After a busy week at VMware Explore 2022, we wanted to reflect on our week. We discuss our experience of being back at live events, what sessions we enjoyed, what we have learnt and of course the key take aways.
Check out our video below to hear our final thoughts.
My second day of VMware Explore was just as jam-packed as day one. I started the day by attending the Microsoft Keynote, hosted by Jeff Woolsey.
Jeff discussed how over the past two years, we have gone through unprecedented change and how this has shifted our focus and objectives as an industry. One message that resonated with me and reflected what VMware presented in the general session, is the message around a cloud smart strategy. Jeff discussed how it is unrealistic to believe that we will have all apps and data in the public cloud, but actually the reality is that we will use hybrid & multi-cloud.
The two key technologies discussed in the session were Azure VMware Solution (AVS) and Azure Arc for vSphere.
Azure VMware Solution
Jeff discussed how AVS allows you to run a vSphere environment within Azure. Therefore, you are able to use the familiar VMware infrastructure you know (and love), within the cloud. Throughout the session, Jeff discussed different use cases where AVS can be extremely beneficial.
The first use case was for organisations that want to migrate their workloads to Azure with simplicity and ease. This may be good for people that are starting their cloud journey or that need to move their workloads to the cloud quickly. The most important factor that Jeff stated and emphasised was that with any move to the cloud, it should always be planned correctly. This resonated with the ‘cloud smart’ message from VMware.
The second use case was to be used for Disaster Recovery. With AVS, you are able to replicate your vSphere workloads on-premises to Azure.
Azure Arc
Azure Arc simplifies governance and management by delivering a consistent multi-cloud and on-premises management platform. Arc allows you to configure, manage and secure your environments regardless of where they are located.
Jeff discussed how this technology is able to save organisations time and resource as it is all centrally managed, allowing teams more time to innovate. We also saw a customer case study from Greggs. It was interesting to hear first-hand how this food chain was using Azure Arc to free up their time to be able to innovate and plan for the future.
It was great to learn more about these technologies and ultimately, it was great to see how Microsoft and VMware are coming together to give customers the best experience, regardless of the technology they use.
vSphere 8 updates
Following this session, I attended the overflowing vSphere 8 session to learn more about the new innovations and features that are introduced with vSphere 8. There was lots covered so I have summarised the key announcements:
vSphere 8 introduces a cloud consumption interface bringing self-service access to IaaS
vSphere 8 builds a flexible and open ecosystem of DPU solutions
vSphere 8 supports higher complexity AI & ML workloads
vSphere 8 allows you to monitor your workload power consumption so that you can make sustainable adjustments where necessary
In the afternoon, I took the time to explore the expo floor. It was good to learn more about what VMware partners are doing to innovate and ultimately help their customers. There was a lot to learn about the new products from partners and some great conversations about the industry. In my opinion, this is a key element that we miss at virtual events and is great to be able to immerse myself in the industry again.
And lastly, as always, it was great to attend the VMware party. This year, the band was Simple Minds, who put on a great show and of course it was great to catch up with more of the community. I am looking forward to the last day today and learning even more!
Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BizTechMeg to keep up with my live snapshots, short vlogs and more throughout the event!
The general session is always a favourite of mine at VMware Explore because it gives such great insight into what the vision of VMware is, what the focus is for the organisation and of course, there is always some great announcements thrown in for good measure.
Check out the video below to hear my thoughts and what my key take aways were from the session this year.
Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BizTechMeg to keep up with my live snapshots, short vlogs and more throughout the event!
Here is my doodle from today's VMware’s Cloud event. Great content shared and good to see further maturity in VMware ‘s approach to the cloud.
Key elements
VMware Cloud allows you to run traditional and modern applications in a standardised way across on-premises and public clouds
With Tanzu developers can leverage a native set of APIs irrespective of the cloud where the application will run
With Tanzu and vCloud Foundation you get a true Dev Sec Ops approach with intrinsic security and operations considered as part of the development process and not as an afterthought
New VMware Cloud Universal licensing gives you a flexible way based upon credits to consume VMware Cloud irrespective of where you run the workloads, On-Premises or in AWS
With VMware Cloud Universal you also get access to the Success 360 program for full support with your transformation journey as well as Cloud Console to centrally manage your licensing and monitor your workloads with vRealize integration
You are able to watch the presentation back for yourself on the Storage Field Day website
MinIO Presents at Storage Field Day 21 - Tech Field Day
Yesterday VMware released a slew of new products focused on delivering modern applications, alongside virtual applications on any cloud. vSphere 7 has been completely rearchiteced with Kubernetes at its heart, enabled vSphere in conjunction with VMware Cloud Foundation 4 to run all of your applications across any cloud, on-premises or major public clouds.
You can watch the announcements here
I spent the day with the fantastic Paul Wynne at the Dell Customer Solution Center in Limerick Ireland. The trip was planned as a training exercise for some of the members of my team but as ever the trip was really informative and it was great to see the latest new technologies and business solutions available from Dell. During our visit we covered both VMware SDDC solutions and how VxRail interacts and enhances these capabilities, we visited the innovation center looking at the business aligned IoT solutions and much more.
My sketchnote below covers Bear Grylls inspirational presentation from VMworld 2019 in Barcelona
VMworld is taking place in San Francisco, California this week, here are my thoughts from Mondays general session by VMware’s CEO Pat Gelsinger and COO Sanjay Poonen.
The initial general session of VMworld 2019 was used to further build upon the delivery of VMware’s vision of Any Cloud, Any Application, Any Device with Intrinsic Security. We saw big announcements and updates in terms of Any Cloud, Any Application, and Intrinsic Security but maybe short of details regarding the traditonal EUC business in the initial general session.
Further commentary to come shortly at DefineTomorrow.co.uk
Today we saw three major announcements from Dell at Dell Technologies World which is taking place at the Venitian Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. All of today’s announcements focused on their relationship with VMware under the heading "better together". Whilst VMware remains a separate company they are increasingly working closely with Dell On joint solutions. Michael Dell emphasised that this special relationship gives them key differentiation to the competition.
Please see my video covering these announcements and my doodles from the day below.
Read about my thoughts on todays announcements in Define Tomorrow >> https://www.definetomorrow.co.uk/blog/2019/4/30/dell-technologies-world-2019-day-1-announcments
Earlier this year VMware and Okta announced a partnership to integrate each others products to unify the user context with the device context provided by Okta and VMware Workspace ONE. At VMworld 2018 in Barcelona I sat the session regarding the use of their products to drive a zero trust approach but to enable the users with passwordless experience.
One of my focuses at VMworld 2018 in Barcelona was to look further into IoT technologies and their impact on business and IT infrastructure as well as getting a better understanding of both VMware Pulse and VMware Edge compute solutions.
See my doodle below with some of my notes from the sessions I attended.
The second general session at VMworld 2018 in Barcelona focused on great conversations with VMware customers who have been using VMware technologies to meet their business needs. Most importantly their was an inspiring theme of how technology can and should be used for good. Martha Lane Fox founder of LastMinute.com closed the general session with the inspirational story of her life founding lastminute.com at 25 during the dot com boom before being involved in a life changing crash that involved her spending 2 years in hospital. Martha now dedicates her time to technology projects where she can drive change for good.
My doodle is below.
You can watch this general session at the following link => https://www.vmworld.com/en/europe/learning/general-sessions.html
The digital workspace keynote was one of my favourite sessions of VMworld 2018, Shawn Bass (VMware EUC CTO) and team demonstrated their modern management approach across heterogeneous devices as well as demonstrating the user focused experiences of mobile flow and the new Workspace ONE intelligent hub. Finally with Workspace ONE intelligence IT are able to be empowered with the intelligent information around the applications and devices to deliver amazing user focused support.
Please see my doodle below
The first general session at VMworld 2018 covered every aspect of VMware’s execution of their vision, from the application to the device on any cloud and most importantly with intrinsic security.
My doodle live from the general session is below
You can watch this general session back at the following link =>
https://www.vmworld.com/en/europe/learning/general-sessions.html
VMware CTO for EMEA Joe Baguley delivered the general session at VMware Empower in Vienna, he spoke about the need for change, VMware Cloud on AWS, edge computing, NSX, everything aaS and much more.
Sebastian Krueger of VMware presented at Empower in Vienna the ability of Workspace ONE to fully manage Windows 10 in a truely modern way with enhanced flexibility and mobility of the end user devices
The doodle below is from the Transforming networking and security session by VMware’s Piotr Jablonski
