2012-08-27

Live Blogging the General Session

I will try and get a live blog update for the First General session

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Started with a Disclaimer – which was strange for a keynote.

Stomp kicked off the keynote beating on VMworld 2012 with drumpads in each of the letters

Rick Jackson (Chief Marketing Officer) took the stage to welcome over 20,000 participants of VMworld with another 10,000 online. He promised that a number of announcements that will come out of the conference this week. Rick continued with the upcoming sessions expected during the conference. There will be a best on-stage demo contest between the partners tomorrow, which will happen tomorrow with interactive feedback from the audience. A nice shout out for VMUG with a large presence of the green t-shirts.

He now is welcoming Paul Maritz onto the stage.

Paul Maritz reminded us that in 2008 25% of the workloads were virtualized today – it is at 60%. He thanked all the VCP’s that have implemented the technology today 25,000 in 2008 and now at 125,000. In 2008 cloud was an idea today it is a reality. He continued with the Drivers of change were processes have been moved from manual and labor intensive work to automated, paperless and optimized workflows. Paul continued about how the workplace is changing to an environment where people want to consume information everywhere on whatever device they want and he thinks that this will have a huge impact on the workforce in the next 4 years. For this to happen IT will have to transition to Tomorrow’s IT.

This can be done in 3 categories. In the infrastructure from physical to virtual. On top of that the applications and data are changing to accommodate scale. The last part is the access – on how the users are moving from a PC dominated world to a multi-device world.

Paul now introduced Pat Gelsinger and formally handed over the scepter.

Pat Gelsinger took the stage and thanked Paul for his work and Paul received a standing ovation from the crowd. Pat started to explain what he sees what his role will be in the upcoming years. He mentioned that he comes from the hardware side and now is excited to complete the journey and move over to the software side. Today we only have those extraordinary workloads which are not virtualized, provisioning has gone down from weeks in 2008 to days/hours today and looking to the future – he would like to see it happen within seconds.

He now continued about the Software Defined Datacenter(SDC). He went back to 2007 where he said that VMware had the opportunity to create the Datacenter Operating system – this is the Software Defined Datacenter. It is time to abstract it pool it and automate it – this can be done with the SDC. Pat then went onto the vCloud Suite.

He then when onto announce vSphere 5.1. Over 50% over x86 workloads are running on VMware. He then went onto the changes in licensing – and have announced the death of vRAM – which was introduced with the release of vSphere 5.0 – and making it simpler with no core limitations either.

He then went onto the Cloud OPs – with IT business management tools, best practices and services to help the enterprise navigate this change. He then announces the Cloud Ops forum.

Pat then went on to the acceptance of VMware of the fact that there is a need to address the Multi-Cloud world – with Cloud Foundry, DynamicOps and Nicira. He welcomed Nicira to the VMware family.

The transition from PC to any device received a slide with the mention of View/Mirage (Wanova) and Project Horizon.

Pat summed up his part on how VMware is making this transition possible. Before he left the stage he wanted to thank the partners and the VMware ecosystem. He then welcomed Steve Herrod onto the stage.

Steve Herrod started to go into details about SDN. It is more than being a hypervisor – it pulling all the components and making them into a virtual datacenter. He compared this to a co-location service – the Suite will be the same and even provide multi-tenancy.

Now that 60% off applications are now virtualized VMware is now focusing on the the Business Critical applications – using all the knowledge and whitepapers available.

He now moved to the new Monster VM which now supports 64 vCPU’s and over 1 million IOPs per host. He went on to a example from a company named Epic who have migrated from non-x86 hardware – to Linux virtualized workloads running on vSphere. He now went into islands and silos. The abilities to run Unified communications on vSphere. vFabric that is tuned and optimized to run on vSphere.

Big data – (the little elephant) – Hadoop. People thought that it should not run on vSphere – and he brought up Project Serengeti an open source solution to deploy Hadoop with a demo on the stage.

On to storage and availability. There was Storage pools and SDRS released with 5.0 and the work with 5.1 is the integration. Enhanced vMotion – vMotion without shared storage – multiple arrays this will be useful in the SDN. Virtual volumes are next – vVols to pair the the virtual machine with the array.

Virtual Flash will become a first class citizen that will allow better control and lastly the Virtual SAN that will abstract the storage.

He then went onto the the improvements in the dvSwitch (backup and restore, health check and others). He then went over to the vXLAN ecosystem (notice the small v). A lot of partners were mentioned with the networking partners and improvements.

And a demo of VMware vCloud Director on stage. Steve then went onto the integration of the partners into the new vSphere web client released with 5.1. He then went onto the vCloud API and the enhancements where users are building new interfaces on top of the underlying API allowing them to provide additional services such as Backup As A Service.

Next was the applications – with vFabric Application Director.

Then onto Cloud Ops, and here comes in VCOPs. vCloud Connector will become a more substantial part in the Cloud suite.

Now onto a demo on stage of vCloud director with the integration of vXLAN built into the interface and a demo of vFabric Application Director for deploying a multi-tier application directly into a vCloud environment. Next was vCloud Connector with its capabilities.

Three flavors of the vCloud suite. Enterprise customers get a free upgrade to the new suite.

Addressing multi-cloud world. A demo of Nicira to bridge the gap between the Physical and virtual world. Steve then went on to demo CloudFoundry online. Ravi went to demonstrate a very nice integration of SocialCast with vSphere and how you can use it for notifications and analytics.

Thanks for reading up till now if you are still with me.

To summarize the main points – as I see them from this keynote.

  1. vSphere 5.1 announces – with multiple new features.
  2. No more vRAM – licensing becomes much more simple.
  3. vCloud Suite – which I will need to get more information to understand
  4. The integration of Socialcast and vSphere – looks like a very nice idea – which I would like to see developed further.

2012-08-25

Countdown to VMworld T-2 - vExpert Roundtables

VMworld
One of those lightbulb moments (Ding!!) With everything going on during this week – could you actually cram something else in?
Well evidently yes.

The vExpert Roundtables idea was born. This post explains it some more.

Totally voluntary, totally not planned – vExpert_rountablethe idea was born 2 weeks before VMworld. So I do not know if it will be successful – or if it will work, but I do think it does have potential.

I do want to thank all the vExperts that volunteered to put in some time to “lead” the roundtables. I do think it will be beneficial to all those who participate. I mean how often do you have the opportunity to sit with some of the top people in the field and bounce some questions back and forth?

Hope to see you there!!

2012-08-24

Countdown to VMworld T-3 - Atmosphere

The people. I might have mentioned this in a previous post, there are a lot of people at VMworld. Most of them VMworldare tech people – like you and I. Some more technical than others – but hey we cannot all be the same. Coming from a country that only has a population of about 7 million I am never used to the sheer size of things in conferences like this. Feeding 20,000 people in the span of an hour and a half – is no small thing. So I am constantly amazed.

There is an adrenalin somewhere, maybe they inject it into the air (joking..)  but if you ask me it is an intense experience that stays with you long after the conference is over.

Seeing people left, right and center all around that you only hear about on blogs, or see on live broadcasts – and then having the option to sit down with them, and all the more so – you get to realize that they are just people like you – friendly, nice and down to earth.

I don’t go VMworld to work – VMworldI have several commitments but those are my own choice. Perhaps those who actually do work the whole week (and as a result – months before and after the show) might feel different.

I always come back home with a huge feeling of satisfaction, it gives me the energy to continue what I do, and to go even further.

I hope some of this atmosphere rubs off on you as well.

Don’t be afraid to say hi and have a great time!

2012-08-23

Countdown to VMworld T-4 - vBrownbags/Tech Talks

There were over 1000 submissions for sessions for VMworld 2012 – but of course not all were accepted. So the idea of the Lightning Tech Talks in the community lounge. There is a packed BrownBagschedule every single day starting with a vExpert hour every single morning between 10.00 and 11.00.

I will be presenting a session on vCenter Orchestrator and the reason for actually trying to get a lab into the Session catalog. What the reasoning behind the workflows was and how Orchestrator alleviated the problems that are common in each and every datacenter.
Besides – all of this will be streamed live on the VMworld Live Video channel and you can follow the conversation on Twitter with #vBrownBag

Watch live streaming video from vmwarecommunitytv at livestream.com

2012-08-22

Countdown to VMworld T-5 - Solutions Exchange

VMWorld The Solutions floor. 256 different vendors, some well known and some less known – but everyone has something to show – that is in some way connected to virtualizations.
Solutions Exchange
There are giveaways, iPads, SWAG Booth babes, and technology all around. Some of the booths I would like to see what they are all about and the solutions they provide - and they are – but not only:

http://www.maginatics.com/
http://www.asigra.com/
http://www.urbancode.com/
http://www.plexxi.com/
http://www.panzura.com/
http://www.scalecomputing.com/
http://www.intigua.com/
http://www.cloupia.com/en/
http://www.embrane.com/products
http://www.gridironsystems.com/

This is always the chance to see companies that you usually would not have the opportunity – and get to speak to their top notch people.0

2012-08-21

Countdown to VMworld T-6 - Parties

Personally this is not really a big one for me – but I guess that for the rest of the world probably it is – that why they always go out of their way to find a star – this it is Bon Jovi – to perform during the party. VMWorld

Food is usually there a plenty – I don’t eat it – and the drinks are a flowing. It is fun, its different, and people have a great time.
But not only the VMworld party – almost every single vendor (or major vendor) will have a bash – and wine and dine you. The one that I would like to point out is the VMundergound WuPaaS (that is Warm Up Party As A Service).

Theron Conrey, Sean Clark and Brian Knudtson all do a great job every year to bring VMworld to a start with this party.

All proceeds go to charity and it is generally a blast.
VMunderground

2012-08-20

Countdown to VMworld T-7 - Blogger Lounge

Being a blogger has its perks, being a vExpert has it perks as well. We have exposure – but I promise you that is not why we do it. image_thumb4_thumb1_thumb_thumb2Most of us do not blog for a living – we all have our regular 9-5 jobs (and then some) and we write these articles on our own spare time.

VMware recognize the value of the blogosphere and one of the biggest social community programs around. the blogger lounge is a place for us to come and recharge, to meet, to put our thoughts, pictures and experiences onto paper (well not real paper but you know what I mean).

The lounge will almost always have a blogger or a vExpert there during the whole show – and of course the famous John Troyer and Alex Maier who are the vExpert patron and look after us very nicely.

Blogger Lounge 1Blogger Lounge 2Blogger Lounge 3

2012-08-19

2012-08-18

Countdown to VMworld T-9 - Sessions

Have you seen the Schedule Builder? The amount of sessions is astounding!!Unfortunately there were approximately another 700-800 sessions that did not make the cut Sessions
this year with the Call for Papers – but that is another story..
Almost everything and anything you can think of regarding VMware and virtualization will be covered. 437 Sessions on:
  • Applications
  • End-User Computing
  • Infrastructure Operations
  • Partner Track
  • Technology Exchange for Alliance Partner
  • IT Transformation
  • Cloud
  • Security
  • Networking
  • Applications
  • Storage
VMworld
And more and more… All presented by the the Crème de la crème.

I think this is the most worthwhile training experience you will have this year, more beneficial than any 5 day training course.

2012-08-17

Countdown to VMworld T-10 - Social Networking

It is almost here, 10 days until VMware’s biggest event of the year, the biggest virtualization event of the year.
The number of reasons to be at this event are countless,VMworld so I decided to create a daily post counting down (in no particular order) to the event, each day with a great reason to be at VMworld - and here is number one.

Reason #1 – Social Networking

Imagine, 20,000 people – geeks just like us, interested in the same silly things, that have their hearts miss a beat when they see a script creating 100 VM’s with a single command. That is the essence of VMworld.
I do admit that these are not the only people there, also press, vendors, analysts, they are all there but the majority are geeks just like you and me.

I interact with a great number of people on Twitter, email, Instant Social Networkingmessaging throughout the day (mostly Twitter though). But this is an exchange of 140 characters back and forth – mostly a sporadic – albeit almost immediate conversation. The saying goes “A picture is worth a thousand words” and I would go further and say, “Meeting face-to-face is better than a a thousand email threads or video conferences”.

With the majority of the activity situated in the U.S. I do not get to come across very often, it is a damn long flight I must tell you.

The shaking of someone’s hand, having a beer (or diet coke) together, the informal conversations with the people that I have made connections over the past few years – is priceless. It builds connections that last throughout the year(s) and are beneficial to us all.

2012-08-16

Deleting a VM in VMware workstation

Just a small and silly thing I came across today.

I almost ran out space on my hard drive today. You could say – then go and get a bigger one – well that is true but I needed the space fast and found that I had a number of old VM’s on my laptop that I thought I had deleted – but it turned out I did not.

When you right-click on a VM that is not in focus you will be presented with the following menu:

No Delete

You would think that if you click remove – then it would remove the VM – but no… and you are presented with a popup telling you that.

This will not Delete

But there is no option to delete the VM. So where is it? If you select the actual VM and then right-click – you will be presented with a different menu

Delete from Disk

So that is how you delete a VM (and its files!!) from Workstation.

2012-08-15

vCloud Service - I Asked Myself - Why?

VMware announced today that it is now offering a new service called vCloud Service.

A few people asked me today – why? What does this mean? vCloud is already offered by a large number of partners all over the world – so what is the (if any) added value that me – the customer gets from this and also where is the benefit here for VMware?

vCloud Service is after all being run by one of VMware’s partners after all.

vCloud Service

So why?

After thinking a bit about this – here is where I see added value (both for the customer and VMware).

VMware has a large vCloud Ecosystem in over 28 countries around the world.

So let’s take a look into this ecosystem for a moment.

The majority of the providers do not offer a try-before-you-buy option. The reason being… actually I am not sure why not. Perhaps it is not financially viable to for them to provide such a service, perhaps these partners assume that someone who wants to sign up for their service – will have already done their homework in advance so no trial is needed.

But even those who do have a “test-drive” option available – it still is not a simple process (just by the way – out of the 145 vendors stated on the post above – only 18 are ones that you can “test-drive” – world-wide!)

Carenza, Bitbrains, Cyso, Earthlink, iland, NTT comunications, Onyx, Proserve, Qube, Skyscape, Techgate, Zitcom – I checked all of these providers and none of them have the option to sign up quickly with a short process, everything is done manually. Leave you details – and we will get back to you – in 24/48 hours or up till 7 days. Some of these providers will not even allow individuals to test out services only registered companies.

Have you ever tried to sign up with amazon for AWS? Why is it that AWS is the most widely used Public cloud vendor in the world? Well…

  1. You have a 100% free tier – for 1 year (new customers)
  2. Sign up is instantaneous – all that is verified is your phone number – 100% automated  for any Joe Shmoe…

The sign-up and setup process is a breeze (you can see how here)

So here is the VMware added value with this new service.

For the customer – they can actually try out vCloud probably just as fast as they can try out AWS.

For VMware they get the exposure to the end user – they will try out vCloud – see the product and then once the customer sees the benefit – will either deploy in-house or purchase the full service from a provider. Much like the vSphere Hypervisor which is 100% free – but once you get used to it and you want full functionality you purchase vSphere Std/Ent/Ent with vCenter.

Ka-ching

So perhaps the rumors about Project Zephyr (and that VMware are starting to go into direct competition to AWS) have some truth in them, time will tell.

The only thing I do not understand though – is why I have to pay for a Beta service – perhaps this will change when the service goes into direct competition with AWS, GCE, and other Public cloud providers.

You can sign up for the Beta here.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about this in the comments below.