I previously posted that my company is cosponsoring the upcoming Omaha-Area VMware Users Group meeting on March 24, 2010.  I’m happy to announce that the schedule has been solidified!  Though registration is not yet open, you should keep an eye on your inbox and this site in the next couple of days so you can register as soon as possible (keep reading to find out why you’ll want to register as soon as possible).

Here’s the schedule of events:

The first two sets of labs will be hands-on and instructor-led.  They will provide a great opportunity to experience these technologies first hand to help jumpstart your knowledge.   The third lab will be self-paced with a lab manual that will guide you through the process of packaging applications with VMware ThinApp.  All labs will be limited to 15 lab stations, each with 2 students for a total of 30 participants per lab session.  Register early to make sure you get the lab sessions you want (registration should be open soon)!

The Whiteboard Room sessions will provide attendees the opportunity to discuss how to architect the given topic with experts and other attendees.  These sessions will feature open discussion, featuring only a whiteboard and no PowerPoint.  So bring your tough questions, ask how to solve a particular requirement, have the group validate your plans, or share your current architecture with others to see if maybe there’s a different way to do it. 

Important note: VMware is flying in the regional View specialist and a US-wide Security specialist to lead the respective architecting sessions.  If you’re interested in either topic, I’d take advantage of these two guys.  I know several people who have asked me about security related topics, so we’ve arranged this rare chance to ask a true expert.

The Presentation Room will feature a series of topics that will be presented in a traditional PowerPoint presentation format.  But this does not mean they won’t include interactive discussion on that topic.  If you’re interested in learning more about the topic, ask the speaker and challenge them with your questions.  PowerPoint doesn’t have to be boring, simply engage with the presenter to get more out of the session.

At several times throughout the event, CoSentry employees will be conducting tours of their Data Center facilities, including the hardware that will be running all our labs.  Check out what we’ve put together for you and what CoSentry has to offer.  It really is an impressive facility.

Other notable happenings:

• Cisco may be bringing in their Solutions Express mobile briefing center (think big eighteen wheel truck with lots of geekiness inside)
• Door prizes galore
• Networking with over 100+ like-minded IT professionals
• Over 15 engineers from Vital, CoSentry and VMware will be on hand to lead all the sessions and be available for one-on-one conversations
• Morning snacks available when the doors open at 9a, lunch from the locally owned Jailbirds BBQ and afternoon snacks
• Chat with all four of Omaha’s vExperts in one venue (can you name all four of them?  Maybe we should have a contest to see who can get all four of their signatures, hmmm…)

Hopefully that’s enough incentive to get you to come out.  I’d like to invite everyone within at least two hours of Omaha to join us.  We’ll be there to talk geek, not to gain customers.  Fair warning: there will be sales guys there, but we’ll have them on short leashes and make them available when/if you would like to talk with them.  That being said, they’re all good guys and can usually hold their own in a technical conversation.

Besides lots of technical questions and a notepad to write the answers down on, we ask that you bring two other things: business cards (for drawings and sharing with others – remember this is also a social event) and a driver’s license (we will be in a secure facility that requires proper identification and a CoSentry badge).

More details and registration will be released soon.  Keep an eye on this blog and the Omaha-Area VMUG forum.  Please feel free to share this information with others who may be interested in attending.  

Finally, keep a look out for more blog posts that will cover more details of the event, including the infrastructure we’re building out for the labs.

I sincerely hope to see you there!  And don’t be a afraid to stop me and say “Hi”.

Update:

The Cisco Solutions Express truck will unfortunately not be able to make it for this event.

There probably isn't much opportunity for people to play with vCenter Server Heartbeat given it's steep entry price (~$12,000) is a bit out of range for most companies.  I recently had the opportunity to play with it while creating an environment to demo for a customer, so I thought I'd share.

vCenter Server Heartbeat is a application layer clustering technology used under license from Neverfail for your vCenter Server and database.  It also covers associated vCenter add-ons like Update Manager and the like. Previously, your availability options included placing vCenter in a VM and using HA to protect from physical host failure, or using Microsoft Cluster Services to protect from hardware, OS or application failures.  There are obviously downsides to either of these approaches.  The advantage of vCenter Heartbeat over these options is that it will cover the application and OS failure without the complication of Microsoft Cluster Services. It also adds performance-based coverage, which neither of the other options provides.

There are three deployment options: V2V, P2V or P2P.  The V2V option offers the advantage of being able to simply clone your existing vCenter server to create the secondary node.  With a P2V deployment you can essentially do the same thing with a P2V migration.  The P2P deployment requires a very similar hardware configuration for both nodes and a special cloning process using NTBackup.

You can configure the two nodes to be in the same LAN or in separate sites across a WAN. 

In a LAN configuration, the recommended implementation is to create a heartbeat network to connect the two nodes.  Both nodes are identical copies of each other, so a packet filter is configured on the primary network connection to prevent the passive node from communicating on the network and causing IP or name conflicts.  When a failover occurs this packet filter is disabled on one host and enabled on the other.  The updates are sent between the nodes on the aforementioned heartbeat network to keep them in sync.

In a WAN configuration, if both nodes are on the same subnet then the above LAN configuration would apply.  If they are on separate subnets, then they will both be actively on the network with different names and IPs, and a split-brain avoidance module needs to be configured.

It can be a bit complicated to initially figure, but it definitely works.  Is it worth the cost?  That's for you to figure out.  Good luck!