Technology of Business & Business of Technology: Cloud, Virtualization, Post-PC Era

I’m still getting a few requests for a recap of VMworld.  Below is a modified version of a private email newsletter I create for my clients and posting here for all the recap requestors…

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Last week more than 21,000 people attended VMworld 2012 in San Francisco. Nearly half of those people took one of the 11,300+ hands on labs that were delivered (over 125,000 VMs were deployed in the Hands On Labs over the four and half days of the show). Continuing the trend of past VMworlds, last week was an huge success and continued to expand on the VMworld vibe that many find unique among tech conferences.

This edition of the newsletter provides a recap of VMworld.

VMworld Replays and Recaps

• VMworld Monday General Session - VMware CEO Paul Maritz > Pat Gelsinger; vSphere; vCloud Suite (1h 30m)
• VMworld Tuesday General Session - VMware CTO Steve Herrod; Horizon Suite; VMware Partners (1h 17m)
• Day 1 Recap
• Day 2 Recap
• Day 3 Recap
• VMworld TV highlights, theCube, sessions, and interviews from the show
• VMware Community TV Video Library of VMTN and vBrownBags Tech Talks from VMworld
• Top 10 Most Popular Sessions from VMworld 2012 (available for replay now!)

Photos from VMworld

Sad to announce that the few hours I spent at the actual show I didn’t have my camera with…luckily others did:

• Browse the VMworld photos shared on social media by attendees
• Viktor van den Berg has posted a great set of Panorama photos he took at VMworld

VMworld Key Announcements

Bye Bye vRAM
The biggest announcement from VMworld (ranked by pure audience applause) was the changing of vSphere licensing back to CPU only.  Our customers spoke and we listened, no more vRAM!

Hello vCloud Suite
The second biggest announcement was the introduction of the vCloud Suite and new versions for a number of the Suite components.  Net Net, the vCloud Suite is an integrated solution for building and managing a complete cloud infrastructure fulfills the promise of the software-defined data center. vCloud Suite components include:

• vSphere 5.1 (new version, release notes)
  • vSphere Replication 5.1 (release notes)
  • vCenter Update Manager 5.1 (release notes)
  • vCenter Orchestrator 5.1 (release notes)
  • vSphere Storage Appliances 5.1 (release notes)
  • vSphere Data Protection 5.1 (release notes)
• vCloud Director 5.1 (new version, release notes)
• vCloud Connector
• vCloud Networking and Security 5.1 (new version, release notes)
• vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1 (new version, release notes)
• vCenter Operations Management Suite
• vFabric Application Director

vCloud Suite is avaiable in Three Editions: Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise to provide increasing functionality based on a user’s requirements. Following in the footsteps of vSphere, the vCloud Suite Editions are licensed based on the physical CPUs upon which will be running vCloud Suite. Existing VMware customers can also upgrade from their current products to vCloud Suite under the newly announced Fair Value Conversion Program.

Here is a list of PDF Whitepapers that were released as part of the Suite announcement

• What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Platform
• What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Networking
• What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Storage
• What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Performance
• What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – VMware vCenter Server
• What’s New in VMware vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1
• What’s New with VMware vCloud Director 5.1
• VMware vCloud Networking and Security Overview
• Introduction to VMware vSphere Replication
• Introduction to VMware vSphere Data Protection

vCloud Suite Components a la carte
All the components of vCloud Suite are still available individually (a la carte).  The licensing for the individual compenents has not changed, they are still licensed by VM, not by CPU.

Evolution of vCenter Server
As part of vSphere 5.1 release that was announced at VMworld, vCenter Server 5.1 is a major evolution. This release is the first to have a fully functional web based UI and Linux virtual appliance based service architecture.  Going forward, the single sign-on infrastructure of vCenter Server will converge with other VMware web UIs.  The classic Windows vCenter Server is also available in vSphere 5.1.

Preview of Horizon Suite
Horizon Suite is a platform to make it easier for administrators to both manage the challenges associated with mobility, cloud, and employee BYOD while also providing the most productive and enjoyable computing experience on the devices internal customers choose.  Horizon Suite brings together:

• VMware View
• VMware Mirage (Wanova Mirage)
• VMware ThinApp
• VMware Horizon Application Manager
• VMware Horizon Mobile
• VMware Horizon Data (Project Octopus)
• Project AppBlast
• Support select 3rd Party end user computing solutions

The beta version of Horizon Suite is expected to be available in Q4 2012

Additional VMworld ReCaps

I found these other blog posts to be wonderful recaps of the show:

• Chad Sakac’s VMworld 2012: Top 5 Wrap and Summary
• Jason Boche’s VMworld 2012 Announcements – Part 1
• VMworld 2012: vOdgeball 2012 Recap (video of this community event to support Wounded Warrior Project)

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