Archive for September, 2009

I was quite fortunate to be invited to a private press/analyst cloud event with Paul M. There was just some 50-100 people in the main auditorium. We were told we’re not allowed to live blogging, because there was a press release due directly after the event itself.

Paul M began by outlining the VMware vCloud initiative – where VMware intends to partner with a number of partners such as AT&T and so on. The vCloud initiative was announced about year ago, and in that time more than 1000 service providers have signed up to the program. The emphasis was about choice, and not locking customers into a particular cloud provider.

There’s a raft announcment of various providers launching vCloud services based on vSphere4:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/154601,exclusive-vmware-and-melbourne-it-launch-cloud-service.aspx

http://www.savvis.com/en-US/Services/Hosting/Managed_Compute/Pages/ProjectSpirit.aspx

http://www.von.com/news/verizon-business-launches-cloud-caas.html

http://vcloudexpress.terremark.com/

So get ready for a war between cloud providers – each saying they have better availability, security and so on than their competitors.

Steve Caniano of AT&T, came on stage to tell us about what they are providing. He explained what peoples main worries/concerns are about moving to the cloud including – security and performance SLAs… He outlined how they have been working with EMC’s ATMOS systems to produce a storage-as-a-service system creating a “virtual-private storage cloud”. Erm, basically you access the storage via a VPN connection… To be honest it was hard to see past the PR/Marketing speak like “virtual private storage cloud”

Dino Cicciarelli (VMW, inc) gave us a demo of “Workload Federation”. This was a demo of moving a VM (a workload) from one cloud (datacenter) to another. Essentially, were talking about VMotion from datacenters to datacenters. They set of a ping, and put a workload with a SQL box – and then proceeded to move it between to different ESX hosts in a different datacenters.

Next up was a guy from Savvis showcasing their Project Spirit cloud – he really flagged up his companies drag & drop method for offering different levels of redudency and service levels. It was very much like the AT&T demo earlier. They keep on telling me how important SLA and Security is – without telling me how they achieve that…

Next we had Verizon who launched a new update to their CAAS platform. His emphais was on data protection and data security.

So I began to see a pattern – basically this event – is about getting big companies to come along and endorse VMware’s cloud view of the world. They also lining up to endorse vSphere4 as the underlying platform for their clouds – indirect competition with Amazons EC2 which of course is NOT based on VMware technologies. The other thing they want to flag up was how developers are now beginning to use these environments for creating applications. So that was an excuse to bring up Rod Johnson of SpringSource (remember how they were talking to MS, well they were bought by VMware!). Of course, Johnson’s comments in that previous URL have now been quietly forgotten. Remember he said in July this year:

“I think Spring developers should definitely be able to interoperate with Microsoft technologies, and I think there’s a bunch of stuff that they’re doing in Azure that may be of interest to our community.”

Well, I’m trying to live blog and tweet this morning at the VMworld. I’m gonna save this page, and keep up dating it as worthwhile news dribbles through. Something tells me – that this might end up like an episode of Big Brother! If you onlin refresh this page every couple of minutes to find out what’s been announced…

This years VMworld kicks of with a “Hello Freedom” and a blast of George Michael’s “Freedom” ushered Paul M CEO of VMware to the stage. Anyway, pushing away thoughts of mens lavatories and LAPD uniforms we settled down to a keynote – which much a re-run of what we heard at VMworld Europe.

Paul described the world within we live as being creating “Pillars of Complexity” which really needs to be replaced by the cloud and the “giant computer” that’s essentially repeat of the software mainframe concept that Paul touted in Canne & Vegas last year

Interestingly before Paul entered the stage we discovered that out 1,000 top companies, only 30 don’t use VMware. There’s a competition, that anyone who can get those last 30 customers using VMware, will win a free trip to VMworld next year.

After a brief intro, Paul introduced a guy from IBM – which has a plug-in to show how many Watts were being used by an ESX host. The agument being that – the cost per watt is the true benchmark. The IBM guy was able to show how much power a VM is consumming.  Rather wierdly the guy from IBM said “that we’ve put a lot of energy into reducing power”. But hey, I will let that pass…

Some of the guys noticed that there was a new build being shown. The download site of vSphere is current unavailable, so we are all experting an ESX4.1 build shortly…

After doing this power management demo – Paul brought some VMware staffers into to talk about the new products/updates that plug-in to vCenter. The first being Lab Manager… It was hard to see what was really “new” here, as the demo showed the “linked cloned” feature.

Next Paul M flagged up the new vSphere Foundation Esssentials SKU which starts at $186 per socket package. He dubbed it as the “IT in a box” SKU. He announced the availability of VMware GO (a beta) which allows you to manage the free ESXi system. It’s web based and helps automate the ESXi configuration and installation.

http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/esxi/go

Next Paul M talked about technology they are developing to allow you to move a VM from an internal cloud to an external cloud whilst the management interface remains the same. But once again Paul repeated the “Hotel California” analogy – that you don’t want the cloud to be something you can check a VM into but can’t check it in again. IF you in your mid-20 you probably don’t even know what the “Hotel California” is. Well, its a song by a 70′s band called the Eagles

Anyway, Paul announced an “VMware Virtualized” initiative which is an effort to get cloud providers use VMware Technologies, rather than Xen (which actually is more common)… In addition to this initiative – they want to launch “vCloud Express” – it sounds a little bit like a relaunch on the vCloud concept.

We then a vCloud Express demo. This was a demo with Terramark (which was acquired by VMware this year). Basically, the guy registered and supplied his credit card details. Essentially, its an attempt to take on Amazon EC2. They really flagged up the GOS support is the same as vSphere4 – that’s been an issue with Amazon offering which apparently is limited. They reckon it was cost you about $1 a day.

Paul then moved on to discuss virtual desktops and the View product. Paul were joined on the stage – by a HP guy who introduced his company hardware which will take on Cisco UCS. I wasn’t really sure what this had to with VDI, or whether it was an excuse to give another partner/sponsor to showcase their kit. But then the HP guy showed a HP plug-in vCenter – which would show you HP CIM information. Personally, this kind of integration does vary. Sometime a vendors plug-in adds really add functionality that makes you life easier (like NetApps RCU), but I’m afraid all the HP plug-in is load a web-page of the HP SIM into vCenter – and offer a couple links to the full SIM. It really had NOTHING to do with VDI…

The next guy was from Telus (tell us about Tellus). Where he showed us the beta for View (a beta I didn’t know existed, and can’t get an invite too… apparently there’s not enough resources to make the beta programme any more open. I’m hoping the RC might release more resources to allow me access to the beta programme)… He opened his PowerPoint presentation in a View session – the reason being so he could show the new PCoIP (PC over IP) protocol that VMware has been co-developing with Terridici. It’s pretty good – the only down side I see is – that if your on a WAN you will need to use a SSL VPN with it – because currently its not compatiable with View SSL Security Broker… In a case you don’t PCoIP is a protocol that allows of a PC graphic intensive experience with a remote display – the kind of thing that RDP has failed to do…

Next Paul began to explain the SpringSource acquistion. Basically, they want to put it on their cloud – to allow a developer space. They demo shows how a spring source developer – could right click and choose where to deploy there app – to internal/external cloud.

And that was it. So nothing too radical or shocking – and more or less a restatement of the agenda in Canne… Anyway, here’s a picture of me acting the fool in the bloggers pen:

Well, I’ve actually been here since Saturday afternoon. So its hard to say when my first day was. I have friend who lives in Palo Alto. He’s a fellow Brit who’s been out here since 2001. I think I’ve been across to see Geoff about 5-6 times since he’s been here, the last time being VMworld 2007. We had a few beers at the BBC in Menlo and then something to eat, and then I crashed out. On Sunday we drove into city and went for a walk by the bay near the Golden Gate Bridge, and then over the bridge to check out the Point Bonita Lighthouse on Sausalito.

Anyway, come 4-5pm Geoff drove me back into the city, and dropped me off at the Marriot downtown – I had an hour or so to shit, shower and shave (it’s a North-Eastern expression!) before heading out to the Thirsty Bear for the VMworld Underground Party cum Extravaganza. It was a good event, within seconds I said hi to nearly all the top bloggers and PR people I know thru various VMworld. It was a good idea/starting point getting us all together in one little venue. I was drinking sensibily (ish) and made my move to head back to the hotel for reasonable hour – ready for the VMware Certified Instructor event the next day.

Anyway, when I got to the hotel I decide I was feeling peckish (as you do). So I stopped by the bar to have a snack. Where I’m afraid I order a rather large gin & tonic. Whilst pondering the menu this guy, said “hi Mike”. And from then on I had the most interesting chat I’d had all day (apart from long talk with Geoff about life, work, midlife crisis and the property values of the Bay Area). It turned out I bumped into long standing community member, Datto. Of course for years we exchange helpful hints, advice and knowledge on the forums – but I’d never met the guy. He’s a really interesting fellow. Checking in and out of various IT job whilst in between indulging his real passion (you know feed the soul kinda stuff) for long-distance hiking across the US. Now, let me explain what’s meant by long distance hiking. We talking about 1,000 of miles, often with days with out water or food. You can only set out on these trips if you think the weather-window looks big enough that you won’t die in the process. The nearest I could compare it too – would be like those guys who walk to one of the poles and back. So it was really nice to catch up with someone from the Old Skool. From the early days of virtualization and VMware before everyone jumped on the gravy train (no offense).

So our conversation went back and forwards – from the whole work/life balance – to nitty gritty virtualization discussions. Datto works for a top 100 fortune company – the kind that people like me have never heard about. I won’t drop their name, because frankly I’ve forgotten. And it probably wouldn’t be appropriate to do so anyway. I asked Datto if he’d experience much pressure from the top bods on HyperV and price – and so on. It’s a bit odd because for his company % portion of budget spent on VMware is very small compared to everything else – like 6%. That’s not to say they aren’t a big user, it’s just proportionally it makes up a small part of a very large budget – from what I could gather. So for him its not such a big deal. Of course, no-one seems happy about the Enterprise+ situation. No suprises there. There is pressure in the business to “justify” the spend on VMware. But so long as you prepared to take on the argument, and put your case forward clearly it can be argument that’s relatively easy to win. It’s just that no-one particular likes having to justify everything little darn thing they do – they’d rather just get on and do it.

Anyway, it was about 1am by then – and it was time to hit the hay. I knew I would have to be up by 7.30. Start registering by 8am, to have good chance of grabbing breakfast before starting the VCI day at 9am….

Well, the email FINALLY came thru this afternoon whilst I was sitting on the VMware Certified Instructor (VCI) day – that I passed the VCP4 beta exam. No breakdown of my results. Just an email. It was pretty tense, because if you didn’t get the email, it meant you hadn’t passed. So as I downloaded my email for today there was a faint pitter-pat of heart as I scrolled up!

Not sure what the special prize is. But I think it might be VCP baseball cap and some flashing sunglasses!!!