My appologese for the delay with this post, things have been a little manic since I got back from VMworld Europe, I have previously blogged about my experience of the first 3 days at VMworld Europe. The 4th and final day for me started with Paul Maritz’s keynote.
The keynote started with three of VMware’s customers presenting their uses of VMware’s products, first on stage were Ducati talking about their server virtualisation, Ducati are now approximatly 97% virtualised and all ontop of VMware.
Next on stage were NYSE Euronet, describing how they were building a private Cloud for their customers, the cloud that they are builing uses a dedicated worldwide network for their industry and doesnt touch the internet.
The final customer on stage was SAP, SAP started virtualising some 10 years ago, they now have over 25,000 virtual machines and 1000 ESX hosts. Over 80% of new server are built as VM’s (I wonder what the restriction is that stops this being nearer 100%?)
Next on stage it was Paul Maritz, Paul took us on a journey throigh the cloud era, starting with the mainframe. Paul’s first job in the IT indusrty was working with a mainframe in London.
Paul went on to explain how VMware are working on a complete suite for operational effciency at the infrastructure level, they have a product in every area now and are working on maturing these products as we have seen through VMworld.
Finally Paul talked about the reveloution of the end user, explaining that the consumer industry was now dictating the devices that users hold in their hands and now business. VMware are working towards any application, any device, anywhere, anytime.
I enjoyed the keynote and although a lot of it had been heard before in some form it is always good to hear it in person from the industry leaders.
The most of the remainder of my day was spent in the labs and Solution Exchange.
The first lab I sat was building a hybrid cloud, this was a really good insight for me into vCloud Director and how it is working behind the scenes.
Next was deploying vCloud Director with Nexus 1000V, for me I looked to take this lab to get some experience with the Nexus 1000V to which I wasnt disappointed, although it has highlighted that I want to get this setup from scratch in my home lab. The lab didn’t start from scratch, in that aspect the 1000V was already installed.
Next I wanted to sit one of the labs that was completly out of my comfort zone, so I chose Exploring your core email and collaboration services migration, this lab covered migrating users from Exchange to Zimbra, I have never been heavily involved with Exchange (More Domino in the past) so this was really a completly new topic for me, I was pleased to see how easy it was to migrate from Exchange to Zimbra with the built in tools. It was also a good oppertunutity for me to have a look around Zimbra and I wasnt disapointed, I will be interested to find out more about Zimbra in my home lab.
My final lab before the labs closed was controlling SaaS and Web Application with Secure Access to Your Cloud Applications, this covered Horizon App Manager amongst other techniques, having sat this lab I cant wait for Horizon App Manager to be avaialable in the UK, it was a very easy way to be able to manage the distribution of your ThinApp packages and integration with SaaS providors for single sign on is growing to be a must have service for business.
Once the labs were closed I spent the remainder of the afternoon in the solution Exchange visiting vendors I hadn’t spoken too and speaking to various people on the VMware stand about vSphere 5, View and the new products coming from the Shavlik aqcuasition.
This bought to an end my first ever VMworld experience and I thoughly enjoyed it, I didnt get to attend as many sessions as I would have liked but I will look forward to catching up what I have missed out on when the sessions are available. Copenhagen was a fantastic location for VMworld and I hope I get to attend next year in Barcelona. I feel in my possition within a reseller being part of leading my company in the right direction and speaking to my customers about the benefits of the various products and what is happening in the industry this event is a must.
My main role post VMworld is to research the technologies that impressed me, ensure that what I learned during VMworld is put to use not just by myself but my other collegues. My company is hosting a number of customer seminars and my role is to present what happened at VMworld and what direction VMware are heading in as well as building a mobile enviroment to support the seminar on tour.
I will leave you with a few photos I took from my journey to Copenhagen for VMworld Europe 2011
Virtualised Reality 