Confessions of a Virtualization-aholic By Aaron Sweemer published: Tuesday, August 25 2009
The data center lights are
brighter than the sun. The air is particularly stale and warm today. Beads of
sweat are forming on my forehead. One bead grows too large and trickles down my
face into my right eye. The salty liquid forces me to squint and temporarily blurs
my vision. I hear Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" playing in the background. Sweet.
My vision returns and I
notice a lone leaf of paper, like tumbleweed, dancing across the raised tile
floor. It's caught in the airstream of the temporary fans brought in to combat
the blistering heat pouring off the mountains of servers. Off in the distance,
I see an Oompa-Loompa doing a perfect pirouette. That's weird. He's kinda
freakin' me out. But nevermind. Back to the heat. It's bad and it's getting
worse.
There are just too many
servers. Some renegade, old-school wahoo added more hardware when the existing
hardware is way underutilized. Brainwashed products of an era dominated by inefficient
operating systems and incompatible applications, you can't blame them anymore
than you can blame a dog for being a dog. But placing blame aside, they have an
incredible knack for making a horrible mess of things. I need to put an end to
this.
I can feel the temperature
rising. The data center technicians have all stripped down to their knickers. Long
hair and pot bellies abound. It ain't pretty. Except for Megan Fox. She's hot. Evidently,
in between filming scenes for her next Transformers
movie, she moonlights as a server admin. Who knew? She turns to me and says
"Aaron, you have to help us!" There's an air of desperation in her voice.
"Don't worry, miss...everything's going to be alright."
In super slow motion, she
flicks back her hair, gives me a sexy smile and a wink. I can't disappoint Megan!
Now I'm on a mission, the heat must come down. Servers must be eliminated. Everything
must be virtualized!
It's show time. Without
hesitation I start to P2V everything in sight. The growing crowd starts to
cheer and I feed off their excitement. Web, database, middleware, you name it ...
nothing is safe, nothing is sacred. I'm a P2V monkey, but instead of flinging
poo, I'm flinging servers. One by one, each server meets its timely end. The
heat is retreating. Trees are being saved! Energy execs are sobbing as their
profits diminish with every dead server!
The pile of lifeless hardware
is growing quite large. Each server bears an official death certificate which
reads "Virtualized by VMware." Most of us cheer. But a few of the old timers hover
over the steaming pile of scrap metal screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" One of the
poor pathetic souls shakes his fist at me and calls me a murderer. I can't help
but snicker.
Just then, Megan breaks
through the crowd and comes running toward me. Oddly enough, her knickers are
gone and she's covered by nothing more than a recent issue of Virtual Strategy
Magazine. Carryl Roy, Editor in Chief of VSM, yells "We're only digital, not
print!" To which I exclaim, "I really think you're missing the point!" And at
that very moment, Megan leaps toward me and lands with her lips in perfect
alignment with mine.
"My hero!" says Megan.
"Sweemer's the name, virtualization's my game."
She moves in for a long, wet
kiss. But before our lips touch, she pauses, gives me a funny look and says,
"BEEP." Huh? That was weird. Well, it's Megan Fox, she can say whatever she
wants ‘cause she's so hot! But let's try that again.
"BEEP"
Okay, Megan sweetheart, you
really need to stop that. It's distracting.
"BEEP
BEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP"
My eyelids open and I'm
staring at the rear end of my 10-year-old boxer, Lucy, who apparently managed
to crawl into bed in the middle of the night. I reach over and grab my alarm
clock and mid BEEP, I throw it against the wall. I'm pissed. I lost Megan and
woke up to old stinky dog butt. But then I roll over and see my amazing,
beautiful wife. Megan's got nothing on her! And life is good again.
My wife opens her eyes and
says "You were dreaming about Megan Fox again, weren't you?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you woke me up 15 times last night
screaming, ‘P2V me, Megan! P2V me, baby!'"
I try to conceal my embarrassment
as my wife just giggles. But she does a great job of comforting me when she says
"Don't worry, baby. I dream about Megan Fox, too." Sweeeeeet. I love my wife.
Well, time to get up and get
ready, I've got a long day, which begins with my Virtualization-aholic's Anonymous meeting. It's been rumored that Simon Crosby and Steve Ballmer will
be there. Care to join us? We meet right here, once a month, at Virtual
Strategy Magazine. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you may even hurl, as you hear
weird, wacky and sometimes seriously disturbing Confessions of a
Virtualization-aholic.
Related Links:
Aaron's Blog: Virtual Insanity
 Aaron Sweemer is a 15 year IT industry veteran. His career began in
the data center as an intern at ARINC, while completing his
undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland. He soon found
himself with an invitation to join the prestigious BBN
Internetworking. And it was in this role where he the fortunate
opportunity
to help design massive, large scale networks that supported millions of
users and spanned multiple continents.
In 2003, living in Los Angeles and with a recently acquired MBA in
Technology Management, Aaron started an independent consulting
practice. And it was through the power of virtualization that allowed
him to successfully differentiate himself from other IT
consulting companies. Aaron was able to win clients and grow his
business by delivering very real, solid, highly valuable solutions
(like data center migrations and disaster recovery) while meeting tight
budgets and timelines.
Today, Aaron lives with his wife, son and four dogs in Cincinnati
where he works full time with VMware as a Senior Systems Engineer.
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