Friends,

Welcome back to San Francisco for VMworld 2019 Hands-on Labs !

We want to make you feel at home and would put together a list of cool places to go, eat and be seen.  This is an updated posted from many years ago.. some of the restaurants names you will find here again.

A little about me. I have lived in San Francisco all my life and seen lots of changes and yet some things never change.

My favorite restaurants and adult beverages establishments by neighborhood…

North Beach  

Original Joes – This is a classic San Francisco restaurant – Class American Italian food. My go to meal here is the Cheeseburger on Sour Dough.  Fun trivia – I actually worked here during my college years as a cashier when the restaurant was in the Tenderloin. I later learned why begin a cashier at a restaurant in the Tenderloin was not a good idea

Café Greco – There are many cafes in North Beach – this is one that has not changed much and very cool to be seen at. The Tiramisu and Cappuccino work well together.

Marios Cigar Shop – This is a cool little sandwich shop right around the corner from Original Joes. This has been here for many years – it’s a cash only place. The sandwiches are great and be sure to ask for the House Campari

Tony’s Pizza – Probably the best thin crust pizza in San Francisco. The coal fire pizza (900 degrees) is our top favorite. Be prepared to wait for a table during peak hours. They also have it by the slice next door.

The Richmond – This is one of the neighborhoods where the sunshine is a rare thing – so when it does shine it becomes a very special occasion.

Burma Super Star – This is one of my favorite restaurants – This the Richmond district classic restaurant. No reservations, small seating and always delicious meals. My go to dishes:

• Tea Leaf Salad
• Pea Shoots
• Pumkin Port
• Walnut Prawns ….

Thanh Long – This is the place to go for roasted crab and garlic noodles. This is not a good place for anyone with seafood allergies. Pro Tip – Do not share a crab – eat your own enjoy your meal. There are tons of other places with better prices and maybe better crab but this for us is unique as it is so close to the beach you can hear the ocean on a quiet day and freeze if you don’t bring a jacket or sweater. They have a great cocktail bar but there is no parking anywhere. You will have to Uber, or valet Park.

The Mission – I added this one last just because it has become the neighborhood where all things exciting happen. At least this is what we hear – Some fun Trivia – yes I owned a Low Rider once – 78 Buick Regal and the “Mish” was where we went for entertainment.

Blondies Bar and No Grill – It seems like this is the one stop that is hard to pass up. They serve up delicious 16oz adult beverages – our top pick is the Blondelope. This is a cash only place so be sure to load up on cash before going. Also they will card you – bring a government issued ID.

Pancho Villa Taqueria – This is our after hours go to. We love it because they stay open late (till midnight), there are tons of interesting people to see on the street, and  require no reservations and of course the Mexican food is very good. Be sure to custom make your burrito – the will customize your burrito if you ask nicely – and be sure to go savor the special sauces they provide.

Dandelion  Chocolate – This is pretty much chocolate heaven for us. They even do Chocolate Tours so if interested book early – I have never taken a tour so would love to hear what you thought.

ABV – This is a staff favorite – its 100 meters from Blondies and they do accept Credit Cards. I hear the Whiskey Soda selection is decent (High Balls) .  They do check your so be sure to bring a government ID.

Little Star Pizza – We think this is one of the better Pizzas in the City There are tons more but this one is very close to Blondies – they specialize in corn meal crust they do thick and thin pizza. The chicken wings are worth a mention and the salads are good.

Trick Dog – This establishment is new to me and have enjoyed it very much. They do have some great refreshments here. The menu features old school tattoos (Popeye the Sailor Tattoo) as part of the names of the drinks themselves. Some names not suitable to mention here. This is a little out of the way so do uber over.

Not in the Mission but great to mention

Smugglers Cover – We love this little establishment as it genuinely has a pirate ship feel to it. Bring your ID, and once inside go downstairs. It feels very much like the hull of a ship. Some of our favorite refreshments are the Leilani and Hibiscus Rum Punch – Order the commemorative mug. It will be a nice mug to take back with you to help remember the evening.

The Tonga Room – This is a fun place to go although it has become very touristy over the years. I heard this place was where the hotel swimming pool was.

There are hundreds of places to go to in San Francisco these are just my personal favorites, come by the Hands-on Labs room and let us know what you thought of our choices. Also please be sure to share your favorite spots with our readers in comments section.  .

See you at VMworld 2019 Hands-on Labs Room

-Pablo Roesch

@heyitspablo

The post Welcome back to San Francisco VMworld 2019 Hands-on Labs Where to eat, drink and be seen… appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

Straight after VMworld Barcelona, the excitement of Odyssey continued at the vForums in APAC (Asia Pacific).

What are vForums?
VMware vForum’s are smaller sized replications of VMworld that are held in major cities around the world. At vForums, attendees can meet face to face with VMware product experts and learn more about navigating through digital transformation.

vForum Tokyo 2019 (November 11^th – 13^th)

The first stop on the journey was Tokyo where VMware Odyssey was center stage at the solutions exchange. The venue was filled with excitement and enthusiasm.  In total, there were 46 customers and partners, forming 16 teams of 2-3 people. The tournament format took place across two days between November 12^th and 13^th.

Day 1: Round 1 and Round 2  
Day 1 of the tournament began on November 12^th with a total of 16 teams participating in Round 1 and Round 2. They were tested on vSAN and vSphere. Within the teams, there was a great amount of teamwork as participants worked together to complete the required tasks.

In addition to the tournament, attendees at the event could play as a single-player and take the vSphere Performance Odyssey lab. The top 3 people on the leader got a chance to win prizes. Congratulations to the winners!

Day 2: Semi-final and Final

On Day 2, the semi-final and final round tested all participants on their knowledge of Horizon and NSX-T. The players screen was mirrored on larger displays above each station. There was a lot of interaction with the audience as they cheered for their favorite teams and friends.

Congratulations to the vForum Tokyo 2019 Odyssey Champions: the Galaxies! With an impressive time of 10:46, betting the VMworld US record by 4 minutes and 16 seconds.

Want to learn more? Watch the interview video with the winning team
https://players.brightcove.net/1534342432001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6109456568001

vForum Singapore 2019 (Nov 14th.)

Next stop on the journey was Singapore.

The excitement continued in Singapore with 16 teams competing to become champion. Starting in 2018, Singapore is the first country that hosted a Hands-on Labs tournament of which grew into Odyssey. For those who would like to trace back to the epoch of this journey please read this blog post. 

The Singapore team took their 2019 tournament to another level by adding a special round for female participants called ‘Voyagers of Venus’. In tandem with VMware’s diversity and inclusion initiative, during this round female participants in each team were given a chance to compete and gain an advantage that could help them advance to the next round.

And here are the proud winners of Odyssey at vForum Singapore. Team Flying Saucers of Singapore!

vForum Sydney 2019 (Nov 19^th)

Last on the list is vForum Sydney – where VMware customers had a chance to play single player game mode of Odyssey. Participants could register on-site to take part in the race to the top of the event leaderboard. Here’s a customer that was the first to take part in the game:

Congratulations and thank you to all the participants!

Tune in again next week for a recap of Week 2 at APJ vForums: Seoul, Mumbai, Sydney and Beijing.

All the Odyssey lab content has been released online. Try the Odyssey labs now: https://www.vmware.com/try-vmware/try-vmware-odyssey-labs.html

The post Odyssey into Asia Pacific vForums – Week 1 appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

vForum Seoul (Nov 19th, 2019)

Odyssey made its debut in Seoul on the 19^th of November. Located at the very center of the venue, vForum attendees gathered around the area to watch the contestants compete. Round 1 was on vSphere, Round 2 on Horizon and the last round was centered on vSAN.

Here is a sneak-peak into the event.

Congratulations to the winners – Rockets! Team Rocket was from a VMware partner in Korea. We hope to see you again next year.

Watch the recap of the entire event in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecDnAoJmQgs

vForum Mumbai (Nov 19th – 20th, 2019)

Next stop on week two of the Asia pacific vForums was vForum Mumbai. Contestants could register on the event day to compete in the Odyssey tournament. A total of 5 tournaments were held using the entire scope of VMware products – vSAN, vSphere, NSX, vRealize Automation and Horizon.

vForum Beijing (Nov 21st – Nov 22nd, 2019)

Our final stop of vForum APAC (Asia Pacific) 2019 was Beijing. The event started on November 20^th with a soft launch online for users to test their skills and take the vSphere Odyssey lab.

The in-person event was on November 22^nd jammed packed with excitement and momentum. The Bejing local team organized two separate standalone tournaments focused on vSphere and vSAN content. Recruiting a total 56 customer and partners forming a total of 28 teams, 14 teams for each tournament. Making it the biggest number of team formations to date, compared to 24 at VMworld US and Barcelona.

The event kick-off in the morning with the vSphere tournament and in the afternoon the vSAN tournament began. The competition was fierce with multiple teams finishing seconds away and finally finishing with a record win!

Congratulation to team 野狼队 (Wild Wolf) for winning the vSphere tournament and to the team 及时雨 (Timely Rain) for winning the vSAN tournament and setting a new record of 7:23, 0:44 faster than VMworld Barcelona.

Once again, thank you to Intel for sponsoring Odyssey for all of these fantastic events.

Also thank you to our readers. Happy new year!

The post Odyssey into Asia Pacific vForums – Week 2 appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

As many of you may already know, VMware just released the VMware Appliance for Folding @ Home Fling last week and you can check out this blog post A Force for Good: VMware Appliance for Folding @ Home by Amanda Blevins for all the details. As everyone is wrapped up in their own personal quarantine, we want to show you how we in the Hands-On Labs are pushing the limits of our hardware to help the Folding@Home program understand protein folding, the diseases that result from protein misfolding and aggregation, and novel computational ways to develop new drugs in general.

The team running the Hands-On Labs have been experts in infrastructure automation for years, so we knew we could reserve a chunk of our capacity to help push this project easily! As we host various events such as vForums and VMworld: our team must have capacity at the ready to spin up all of the labs you know and love. After checking with our teams and forecasted capacity needs we were able to gather 3 different clusters totaling nearly 3500 logical cores which equated to nearly 36 THz worth of compute to deploy. That’s like having 18000 laptops crunching away!

As you’ll notice right now nothing is really being used. That’s compliments of the way VMware software allows companies to easily spin up capacity on demand. The Hands-On Labs run on a combination of VMware Cloud Foundation, vCloud Director and VMware Learning Platform to deliver the labs. This great combination of software gives end users simple controls when it comes to scaling workloads up and down. To show you how easy it is, I’ve documented the steps I took in a day to spin up one of our environments.

1. Download the VMware Appliance for Folding @ Home from my browser.
   
2. Upload the appliance to vCloud Director using the “Add vApp  From OVF” button.
   
3. Customize the Appliance for Folding@Home template to my liking by setting the OVF Properties.
   Note I made sure the team was set to 52737 Team VMware!
   
4. Add the template to my vCloud Director Folding catalog.
   
5. Over on the VMware Learning Platform – I then Sync my vApp Templates with vCloud Director.
   
6. Finally – Create a deployment pool in VMware Learning Platform.
   
7. Last – but certainly not least: Watch your templates populate in VMware Learning Platform and vCloud Director!
   
   

Many of you may notice that we’re only running giant VMs for our contribution for Folding@Home. This is due to the fact that we are looking to maximize our ability to fold by minimizing context switching across VMs. It also allows us to contribute to the BigAdv type of workloads that get far fewer opportunities due to a lack of available CPU cores (16 or more!!!).

That’s it! The HOL now has reserved a massive amount of CPU capacity specifically for Folding@Home. When our next big event comes up, we can pare down the workload VMs that are sitting idle to give capacity for events, and then spin it right back up as soon as we no longer need the capacity.

The post Using the Hands-On Labs to be A Force for Good appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

Hi,

We hope everyone is safe and healthy.

Given the circumstances of the COVID-19 outbreak, most physical in-person events have been converted to online events. This post will give you a few suggestions for creative ways to engage customers with Hands-on Labs.

VMware Hands-on Labs are offered online 24/7, publicly and at no cost. This means that we offer the flexibility for customers to come in to try VMware products at any time and from any location. If you are looking for ways to explore your options around hosting a virtual event for your customers, you are on the right page. Whether it be a small zoom webinar or a structured virtual event (ie. VMUG, Evolve), engage and enable your customers with a personalized Hands-on Labs experience.

Presenting to you: Hands-on Labs for Virtual Events

Overview

This guide is to help event organizers deliver successful Hands-on Labs using the event platform of their choice. Please feel free to share this with your Virtual Event Platform organizer.

Formats

There are many different types of formats to deliver Online events.
The following are just a few of the ones we have seen. If you have tried different ones that you like please do share them with us.

Self Paced

This is the most commonly used format as it allows users to casually browse the lab catalog and take the labs they are interested in.

Webinar Presentation and Demo

This is ideal for large numbers of attendees learning about 1 specific product. In some cases, they are also structured in a series of webinars. A product expert will present on the product/solution, provide context and then demo the product using a lab. Users on the call are not expected to take the lab at the same time but encouraged to come back and take the lab at their own convenience.

Expert Led Workshops

These are valued highly by our users and of course require more cycles to roll out as the workshops are limited by the number of participants. The format is similar to the Webinar Demo Presentation but you will have the attendees taking a lab with you. The person leading this workshop should be engaging.

Odyssey

Having Odyssey gamification as part of your event will add an additional element of fun and stickiness. Be sure to read referring links to the Odyssey website. http://odyssey.vmware.com/

After choosing your platform of choice (Intrado, vFairs etc..) reach out to the Hands-on Labs team to set up the Odyssey games you would like to host.

Follow these steps

First, make sure you have a unique Salesforce tracking ID which includes ‘Odyssey’ in the name.

Second, choose the Odyssey games you would like to host from labs.hol.vmware.com. Then start communicating with both your chosen platform team and your counterpart on the Hands-on Labs team to start the integration process. NOTE:  If you are using Zoom to host your event, there is no integration available. You will be required to navigate your customers to the game via link & screen share.

Third, submit a HOL-in-a-box request  http://web.hol.vmware.com/HOL-in-a-box/. This will ensure your labs are pre-popped for the day of your event.

During this process, the HOL team will create custom game codes for you and send you the links to the leaderboard(s). Also, we will ensure your event (& choice of platform) has been successfully integrated with our system. Please communicate with the HOL team in advance so that we can ensure your custom game code automatically appears in the lab manual.

Virtual Event Platforms

We work with most Virtual Event Platforms INXPO, On24 and others. We can provide the following integrations with them.

• Single Sign On:  Provide an easier experience by having the labs launch using SSO – please see sample URL API code to embed in the Virtual Event Platform.
• Reporting: We have API documentation to report on number of people taken the lab, unique email id, lab name, length of time lab taken, location

Capacity Planning and Strategies

For large events we encourage you to set time aside with us to do some capacity planning. Be sure to bring the following information

Theme of event / Goals

Date of Event

Number of expected invitees

Number of expected attendees

Audience Type – Managers, Architects, Administrators

Event theme, products highlighted

With this information we can work with you on the number of labs to be presented,

For more questions feel free to reach us at hol-feedback@vmware.com

The post A Guide to Hosting Your Own Virtual Hands-on Labs Event appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

We know your time is valuable so we have been working on identifying the best way you can learn more about VMware products in small segments of time.

How? With the development of Lightning Labs.

What are Lightning Labs?

Lightning Labs are the fastest and easiest way to test-drive the full technical capabilities of VMware products. These evaluations are free, up and running on your browser in minutes, and require no installation. We have broken down the content of a lab into small “bite-sized” sections that allow you to learn about a core product feature in 30-minutes.

Explore Horizon 7, the leading platform for virtual desktops and apps.  Discover the integration between Workspace ONE and SaaS applications, and learn about Workspace ONE Unified Endpoint Management. Take one or both of these free 30-minute labs and be entered into a prize draw to win an Apple Watch.

To find out more, click here Lightning Hands-on Labs Competition

Lightning Labs must be completed in full and taken between 2nd April – 2nd May 2019*.

The winner must be a UK resident and all participants must agree to the terms and conditions* of the contest when signing up for the lab.

Full terms and conditions* can be found here

Learn more by watching this video:

The post Take a Lightning Labs – Win an Apple Watch! appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

Lightning Labs are short 30-minute, concentrated modules of our Hands-On Labs that are designed to maximize your time. Simply put, they are the fastest and easiest way to learn about core product features broken down to bite-sized actions.

These evaluations are FREE, easy to access through our Lighting Lab Catalogue and up and running on your browser in minutes, NO INSTALLATION required.

Simply choose the lab you’d like to test drive and click on the Start Lab button.

Now you are ready to dive in and evaluate the features and functionality of VMware products. It’s that simple.

But don’t take my word for it, listen to the experts:

Got 30 minutes? Try one now!

If English is not your preferred language, you will be pleased to know that our 2019 Hands-on Lab manuals have been localized to serve our global audience. Click here for instructions on how to change your language in the Hands-on Labs portal.

Let us know what you think of our Lighting Labs. Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

The post A Full Catalogue Of Lightning Labs Is Here! appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

What a week! VMware Odyssey, sponsored by Intel, was a HUGE success. Contestants and viewers gathered around the Odyssey stage to witness the first official launch of the program at VMworld 2019 US.

RECAP – What is VMware Odyssey?

VMware Odyssey, sponsored by Intel, is the gamification of Hands-on Labs, designed to engage, challenge, and showcase user’s expertise across the VMware portfolio. Last week at VMworld US, we offered two types of Odyssey labs:

1. Game Mode – Individual VMworld attendees could take an Odyssey lab in game mode at one of our desktop stations to compete with other players around the world!  The global Odyssey leaderboard displayed the top players with the quickest times.
2. Tournament Mode -Teams come together in a tournament setting to compete against each other in rounds. The winning teams continued to the finals to play for 1^st and 2^nd place.

VMware Odyssey – Game Mode

Outside official Odyssey tournament hours, our stage was open to anyone who wanted to try our brand-new Odyssey ‘Game Mode’ labs. Customers came to experience a taste of the ‘Odyssey Game Lab’. Participants raced against the clock to complete the given lab tasks as fast as they could to rank on the global leaderboard. Some initial customer feedback is included below:

• “Great experience. This would be a good way to expand on VCP certification and have a lab setup to test the skills of a certification.”
• “Fun concept. Challenging enough to be fun but not impossible. Leading but not spoon fed. Really well done; enjoyed this. Thanks!”

The VMware Odyssey Tournament Begins

Ready, Set, Go!

On Tuesday, all the participants delved into Round 1 with great scrutiny, trying to figure out the correct configurations. The excitement was almost tangible as teams huddled together to help each other in figuring out the correct configurations for the tasks.

After the first two rounds finished, the top 12 teams progressed to the semifinals on Wednesday, August 29^th. Each round covered a brand-new VMware product topic.  To kick off the final rounds, our CEO, Pat Gelsinger, cheered on the teams, and even gave them back rubs for good luck!

The top six teams from the semifinals advanced to the final round and competed for first and second place. After some breathtaking minutes we had a winning team, the Meteors!

Congratulations again to our Odyssey grand prize winners – the Meteors! Well done Dmitri,
Ben, and Nick! Check out Ben’s blog post on his experience with Odyssey: https://www.murben.net/2019/09/vmworld-2019-hol-odyssey-competition-we.html

Thank you again to everyone who participated in or cheered on VMware Odyssey at VMworld US last week. A special shout out and thank you as well to our sponsor, Intel, for making our first official VMworld Odyssey Tournament possible!

Check out our Facebook page for more photos: https://www.facebook.com/vmwarehol/ 

What’s Next?

Our next stop is VMworld 2019 Barcelona.  We can’t wait to see you there!  In the meantime, check out the VMware Odyssey website to learn more: http://odyssey.vmware.com/

About Kate Lee – 

Kate Lee is a Technical Marketing Manager (Support Engineer) of the Hands-on Labs Team and the only member residing in Asia. She loves supporting day-to-day customers and employees with their Hands-on Labs experience and is also engaged in supporting Odyssey.

The post VMware Odyssey @VMworld 2019 US – The Start Of A New Journey appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

We just made updates to the HOL-2008-04-ODY – vSAN Beginner Odyssey Lab based on user feedback. Version 2 of the VMware vSAN Beginner Odyssey Lab is now live!

Congratulations to Anthony Laurente, Jonas Weber, and Danilo Coppola on ranking at the top of our global vSAN version 1 leaderboard! Keep an eye out for our VMware Odyssey swag to come in the mail.

https://go.hol.vmware.com/odyssey/leaderboard.htm?showProgress=true&rows=27&interval=10&code=GMVSAN

Thank you everyone for playing our VMware vSAN Beginner Version 1 Odyssey Lab!  Now is your chance to go back and showcase your vSAN skills on our brand new leaderboard: https://www.vmware.com/go/try-vsan-odyssey 

The post We Have Lift Off: Version 2 of vSAN Beginner Odyssey Game appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

This article contains the updates required to create our 3-Tier demonstration app on PhotonOS 3 rather than v1.0 that was described in the original series from 2017.

If you are not familiar with the intent of the original pose, the idea is to have a distributed but simple “application” that can be used to demonstrate a variety of scenarios in a lab environment, including micro segmentation and load balancing (you can scale the web and app tiers pretty easily and part 5 covers some ideas). I add in some SSL to make things interesting and, hopefully, a bit more realistic. While the new VMs are a little larger than their old counterparts, PhotonOS still boots lightning fast in a vSphere VM.

I think this is equally useful for home labs as our Hands-on Labs environments and many of our customers agree.We have received a lot of positive feedback on these articles and some great suggestions for tweaks. Frankly, this update is long overdue.

For reference, the old series is available at the following links.

• HOL Three-Tier Application, Part 1
• HOL Three-Tier Application, Part 2 – DB server
• HOL Three-Tier Application, Part 3 – App Server
• HOL Three-Tier Application, Part 4 – Web Server
• HOL Three-Tier Application, Part 5 – Use Cases

Changes

While my goal here is to keep things simple and flexible for the base app, some changes are required due to alterations in the packages included with the minimal PhotonOS installation that is provided, and others are modifications to make the app give a bit better “feel” and demo. Other changes are required because PhotonOS 2 and higher use Python 3.x rather than 2.x, so some syntax has to change in the script — I also cleaned up a bit of the code to make it more Pythonic.

Before we get too far into the text, a picture of the updated app.

Updated Diagram

One of the most requested changes was to move the db-01a VM from listening on port 80/tcp to something more”database-y” like, for example, 3306/tcp. This is the port that MySQL uses and some people feel that it gives the app more realism.

It is still HTTP traffic, but it looks more like a database on the network. The following updated diagram represents the configuration of this new version.

Summary of Changes

Thanks to the simplicity of the application, the number of changes required has not been excessive

• General updates
  • PhotonOS 3, Rev 2 base OVA
    • 1 vCPU
    • 2 GB RAM
    • 16 GB disk (thin provisioned and consumes ~700 MB once configured)
  • Updated scripts (data.py and app.py) due to Python 2.x to 3.x switch
    • NOTE: The updated scripts are available on github (https://github.com/doug-baer/hol-3-tier-app)

• Build the Template (Part 1)
  • Begin with the new OVA
  • Open firewall port for 3306/tcp
  • A small hack to make Apache start properly after a reboot
• DB Server (Part 2)
  • Installing sqlite (it is no longer part of the base install of PhotonOS)
  • Moving the database from listening on port 80 (http) to 3306 (mysql)
  • Updated data.py script
  • Change different lines in httpd.conf (updated Apache config)
  • Specify the new port when testing/validating the setup
• App Server (Part 3)
  • Updated app.py script (includes the change required to access db-01a on port 3306)
  • Change different lines in httpd.conf (updated Apache config)
• Web Server (Part 4)
  • No changes needed!

The Updates

• Build the Template
• Create the db-01a VM
• Create the app-01a VM
• Create the web-01a VM

Build the Template

We start with a PhotonOS 3 base OS. This guide assumes you are using Photon3-Rev2 – photon-hw11-3.0-9355405.ova – from https://github.com/vmware/photon/wiki/Downloading-Photon-OS

(If you prefer, you can also deploy your own VM using the ISO, selecting a Minimal installation, although you may have some additional work to do.)

Deploy a copy of the OVA into your environment and follow the same instructions as in the original document.

The process is nearly identical except for the following

Network interface config script has a new name

The 10-dhcp-en.network file is named 99-dhcp-en.network now.

Open port 3306/tcp in the firewall

When you modify the /etc/systemd/scripts/iptables file on your base template, make it look like this (added the open of tcp/3306)

#Enable ping by anyone
iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -j ACCEPT

#Enable web and app traffic 
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 3306 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 8443 -j ACCEPT

A small hack to make Apache start properly on boot

This version of PhotonOS wipes out the /var/run/httpd directory at startup, which breaks Apache. To make sure the webserver can start after a reboot, add the following line at the bottom of /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/var.conf file

d /var/run/httpd 0755 - - -

Create the db-01a VM

Install sqlite

When installing httpd, also install the sqlite package with

# tdnf install sqlite

Updated data.py script

Remembering that whitespace is very important in Python, use the following script in place of the one in the original article.

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# data.py - script used to produce database results over HTTP for simple sqlite3 database

import cgi
import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect('/etc/httpd/db/clients.db')
curs = conn.cursor()

print("Content-type:text/plain\n\n")

form = cgi.FieldStorage()
querystring = form.getvalue("querystring")
if querystring != None:
    queryval = "%" + querystring + "%"
    select = "SELECT * FROM clients WHERE name LIKE '" + queryval + "'"
else:
    select = "SELECT * FROM clients"

for row in curs.execute(select):
    if len(row) == 4:
        for item in row:
            print(item,'|')
        print("#")

conn.close()

Change different lines in /etc/http/httpd.conf

• Instead of line 176, go to 180 and add

LoadModule cgi_module /usr/lib/httpd/modules/mod_cgi.so

• Instead of line 379, go to 383 and add

#database directory
<Directory "/etc/httpd/db">
AllowOverride None
Options None
Require all granted
</Directory>

NEW: Change listening port 80/tcp to 3306/tcp

• On line 52, change

Listen 80 -> Listen 3306

• And, on line 221, change

ServerName localhost:80 -> db-01a:3306

Specify the new port when testing/validating the setup

Because we changed the listening port, we need to update the command we use to test the functionality. You must specify the new port number as part of the test URL:

# curl http://db-01a:3306/cgi-bin/data.py

Create the app-01a VM

There are fewer changes required to the app-01a VM since we are not making significant changes to the design at this layer.

Updated app.py script

Remembering that whitespace is very important in Python, use the following script in place of the one in the original article.

#!/usr/bin/env python3

# app.py - script used to process database results for presentation

import os
import cgi
import requests

webservers = {
  '192.168.120.30': 'web-01a',
  '192.168.120.31': 'web-02a',
  '192.168.120.32': 'web-03a'
 }

print("Content-type:text/html\n\n")
print("<head><title>Customer Database</title></head>\n")
print("<body>\n")
print("<h1>Customer Database Access</h1>\n")

remote = os.getenv("REMOTE_ADDR")
form = cgi.FieldStorage()
querystring = form.getvalue("querystring")

if remote in webservers:
    accessName = webservers[remote]
else:
    accessName = remote

print("Accessed via:", accessName, "\n<p>")

if querystring != None:
    url = 'http://db-01a:3306/cgi-bin/data.py?querystring=' + querystring
else:
    url = 'http://db-01a:3306/cgi-bin/data.py'
    querystring = ""

r = requests.get(url)

print('<form action="/cgi-bin/app.py">')
print(' Name Filter (blank for all records):')
print(' <input type="text" name="querystring" value="'+querystring+'">')
print(' <input type="submit" value="Apply">')
print('</form>')

print("\n<table border=1 bordercolor=black cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0>")

print("\n<th>Rank</th><th>Name</th><th>Universe</th><th>Revenue</th>")

# deal with the data coming across the wire
a = r.text.split("|\n#")
for row in a:
    if len(row) != 1:
        print("<tr>")
        splitrow = row.split("|")
        for item in splitrow:
            if item != None:
                print("<td>",item,"</td>")
        print("</tr>\n")
    print("</body></html>\n")

Change different lines in /etc/http/httpd.conf

• Instead of line 176, go to 180 and add

LoadModule cgi_module /usr/lib/httpd/modules/mod_cgi.so

• Instead of line 508, go to 521 and uncomment

Include conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf

Create the web-01a VM

The web tier of this application is very simple and, other than starting with the update base template above, there are no additional changes to the process defined in the original article.

End

At this point, you should be able to use these three VMs just like the original versions, but with all of the updated PhotonOS 3.0 goodness.

Be sure to check out HOL Three-Tier Application, Part 5 – Use Cases for some ideas — just remember that the db-01a listens on 3306/tcp instead of 80/tcp now.

The post HOL 3-Tier Application – Updates for PhotonOS 3 appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

While it is interesting to see how a very simple application is constructed, some people just want to get the app deployed so they can use it.

This is an incremental update to getting the Hands-on Labs 3-Tier app setup using Docker images. Everything remains the same except that you do not need to do any significant configuration on your own. You stand up the base PhotonOS VMs and enable Docker on them, then simply pull down the images from Docker Hub to have a fully functioning 3-Tier app in a matter of minutes.

NOTE: While this mechanism can get you going quickly, it is not quite as simple to modify the configuration without a good deal of understanding about how Docker works. That is beyond the scope of this post.

Get Photon OS running as the Docker Host

You can install PhotonOS 3 using the ISO or by importing the OVA.

I have started with the Photon OS 3.0 Revision 2 OVA with virtual hardware v11 from http://dl.bintray.com/vmware/photon/3.0/Rev2/ova/photon-hw11-3.0-9355405.ova

It is about 169 MB and serves as an easy starting point: you can download the OVA and import it manually, or you can use OVFTOOL to pull it directly into your vCenter in one go:

PS C:\> New-Alias -Name ovftool -Value 'C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool\ovftool.exe'

PS C:\> ovftool --acceptAllEulas --diskMode=thin --datastore=RegionA01-ISCSI01-COMP01 --net:"None"="VM-RegionA01-vDS-COMP" --sourceType=OVA http://dl.bintray.com/vmware/photon/3.0/Rev2/ova/photon-hw11-3.0-9355405.ova 'vi://administrator@corp.local:VMware1!@vcsa-01a.corp.local/RegionA01/host/RegionA01-COMP01/esx-01a.corp.local/'

The above command will

1. create a VM called photon-ova
2. in the vcsa-01a.corp.local vCenter
3. in the RegionA01 datacenter
4. on host esx-01a.corp.local
5. in the RegionA01-COMP01 cluster
6. using a thin provisioned disk
7. on the RegionA01-ISCSI01-COMP01 datastore
8. and attach the NIC to the VM-RegionA01-vDS-COMP port group on my VDS.
9. It uses the HOL standard credentials of administrator@corp.local / VMware1!

Adjust as necessary for your lab.

Basic Configuration of the PhotonOS Images (Docker Hosts)

Once you have that VM created, you can create the three base VMs needed to host the application’s parts:

• Power it on, change the root password from “changeme” to something else
• Set the root password to never expire ( it’s a LAB! )

# chage -M -1 root

• Check and/or set the IP addresses and hosts files (or DNS, depending on your use case)
  • The Docker images need to know how to find one another on the network — you can change these as needed for your use case.
  • While you can leave the template machines at whatever IP addresses you like as long as you provide the proper IP-to-name mappings in the “docker run” command via –add-host directives, it is cleaner for most use cases to have static IP addresses so that the user (or you!) can see what is going on.
• Enable and start Docker

# systemctl enable docker && systemctl start docker

• shut down the VM and make 3 copies: db-01a, app-01a, web-01a

Pull and Start the 3-Tier App Images

Assuming the following:

1. you have 3 copies of the template machine above, each with access to the Internet (Docker hub at hub.docker.com)
2. the Docker daemon enabled and running
3. with the reference static IPs:
   1. db-01a Docker host at 192.168.120.10
   2. app-01a Docker host at 192.168.120.20
   3. web-01a Docker host at 192.168.120.30

You can open the console on each of the machines and have them pull and start the respective images. Note that this environment assumes no access to central DNS, so I am providing the name resolution via –add-host directives on the command lines. This directive essentially adds the mappings to the runtime environments as if they were in the /etc/hosts file within the containers. These would need to be modified for any changes that you make for your environment and use case.

My Docker containers are configured to use a DNS server on 192.168.110.10 if it is available.

For the db-01a machine (example IP address 192.168.120.10)

# docker run -dit --hostname db-01a -p 3306:3306 vmwhol/hol-3-tier-app:db-01a

test with

# curl http://localhost:3306/cgi-bin/data.py 

For the app-01a machine (example IP address 192.168.120.20)

# docker run -dit --hostname=app-01a --add-host db-01a:192.168.120.10 --add-host web-01a:192.168.120.30 -p 8443:8443 vmwhol/hol-3-tier-app:app-01a

test with

# curl -k https://localhost:8443/cgi-bin/app.py

For the web-01a machine (example IP address 192.168.120.30)

# docker run -dit --hostname web-01a --add-host app-01a:192.168.120.20 -p 443:443 vmwhol/hol-3-tier-app:web-01a

test with

# curl -k https://localhost:443/cgi-bin/app.py 

When accessing the web server, the SSL certificate will be valid for the following names, so one of these should be mapped on your client machine to the IP address you are using as the web server (by default, 192.168.120.30):

1. web-01a.corp.local
2. web-01a.corp.local
3. web-01a.corp.local
4. webapp.corp.local

What’s Next?

While creating containers for such a simple application may seem like overkill, now that the application has been containerized, we can get the “personalities” for the various servers deployed quickly.

Is there something we can do to get the docker host VMs themselves deployed any faster without investing in too much extra infrastructure?

I will take a look at that in a future post.

The post HOL 3-Tier Application – Using Docker Images appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

Thank you to all who participated in our July 2020 VMware Odyssey Raffle! Participants who took one of our eligible labs and ranked on the leaderboard were eligible to win one of our grand prizes consisting an Apple Watch Series 5 & Apple Airpods Pro. Our raffle winners are:

Samantha Warnes

Teresa Greissel

Woonghee Cho

Joshua Post

Oga Ajima

Jason Willey

Congratulations to our Winners, please check your emails for more information!

Explore more VMware Odyssey by Hands-on Labs here.

The post Congratulations to our Winners – VMware Odyssey Raffle appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

We were so excited to announce our July Odyssey Raffle Winners last week and want to share a little more about several of our lucky winners in a series of blog posts! 

Another huge round of congratulations to our first spotlighted winner Woonghee Cho! 

Woonghee is based in South Korea, he is a Senior Consultant at eTechsystem with 13+ years of experience and works daily to design and implement customer Complex VMware environments. This means that he does VMware technical support everyday.  His favorite Odyssey games are Kubernetes labs which he uses to support himself as he learns K8s. 

The post Raffle Winner Spotlight – Woonghee Cho appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

We are pleased to share another spotlight on one of our raffle winners from our July Odyssey raffle. Today’s winner is Samantha Warnes, a Senior Program Manager based in England. Learn a little bit more about Samantha with our Q&A interview below:

Q: Hi Samantha, what you do for work?

A: I am a Senior Program Manager for the Global Professional Services teams at OpenText. I am responsible for a number of strategic programs to support growth, effectiveness and efficiency improvements. One of our key initiatives is around Containerization and this is why I was interested in the Kubernetes Lab.

Q: How long have you been in your field?

A: With a degree in Information Systems with Artificial Intelligence, I have been in the IT industry for over 20 years, and whilst I have spent much time in non-technical roles I enjoy understand and working hands-on with technology.

Q: Do you regularly use VMware products?

A: I have used VMware fusion for many years as a solution consultant to enable me to deliver Demos. Today, I don’t use any products in my role but it is important I understand how our consultants and customers use such technologies and products.

Q: What is one thing you enjoy about Odyssey?

A: I really enjoyed how easy it was to have a live, hands-on environment to learn, and practice with. I found the hands-on lab a really great way to learn, and it was excellent to be able to try it first hand, not as a video or canned demo. I also liked the added benefit of the competition of the leader boards to be a motivation. I would suggest anyone to give them a try!

The post Raffle Winner Spotlight – Q&A with Samantha Warnes appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

The Hands-on Labs are going digital this year and we have been working hard behind the scenes in making sure your experience at VMworld 2020 is unforgettable. We are excited share more information on what will be available as we go online around the world.

What to expect?

• Guided workshops: Engage with VMware product experts and get your questions answered in a group setting while accessing a live lab environment. Sign-up through the VMworld content catalog.
• VMware Simulated Hands-on Labs: Gain access to our latest technologies with Interactive Simulation Labs. View sessions 
• Command Center Wall: Peek into the dashboards that monitor our multi-cloud environment, with an explanation of the data being displayed.  

What’s New with VMware Odyssey?

 VMware Odyssey is back this year, we have added gamification features to the labs you know and love. For the first time ever, we will be releasing two new labs before VMworld in our Global Qualifying Rounds. Yes, you read correctly, take part in the global qualifying rounds starting September 14^th to qualify for the semifinal hosted on day 1 of VMworld.

Rules:

1. A user can only participate in one time zone location (America’s or EMEA). If a user registers to a session in the two time zone locations, only their first registration will count to qualify for the semifinal.
2. A users first score will display on the leaderboard and count to qualify for the semifinal. Users can take the lab more than once, but the additional attempts will not display on the leaderboard or count to qualify. We understand that life happens and if there is an issue in opening a lab, we will communicate through our support channel within the lab environment and troubleshoot an issue.

We have been closely monitoring and receiving feedback from our community on ways to improve Odyssey and we have implemented some of these changes to ensure everyone gets a fair chance across the globe. We excited to release scoring as part of the leaderboard, and we look forward to hearing your opinion.

Tournament Format

You will be able to register to the session according to your time zone in the VMworld content catalog available to .  Go head to head with people online and reach the highest ranking on the leaderboard to become the VMworld 2020 champion in your region.

Prepare for the competition

We will have a total of four new VMware Odyssey labs available.

In order to advance and make it to the final on day 2 of VMworld, we encourage all participants to prepare by taking the Hands-on Labs that corresponds to the Odyssey tasks:

• HOL-2111-01-SDC – VMware vSphere – What’s New
• HOL-2108-01-HCI – What’s New in vSAN – Getting Started – coming soon
• HOL-2137-03-NET – VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi Networks) Web Application Security– coming soon
• HOL-2133-01-MAP- VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid– coming soon

Visit the VMworld Odyssey page to view the prizes we will be giving out this year. The competition starts on September 14^th and users will be able to access the lab by going to the VMworld Odyssey site.

Have any questions? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to come back to access new labs that will soon be released to help you prepare for the VMworld Odyssey competition.

The post VMworld 2020: Guided Workshops, VMware Odyssey, and More! appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

Our final spotlight from our July Odyssey raffle shares a bit more about two of our winners in their own words. Thank you Teresa and Jason for sharing your experiences with VMware and HOL!

Teresa:

I am a management analyst for the state of Nevada. I have been working for the state for seven years. I don’t use VMware products at work, but have been studying for a potential career shift. I really enjoy using the hands on labs, and when I saw Odyssey I felt it was a great validation tool to see how well I was retaining what I have learned.  Thanks for making learning fun and free. 

Jason:

I am a part of the Digital Workplace team at my company and I am monitoring/security SME. I have been doing IT since 1996, and working on VMware products since 2003. Between VROPS, NSX, Workspace One and Horizon –  I am almost always in a VMware product during my work day.   I really enjoy testing myself with the Odyssey challenges, it shows me how well I really know the product.   The challenges are a fun way to pass 30 minutes of time,  I recommend them to anyone that is passionate about VMware solutions.   

The post Raffle Winner Spotlight – Teresa & Jason appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

Straight after VMworld Barcelona, the excitement of Odyssey continued at the vForums in APAC (Asia Pacific).

What are vForums?
VMware vForum’s are smaller sized replications of VMworld that are held in major cities around the world. At vForums, attendees can meet face to face with VMware product experts and learn more about navigating through digital transformation.

vForum Tokyo 2019 (November 11^th – 13^th)

The first stop on the journey was Tokyo where VMware Odyssey was center stage at the solutions exchange. The venue was filled with excitement and enthusiasm.  In total, there were 46 customers and partners, forming 16 teams of 2-3 people. The tournament format took place across two days between November 12^th and 13^th.

Day 1: Round 1 and Round 2  
Day 1 of the tournament began on November 12^th with a total of 16 teams participating in Round 1 and Round 2. They were tested on vSAN and vSphere. Within the teams, there was a great amount of teamwork as participants worked together to complete the required tasks.

In addition to the tournament, attendees at the event could play as a single-player and take the vSphere Performance Odyssey lab. The top 3 people on the leader got a chance to win prizes. Congratulations to the winners!

Day 2: Semi-final and Final

On Day 2, the semi-final and final round tested all participants on their knowledge of Horizon and NSX-T. The players screen was mirrored on larger displays above each station. There was a lot of interaction with the audience as they cheered for their favorite teams and friends.

Congratulations to the vForum Tokyo 2019 Odyssey Champions: the Galaxies! With an impressive time of 10:46, betting the VMworld US record by 4 minutes and 16 seconds.

Want to learn more? Watch the interview video with the winning team
https://players.brightcove.net/1534342432001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6109456568001

vForum Singapore 2019 (Nov 14th.)

Next stop on the journey was Singapore.

The excitement continued in Singapore with 16 teams competing to become champion. Starting in 2018, Singapore is the first country that hosted a Hands-on Labs tournament of which grew into Odyssey. For those who would like to trace back to the epoch of this journey please read this blog post. 

The Singapore team took their 2019 tournament to another level by adding a special round for female participants called ‘Voyagers of Venus’. In tandem with VMware’s diversity and inclusion initiative, during this round female participants in each team were given a chance to compete and gain an advantage that could help them advance to the next round.

And here are the proud winners of Odyssey at vForum Singapore. Team Flying Saucers of Singapore!

vForum Sydney 2019 (Nov 19^th)

Last on the list is vForum Sydney – where VMware customers had a chance to play single player game mode of Odyssey. Participants could register on-site to take part in the race to the top of the event leaderboard. Here’s a customer that was the first to take part in the game:

Congratulations and thank you to all the participants!

Tune in again next week for a recap of Week 2 at APJ vForums: Seoul, Mumbai, Sydney and Beijing.

All the Odyssey lab content has been released online. Try the Odyssey labs now: https://www.vmware.com/try-vmware/try-vmware-odyssey-labs.html

The post Odyssey into Asia Pacific vForums – Week 1 appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

Our final spotlight from our July Odyssey raffle shares a bit more about two of our winners in their own words. Thank you Teresa and Jason for sharing your experiences with VMware and HOL!

Teresa:

I am a management analyst for the state of Nevada. I have been working for the state for seven years. I don’t use VMware products at work, but have been studying for a potential career shift. I really enjoy using the hands on labs, and when I saw Odyssey I felt it was a great validation tool to see how well I was retaining what I have learned.  Thanks for making learning fun and free. 

Jason:

I am a part of the Digital Workplace team at my company and I am monitoring/security SME. I have been doing IT since 1996, and working on VMware products since 2003. Between VROPS, NSX, Workspace One and Horizon –  I am almost always in a VMware product during my work day.   I really enjoy testing myself with the Odyssey challenges, it shows me how well I really know the product.   The challenges are a fun way to pass 30 minutes of time,  I recommend them to anyone that is passionate about VMware solutions.   

The post Raffle Winner Spotlight – Teresa & Jason appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

Friends,

We are extremely proud to bring to you the Hands-on Labs program at VMworld 2020. We wanted to share with you that we have done tons of testing to make sure the apps behind the scenes work together nicely and as a result we created some tips and tricks to help make your experience smooth like butter.

Here is my list of tips and tricks…

• Set your browsers to accept 3^rd party cookies
• Use latest version of Chrome for VMworld Online. We love all browsers but for this event Chrome it is.
• Find the largest monitor you can get your hands on – At VMworld in person event we use 24″ monitors but the reality is that most of us use a laptop – mine is a 13″
• Test your local connection against our clouds prior to event  http://labs.hol.vmware.com/vmworld/compatibility
• We will have a small Army of Volunteer Product experts to help answer your product questions during the conference.  From a support tools perspective we will be using Zoom Chat and for longer in depth discussion we will be using Intercom – Sending a huge shout out to the team at Intercom thanks for all your help !
• Curious about what products we use to operate our Multi Cloud infrastructures – Visit our Command Center Wall – we will be using Twitch to stream our products managing and monitoring our infrastructure. You will get to see products like vRealize Operations, Wavefront, VMware Learning Platform and others. The Command Center Wall is in the Content Catalog next to the Hands-on Labs sections.
• Don’t miss out on our cool Odyssey Championship by visiting our spectator site – We put this together so you could watch the Championship game through Twitch – this is the next best thing to joining us on site. Book mark this link for more details https://odyssey.vmware.com/go.html

I also wanted to introducing the shiny new Pop-Out Mode feature added to our site. A huge thanks to folks that provided feedback on our screen size challenges and thanks to Steven G and team for creating this very cool feature.

The post VMworld 2020 Hands-on Labs Quick Tips and Tricks appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.

vForum Seoul (Nov 19th, 2019)

Odyssey made its debut in Seoul on the 19^th of November. Located at the very center of the venue, vForum attendees gathered around the area to watch the contestants compete. Round 1 was on vSphere, Round 2 on Horizon and the last round was centered on vSAN.

Here is a sneak-peak into the event.

Congratulations to the winners – Rockets! Team Rocket was from a VMware partner in Korea. We hope to see you again next year.

Watch the recap of the entire event in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecDnAoJmQgs

vForum Mumbai (Nov 19th – 20th, 2019)

Next stop on week two of the Asia pacific vForums was vForum Mumbai. Contestants could register on the event day to compete in the Odyssey tournament. A total of 5 tournaments were held using the entire scope of VMware products – vSAN, vSphere, NSX, vRealize Automation and Horizon.

vForum Beijing (Nov 21st – Nov 22nd, 2019)

Our final stop of vForum APAC (Asia Pacific) 2019 was Beijing. The event started on November 20^th with a soft launch online for users to test their skills and take the vSphere Odyssey lab.

The in-person event was on November 22^nd jammed packed with excitement and momentum. The Bejing local team organized two separate standalone tournaments focused on vSphere and vSAN content. Recruiting a total 56 customer and partners forming a total of 28 teams, 14 teams for each tournament. Making it the biggest number of team formations to date, compared to 24 at VMworld US and Barcelona.

The event kick-off in the morning with the vSphere tournament and in the afternoon the vSAN tournament began. The competition was fierce with multiple teams finishing seconds away and finally finishing with a record win!

Congratulation to team 野狼队 (Wild Wolf) for winning the vSphere tournament and to the team 及时雨 (Timely Rain) for winning the vSAN tournament and setting a new record of 7:23, 0:44 faster than VMworld Barcelona.

Once again, thank you to Intel for sponsoring Odyssey for all of these fantastic events.

Also thank you to our readers. Happy new year!

The post Odyssey into Asia Pacific vForums – Week 2 appeared first on VMware Hands-On Lab (HOL) Blog.