VMworld_2013

 

 

This post is a recollection of the general session at Tuesday. If you missed the VMworld Europe 2013 general session you can watch it later at VMware Now, http://www.vmware.com/now

Maurizio Carli, Senior Vice President and General Manager EMEA, opened the general session with history about the company and some figures:

More than 8.500 attendees this year at VMworld Europe 2013
2008: first VMworld Europe (Cannes, France)
Maurizio talked about the journey we are in right now.

After Marizion Pat Gelsinger takes the stage:

First we were in the mainframe age, central computing, central processing. After that we were in the client-server era.
Now it is the challenge to liberate resources from the client-server world.

Today a large portion of the total IT budget is spent on ‘keeping the lights on’. Less than 30% is spent on IT innovation
The infrastructure is brittle, management is hard

Luckily amongst VMware customers this percentage is somewhat better: 40% of the IT budget is spent on innovation
The goal is at least 50/50 for IT as a Service. When more money is being spent on innovation business can be more agile and competitive.

There are millions of apps, each with their own, unique, requirements.

Who will lead the mobile-cloud Era? You
A lot of comparisons were made between IT admins and: Gods, ninjas, full fighters, but eventually we see ourselves as champions. We conquer challenges on a daily basis.
And let’s not forget who the people are for we do it all: The end users, IT’s most demanding customers.

Next Sanjay Poonen is invited on stage. Sanjay is the Executive vice president & General Manager End-user Computing at VMware.
Sanjay makes a remark to the ‘cult-like following’ of the people working with VMware products.

The thing we all want is a virtual workspace, any place, any time, any device. The challenge is, as always, the end user freedom vs IT control.

What the enduser wants is:
consistent access
personal vs work data
choice
eventually ‘work and life balanced’

What IT wants is:
fully automated
policy driven
centrally managed

Sanjay makes a short comment about the VMware Horizon View 5.3 announcement.

Breakthrough innovations:
performance
management
cost reduction
OpEx Predictability

One of the most important quests the coming year is to make the cost of VDI the same or lower than the cost of a laptop.
VMware bought a company Desktone, which delivers a Desktop-as-a-Service platform.
from the press release:
“Desktone is a leader in desktop-as-a-service and has a complete and proven blueprint for enabling service providers to deliver DaaS,” said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware. “By bringing Desktone’s innovative platform in house, VMware can accelerate the delivery of DaaS through its network of over 11,000 VMware service provider partners while helping to shape and lead the future of the industry.”

Check the press release for more information: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-euc-daas-10-15-13

VMware focusses on three areas:

  • Software Defined DataCenter
  • end-user computing
  • hybrid cloud

The software defined datacenter is built on four components:

  • compute
  • network
  • storage
  • management

3 imperatives for IT infra:

1: virtualization extends to ALL of IT

2: it management gives way to automation

3 compatible hybrid cloud is ubiquitous

Things to do to virtualize ALL of IT:

  • expand virtual compute to all apps
  • transform storage by aligning it with app demands
  • virtualize the network for speed and efficiency
  • management tools give way to automation
    (Next up: virtualization of networking, transforming the next layer of the datacenter)

The infrastructure is for traditional apps as well as next-gen apps

  • vSphere as computing platform
  • Extending the platform to be programmable + policy based

Next Thierry Breton, Atos, was invited on-stage.

Thierry told about the internal eradication of e-mail and replacing it by social media solutions.
In the end it isn’t about the technology, but about changing companies to invent the future

Pat gave us some extra things about vSphere 5.5

  • expanding virtualing compute to all apps – taking advantage of virtualization
  • mission critical apps -> 2x
  • app-aware high availability
  • big data extensions ‘ physical hadoop no more’

Now Apps (heart) VMware

Clound Foundry:

  • developer agility on reliable infrastruture
  • the leading hybrid PaaS
  • early access program available now
  • GA before end of the week

now even more apps (heart) VMware

Some storage related items:

  • simplified operating model for storage
  • policy driven control plane
  • application-centric data service like de-dupe, snaps, replication , caching, bck-up, encryption
  • virtual dataplane
  • converged infrastructure pool -> announcing vmware virtual san
  • extends the hypervisor to the storage
  • use case, vdi, branch offices

Other announcements:
data protection advanced 5.5, with 1/4 storage space need, restore 6x faster
vSAN GA 1st half 2014 (now in public beta)
virtual volumes (vVol): tech preview, partner demos
vSphere flash read cache, already in vSphere 5.5
Virtsto write cache, data svcs, now available

According to Pat the most important topic for today is to virtualize the network for speed and efficiency.

Pat introduces  Martin Casado – Chief Technology Officer Networking at VMware

The challenges with networking from a virtualization perspective

  • provisioning is slow
  • hardware dependent
  • operationally intensive

The solution: Networking Virtualization
VMware NSX is the networking virtualization platform. It will change the model and flexibility of the networking.

To put it in a nutshell: What VMware ESX is to server virtualization what VMware NSX is to network virtualization. NSX does the same things as ESX, like rapid deployment, snapshotting, etc. without physical space, recabling.

why now? In 2010 the crossover between VM and physical servers happened. More virtual servers were commissioned than physical servers.
Last year the total number of virtual network ports exceeded that of the number of physical ports, so again an important crossover.

A number of large companies are already busy with NSX, like Citi, eBay and GE.

The VMware NSX Platform is GA as we speak.

 

Some announcements from the automation/management front:

Cloud Automomation: vCloud Automation Center 6.0
Cloud operations: VMware vCenter Operations Management 5.8, vCenter Log Insight 1.5
Cloud business: IT business 8.0 suite, IT business management suite 1.0

three monitoring pillars:

  • storage analytics (out of the box storage analytics from vCenter Operations)
  • log analytics
  • application health monitor

VMware is fully committed to managing heterogeneous environments, from physical workloads, vSphere and cloud providers
IDC named VMware #1 in cloud management

Pat sets the definition from a VMware perspective for the hybrid cloud: seamless extension of your on-premise IT infrastructure
existing & new apps with common management, common networking and common support

After all the announcements Bill Fathers,senior VP & general manager vCloud Hybrid Service, takes the stage.
Bill showed some big customers for the vCloud Hybrid service that can extend your on-premise platform to the cloud when you need it.
One of them was Harley-Davidson Dealer Systems. Because of the vCloud Hybrid Service they shaved of couple of months of their project timeline for implementation of a new web frontend for the dealers.

Bill also gave some Europe specific announcements for the vCloud Hybrid Service, since Europe has specific demands on legal and privacy .

  • First location in Europe -> UK
  • beta program in november in Europe
  • Desktop-as-a-Service beta in november
  • application marketplace now available

Pat ends the general session with:

you are poised to rewire the world…. again