I sadly report that I will not be attending VMworld 2016 this year. This will be the first conference I've missed - "13" really is an unlucky number! I was not selected per the criteria my organization used to determine who goes and who stays. I respect their decision, but that doesn't change the fact that I will be watching the general sessions remotely on a computer screen. Yeah, that won't quite be the same - no assisting customers, meeting friends, attending sessions or keeping up with what's going on with partners in the Solutions Exchange this year for me.
My passion for the conference won't change - I still believe it to be the best IT conference and highly recommend attending.
So the VMworld Alumni Elite group will be at least one less this year. What a prestigious group! I know from meeting with these guys year after year that they have a real passion for VMworld, VMware and its products. Guys - I'll catch up with you next time!
Its ironic - during my interview I was told that the surest way to not attend VMworld was to become a VMware employee. My first year VMware decided to send my entire organization! My second year they decided to send most of the organization, yours truly included. This is my third year and it appears as though my luck has run out.
I did try multiple alternative options but none of those panned-out. So all good things must come to an end? C'est la vie - its the end of an era... and the start of a new era - carpe diem!
For those that are going - have a great conference! For the reset of us, make sure to tune in to the general sessions which will be live-streamed again this year. And don't forget about the breakout sessions that will be made available shortly after the conference.
Showing posts with label VMworld. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VMworld. Show all posts
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Thursday, August 27, 2015
VMworld 2014 Recap
Well, VMworld 2015 is next week so I guess I'd better get this one published! I actually found this sitting in my drafts, I was waiting for a picture to come through which took so long I forgot to go back and publish it after receiving it! So here it is in all it's glory...
This was my first VMworld as an employee. My new role gave me a unique perspective to the conference. Having attended every previous conference as a VMware customer has given me knowledge and experience I can pass on to my customers so they can get the most out of the conference.
Consequently, I walked through the Solutions Exchange but didn't spend as much time there as I normally do. I attended a whopping one break-out session, and all of the general sessions. Why? Because I spent most of my time with my customers - assisting them in some form or shape. I also spent a lot of time at TAM Customer Central. What is TCC you ask? It's a top secret location we reserve for VMware TAM customers where we provide special break-out sessions not available to VMworld attendees, receptions and meeting rooms among other things.
The theme this year was NO LIMITS. Here is some cool desktop wallpaper for you:
And here is the Moscone all dressed up:
We were asked to provide pics of us with our customers for use as a collage at VMworld to be displayed at various times such as just before and after the general sessions. Here's the pic I sent in with "Mr. Corvette" Jarod and his red sports car that made us mini-celebrities for the week:
Another one of those TAM customer benefits is the Hands-on Labs VIP tour. This gives select customers a behind-the-scenes look at HOL operations and how the whole thing is managed. Check out these stats:
Its interesting that the NSX lab remained the most popular lab during the entire conference - indicates a lot of interest by our customers. And, consequently I think, this product continues to gain momentum in the marketplace.
And pics of how we used Log Insight and vCOps to monitor the environment via custom dashboards:
Even though I attended as a VMware employee this year, I was still invited to the CTO party (I had customers in attendance, so I'm sure that helped):
Why yes Johnny, everything is better with bacon:
And a pic from the Alumni Elite pre-party party - the pic I was waiting for as it was taken by someone else's camera - which wouldn't be complete without a shot with the big guy (me=literally, Mr. Gelsinger=figuratively):
And finally, lookie at what I found:
I found a "Meet the Experts" area hidden (not really) on the third floor of Moscone West. If you have any technical or strategic product questions, these are the guys to ask and anyone can sign-up. I highly recommend this resource if we offer it again in 2015.
Here's to seeing you there next year (he says with bacon in one hand, bourbon in the other)!
This was my first VMworld as an employee. My new role gave me a unique perspective to the conference. Having attended every previous conference as a VMware customer has given me knowledge and experience I can pass on to my customers so they can get the most out of the conference.
Consequently, I walked through the Solutions Exchange but didn't spend as much time there as I normally do. I attended a whopping one break-out session, and all of the general sessions. Why? Because I spent most of my time with my customers - assisting them in some form or shape. I also spent a lot of time at TAM Customer Central. What is TCC you ask? It's a top secret location we reserve for VMware TAM customers where we provide special break-out sessions not available to VMworld attendees, receptions and meeting rooms among other things.
The theme this year was NO LIMITS. Here is some cool desktop wallpaper for you:
And here is the Moscone all dressed up:
We were asked to provide pics of us with our customers for use as a collage at VMworld to be displayed at various times such as just before and after the general sessions. Here's the pic I sent in with "Mr. Corvette" Jarod and his red sports car that made us mini-celebrities for the week:
Another one of those TAM customer benefits is the Hands-on Labs VIP tour. This gives select customers a behind-the-scenes look at HOL operations and how the whole thing is managed. Check out these stats:
And pics of how we used Log Insight and vCOps to monitor the environment via custom dashboards:
Why yes Johnny, everything is better with bacon:
And a pic from the Alumni Elite pre-party party - the pic I was waiting for as it was taken by someone else's camera - which wouldn't be complete without a shot with the big guy (me=literally, Mr. Gelsinger=figuratively):
I found a "Meet the Experts" area hidden (not really) on the third floor of Moscone West. If you have any technical or strategic product questions, these are the guys to ask and anyone can sign-up. I highly recommend this resource if we offer it again in 2015.
Here's to seeing you there next year (he says with bacon in one hand, bourbon in the other)!
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Post-VMworld 2013 Recap
Okay, yes, it's been too long coming, but it's finally here - my VMworld recap. Now, I have a good excuse, but you'll have to read the next post for that! Note that most of this was written shortly after the event, so in that since the content is "timely". So here it is, enjoy!
Theme: Defy Convention - on the steps, pretty cool:
Ten years baby, yes!
There was the "10th Annual" wall this year where we all got our pics posted (and by all, and mean every attendee that wanted to have their pic posted). We were one of the first pics taken so they're at the bottom of the "1". Can you see me?
No? Okay, then here's a close-up:
VMworld seemed to be about one word for VMware this year: focus. I could see the focus (or re-focus in some cases) on the entire stack from the virtual infrastructure to hybrid cloud computing. This focus seems to be coming from a renewed customer focus = they're really listening. Proof-in-point = The shifting of vCloud Director features to vSphere and vCloud Automation Center, leaving the multi-tenant capabilities for cloud providers. I really believe we have Pat Gelsinger to thank for this along with his management team. With this renewed focus on customers, market and product/feature mix, I think VMware has really put itself in the position to continue to be on the forefront of innovation and an agent of change in the IT world.
Here are some other words that really defined VMworld 2013:
SSD
Flash
Software Defined x (datacenter, networking, storage, etc.)
Convergence (this time, as in compute, network and storage)
Imagine Dragons/Train
Alumni Elite (34 left!)
Server-side flash
Server-side cache
VSAN
vSphere 5.5
NSX
Did I mention SSDs?
Location: San Francisco this year and again next year - I really have nothing else to say about it. I go there for the conference. I actually prefer Vegas, but to each his own.
Keynotes: As I mentioned, this year was about a renewed focus on product mix and the datacenter stack including the following four areas - Compute, Storage, Networking and Operations.
The big story in Compute is the announcement of vSphere 5.5. This will be a big release with a many improvements and new features. I won't detail them in this post but you can read about them here:
https://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10385
The big story in Storage was, of course, VMware's new VSAN feature/technology. And they announced a public beta you can download here:
http://www.vmware.com/vsan-beta-register
VMworld App: Much better this year. WiFi still weak during the general sessions, and it didn't help that the app was updated a half-million times during the event but I suppose there were a lot of schedule changes(?).
Alumni Elite Event: Whoa! The 10 year Alumni Elite event was, in a word, awesome! They bused us down to Candlestick, er, AT&T park an hour before the VMworld party. We got our own locker in the Giants locker room, along with great food and drink. I'm not a big fan of clam chowder but it was so highly recommended I figured I had nothing to lose. Holy cow, it was fantastic!
There were many highlights on this night, meeting VMware's CMO, Robin Matlock, was certainly one:
Getting to talk shop with VMware's CEO, Pat Gelsinger again this year was fantastic:
![]()
I also got to meet VMware's COO, Carl Eschenbach. Let me tell you, all three of these executives were very down-to-earth, highly energetic, and very excited about VMware and the future of IT. I really didn't expect them to be as genuine and accessible as they were but I was pleasantly surprised. I really shouldn't have been since VMware is a great company that attracts great talent.
Later that evening we get to try the batting cages - 60MPH pitches, not a bad workout. Out of six pitches, I made solid contact with three of them, whiffed one, got out of the way of one and fouled the last. Pat is up after me and let me just say he made me look bad, and this was supposedly after only two hours of sleep!
Finally, I was told there are 34 of us left. I only count 27 in this picture, so several didn't make it to the pre-party event. We seem to lose about 10 per year. 25 next year? I wonder who will be the last one standing?
VMworld Party: Time to head out to the party:
It was a real "festive" atmosphere. The entertainment for the night was Imagine Dragons and Train. I thought both groups put on a great show. Train was a bit of a surprise for me - I didn't realize how entertaining they would be nor did I realize how many of their songs I know until I heard them:
Solutions Exhibit: There was another record number of exhibitors this year. As always I highly recommend hitting the floor and talking to as many vendors as you can. It a great way to discover new tools or solutions you may not have known even existed. No unique schwag to report on this year, however there was still a lot of it if you wanted it. And again, I didn't win anything - not that I tried very hard though. There's always a group that hits it really hard. I guess I don't have the patience, especially when I know the odds are quite high against me.
Attendance: If there's one thing that's consistent about VMworld, it's that the attendance numbers go up every year and this year was no different: over 30,000 - another record.
Break-out Sessions: I attended more of these this year than previous years and found them to be very useful. This encourages me to go back to VMworld.com and view the ones I missed. If you can't make VMworld, I highly recommended buying a subscription to gain access to the sessions.
Hands-on Labs: These are all about timing - if you go at the right time, there's little-to-no line. On the other hand, I saw lines that wrapped around the corner and outside of the building(!). I'll try to take note of the best times next year, but for now my advice is if the line is long, keep checking back. On a positive note, I did notice the line seemed to move at a decent pace.
Adventure: So we asked a cabbie to take us to Gordon Biersch brewery/restaurant. We had gone there the previous year and they had good food, great beer and scenery over-looking the bay. So he drops us off at what looks like the right spot and takes off. Walking up the steps we saw this:
Gordon Biersch = closed. New Mozilla offices = opened. At least it was tech-related? Weird. As we were walking back toward the pier, we stumbled upon an indoor/outdoor restaurant with a decent beer selection, so not all was lost!
So another great VMworld again this year. What will next year bring? All we know for certain is that it will be in San Francisco at the Moscone Center, August 25th-28th.
One last thing... why were there Hyper-V books in the store?
Until next year...
Theme: Defy Convention - on the steps, pretty cool:
There was the "10th Annual" wall this year where we all got our pics posted (and by all, and mean every attendee that wanted to have their pic posted). We were one of the first pics taken so they're at the bottom of the "1". Can you see me?
VMworld seemed to be about one word for VMware this year: focus. I could see the focus (or re-focus in some cases) on the entire stack from the virtual infrastructure to hybrid cloud computing. This focus seems to be coming from a renewed customer focus = they're really listening. Proof-in-point = The shifting of vCloud Director features to vSphere and vCloud Automation Center, leaving the multi-tenant capabilities for cloud providers. I really believe we have Pat Gelsinger to thank for this along with his management team. With this renewed focus on customers, market and product/feature mix, I think VMware has really put itself in the position to continue to be on the forefront of innovation and an agent of change in the IT world.
Here are some other words that really defined VMworld 2013:
SSD
Flash
Software Defined x (datacenter, networking, storage, etc.)
Convergence (this time, as in compute, network and storage)
Imagine Dragons/Train
Alumni Elite (34 left!)
Server-side flash
Server-side cache
VSAN
vSphere 5.5
NSX
Did I mention SSDs?
Location: San Francisco this year and again next year - I really have nothing else to say about it. I go there for the conference. I actually prefer Vegas, but to each his own.
Keynotes: As I mentioned, this year was about a renewed focus on product mix and the datacenter stack including the following four areas - Compute, Storage, Networking and Operations.
The big story in Compute is the announcement of vSphere 5.5. This will be a big release with a many improvements and new features. I won't detail them in this post but you can read about them here:
https://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10385
The big story in Storage was, of course, VMware's new VSAN feature/technology. And they announced a public beta you can download here:
http://www.vmware.com/vsan-beta-register
VMworld App: Much better this year. WiFi still weak during the general sessions, and it didn't help that the app was updated a half-million times during the event but I suppose there were a lot of schedule changes(?).
Alumni Elite Event: Whoa! The 10 year Alumni Elite event was, in a word, awesome! They bused us down to Candlestick, er, AT&T park an hour before the VMworld party. We got our own locker in the Giants locker room, along with great food and drink. I'm not a big fan of clam chowder but it was so highly recommended I figured I had nothing to lose. Holy cow, it was fantastic!
Getting to talk shop with VMware's CEO, Pat Gelsinger again this year was fantastic:
I also got to meet VMware's COO, Carl Eschenbach. Let me tell you, all three of these executives were very down-to-earth, highly energetic, and very excited about VMware and the future of IT. I really didn't expect them to be as genuine and accessible as they were but I was pleasantly surprised. I really shouldn't have been since VMware is a great company that attracts great talent.
Later that evening we get to try the batting cages - 60MPH pitches, not a bad workout. Out of six pitches, I made solid contact with three of them, whiffed one, got out of the way of one and fouled the last. Pat is up after me and let me just say he made me look bad, and this was supposedly after only two hours of sleep!
Finally, I was told there are 34 of us left. I only count 27 in this picture, so several didn't make it to the pre-party event. We seem to lose about 10 per year. 25 next year? I wonder who will be the last one standing?
VMworld Party: Time to head out to the party:
It was a real "festive" atmosphere. The entertainment for the night was Imagine Dragons and Train. I thought both groups put on a great show. Train was a bit of a surprise for me - I didn't realize how entertaining they would be nor did I realize how many of their songs I know until I heard them:
Solutions Exhibit: There was another record number of exhibitors this year. As always I highly recommend hitting the floor and talking to as many vendors as you can. It a great way to discover new tools or solutions you may not have known even existed. No unique schwag to report on this year, however there was still a lot of it if you wanted it. And again, I didn't win anything - not that I tried very hard though. There's always a group that hits it really hard. I guess I don't have the patience, especially when I know the odds are quite high against me.
Attendance: If there's one thing that's consistent about VMworld, it's that the attendance numbers go up every year and this year was no different: over 30,000 - another record.
Break-out Sessions: I attended more of these this year than previous years and found them to be very useful. This encourages me to go back to VMworld.com and view the ones I missed. If you can't make VMworld, I highly recommended buying a subscription to gain access to the sessions.
Hands-on Labs: These are all about timing - if you go at the right time, there's little-to-no line. On the other hand, I saw lines that wrapped around the corner and outside of the building(!). I'll try to take note of the best times next year, but for now my advice is if the line is long, keep checking back. On a positive note, I did notice the line seemed to move at a decent pace.
Adventure: So we asked a cabbie to take us to Gordon Biersch brewery/restaurant. We had gone there the previous year and they had good food, great beer and scenery over-looking the bay. So he drops us off at what looks like the right spot and takes off. Walking up the steps we saw this:
Gordon Biersch = closed. New Mozilla offices = opened. At least it was tech-related? Weird. As we were walking back toward the pier, we stumbled upon an indoor/outdoor restaurant with a decent beer selection, so not all was lost!
So another great VMworld again this year. What will next year bring? All we know for certain is that it will be in San Francisco at the Moscone Center, August 25th-28th.
One last thing... why were there Hyper-V books in the store?
Until next year...
Monday, June 3, 2013
2013 VMware vExpert!
Looks like 2013 is going to be another stellar vYear! I found out last week that I was awarded the vExpert designation again this year. The official announcement and list can be found here:
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2013/05/vexpert-2013-awardees-announced.html
VMware has a good thing going with this program - it gives them the opportunity to recognize those that are active in the virtualization community and provides benefits to the receivers from both VMware and it's partners. Here's a partial list of the benefits I've received thus far:
http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2013/05/vexpert-2013-awardees-announced.html
VMware has a good thing going with this program - it gives them the opportunity to recognize those that are active in the virtualization community and provides benefits to the receivers from both VMware and it's partners. Here's a partial list of the benefits I've received thus far:
- Eval licenses from VMware
- Polo shirt from Tintri (now x2)
- Free year subscription from Train Signal
- $100 off VMworld registration
- Free license for V-locity Performance Accelerator from Condusiv
- Access to various VMware beta programs like vSphere and Project NEE
On a related note, I also completed registration for VMworld 2013 last week. A decade of VMworld! Keep watching for my VMworld recap in early September.
Monday, April 29, 2013
VMworld 2013: Are you ready?
VMworld 2013 - 10 years of VMworlds! Registration is open - time to sign-up. There were 45 of us that have attended every VMworld. I predict 35 this year - time to start an office pool.
I'm on the VMworld Content Committee again this year and I'm seeing some fantastic sessions in the Business Continuity and Storage tracks. Some are some reoccurring themes again this year such as Cloud and the Software Defined Datacenter, but I'm seeing more focus on specific aspects of these concepts - backup in the cloud, cross-cloud backup and recovery, Software Defined Storage and Software Defined Networking. I'm seeing more on distributed storage than in past years. I saw a demo of VMware's distributed storage tech at a session last year (I think they were calling vSAN). I was very impressed. Lot's of questions remain on scalability, performance and of course, when it will be released. But given they had a working prototype last year, I have to believe it will be soon.
I remember the first VMworld - everything was anemic compared to today's event: standing-room-only sessions (if you could get in), a couple of dozen exhibitors, etc. I do remember being blown away by some stats given by Diane Greene in the General Session, especially those on processor utilization - Mainframes=85%, Unix/mid-range=50%, x86/Wintel=5-15% (or something very similar). Unfortunately, this video is not on the VMworld site. However, for a blast down memory lane, check this one out:
http://www.vmworld.com/docs/DOC-4087
I won't get to sign-up of another week or two but as my mom used to say "beggars can't be choosers". And that's okay - the main thing will be getting a decent hotel within a decent walking distance. May not be
possible this year but we'll see.
Overall it looks to be another good one. What will be theme? The party? Who's the band? I'm guessing VMware has something special planned this year. Another office pool?
See you there!
I'm on the VMworld Content Committee again this year and I'm seeing some fantastic sessions in the Business Continuity and Storage tracks. Some are some reoccurring themes again this year such as Cloud and the Software Defined Datacenter, but I'm seeing more focus on specific aspects of these concepts - backup in the cloud, cross-cloud backup and recovery, Software Defined Storage and Software Defined Networking. I'm seeing more on distributed storage than in past years. I saw a demo of VMware's distributed storage tech at a session last year (I think they were calling vSAN). I was very impressed. Lot's of questions remain on scalability, performance and of course, when it will be released. But given they had a working prototype last year, I have to believe it will be soon.
I remember the first VMworld - everything was anemic compared to today's event: standing-room-only sessions (if you could get in), a couple of dozen exhibitors, etc. I do remember being blown away by some stats given by Diane Greene in the General Session, especially those on processor utilization - Mainframes=85%, Unix/mid-range=50%, x86/Wintel=5-15% (or something very similar). Unfortunately, this video is not on the VMworld site. However, for a blast down memory lane, check this one out:
http://www.vmworld.com/docs/DOC-4087
I won't get to sign-up of another week or two but as my mom used to say "beggars can't be choosers". And that's okay - the main thing will be getting a decent hotel within a decent walking distance. May not be
possible this year but we'll see.
Overall it looks to be another good one. What will be theme? The party? Who's the band? I'm guessing VMware has something special planned this year. Another office pool?
See you there!
Friday, September 14, 2012
VMworld 2012 Best of Show Winners
Here are the VMworld 2012 Best of Show winners straight up from TechTarget. I can't say I understand all of the choices and you have to take them for what they are - press picks, but most of these products are worth another look. I share a couple of thoughts after some sections, all just my opinion, of course:
Business Continuity and Data Protection
Gold: FalconStor RecoverTrac 2.5, FalconStor Software
Silver: EMC Avamar 6.1, EMC Corp.
Bronze: Symantec NetBackup 5220, Symantec Corp.
Comment: How does yet another proprietary hardware box from EMC win silver? Where's vSphere replication with SRM, especially now that it's free with vSphere? I saw other products at VMworld that were more deserving.
Security and Compliance for Virtualization
Gold: Layer 7 API Portal, Layer 7 Technologies
Silver: None
Bronze: None
Comment: No Silver or Bronze? That seems odd. These guys need to try harder.
Virtualization Management
Gold: HotLink Hybrid Express, HotLink Corp.
Silver: Control Console 7.1, CiRBA Inc.
Bronze: Puppet Enterprise 2.5, Puppet Labs
Comment: HotLink has some cool products, but the other two? Again, I saw better management products at VMworld.
Hardware for Virtualization
Gold: Tintri VMstore T540 with Tintri OS 1.4, Tintri Inc.
Silver: Nutanix Complete Cluster, Nutanix
Bronze: Zebi Storage Arrays, Tegile Systems Inc.
Comment: All of these products are cool and worth a look. Nutanix won this last year and has since exploded in growth and mind share - I heard several people talking positively about them at the conference. They should have included SimpliVity and Scale Computing.
Desktop Virtualization
Gold: Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI, Atlantis Computing Inc.
Silver: SysTrack MarketPlace, 6.1, Lakeside Software Inc.
Bronze: HP t410 All-in-One Zero Client, Hewlett-Packard Co.
Comment: Again, all products worth looking at. Only I would have included Teradici PCoIP, they now provide a solutions for Microsoft RDS and "shared GPU" putting them on par (or close to?) Citrix HDX 3D Pro.
Private Cloud Computing Technologies
Gold: Piston Enterprise OpenStack, Version 1, Piston Cloud Computing, Inc.
Silver: ManageIQ's Enterprise Virtualization Management Suite, Version 4
Bronze: Embotics V-Commander, Version 4.5, Embotics
Public and Hybrid Cloud Computing Technologies
Gold: DynamicOps Cloud Suite 4.5, DynamicOpsby VMware Inc.
Silver: Skytap Cloud, Skytap Inc.
Bronze: None
New Technology
Gold: Systems Management Virtualization, 1.0, Intigua
Silver: EqualLogic Storage Blade Array, Dell Inc.
Bronze: XtremIO Flash Array, Version 1.1, XtremIO
Best of Show
Winner: HotLink Hybrid Express, HotLink
Business Continuity and Data Protection
Gold: FalconStor RecoverTrac 2.5, FalconStor Software
Silver: EMC Avamar 6.1, EMC Corp.
Bronze: Symantec NetBackup 5220, Symantec Corp.
Comment: How does yet another proprietary hardware box from EMC win silver? Where's vSphere replication with SRM, especially now that it's free with vSphere? I saw other products at VMworld that were more deserving.
Security and Compliance for Virtualization
Gold: Layer 7 API Portal, Layer 7 Technologies
Silver: None
Bronze: None
Comment: No Silver or Bronze? That seems odd. These guys need to try harder.
Virtualization Management
Gold: HotLink Hybrid Express, HotLink Corp.
Silver: Control Console 7.1, CiRBA Inc.
Bronze: Puppet Enterprise 2.5, Puppet Labs
Comment: HotLink has some cool products, but the other two? Again, I saw better management products at VMworld.
Hardware for Virtualization
Gold: Tintri VMstore T540 with Tintri OS 1.4, Tintri Inc.
Silver: Nutanix Complete Cluster, Nutanix
Bronze: Zebi Storage Arrays, Tegile Systems Inc.
Comment: All of these products are cool and worth a look. Nutanix won this last year and has since exploded in growth and mind share - I heard several people talking positively about them at the conference. They should have included SimpliVity and Scale Computing.
Desktop Virtualization
Gold: Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI, Atlantis Computing Inc.
Silver: SysTrack MarketPlace, 6.1, Lakeside Software Inc.
Bronze: HP t410 All-in-One Zero Client, Hewlett-Packard Co.
Comment: Again, all products worth looking at. Only I would have included Teradici PCoIP, they now provide a solutions for Microsoft RDS and "shared GPU" putting them on par (or close to?) Citrix HDX 3D Pro.
Private Cloud Computing Technologies
Gold: Piston Enterprise OpenStack, Version 1, Piston Cloud Computing, Inc.
Silver: ManageIQ's Enterprise Virtualization Management Suite, Version 4
Bronze: Embotics V-Commander, Version 4.5, Embotics
Public and Hybrid Cloud Computing Technologies
Gold: DynamicOps Cloud Suite 4.5, DynamicOpsby VMware Inc.
Silver: Skytap Cloud, Skytap Inc.
Bronze: None
New Technology
Gold: Systems Management Virtualization, 1.0, Intigua
Silver: EqualLogic Storage Blade Array, Dell Inc.
Bronze: XtremIO Flash Array, Version 1.1, XtremIO
Best of Show
Winner: HotLink Hybrid Express, HotLink
Friday, September 7, 2012
Post-VMworld 2012 Recap
Another good year for VMware and VMworld. This year the themed seemed to be 'integration'. VMware announced vCloud Suite 1.5 which includes what is just the beginning of integration between various VMware products. I spoke with several VMware developers at the conference and this message was pretty consistent. Here's the rundown on other aspects of the conference:
Location: From Vegas, back to San Francisco! Well, the food was much better than 2010, I'll give them that. But still - blankets to eat lunch outside (again), really? I walked back to the "hang space" which was perfect. At one point I was with a group that included one of the event coordinators and it was really interesting to hear things like how early they have to book locations and all of the logistics that go into the event. After that discussion, I have a better appreciation for what it takes to put on an event of this size and will therefore stop complaining about the location(!).
Key Notes: Last year was all about VMware's vision for cloud and desktop computing. This year was more about integration. They announced products that were consistent with both the "vision" and "integration" themes:
Here's the lighthouse - fantastic view from up there:
Whoa... looking down:
Here's the restaurant and lighthouse from a distance. Notice the lack of sea lions. Those planks were full two years ago. Apparently they follow the schools of Mackerel of which there aren't many this year in the bay:
Now we're in-between bands and they have this video board/music mash-up thing which is cool (well, except maybe for the Sound of Music, not sure why that was included). And once Marley's "One Love" started the party was on!
So out comes Jon Bon Jovi and he gets right down to business. And for the most part, he's all business the entire show. Not much interaction with the crowd. I think he took a que from the Killers. Oh he did have some witty banter, something like - 'sing-along with me, if you do you can put that you sang with Bon Jovi on your resume, the girls know that's a good thing'. And 'come on guys you can do better than that, I flew a long way to sing for you tonight', or something like that. Really? I'm thinking the guy has a big head. Maybe I missing something here.
Location: From Vegas, back to San Francisco! Well, the food was much better than 2010, I'll give them that. But still - blankets to eat lunch outside (again), really? I walked back to the "hang space" which was perfect. At one point I was with a group that included one of the event coordinators and it was really interesting to hear things like how early they have to book locations and all of the logistics that go into the event. After that discussion, I have a better appreciation for what it takes to put on an event of this size and will therefore stop complaining about the location(!).
Key Notes: Last year was all about VMware's vision for cloud and desktop computing. This year was more about integration. They announced products that were consistent with both the "vision" and "integration" themes:
- vCloud Suite 1.5: This is the big integration piece, combining vSphere infrastructure with their cloud and management products
- vSphere 5.1 with vSphere Data Protection based on EMC Avamar technology
- vSphere Replication - previously tied to SRM, now a separate product feature
- VMware Horizon Suite: Integrating several desktop and mobile products including AppBlast, Horizon App Manager, Octopus, ThinApp and Horizon Mobile.
They also announced the end for the vRAM "tax"! This brought the second biggest applause of the morning (and it was big). Even bigger was Paul Maritz's 'handing over the reigns' to VMware's new CEO, Pat Gelsinger. These guys have known each other for some time - they both worked as engineers for Intel. Small world.
I had the opportunity to meet Pat at the CTO party and he seemed to be a genuinely nice down-to-earth guy. Let just hope he executes(!). I highly recommend watching the General Session key notes here:
VMworld App: Not much love for the app this year. Unfortunately last year's was better. This year it was riddled with performance problems. Even the live polling was a miss for me. It obviously worked for some people. By time the question loaded, the poll was closed so I didn't get to vote on much. WiFi performance was spotty too. Both the app and WiFi access improved by day 3, but by then the damage is done. On a more positive note, the VMworld 2012 community hosted on Socialcast was fantastic. VMware is shutting this down by the end of September. I understand why, but have to wonder if this isn't a better tool than VMworld.com - I think it's open for debate. I hope they provide a Socialcast site again next year, maybe making access available a littler earlier.
Alumni Elite Event: It's been 9 years in a row now (which means next year is the big 10, a decade of VMworld!). The dinner was mostly anti-climatic. We landed on Forbes Island, except it's not an island, but a floating boat/barge kind-of-thing.
Here's the lighthouse - fantastic view from up there:
Whoa... looking down:
Here's the restaurant and lighthouse from a distance. Notice the lack of sea lions. Those planks were full two years ago. Apparently they follow the schools of Mackerel of which there aren't many this year in the bay:
I have to say the food was excellent. The gift was just "meh", but it was a gift so I won't complain (too much). On the bus over, one guy said he thought we were getting a MacBook Pro. I'm betting he was disappointed! I had to laugh at that as I thought an iPad at best. Last years iPod Shuffle and Vegas show was an awesome surprise. In the event planner's defense, she was new to the whole thing and maybe not given much time to put it together. I expect next year will be better.
When they started recognizing Alumni Elite, it started with 55 of us 3 years ago. Last year, the number dropped to 45. This year there were 32. Technically, there's less than that as they are including guys that may have missed years of the US conference, but attended the European VMworld.
CTO Party: This was a great party again this year. As I mentioned before I got to meet Pat Gelsinger and I also met Steve Herrod. Both guys were accommodating. I had drank a couple on an empty stomach before meeting either of them so hopefully I didn't embarrass myself! See drink in hand (sorry, crappy cell camera pics - this is a good justification for having a decent camera on your phone, right? Will I ever get this chance again?):
 |
| ARRITDOR was here! |
VMworld Party: I stayed at the CTO party right up until the start of the VMworld party (and then some). By time I got to the hall, the opening band, Morning Parade, on played 2-3 more songs. Which is good because I'm not a fan. It reminded me of the Killers, a.k.a whiny Euro blandness. Not really rock 'n roll in my book. But maybe the kids love it and I'm out of touch, IDK.
Now we're in-between bands and they have this video board/music mash-up thing which is cool (well, except maybe for the Sound of Music, not sure why that was included). And once Marley's "One Love" started the party was on!
So out comes Jon Bon Jovi and he gets right down to business. And for the most part, he's all business the entire show. Not much interaction with the crowd. I think he took a que from the Killers. Oh he did have some witty banter, something like - 'sing-along with me, if you do you can put that you sang with Bon Jovi on your resume, the girls know that's a good thing'. And 'come on guys you can do better than that, I flew a long way to sing for you tonight', or something like that. Really? I'm thinking the guy has a big head. Maybe I missing something here.
Lack of audience connection aside, he did look like he was having fun and I know everyone around me was having fun. He did three Bon Jovi numbers - Bad Medicine, You Give Love a Bad Name and Wanted Dead or Alive - and a handful of covers. His encore was Wilson Pickett's "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)". Hmmm, would not have been my pick for an encore song but that's what he did.
Overall he was entertaining and his band was pretty good, the stand-out being the violinist. She did some phenomenal playing during a short jam at the end of the Who's 'Baba O'Riley'. If you can find it on YouTube I suggest watching. Again, sorry for the crappy cell phone pics:
Solutions Exhibit: Wow! This best and biggest one yet! This was really one of the big highlights for me. I believe it in everyone's interest to spend a lot of time here talking to vendors and discovering new products and solutions. This year was no different in this regards. I brought back ideas that included several different products I had not even heard of before this event. Here are some pics of the exhibit floor:
The swag was really flowing too. Many t-shirts, too many... made it to Splunk's booth and got a fantastic T before they ran out this year. Other vendors should take note - make a T that people actually want to wear, not with just a giant name/logo on it. People will actually wear it more often than just doing lawn work(!). The swag of the year award has to go to... drum roll... sources unnamed for the rubber chicken! Here it is on my button wall with Darth Tatar protection (yes, weird, I know):
Hmmm.... so what is the rubber chicken all about? Well, I guess you'll just have to "find" out next year when you take a hands-on lab.
The Whiptail booth had a special guest. I got to meet this guy and get his autograph. The line was long but the wasn't wasn't too bad:
You can find more photos of me and other attendees here: WhipTail's Facebook Photos Page. SimpliVity had this junk, er, I mean super car in their booth. Do you think I'll win an Audi R8?
I've never really "won" anything at VMworld over the last nine years. I'm not going to start holding my breath now.
The swag was really flowing too. Many t-shirts, too many... made it to Splunk's booth and got a fantastic T before they ran out this year. Other vendors should take note - make a T that people actually want to wear, not with just a giant name/logo on it. People will actually wear it more often than just doing lawn work(!). The swag of the year award has to go to... drum roll... sources unnamed for the rubber chicken! Here it is on my button wall with Darth Tatar protection (yes, weird, I know):
Hmmm.... so what is the rubber chicken all about? Well, I guess you'll just have to "find" out next year when you take a hands-on lab.
The Whiptail booth had a special guest. I got to meet this guy and get his autograph. The line was long but the wasn't wasn't too bad:
You can find more photos of me and other attendees here: WhipTail's Facebook Photos Page. SimpliVity had this junk, er, I mean super car in their booth. Do you think I'll win an Audi R8?
I've never really "won" anything at VMworld over the last nine years. I'm not going to start holding my breath now.
Attendance: Record attendance again this year, roughly 21,000 attendees. And guess what, another hurricane! This time it was hurricane Isaac which caused some serious flooding, but was much less powerful than Katrina. Actually, this was the year of personal tragedy - my wife's van blew a transmission, our home theater receiver went bad and our Acer tablet stopped working. What's worse, one of my son's slept-walked and fell down the stairs. My wife rushed him to the ER and luckily he checked out okay, just a big knot on top of his head (whew!). Both the van and receiver have been fixed now. Still waiting on the Acer tablet. So... yeah, getting a Samsung next time!
Signage: For whatever reason, CRN continues to capture the "wacky" side of VMworld. Check out their expose here: 20 Weird and Wacky Scenes from VMworld 2012. The sumo wrestler was hilarious - they had a 20 foot tall version outside on the street corner. Unfortunately, I was unable to snap a pic of Oracle's taxi signage, but it was there again this year except it read "4x more scalable" with the added "2x faster than VMware". LOL (again)!
Takeaways: New for this year, I'm including this section of high-level takeaways. These are things I learned that were interesting or some-how relevant to my current workplace:
So yes, another great conference this year. As previously mentioned, next year will be number 10 for VMworld and I think we're all expecting big things. VMworld returns to San Francisco again next year at the Moscone Center, August 26-29. See you there!
Takeaways: New for this year, I'm including this section of high-level takeaways. These are things I learned that were interesting or some-how relevant to my current workplace:
- Pretty much all that was said in the General Sessions (see above)
- Vidyo had an impressive video conferencing solution
- vExpert Meeting: they're watching us!
- Symantec Lunch 'n Learn for vExperts:
- They have figured out a way to "dedupe" file scanning in their endpoint protection product
- The feature is called client cache and it looks to actually reduce disk I/O generated by file scans
- AV vendors take note!
- Only 5 of the 20 vExperts showed-up - I felt bad for them and have to say shame on those for not showing up! If you want vendors to keep extending privileges to us like this, you need to keep your commitments.
- HP Blogger/vExpert Briefing:
- Only backup/recovery solution that truly integrates with vCenter Director
- New switch that offers higher-end virtual VLAN and routing features for significantly less cost. No separate feature licenses unlike Cisco.
- They cut the cost of the P4000/Lefthand VSA by what looks to be half. They are even selling in 100-packs for hosting/managed providers so they can deploy and utilized local disk space on their servers. It's now called HP StoreVirtual VSA.
- Session - vMotion Futures:
- Unified vMotion - no longer requires shared storage
- Performance - nearly as fast as traditional Storage vMotion
- Guest Performance Penalty (CPU, memory, storage) = same as Storage vMotion
- Futures = Unified vMotion across vCenter instances
- Session - Storage Performance Troubleshooting
- AV scans generate high I/O crushing storage performance (nothing new there)
- Mis-aligned guest OS disk partitions can also have a large negative impact on storage performance. If you're a Netapp customer you're in luck, they have tools and technology to handle this on their arrays.
- Virtualization monitoring (current project):
- "Incumbent" = vKernel vOPS Server Standard
- Others on the list: VMware vCenter Operations, VMTurbo
- Add Xangati (per discussion in Solutions Exhibit booth)
- End-to-end monitoring:
- SecurActive's Performance Vision = these guys have an intriguing end-to-end monitoring solution. More investigation required, add to the short list.
- Currently looked at eG Innovations, Citrix EdgeSight and Microsoft Operations Manager
- Not many tools do true end-to-end monitoring (or do it well)
- Server-side cache: based on my discussions with HP and Fusion-io in the Solutions Exhibit, this technology is in its very early stage. Fusion-io has a product called ioTurbine but more investigation is needed to determine if it meets our technical and budgetary requirements.
- Vendors continue to push "cloud" and cloud-related products/technologies. In all of my networking, I didn't talk to anyone who was moving full-bore to the cloud and totally embracing it. I thought I would at least run across someone that was doing hybrid cloud but no luck. Obviously there are companies doing this but I found this telling.
So yes, another great conference this year. As previously mentioned, next year will be number 10 for VMworld and I think we're all expecting big things. VMworld returns to San Francisco again next year at the Moscone Center, August 26-29. See you there!
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