Virtualization for the K through 12 Sector
Today we had Pano Logic join us for our first round table to discuss their products. We also had a quick discussion on things to come. We’ve recorded the Round table so please feel free to listen to it at your leisure.
Posted in Jim Peluso, K-12 Virtual Podcast, Mark Lamson.
– February 5, 2010
Recently yours truly, Mark Lamson, aka K12VirtualGuy was interviewed by tech journalist Heather Clancy for her blog, Smart Planet. The focus of the interview had to do with K12 and my school’s adoption of Pano Logic’s zero-client solution. Other vendors make great solutions as well, and we intend to explore the pros / cons of the differing approaches and the rapidly changing VDI market. For this Friday’s PodCast on TalkShoe, we plan on having a guest speaker from Pano Logic participate in Q / A. Links to the case study that Pano Logic did with Westerly Public Schools, as well as in Higher Education can be found here.
Posted in Just Starting Out, K-12 Virtual Podcast, Mark Lamson, VMware.
– January 29, 2010
The first virtual podcast on talkshoe went extremely well. There were about 10 visitors who participated mostly Network/Systems Administrators from RI school Districts. I would like the audience to expand to other states as well.
The main focus of this meeting was to get a feel for what Administrators want to learn more about. The feel was to concentrate the first few meetings on thin clients/zero clients and what’s available from vendors currently. Anyone that knows anyone that works in this section of the industry and would be interested in explaining their technology to a group of K-12 IT folk send me an DM on Twitter.
I was hoping to have the next meeting setup for this Friday the 22nd. Circumstances surrounding my family and Mark’s have put this off for now.
We are hoping to get a representative from PanoLogic to speak to their Zero Clients. We are shooting for Podcast #1 to be recorded on February 5th. Please join us for the live event, your participation is what will make this a success.
Posted in Jim Peluso, K-12 Virtual Podcast.
– January 20, 2010
After much digging Some people may find this helpful. It’s the release notes for vSphere 4 Update 1.
The biggest take away I get is full support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Also PVSCSI is now supported as a boot device on Server 2003 and Server 2008.
Jim P
Posted in Jim Peluso, VMware.
– November 20, 2009
Have you got the “Error Parsing the Server “<vCenter Server>” “clients.xml” file. Login will continue contact your System Administrator”?
Then this is a great video to check out for fixing the installation of the vSphere Client on a Windows 7 box. It gave me a little frustration when I moved over to Windows 7 but, this video really helped me out.
The Video is from Trainsignal and the author is David Davis
I use Train Signal training for getting my Windows 2008 Certifications and enjoy reading there blog. Check Them out.
I can’t wait to finish my Microsoft certs and get started on ordering a set of vSphere Videos from David at Train Signal.
Jim P
Posted in Jim Peluso, VMware.
– November 20, 2009
Okay, tough times all around. We get it. Do the software vendors?
Two years ago when I attended VMWORLD 2007, K12 was lumped together with State, Local and Educatiton (K-20)….I remember in particular attending a panel session called “Let’s go Sledding”….there were NO K12 reps on the panel at this session. This year at VMWORLD 2009, not only did VMWARE break education out from the SLED market into Education, I was fortunate enough to have my preso accepted and was honored to present on VMWARE and VDI in K12 education. It seems that VMWARE is listening and realizing the potential of the K12 market….Kudos.
Check out their page on Education and resources (many free) in their solutions section at:
http://www.vmware.com/solutions/education/
Update–I also want to mention that VMWARE is now doing a great job at serving the Education Community and this includes K12 as well as Higher Ed.
In addition to providing substantial discounts to education, qualifying institutions can submit an application to use VMWARE’s products for teaching and academic purposes. Thanks to everyone at VMWARE for devoting more resources to this important and emerging vertical market.
Mark L.
Posted in VMware.
– November 19, 2009
Hello Everyone,
I wanted to take the time to introduce myself. I’m a Network Administrator for a Public School District in RI.
When I first started my career in K12 I was lucky enough to take part in an Educational Collaborative Event. The hosts of the event were our local Consortium, Equal Logic (pre Dell) and VMware. I was blown away by the ideas, the theories, and the implementations of the ideas presented. This was my first taste of VMware glory and the hardware to back it up.
After that one meeting, one presentation, and one moment I was hooked. I worked very hard to take the time to understand how VMware could help my district out in the K12 sector. I realized the biggest implementation for us at the time was Server Consolidation. One year later we had installed our first blade server (c3000) with three blades(bl465 g5) on a HP MSA (2012fc).
Things have exploded from here. Our server sprawl grew and all the sudden K12 in my corner of the world has started keeping up with industry. Things will only get better from here and grow. I have a motto that I hold true, “Keep Moving Forward.” That’s what I plan on doing and I’m hoping you’ll join me.
Next time around I’ll get into my justification for picking VMware in K12 for my district. Why not Xen? Why not Virtual Iron (owned by Oracle now), Why not just use ESXi?
Cheers,
Jim P
Posted in Just Starting Out.
– November 4, 2009
Okay, here goes, the first post to our blog, on K12Virtualization.com
VMWARE Evangelist, cheesecake officiando, and all-around nice guy Jason Boche’s blog is at http://www.boche.net/blog/. I met him this year at VMWORLD and picked up one of his calendar’s from the Veeam both. I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or at least I hope he thinks so….I want to be the K12 VMWARE and Virtualization Evangelist.
At any rate, this is the first post of what will hopefully be many….I have great friends and colleagues in the K12, higher ed, and so-called SLED space….I hope they will all contribute to the many and varied approaches to making IT for K12 (and their markets) more efficient.
Here is the challenge…I’ve heard VMWARE marketing say proudly that 100% of the Fortune 100 use VMWARE (and I do too, in my Public School System). So if our kids are truly our future, don’t they deserve the best too? And if you want to discuss alternatives to VMWARE, that is okay too….(but I think they (VMWARE) are the best…vSPHERE 4.0 all the way!!!).
Update–I also want to mention that VMWARE is now doing a great job at serving the Education Community and this includes K12 as well as Higer Ed. Check out their section and the educational resources:
http://www.vmware.com/solutions/education/
In addition to providing substantial discounts to education, qualifying institutions can submit an application to use VMWARE’s products for teaching and academic purposes.
Cheers,
Mark L.
Posted in Just Starting Out, VMware.
– October 31, 2009
