I’ve been finding it increasingly harder to fit in vCatchup interviews with my day job, but recently I had the opportunity to attend VMworld Barcelona where I had the chance to interview a few people.  Although the frequency has dropped due to the constraints I enforce on making vCatchup (i.e. face-to-face interviews) I hope the quality of the content still comes through and validates the lack of consistency.

My next vCatchup of 2013 is with a very special guest Scott Lowe @scott_lowe who is now part of the NSX Network and Security BU at VMware and is responsible for his blog at blog.scottlowe.org and is just about to release his new book Mastering vSphere 5.5 co-authored with a good friend of mine Nick Marshall @nickmarshall9. I’d just like to thank Scott for contributing (I think this is probably one of the best vCatchup’s I’ve done), Thanks Scott!

What is vCatchup? 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 commitments. 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.

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)

Here’s the list of questions we covered:

1. What’s your typical VMworld look like, how has it changed since you joined VMware?
2. I know you’re a big supporter of VMUG tell us why this is and tell us about your best experience?
3. Tell us about what you are working on at VMware and why you moved from EMC?
4. Software Defined Networking (this is a big topic for 2013) – VMware are getting behind their Nicera acquisition – they’ve got yourself and Brad Headlund – why are VMware heading down this road and how will it change the way we architect IT?
5. Tell us about your home lab, how do you ‘get your hands on the tools’?
6. You’ve done some really good presentations about time management and keeping relevant in the IT industry, what was your motivation for sharing this advice?

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