VMworld 2012: Top 5 Wrap and Summary

Phew – another VMworld done!

Here are my Top 5 observations:

1. There’s no community in IT that beats the VMware community.  People are passionate about VMware.   So long as VMware keeps innovating, keep providing value, and keep open and transparent – I don’t see that changing, even with VMware now being an 800lb gorilla in IT.   That passion, that community comes out at VMUGs, at v0dgeball, at the vmunderground, vbeers, in the sessions, in the hang out section, in the vExpert meeting and much, much more.   I don’t know if it’s just me – but VMworld has a very different vibe than other conferences – and I think it flows from that.
2. Classy transition from Paul to Pat.   Not surprised that it was well done – but these transitions are replete with risk.   While the proof is in the pudding – the timing is good, IMO.  Paul reset the strategic path for VMware, and the course he set has been the right one for both today and tomorrow.  Now, he will be in a position to guide the larger integrated VMware/EMC strategy in his new role.   Pat is an engineer’s engineer.   that doesn’t mean Pat isn’t  strategic, but rather he is an execution machine – and demands the best from the team around him.   With the strategic course set, I know of no other executive better to lead the next era (which will demand phenomenal execution) at VMware.
3. Embrace of Openstack.  Between the vCenter management stack opening up, Dynamic Ops and Nicira, and of course, VMware joining the OpenStack community – it reflects a recognition that the OpenStack movement has juice, and merit – particularly in the Service Provider community.   It’s not just VMware, but also EMC that is embracing OpenStack.  Stay tuned for more.
4. Innovation in compute, storage, networking stack continues unabated.  While true that vSphere 5.1 is a “tock” in the “tick/tock” major/minor release cadence for VMware – there’s a LOT in there (not quite GA yet, but very soon).   For me, beyond the usual “bigger/stronger/faster” march of vm hardware version 8, the standouts are:
   • The new web client.  This simplifies things, and also makes all the platform stuff much easier.   Yup, it breaks all the vCenter plugins (see my post below), but is the right direction.   I think it’s also worth pointing out that it’s no coincidence that vCenter and vCloud Director look very similar now, and are bundled.  Expect these to merge in the future as vCenter continues to get re-architected.
   • Enhanced vMotion (which loses the shared storage dependency – I suspect this will be a big deal, particularly when VM HA also loses the dependency)
   • Changes in vmtools that makes future updates to vmtools non disruptive. Sounds like a nit, I suspect that others share the opinion that this could be a big deal.
   • VXLAN moving from “tech preview” into GA.   This is the big one amongst a ton of native networking upgrades/scaling/improvements (heck, vDS backup/restore is a biggie!).    Between this and Nicira – it’s no surprise to see so much startup action in this space.
   • When it comes to storage, there are two parts to my observations – “Today” and “Tomorrow”.   “Today”: Storage DRS support for Linked Clones makes SDRS and things like vCloud Director possible; VAAI NFS assists continues the march of storage array assist… but the bigger story is about “Tomorrow”.   Tech previews of vFlash (use of local SSDs/Flash as a VM accelerator), vSAN (use of local disk for shared storage at scale) and VM Granular Storage (aka vVols or Virtual Volumes) show how serious VMware is about innovating and disrupting the storage market.   Like observation #4 about networking – all these disruptions, along with the disruptive wave of flash on the storage market make for exciting times, and a place where startup action is hot!   I can highlight that EMC is embracing all this change – as you can see from some of the stuff I link to below.
5. Recognition of changing competitive landscape for VMware.  VMware going back to the straight up socket based pricing model (vs. the foray into memory-gated vRAM models) was widely celebrated.   I’ll be honest, I actually liked the vRAM model – but I think I was in the minority.   It takes courage to listen and respond to the customers.   Add to that the new model where the vCloud Suite includes vCloud Director and vCenter Operations – and free upgrades for customers who licensed vSphere Enterprise Plus – and it’s a pretty compelling package.   If you ask me, this is a reflection of VMware moving into a phase where there are legitimate competitors for VMware – primarily Hyper-V.  That’s not to say that VMware isn’t the best – I think it is.   But like EMC ourselves, VMware operates in a competitive environment where customers have choice.   Listening to your customers is always a good idea… When there is competition – it’s mandatory.  

A great memory for me of VMworld 2012 San Francisco will be the “Reserved for Chad Sakac” stickers someone (I still don’t know who) were put up all over the city and Moscone.  While clearly a “short gag” (which makes me laugh – after all, I was the one who joked that I got into blogging “as a massive Napoleonic ego trip” but the short thing does get tiresome) – I’m going to choose to think of it more along the lines of a fan club than a stalker :-)   Of all the pictures – this one remains my favorite – Vaughn right before v0dgeball.

Onto VMworld Barcelona in Oct!

Here is an “easy link summary” of the 14 posts I put up over the last week so they are there in a nice single post.

1. VMworld 2012- EMC and Cisco VSPEX CVDs, Vblock and more (new Cisco Validated Designs, observations about VCE)
2. VMworld 2012- v0dgeball! (pictures, videos of a great competitive event $13K raised for the Wounded Warrior Project, with loads of competitive vendor steam blown off)
3. VMworld 2012- SPO3338 Color and Content (an expose of all the things EMC is doing re the “software defined datacenter” and the mid-to-long impact to storage and backup architectures)
4. VMworld 2012- BCO2982 Color and Content (a joint EMC/NetApp session with Vaughn Stewart on Stretched Clusters and SRM) 
5. VMworld 2012- STO2980 Color and Content (a joint EMC/NetApp session with Vaughn Stewart on Storage Best Practices – voted in the top 10 VMworld sessions)
6. VMworld 2012- VMware + EMC Storage–the best gets better (an update of all the latest coolness around vSphere 5.1 and EMC VNX – and there’s plenty)
7. VMworld 2012- vCenter Orchestrator and EMC VNX (showing how EMC Storage Integrator can make vCenter Orchestrator automate EMC storage platforms)
8. VMworld 2012- EMC VSI.Next (Flex) (the new web client breaks all 3rd party plugins – this is a preview of the future FLEX-based EMC Virtual Storage Integrator plugin)
9. VMworld 2012- vCenter Operations, EMC Storage Analytics, and more… (EMC and VMware have put a ton of effort into vCenter Operations, including embedding VNX and VMAX connectors in the GA versions of vCenter Operations Enterprise Edition, and creating a version designed to be included with EMC VNX arrays called Storage Analytics – this covers this in detail)
10. VMworld 2012- … and a little more on “Project X” (XtremIO blew people’s minds at VMworld – and IMO smokes all the other “all flash array” options out there with performance, scale out, inline dedupe, rich data services and more)
11. VMworld 2012- Flash, Flash, everywhere! (VFCache 1.5 update, observations about the disruption flash is having on the marketplace)
12. VMworld 2012- VM Granular storage–what we’re working on… (this idea was discussed briefly at VMworld 2011, and more this year – if indeed VMware, EMC and the other storage partners can make this real – it has the potential to transform the model of storage in vSphere.future releases).
13. VMworld 2012- VDP– A 2 year secret project comes to life… (what do you get when you integrate the best VMware backup solution directly into vSphere 5.1?  A killer solution for SMB customers, and acceleration of innovation – check it out here)
14. VMworld 2012- What does SDDC mean for Storage- (SDDC is the “mega trend” of value moving up into software stacks, policy control moving up from infrastructure, and a new wave of disruptive innovation at the physical layer.   It hit servers.   It’s now hitting networking.   Storage is no exception – this post observes what I think about that)

Comments

[Robert]

The captions for VMworld item links 4 & 5 are reversed.

[Chad Sakac]

Thanks - fixed!