francisco with a few of my friends, including Matt Heldstab (NCWI VMUG leader) and Sean Massey (WIVMUG steering committee). Matt suggested that I come give a presentation at the next NCWI VMUG meeting on preparing for and passing the VCP6 since I was "one of the first VCP6s". Full of motivation and excitement for technology after VMworld, Matt planted a seed that would soon flourish.
I have long been a member of VMUG, attending various regions meetings and UserCons, but I had decided that this year would be the year I gave back to the community. In September, I gave my first VMUG community presentation at the Chicago VMUG UserCon. I dove in head first into presenting at the largest UserCon in my area. I figured if I'm going to do it, I might as well go all out. Since then, I've presented two more times; November at the NCWI VMUG Super VMUG meeting, and December at the WIVMUG meeting in Milwaukee.
Given the feedback I received at the Chicago VMUG, and wanting to be more active in the VMware community, I dusted off my old blog to share my sessions and experiences. Now, I will admit, trying to start a series on Virtualization and Small Business while job hunting and during the holiday season was not the best timing. Unfortunately, I only got the first part in the series out this year. Look for more content in 2016, more on that later.
Whats next for me in 2016?
Building off of what was an awesome 2015, I've got quite the large set of goals for 2016. I set the bar high, but will be happy with what I reach:
Continue to share my knowledge & experience
Join a Podcast
Write a weekly/bi-weekly blog post
Virtualization in Small Business series
VCP prep posts
Technical reviews
Home Lab designs, tips, and demos...
Speak at even more VMUG events than 2015
Obtain the vExpert title
Attend VMworld 2016 & 1 other major tech conference
Earn the following certifications
VCAP6 - Deployment
VCAP6 - Design
CCENT
CCNA - Data Center
Attempt Virtual Design Master
I hope everyone has a happy, safe new year! I look forward to seeing old friends and new in 2016!
Virtualization & SMB Series: Virtualization Architecture for Small Business
Virtualization & SMB Series: Virtualization Architecture for the Small Business
I had debated whether hardware or licensing should be the first topic covered in this series. As cost drive a lot of small business decisions, and hardware costs can vary greatly, it seemed like the best place to start. And, just a reminder, this series is focused for VMware admins in environments containing 20 or less VMs, the small end of SMB, obviously the solutions discussed below will not work for large environments. I will touch on larger VMware environments in a future series
Alright, let's begin!
The Shared Storage Conundrum
Shared storage in smaller environments is cost prohibitive. Yet, it's important requirement for VMware High Availability and Fault Tolerance. The small business must assess the value of uptime and lost productivity due to host failure against the costs of this additional hardware.
If 99.99% uptime, or the ~30 second reboot window using HA is critical, then shared storage is a necessity and you won't find value in this post. But, if a short outage while replacing failed hardware is acceptable, let's continue.
Local storage is starting to come back into the limelight with the advent of Virtual SAN and similar products. It also provides a cost effective storage option for the smaller ESXi environments. I will discuss the use of vSAN in the small business in a future post, but for the below example, simple local storage will suffice.
Number of Hosts
The number of hosts are dictated by the number and purpose of each VM. Does the environment call for a low number of VMs running simple network services such as AD, DNS, DHCP, print server, file server, and Exchange? Then a properly configured single ESXi host can be deployed. However, introducing more complexity to the environment on top of the above listed services, such as a resource intensive line of business application, the use of a second host will save future headaches and provide additional benefits.
The use of a second host provides flexibility, scalability, and, to an extent, disaster recovery. The flexibility to migrate VMs for host maintenance or to load balance, albeit manually, across both hosts (we will discuss VMware licensing and features in the next post). The scalability to add new VMs should the need arise. And, in the event of a host failure, a second host provides a platform to restore VMs from the failed host. Scalability and disaster recovery are dictated by the amount of resources with which the host is configured. This will be discussed next.
Configuring the Hosts
Now we know the environment will be running one to two ESXi hosts without shared storage, how do we properly configure these hosts? Here's where budget and some forecasting come into play. The approach I've taken is to look at the company's current needs coupled with potential growth over the next 1-3 years. Is the company projected to grow such that they will need additional VMs? Is the ship holding steady? Future uncertain? Doing your best Magic 8-Ball impression will help your design hold up over the next few years.
Let's use the following example explore this concept (I will stay vendor agnostic in my examples).
ABC Co. is a family owned company that has 20 employees, 5 of which use an ERP program on a daily basis, and host email internally. The "server room" is a climate controlled closet off the main office space with no racking. Sales have grown by 15% on average 3 of the last 5 years. You've been put in charge of the hardware refresh project. As hard as you've tried to demonstrate the benefits of shared storage, the budget is simply not there, and the CEO is comfortable with ERP and email services being down for upwards of half the day due hardware failure.
Knowing ABC Co. has projected growth, the solution implemented needs to have room for expansion. Assuming that the budget will not allow for the purchase of all resources up front, there are two things I do not skimp on in these scenarios: CPU and storage bays on the chassis. Dual 10 core hyper-threaded processors in each host may seem like overkill now, but when you look at the costs of purchasing 4 new processors in the future versus the capex investment today, fiscally, it's the better option. The same is true when it comes to the chassis. The price point between an 8 bay or a 16 bay chassis is generally negligible. Despite needing only 8 drives of local storage today, it's easier to fill in the open bays as needed versus replacing the entire chassis to obtain enough storage.
RAM and local storage is where you get to be more creative in your solution. Ideally, I would configure each host with enough RAM to run all VMs on a single host, but that may not be allowed within the constraints of the budget. Installing additional RAM in the future is cheap and easy, so it's not necessary to max out your host today. At minimum, I would suggest enough RAM to run all of the current VMs without constraint, and factor in some additional capacity to power one to two additional VMs should the environment suddenly need another server. This also allows the host to have the resources to bring up a critical VM should the other host in the cluster encounter a failure.
In a perfect world, local storage capacity, much like RAM, would provide enough resources to house all VMs in the environment. Knowing that storage, both shared and local, is expensive, this is usually not possible. What I've done in these scenarios is calculate how much storage is needed today, assuming max capacity of all thin provisioned VMs, and, much like RAM, add extra capacity for an additional VM or two. Again, in the future, it's easy to add additional hard drives and create a new virtual disk group to meet the storage needs.
In these smaller environments, providing high IOPS is not always necessary to meet business needs. While using solid state drives is necessary in some cases, adequate performance can be obtained from spinning disks in RAID arrays. I've had success implementing varying sizes of RAID arrays to meet the storage and budgetary needs. These arrays have included pools of 300-600GB 10K, 1.2TB 10k/15k, and 300-600GB 15k spinning disks.
Which RAID option is right for your environment? In almost every scenario, I have deployed RAID 10, but the hard drive count may deter some admins from its use. What makes RAID 10 a good choice is that is provides both read and write gains coupled with the ability to have two drives fail before data is lost (assuming they are from different sets). However, if the budget is truly that tight, RAID 5 is a decent option considering that it provides for a single drive failure and provides read performance.
Understanding that all VMs may be running on the same host on a single RAID array, I would recommend the investment in the utilization of RAID 10. A bit of capital spent now can save your company's data, and a lot of headaches, in the future.
Protecting Against Downtime
Downtime is inevitable, but there are steps admins can take to protect their environment from unplanned outages. Creating a nearly fully redundant hardware solution is the first step. Make sure to equip your host(s) with dual power supplies and dual NICs. Utilizing an uninterrupted power supply not only protects your hardware from a surge, but provides a clean flow of electricity to the host. The power input to the UPS should also be split between two different electrical circuits if possible, keeping things running in the event of a tripped breaker.
As discussed, RAID provides some data protection against drive failures, but what if an additional drive fails before you can replace the first? Implementing a hot swap drive to take over in the event of a drive failure provides a fail-safe to keep the array running at peak performance until you can replace the drive. Regular monitoring of the environment can also help detect and predict issues, but we will discuss that in a future post
We've got the Hardware, What's Next?
In the next post, I will go over VMware licensing for the small business and which solutions offer the best values.
In the meantime, do you have any questions, comments, or would you like me to dive deeper into a topic covered above? I'd love to hear from you! Reach out to me on Twitter @ExploreVM.
Chicago VMUG UserCon Session Recap: “Virtualization & Small Business”
I had the privilege of making my VMUG speaking debut at September's Chicago VMUG UserCon. It was an honor to be asked to speak at the same event as some of the people I've looked to for
information and guidance throughout my career. I am glad I've got my first session under my belt, as I'm scheduled to present at November's North Central WIVMUG Super Meeting.
My community session, co-presented with Brian Kirsch, was on the use of virtualization in the small business environment. You can find our slide deck here.
What I noticed, after attending numerous VMUG meetings, is that no one is really focusing on the small portion of the SMB market. When I say small, I'm referring to 200 or less employees, 1 - 2 ESXi hosts. There are plenty of great resources out there if you're working with a few hundred VMs, but what if the company only requires 5, 10, or 20 guests? Given that's the size of the market I have most experience with, and also, community resources for the admins of these smaller IT departments is largely overlooked, I decided that I could share my experiences and help others along the way.
Now, rather than write a lengthy blog post recapping our entire session, I felt I could better share my knowledge by breaking the session down into each topic covered.
Over the next few weeks, watch for posts on the following topics:
Virtualization Architecture for Small Business
VMware & Other Vendor Licensing in the Small Environment
Techniques for Small Business Virtualization
Tools for the Small Business VMware Admin
In closing, Brian offered the following thoughts:
"The success of the SMB is depended on the needs of today and the growth of tomorrow. Architecture has to be planned out carefully as growth is not hoped for but expected. It becomes a question of how much growth and how quickly all while balancing costs and profits. Understanding the various options and how they translate into the future with design, storage and licenses is a complex undertaking but having that established path which will translate into less obsolesce. Technology for the SMB cannot be a throw away resource as you grown, it has to be a carefully planned base that allows you to expand at a moments notice without breaking your budgets."
If you've got any questions, would like to chat, or would like to suggest any other topics, feel free to contact me via Twitter, @ExploreVM, or LinkedIn.
So I Built a Bitcoin Miner
For graduation, my friend gave me a Raspberry Pi. Those of you who don't know, Raspberry Pi is a Linux powered, 700MHz computer designed to make computer science more accessible to schools (for more info check out RaspberryPi.org). On top of the educational implications, they are also really fun to tinker with! After reading about other people's projects, I decided I wanted to something a little bit different with my Pi, so I sat on it for a few months.
Flash forward to 2 weeks ago. Scanning my Twitter feed I noticed some chatter about a Bitcoin ATM that was scheduled to open. Now, by this point I was well aware of Bitcoins, but I thought I would dig into them a bit deeper. I started looking into the basics of Bitcoin mining. You need mining software, block erupters (which process the algorithms), a mining pool, and a Bitcoin wallet. That's when I stumbled onto MinePeon, a Bitcoin mining software developed specifically for the ARM processor (the processor that powers the Raspberry Pi).
Computer, check. Mining software, check. Now on to the erupters. Erupters are ASIC devices designed specifically for processing the algorithms which generate and verify Bitcoins. An entry level miner, the ASICMiner Block Erupter USB 330MH/s Sapphire Miner was right in my price range.
Now, up until this point, this project has cost me zero out of pocket, but that was about to change... Some what. I had the good fortune of winning a $100 Amazon gift card from VMUG (thanks again, VMUG!), and thankfully, they had all the parts necessary to complete this project. The Pi does not have enough power to handle a block eruper plugged directly into it, so a powered USB hub is necessary. Also, the miner tends to run hot, so I purchased a USB fan to keep the rig cool. Below is a breakdown of price per part:
Raspberry Pi $35 (my cost - free)
12 port USB Hub $27.99
USB fan $5.99
ASICMiner Block Erupter USB 330MH/s Sapphire Miner $11.99
I headed to my Amazon shopping cart, but then I hesitated. I thought, "I've still got enough money left on this gift card for another 4 erupters, why not quintuple my mining power!", so I doubled back and added 4 more to my cart. Then I hesitated again, "Ya know, you've still got 5 open ports on that hub, and technically you haven't spent a dime on this project, what's a $60 out of pocket expense to decuple my earning power!".
So, my Raspberry Pi Bitcoin Mining rig has a price tag of ~$175, with an out of pocket cost to me of $60.
Assembly of the miner is simple, the most complicated step is burning MinePeon to the SD card. You'll need to sign up for a Bitcoin wallet, which is where the coins you have mined will be stored. I chose an online wallet for security reasons, but you can install a walled on your computer. You will also need to find a mining pool. There are several out there, and plenty of information about hash rate, fees, etc... so you can make an informed decision on which pool you wish to join. Signing up for pools and wallets are free, and most are very easy to get started. Setting up your wallet to the pool is also easy, just request an address from your wallet, and link it to your pool account!
Once I had all the parts in place, signed up for the pool and wallet, it was time to power it up! Visually, it's quite a sight!
Once it fired up, I monitored it for a few hours as I worked on other projects around the house. At the time, all 10 erupters were functioning, and it had jumped into a few different mining "shifts" and started working. I felt comfortable heading off to bed.
Knowing full well this is a low power miner, I still ran downstairs like a child on Christmas, excited to see what Bitcoin Claus left me! 0.00000049 BTC. Yup, less than a penny. Turns out during the night a few of the erupters stopped working, and the miner failed to grab any other shifts after it completed the one it was working. I rebooted the Pi and the erupters and during the day Friday, it looked like it was finally functioning properly. If it kept up the pace it was mining at, my rig would pay for my out of pocket cost in about 45 to 60 days.
Unfortunately, it has not keep up that pace. Still to this day it is failing to reach out to a new shift without rebooting the miner. I reached out to the MinePeon forums and a few other locations to ask other users if they've run into similar experiences. The common thought was that my hub did not have enough power to keep up with 10 erupters. I stared by removing the USB fan and plugging it into a near by desktop to cool the rig, which did result in fewer hardware errors, but did not help with the shift errors. My next step was to remove a few of the erupters. Since the hub breaks down into 2 circuits, I took two erupters off so it was running 4 on each circuit. No dice, still won't pick up a shift without a reboot.
So here's the situation. If I log directly into MinePeon, it shows that the miner is functioning, but if I log in via the GUI it shows the miner as offline. Same thing with the mining pool website, it shows the worker is offline, but after a reboot it will show that I am working shifts and will see an increase in my amount earned. My next troubleshooting idea would be to reinstall MinePeon, this seems like a software issue, but I could be wrong. I will post a new blog once I figure out the issue and get it running fully.
Until then, if you want to follow my progress, feel free to follow me on Twitter (@ExploreVM) or Instagram (ExploreVM).
I would also love to hear any troubleshooting ideas you may have! Comment below or reach out to me via the above listed channels