Blog URL: demitasse.co.nz
This week’s chinwag is with Alastair Cooke who is based in New Zealand. Amongst his very many talents he is a Trainer, Consultant, Writer and Geek, and attained vExpert status in both 2011 & 2012. He’s very heavily involved (with others) in the vBrownbag project, as well as being the creator of the AutoLab. In case you don’t know AutoLab is a fully automated deployment of vSphere (and View, vCloud Director) which can be used with a powerful home computer (VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion) or hosted by BareMetalCloud.com. The intention is for the vCommunity to use it as a platform for learning more about vSphere technologies with the aim of certification in most cases I imagine. It fits nicely into the vBrownbag ethos – where vBrownbag is where you learn, and AutoLab provides the environment to learn. But in my own mind I see it possible being used to spin up lab suitable to testing upgrades or scripts against – if the business you work for doesn’t have dedicate test/dev kit for vSphere. In a more fantastical idea of mine I wondered also if the AutoLab could be used a deployment tool to cookie-cutter real-world deployments to production environments.
Anyway, myself and Alastair discuss all things AutoLab, vBrownbags, Training and Certification: