vSphere 6 – epic on every level

Huge news today at VMware PEX - and I don't want to re-iterate all, but want to quickly hit it for readers :-)

• "Godzilla VM" scaling (128 vCPU, 4TB vRAM).  Why it matters: with each release, VMware just keeps moving the bar up, and eliminating corner cases.  
• Multi-vCPU Fault Tolerance.   Why it matters: FT has always been awesome, but the restriction to 1 vCPU limited use in the past - and that just changed.   The ability to make any app (with no app changes) able to withstand total server failure is compelling.   When you can do it in the app stack - great. but there are many platform 2 apps that just aren't going to get re-written.
• Vmotion anywhere.   Why it matters: Vmotion was the feature that made people everywhere sit up and take notice.   It changed the way people looked at infrastructure - and while people didn't see it at first, it enabled different operational models.  It was incredibly powerful, even with the limits of distance, shared storage etc.   By stretching these boundaries to 100ms RTT and loosening the storage requirements - there is a whole expanded set of new use cases.
• VMware Integrated Openstack (VIO).    Why it matters: VMware just moved the ball down the field for customers that are happy VMware customers, but want to use some Openstack and surface the Openstack APIs.   Deploying Openstack isn't easy, and if VMware can make it easier - that's a good thing.  The genius of making it FREE for paying vSphere Enterprise Plus customers is also a great move, IMO.    A solid 3rd party blog on the topic here. 
• VSAN 6.0.   Why it matters: VSAN getting AFA support and native snapshot functions (via integration of the Virsto IP for the next-gen on-disk structure) broaden's VSAN use cases by a long shot (and great to also see 64 node cluster support arrive).   I know the VSAN team and respect them a great deal - they are just getting started!    BTW - there's no weirdness here from my viewpoint: if you want SDS primary storage, your choices are great - if you want VMware-embedded and VMware-only, VSAN rocks.   Conversely, if you want SDS open to different use cases (including VMware) and host types (but by definition less integrated), ScaleIO rocks.
• VVOL.  Why it matters - we've been talking for a while about VVOLs (read here for my recent update), it's here.  It's great to see such broad industry support.   I'm reluctant to over-hype it based on my VAAI experience. VVOLs will take time to deploy into the enterprise, and each of the storage vendors to harden all of our collective implementations, but I'm VERY bullish over the longer term.
• vCloud Air Hybrid Networking Services.   Why it matters: the ability to easily bridge the on-premise vSphere environment and vCloud Air is POTENT.   For workloads that don't have higher-level elasticity, bringing these networks together without what was needed in the past (very specific hardware/software, and done and planned for each specific customer, or more klunky VPN like approaches) - well, it's a big deal.

Congrats to my VMware friends and colleagues.   GREAT stuff!!!

Comments

[Lee]

Don't forget about Instant Clones (10x than current) which will be awesome for dev/test environments!