Community

The Power of Community: A Personal Journey

Communities hold a unique power. They bring together individuals with shared interests, creating spaces for learning, growth, and lasting friendships. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of being a part of several vibrant communities that have enriched my life in countless ways. In this article, I’ll share my experiences with the Go community in Bucharest, Romania, my involvement in the VMware community, and my current role in Lenovo’s internship programs.

The Go Community: Close to 40 Years of Lasting Friendships

In the heart of Bucharest, Romania, I was 10 years old when I first stepped into the vibrant world of the Go community, drawn by a shared passion for this ancient Asian game. Beyond the strategic moves and intense competitions, what struck me most was the spirit of camaraderie that permeated every gathering. We weren’t just players; we were a tight-knit family, bound by a mutual love for the game.

Late-night discussions dissecting the nuances of each move and the jubilant celebrations of victories are vivid in my memory. These experiences forged bonds that have stood the test of time. Even now, after close to 40 years, I find myself reconnecting with those same friends, reminiscing about those moments that defined our shared history.

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Ansible

How to Use Ansible to Manage VMware Infrastructure

In this article I will show how to install and configure Ansible to manage VMware infrastructure. I will then demonstrate how you can use Ansible to get information about vSphere nodes using two different methods (REST API and Community.VMware Ansible collection).

For my demonstration I used CentOS Stream 9 as my base OS.

You can download all the code and commands used in this article from my GitHub repository.

Install and Configure Ansible

First we need to install Python3 and then we can proceed to install Ansible:

sudo dnf install python3 python3-devel
pip install ansible
pip install ansible
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VMUG Romania

VMUG Romania February Meeting Report

On 12 February 2019, VMUG Romania held its first meeting of this year in one of the best location we have seen so far: Journey Pub in Bucharest. More than 50 persons attended the full-day event. Two records here, one for the number of participants and the other for the event duration. Dell EMC and Bitdefender were the sponsors of this meeting.

My fellow leaders made me the honor of opening the meeting. After my short introduction, Razvan Ionescu made the announcement of the year in my opinion: the keynote speaker for VMUG Romania next meeting on 11 June 2019 will be Joe Baguley, VP and CTO VMware EMEA. Joe is an inspiring speaker, I’m confident we will have a lot to learn from him. You can watch Joe in few episodes of VMware Carpool Tech Talk. Mihai Huica then introduced a new tool we used for gathering feedback from audience.

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VMware vExpert

VMware vExpert 2018

The results for VMware vExpert 2018 program are finally in and I’m so glad to let you know that I have been accepted! There is always a first time and now it is for me. It is a great honor to be part of this vExpert community I heard about so much in the last years. I am looking at the vExpert names, there are people I follow for many years and I’m wondering what am I doing here? It remains to be seen.

So, what is this VMware vExpert program about? I will let one of the main persons behind it to explain:

“Each year, we bring together in the vExpert Program the people who have made some of the most important contributions to the VMware community. These are the bloggers, book authors, VMUG leaders, speakers, tool builders, community leaders and general enthusiasts. They work as IT admins and architects for VMware customers, they act as trusted advisors and implementors for VMware partners or as independent consultants, and some work for VMware itself. All of them have the passion and enthusiasm for technology and applying technology to solve problems. They have contributed to the success of us all by sharing their knowledge and expertise over their days, nights, and weekends.” – Corey Romero

So far, the community gave me and the other first-timers a warm welcome. I want to express a special thank you to Ariel Sanchez for the “unofficial welcoming tips pack”!

You can check the entire list of vExperts in the official Directory. 67 countries have representatives in the vExpert community, and I’m happy I helped to place Romania on the map! I hope next year we will see more Romanians around!

Congratulations to all vExperts out there!