Welcome to the first vCatchup of 2013, and we’re starting off with a BANG! as my very special guest is non other than Mike ‘chinwag’ Laverick @mike_laverick who’s the Senior Cloud Infrastructure Evangelist at VMware.

I’d like to thank Mike for a few things:

1. Agreeing to record this vCatchup
2. Coming over to Australia and being part of the User Conferences in Melbourne and Sydney
3. Being a mentor and great friend and supporting what I’m trying to achieve down under!

vCatchup is basically an interview where two people get together and chew the fat about what’s current in the industry, what’s going on in the community and where things appear to be going. I try and set 5/6 questions to give a framework to the interview.

While the 2012 vCatchup’s we a look back on what had happened in 2012, the 2013 interviews are very much about looking forward and cover topics like predictions, Software Defined Networking and VMUG User Conferences (this was filmed at the Melbourne VMUG User Conference on 07/02/2013).

With the vCatchup it is my intention to seek the opportunity to interview a wide range of people from well know international guests to locals who have already began establishing a community presence for themselves.

This is kind of a disclaimer, as these interviews are the beginning of a journey / introductory attempt for me at interviewing. I have previously been the interviewee on a few Chinwags but not a one-on-one interviewer, my only other experience as an interviewer has been hosting the APACVirtual podcast, so please join me on this road (I’ll get better, I promise).

Enjoy the conversation and please provide some feedback!

You can subscribe to the YouTube channel:

http://youtube.com/user/blograck

You can also subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast and listen to all the vCatchups as they become available:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/vcatchup/id580478667

Or if you’re not iTunes inclined here’s the RSS Feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/vCatchup

Here are the raw links to the Audio/Video files:

MP3 (Audio)
MP4 (Video)

Also, here are a list of the questions we discussed:

1. What brings you to the Melbourne VMUG 2013 User Conference and what do you think of the ‘User Conference’ format?
2. How do you support your local VMUG and what commitments do you have in store for the community in 2013?
3. What will 2013 bring form a tech perspective, what would you like to see (predictions perhaps)?
4. Software Defined Networking (I think this will be the big thing of 2013) – VMware are doing some big movements around nicera – recruit Brad Headlund (@bradhedlund), Scott Lowe (@scott_lowe) – how do you think it’s going to change the virtualisation industry?
5. You’ve been with VMware now for coming close to 6 months, what’s it like working for a software vendor, can you talk about your experience so far and if it’s meeting your expectations?

Thanks for viewing/listening to this series of interviews, and don’t forget, please spread the good word of the vCatchup!