VMworld Has Become A Big-League Show

Even though there wasn’t what anyone could describe as blockbuster news at VMworld 2012, there were a large number of smaller news items – mostly involving new products – introduced at the show. In addition, several key industry partnerships were announced that will result in other new products in the future.

One lasting impression for many people, however, is that VMworld clearly has confirmed itself as being among the top dozen or so most important IT conferences in the world, taking its place alongside such various events as the International Computer Electronics Show, SxSW, CTIA, CeBIT, Oracle OpenWorld, DreamForce, Web 2.0, Structure and a handful of others.

Software defined data centres arrive

Another takeaway is that so-called “software-defined networking” and “software-defined data centres” now are official buzzwords in the lingo, thanks largely to VMworld. These are not new concepts. However, they are relevant because such a large worldwide audience – in person and online – talked about them at the same time.

As long as virtualisation deployments continue to multiply in data centres around the globe, VMworld will continue to be a top-drawer event. This is Ground Zero for learning about the next-generation data centre, and the industry knows it.

VMware itself brought forth a number of new and/or improved products, including vCloud Suite 5.1, which is a bundled package of applications that combines control of – and automates – data flow, storage pooling and automation inside virtualised data centres and distributed IT systems.

It may be simply a point version of an existing platform, but it’s an important point version because it gives the world’s largest virtualisation software provider a lot more gravitas in this new-gen networking.

The software-defined data centre architecture abstracts all hardware resources and pools them into aggregate capacity, enabling automation to safely and efficiently dole it out as needed for applications. Tenants or customers using the software-defined data centre can have their own virtual data centres with a logically isolated collection of all the virtual compute, storage, networking and security resources they need to operate.

VMware vCloud Suite is a free upgrade for users with an Enterprise Plus vSphere license.

Big buddies with Cisco

Also in the SDN genre, Cisco and VMware jointly announced an expanded partnership for software-defined data centres that will include integrating Cisco’s flagship line of Nexus 1000V switches into VMware’s vSphere 5.1 suite. The two will also co-develop Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)-based cloud systems that bundle vSphere 5.1 and vCloud 5.1 with Cisco-made switch, firewall and router products.

This is an addendum to the two companies’ deal on the UCS system, which they launched with EMC in 2009.

Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, demonstrated recently released virtualisation software products that the company said simplify, automate and secure the movement of virtual machines (VMs) and data in cloud data centres.

“Simplify is a key part of the HP strategy to deliver software-defined networking,” said Bethany Mayer, senior vice president and general manager of HP’s networking division, in contrast to what she described as the inherent complexity of a Cisco network.

VMware, which hasn’t done a lot of work in the open-source area, is fixing that by joining the open-source OpenStack Foundation. The OpenStack Foundation is an industry consortium that aims to provide tools for IT departments to virtualise their data centres and move services into public, private or hybrid cloud deployments.

Dell Wyse joins the party

This was the first event that Dell and its recent acquisition, longtime partner and virtual desktop and thin-client maker Wyse Technology, attended as a single entity. Dell Wyse launched Dell Cloud Client Computing as a public beta of Project Stratus.

EMC, mothership of VMware, demonstrated its big iron-type storage hardware alongside protégé VCE, which is marketing the pre-configured EMC-Cisco-VMware vBlock data centre units.

NetApp announced that it has optimised its popular Data ONTAP storage operating system to run on VMware vSphere 5.1. Users now can download OnCommand Systems Manager and the Virtual Storage Console plug-in for VMware vCenter Server.

Symantec and VMware are now offering so-called virtualisation “integration with purpose,” which means it has made available reference architectures for various verticals, such as health care, education, retail and financial services.

It’s not as if nothing else has a purpose here; it’s just that Symantec and VMware cared enough to name it.

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