Unexplored Territory

Brandon Frost shares his experience with memory tiering and the use of Intel Optane in his large private cloud environment. He explains how memory tiering helped optimize memory usage and reduce costs by offloading cold memory to a non-active tier. He also discusses the challenges of upgrading memory and the benefits of using NVMe-based tiering. Brandon expresses his interest in Project Peaberry, a memory tiering offloading card, and its potential use cases. He highlights the importance of his team in developing capacity data gathering and analytics solutions. Takeaways: Links: VMware Explore session by Brandon and Arvind on memory tieringMemory Tiering blog on vmware.comDisclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

VMware Explore 2024 in Las Vegas is a wrap. The team was present and will give you the opportunity to get an idea what the show was like. You will hear large number of guests covering some of the announcements, some specific aspects of the conference (like the Hands-on Labs), but also some of the vendors on the expo. The episode contains the following topics: If you like to watch one of the sessions mentioned, check out William Lam's Github page: https://github.com/lamw/vmware-explore-2024-session-urls/blob/master/vmware-explore-us.md Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

Arvind Jagannath, a platform product manager at Broadcom, discusses memory tiering and its benefits for customers with Duncan. He explains that enterprise applications are becoming more memory-bound and require better performance. Memory tiering helps address the CPU to memory imbalance that many customers face, allowing for better CPU utilization and reducing costs. Arvind also mentions the challenges of expanding memory and the need for a solution like memory tiering. He introduces Project Capitola, which has evolved into NVMe-based memory tiering, and discusses the benefits and recommendations for using NVMe devices. Arvind also touches on the integration of memory tiering with advanced vSphere features like DRS and HA, and hints at future developments with Project Peaberry and CXL. Takeaways Links Memory Tiering: Power Your Server Infrastructure With Memory Innovations [VCFB1198LV]Memory Tiering BlogRecording on Memory Tiering and CXL acceleratorsDisclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In this conversation, Katarina Brookfield discusses her career trajectory and her current role at Broadcom. She shares defining moments in her career, including her experience working on the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology project. The conversation then shifts to the newly announced vSphere IaaS control plane and its benefits. Katarina explains that the control plane provides a comprehensive solution for deploying workloads, including additional services like storage provisioning and load balancing. The conversation also covers the self-service nature of the control plane, the different interfaces for consumers and admins, and the integration of HashiCorp Packer for building and customizing VM images. The TKG service, which allows for the deployment of managed Kubernetes clusters, is also discussed, highlighting its ease of use and integration with vSphere. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the new features in the latest version of the TKG service, including cluster auto-scaling and the decoupling of TKG from vCenter. Takeaways Chapters 00:00 - Kat's Career Trajectory and the Role of Defining Moments 09:20 - The Comprehensive Solution of the vSphere IaaS Control Plane 11:02 - Enabling Self-Service and Catering to Different User Preferences 18:14 - Flexibility and Automation with HashiCorp Packer Integration 22:47 - Simplifying Kubernetes Deployment with the TKG Service 29:14 - Decoupling TKG from vCenter for Faster Delivery of Kubernetes Versions 38:36 - New Features in the Latest Version of the TKG Service Links Check Katarina's sessions at VMware Explore in Las Vegas here Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

Summary: Ala Dewberry introduces Project Marigold, a plugin that aims to make GPUs a first-class citizen on vSphere by providing visibility and observability of GPU metrics at the cluster and data center level. The plugin helps infrastructure administrators manage GPUs more strategically and enables data scientists and application developers to have a frictionless experience. Ala also discusses the use cases for private AI and encourages users to give feedback on the plugin. Takeaways Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

VMware recently released vSphere and vSAN 8.0 Update 3, and of course, we had to invite Feidhlim, Jason, and Pete back on the show to discuss what's new in these releases. There's awesome new functionality released and some great enhancements, so make sure to listen to the full episode. Key Takeaways: Follow us on Twitter for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://twitter.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button, rate wherever possible, and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

Summary The conversation explores the features and benefits of the Tanzu Platform, which accelerates application delivery and simplifies the development process. The platform abstracts the complexities of Kubernetes, allowing developers to focus on writing code and creating business value. It offers four golden commands: build, bind, deploy, and scale, which streamline the development process. The platform also reduces administrative overhead for IT teams, with a developer-to-platform engineer ratio of up to 1,000 to 1. The Tanzu Platform is used in various industries, including automotive, finance, healthcare, and retail, to develop and run mission-critical applications. Keywords Tanzu Platform, application delivery, Kubernetes, developer experience, administrative overhead, use cases Takeaways Sound Bites Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background 07:20 Overview of the Tanzu Platform 12:21 The Develop, Operate, Optimize Philosophy 28:00 Integration with the VCF Platform 37:27 Use Cases of the Tanzu Platform 50:04 Impact on AI Workloads 53:25 Closing Remarks Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In this conversation, Duncan and Cormac Hogan discuss VMware's Data Services Manager (DSM) and its role in offering data services in a full-stack private cloud. They cover topics such as the use cases for DSM, the integration with Kubernetes, the support for different databases, the automation capabilities, and the licensing model. Cormac highlights the features of DSM, including lifecycle management, backups, scaling, monitoring, and advanced settings. He also mentions the upcoming release of new features and additional data services. Takeaways Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In this conversation, Myles Gray discusses the AI workflow and its personas, the responsibilities of data scientists and developers in deploying AI models, the role of infrastructure administrators, and the challenges of deploying models at the edge. He also explains the concept of quantization and the importance of accuracy in models. Additionally, he talks about the pipeline for deploying models and the difference between unit testing and integration testing. Unit testing is used to test the functionality of a single module or function within an application. Integration testing involves testing the interaction between different components or applications. MLflow and other tools are used to store and manage ML models. Smaller models are emerging as a solution to the resource constraints of large models. Collaboration between different personas is important for ensuring security and governance in AI projects. Data governance policies are crucial for maintaining data quality and consistency. Takeaways Chapters Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

Summary For this special edition of the podcast Duncan invited Michael Roy to discuss the latest VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion announcements. VMware Workstation and Fusion are desktop hypervisor products that allow users to run virtual machines on their PC or Mac. Starting today, Workstation and Fusion commercial licenses will only be available through annual subscriptions. The price for both products is now $199 per year. The free versions of Fusion Player and Workstation Player are being discontinued, but the Pro versions will be available for free for personal use. Support for personal use products will be community-based, while commercial users will have support included in their subscription. The focus of future innovation will be on the integration between vSphere and Workstation/Fusion, providing a local virtual sandbox for learning, development, and testing. Takeaways Links Announcement BlogThe Register articleDisclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In this conversation, Johan van Amersfoort interviews William Rizzo about the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and its impact on cloud computing and modern infrastructure. They discuss the role of the CNCF in making cloud native technology ubiquitous and the support it provides to cloud native projects. They also explore the advantages of using CNCF projects for IT admins and platform engineers, including the ability to build platforms with integrated and efficient tools. They touch on the future trends and developments within the CNCF, such as platform engineering and AI/ML workloads, and how IT professionals can prepare for these changes. William also shares his personal project on platform engineering and the importance of calculating the return on investment for platform engineering practices. Takeaways Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and William Rizzo's IT Career 03:09 - Overview of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation 06:39 - Other Core Projects and Technologies Hosted by the CNCF 10:17 - Impact of CNCF Projects and Principles on Cloud Computing 13:31 - Advantages of Using CNCF Projects for IT Admins and Platform Engineers 14:45 - Interoperability and Standardization across Cloud Platforms 23:45 - Resources for Learning about Cloud Native Technologies 28:17 - Future Trends and Developments within the CNCF 38:49 - William Rizzo's Personal Project on Platform Engineering 46:04 - Calculating the Return on Investment for Platform Engineering Practices 49:28 - Closing Remarks More about William: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-rizzo/ The link to the CNCF website: https://www.cncf.io/ Follow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In episode 073 Duncan and Pete discuss various updates and changes related to vSAN, including ReadyNode configurations, licensing, vSAN Max, capacity reporting, and compression ratios. They highlight the improvements in compression ratios with vSAN ESA, which can result in significant space efficiency gains. They also discuss the use cases for vSAN Max and vSAN HCI, as well as the flexibility in making changes to ReadyNode configurations. Overall, they emphasize the ongoing development and exciting future of vSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation. Takeaways Links https://core.vmware.com/blog/smaller-vsan-esa-readynodes-accommodate-vmware-vsphere-foundations-trial-capacity-capabilityhttps://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/8.0/rn/vsphere-esxi-80u2b-release-notes/index.htmlhttps://core.vmware.com/blog/improved-capacity-reporting-vmware-cloud-foundation-51-and-vsan-8-u2https://core.vmware.com/blog/greater-flexibility-vsan-max-through-lower-hardware-and-cluster-requirementsFollow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

Summary Chris Gully discusses his current role in the new Broadcom organization and highlights of his career. He emphasizes the importance of staying relevant in the technology industry and the value of working with cool and smart people. The conversation then shifts to the topic of small language models (SLMs) and their role in the landscape of gen AI applications. Gully explains that SLMs offer a more progressive approach to working with large language models (LLMs) and enable more efficient and scalable deployments. The discussion also touches on the components of gen AI applications, the need for right-sizing models, and the challenges of scalability and efficiency. Gully highlights the importance of data and its role in driving business outcomes through AI. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the benefits and limitations of fine-tuning LLMs and the potential future of SLMs. The conversation explores the concept of SLMs (Small Language Models) and their role in AI development. It discusses the advantages of SLMs over LLMs (Large Language Models) regarding efficiency, optimization, and governance. The conversation also touches on the challenges of infrastructure management and resource allocation in AI deployments. It highlights the importance of right-sizing workloads, distributing workloads across data centers, and maximizing resource utilization. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the future trends in machine learning and AI, including advancements in math and the need for accessible and efficient technology. Links VMware's Approach to Private AIMicrosoft Phi-2 - The surprising power of small language modelsMixtralMixtral on HuggingFace Takeaways Staying relevant in the technology industry is crucial for career success. Follow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In this new episode of the Unexplored Territory Podcast, DaShaun Carter, a Spring Developer Advocate at VMware Tanzu and Broadcom, discusses his career highlights, his home lab setup, and his passion for Spring. He explains the concept of developer experience and how Spring and Tanzu contribute to it. DaShaun also highlights the innovations in Spring, such as AOT processing and native images, and their impact on use cases. He discusses the relationship between the open source aspect of Spring and the closed source solutions in the Tanzu portfolio. Finally, he explores the importance of developer experience in platform engineering. In this conversation, DaShaun and Johan discuss the importance of collaboration between developers and platform engineers, the value of Spring for platform engineers, the role of AI in developer experience and Spring, interesting topics for the VMware Explore conference, and where to learn more about Spring and open source. Takeaways Follow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In episode 070, we spoke with Patryk Wolsza about vSAN performance. Patryk wrote some great whitepapers on the topic of vSAN OSA vs ESA, vSAN on AMD vs vSAN on Intel, and vSAN with RDMA and 100GbE. In this episode, we discuss the benefits of ESA, Intel CPUs, and RDMA/100GbE. Some links to topics discussed: vSAN and RDMA/100GbEHow Server Consolidation with VMware vSAN 8 Boosts Performance by more than 7.4x!VMware vSAN and 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors Outpace AMD GenoaBoost Performance and Lower Latency with VMware vSAN 8 and 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors — Solution Design BriefSystem Health Inspector ToolFollow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In episode 69, we spoke with Earl Ruby on running AI and ML workloads on CPUs. Earl is an R&D engineer at VMware by Broadcom focusing on AI/ML accelerators. He provides us with an overview of the do's and don't of successful deployments of AI-enabled applications on CPUs. Some links to topics discussed: earlruby.org/AI without GPUs: Accessing Sapphire Rapids AMX instructions on vSphereEarl Ruby on LinkedinFollow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In episode 067, we invited Niels Hagoort back to the show to talk about the latest VMC on AWS announcements. Topics we discussed: More about these announcements can be found here: https://vmc.techzone.vmware.com/closer-look-m7i-instance-vmware-cloud-aws Follow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In episode 067, we spoke with Jerry Rijnbeek on the topic of Rubrik, and how Rubrik enables customers to secure their data against natural disasters as well as ransomware, but more importantly, also helps customers to develop a data security posture. Follow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In episode 66, we spoke with Vaughn Stewart on data platforms for AI and ML workloads. Vaughn is the VP of Systems Engineering at VAST Data. He provides us with an overview of the needs and requirements of a data platform for successful deployments of AI-enabled applications. Some links to topics discussed: VAST Data PlatformVAST Data DASE architectureVAST DatabaseVAST Data Similarity-Based Data ReductionFollow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

In episode 65 we spoke with Jatin Purohit on the topic of Oracle Cloud VMware Solution. Jatin is the Senior Technical Marketing Architect at VMware by Broadcom for this solution and provides us an overview of what the benefits are of the solution and what was introduced since episode 23 where we discussed OCVS with Richard Garsthagen. Some links to topics discussed: https://www.vmware.com/explore/video-library/video-landing.html?sessionid=1682515883297001PzAV&videoId=6335501226112https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/post/multiple-clusters-oracle-cloud-vmware-solutionhttps://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/post/mixedshape-clusters-oracle-cloud-vmware-solutionhttps://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7077357098296098816/?originTrackingId=KxcPND5pS4KQLIg8chl2hA%3D%3D Follow us on X for updates and news about upcoming episodes: https://x.com/UnexploredPod. Last but not least, make sure to hit that subscribe button and share the episode with your friends and colleagues! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.