Open vSwitch 1.0 was recently posted at openvswitch.org. Check out a quick write up at virtualization.info. And another at Infoworld.
The open vSwitch development effort was brought on following the introduction of VMWare’s DVS and Cisco’s Nexus 1000V last year. This effort brings advanced networking capabilities to hypervisor platforms like Xen, XenServer and KVM.
I am trying to get my company’s session approved for this year’s VMWorld. When you aren’t a Platinum sponsor, it is a little bit more difficult to get these things pushed though. So, I am asking for help from anyone who has a VMWorld account to go and vote for the session. Many of you have been asking me what Nicira is up to. This session is a great way to find out. Here are the session details and link to cast your vote.
Cast your vote here
Title: Reworking the Network to Support Today’s Virtualization & Cloud Demands
Speaker: Martin Casado, Nicira CTO and Founder
Company: Nicira
Session Id: PC8430
Abstract: “The networking industry is lagging far behind the virtualization trends which are transforming our datacenters into pure resource pools of compute power. Traditional approaches to networking hamper the adoption of virtualization with scaling and mobility limitations, vendor lock-in on hardware platforms & management APIs, and an inability to seamlessly bridge physical and virtual topologies. This session will review a networking architecture that offer the guarantees of the physical network, while retaining the flexibility of the cloud. Solutions will be described which tackle problems such as providing strict isolation, bridging physical networks, providing accurate SLAs and billing information, and offering inter-subnet migration with persistent IP addresses. In this talk, real world experiences designing & building multi-tenant virtual networking infrastructures which scale to hundreds of thousands of virtual machines and tens of thousands of tenants will also be discussed. “
…hot beer, cold women, and a$$holes.”
This was one of the numerous snippets of bar wisdom I encountered on signs and tee shirts last month while cruising the British Virgin Islands with my wife and some close friends. The one above just cracked me up (from Foxy’s on Jost Van Dyke if memory serves me correctly).
Then there was this one:
“Notice: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
My guess is that many folks spend much of their day reacting to emergencies and fire drills that could have probably been avoided with a little better planning. Add in the time spent responding to emails and phone calls and the day is pretty much shot. When does the real work get done? Nights, weekends, never? I actually blame your boss and their boss for this, as $hit roles down hill. If they didn’t create the fire drill, you wouldn’t be fighting the fire.
3 suggestions:
1. Schedule daily head’s down work time and make it a priority (do you really need to be in all those meetings?)! This will allow forward progress every day.
2. Don’t respond blindly to fire drills. Think them through first before reacting and don’t be afraid to push back or question what you are being asked for if it doesn’t smell right.
3. And for those bosses and their bosses, think about the chain reaction you may be starting and who it may impact before you ring the fire alarm…there probably is a much more efficient way to get what you need which won’t turn your team on their heads and keep real work from getting done.
Note: Customers and spouses are allowed to cause fire drills, they come first no matter what 
I haven’t had 3 weeks off of anything since summer break in college. 1 week here and their for vacation, maybe stretched it to 10 days occasionally, but the email leash was never really off. Here I am 3 days into my “break” and I am finding myself mostly just filling time. The good news is that changes tomorrow. So far, I did do a kick ass job on organizing my contact list, and it is now in sync between by iPhone, computer and Yahoo account. The gutters on our house are spotless (that was a real treat). We dominated the Gilroy outlets over the weekend and celebrated victory with a little In-and-Out Burger. I am catching up with lots of people via Facebook/LinkedIn etc. Last night, I had a great time with my close work friends over some beers and dinners (thanks everyone for coming, it was really great to see all of you!). But tomorrow, tomorrow things really get fun! Joy and I fly out tomorrow night on a redeye to Puerto Rico and then on to Tortolla. We are meeting some close friends for a week of boat camping….we rented a 47 foot powercat (perhaps the ugliest boat known to man) and will be cruising the BVIs for the week. Gilligan’s Island, here we come!
After that trip, I am back to San Jose for a couple of days before heading back to the east coast to spend a week with my parents, gram, sister, brother-in-law, and nephews. I don’t think I have spent more than 48 hours in the town where I grew up in more than 10 years (now that I think about it, that coincides with the time I started my most recent job).
After that, I want to do something really fun with my wife (just the 2 of us) somewhere on the west coast. Not sure what that will be yet, any suggestions for a good 2-3 day long trip or activity?
