Intel Optane NVMe Drives – Sample Hardware from VMware vExpert program and Intel

As you Guys know – I am a VMware vExpert for the first time since last year. I heard about the vExpert Program through my mentors Marc Huppert VCDX181 & Daniel Simelka back then. This is a special circle of VMware enthusiasts who love and live this great technology. And especially as an ambitious HomeLab’er you should not miss this community!

No sooner said than done, I applied for the vExpert membership at https://vexpert.vmware.com/ back in 2022 and became the chosen one. 🙂

There are two application periods per year once in February and August. In March, as a selected vExpert, there is another subprogram application phase for various solutions such as application modernization, NSX, EUC and others. We have also published a video about the vExpert program on the respective Twitter account:

Don't miss out on the vExpert award this year. Watch Christopher Kusek talk about the program. https://t.co/hKKKjFQjNc pic.twitter.com/Q3q3WkyqSE

— VMware vExpert (@vExpert) December 29, 2022

My personal key benefits in the vExpert Program includes the private vExpert #Slack channel. It is like a huge Whatsapp group with people from all over the world. Independent of #Slack, you have the opportunity to connect with more than 2,500 vExperts on any social channel. Even if you are the only “VMware Guy” in your company, you will gain access to a large community and never be alone again. 😎

The main message of this community is: “Giving Back” – because it is a place for IT professionals who share their VMware knowledge, which they collect e.g. in their daily doing, with the community.

There are different ways to do this, most of us run Blogs where different How-To’s or Knowledge Posts and HomeLab’s are published. Others share their knowledge on forums like Reddit, others are speakers at events, Youtubers and so on.

Another great benefit are the exclusive technical deep dive webinars offered by VMware and Partners. And if you attended VMware Explore US or Europe, you will looking forward to the next time to see and talk to almost all vExperts live again. The vExpert Community has a very flat hierarchy and the atmosphere is fraternal, we are just a bunch of Techies. 😉

Following on from the flat hierarchy in the vExpert community, I would like to continue with the hard disks picture above. VMware and Intel have partnered to launch an Intel Optane NVMe Disk initiative, where vExperts could apply for sample hardware. Each selected vExpert will receive 10x Intel Optane NVMe Drives in U.2 or PCI format.

And I am one of those lucky ones! What does this tell us? It doesn’t matter how long you have been a vExpert, it is the will that counts! 😎

It is up to you; how you contribute to the community, there is no pressure to perform or anything like that.

But now let us get to my project with the Intel Optane NVMe drives. As you know, in addition to the classic and well-known vSAN cache/capacity tier, which is now called “OSA” – Original Storage Architecture, there is the new 1-tier Storage pool architecture published with VMware vSAN 8, which is called “ESA” – Express Storage Architecture.

I will get into the respective architectures in detail soon, as I will be writing a blog post about the Battle between VMware vSAN OSA vs ESA, where we will look at performance differences, requirements, etc. I will convert my HomeLab 2-Node Cluster from vSAN OSA to the new vSAN ESA architecture with the Intel Optane NVMe Drives and perform various tests.

Allright Guys, I do not want to give too much away, so stay tuned! 🙂