VMworld 2008 Tuesday Opening Keynote
September 16th, 2008 | 
Author: No table for press as promised, and the wireless connection is spotty so live blogging will be sketchy. I also forgot my Sprint card, DOH!, so this will probably be a delayed post. I will try to update this post every 10 to 15 minutes if I can.
Paul takes the stage and welcomes everyone. He began by discussing a disclaimer on the screen about the forward looking statements he is about to make. He then begins a time line summary of the achievements of VMware and virtualization. I believe he is setting up the new advances and visions he will be discussing today. Paul states that the sum of the parts are greater than the pieces of the virtual infrastructure solutions today which is the same conclusion I came to yesterday during the Sneak Peek Technical Deep Dive session on the VDC-OS post I posted yesterday.
He has now moved on to discussing the Cloud concepts. This is so far following the outline of the talk we heard yesterday at the opening General Session.
The current slide proclaims a new software platform is required. There is a need to grow the current VI and to a collection of formalized services which will be the Virtual Datacenter OS.
- Intel is announcing a new processor chip that will allow you to vmotion between hosts with dissimilar processor families
- Cisco is announcing switched with virtualization aware networking later today
- IBM, Dell, EMC, NetApp, and HP will be announcing virtualization aware storage systems
Paul gets back to his strategic vision and begins talking about applications and application vServices in the VDC-OS. The current concept of virtual appliances to collections of virtual appliances known as vApps.
Moving on to managing the framework of the VDC-OS, VirtualCenter is evolving into vCenter and be able to administrate not only infrastructure but also application deployment and user policy and security.
The discussion turns to Federation with the cloud. This is generally the ability to move traditional datacenter services to externally hosted VDC-OS environments hosted externally by service providers. VMware is establishing a program to certify service providers and identify what services can be provided by each provider.
First Demo is a vCloud Demo
local cloud to off site cloud, automated self healing by applying business polices, and user experience metrics
VA SugarCRM was downloaded from VA Marketplace and dropped into local VI. The policy of the app is an SLA < 4 secs and if the SLA is not met then “burst the app to the cloud.”
On the screen is the new AppSpeed component of vCenter, and a Dashboard view is shown. The AppSpeed component is the result of the B-Hive acquisition by VMware – just in case you were wondering what ever happened to that technology. The dashboard shows the SLA is broken by icons turning red and the dials and graphs indicate a bottleneck. The VA is moved to the vCloud automatically.
Paul begins to talk about the Desktop Dilemma. The main concept to understand here is that the desktops can follow the user, and the user experience is constant no matter what device or what location the user connects from. The user experience, their apps, and their data is tied to the user and not hardware. This is the evolving of VDI to the VMware View concept that was announced today.
Second Demo. USB VM with 3D capabilities
Starts with a thin client connected to VDI as it is known today.
A USB key is used to boot a notebook to a VM. Not sure if the notebook is bare metal or if it has an OS already, but it started as powered off. The Lego Indiana Jones PC game is started up flawlessly. My kids would love it! Who am I kidding? I love it!
Paul discusses a new protocol for VDI from Teradici that was co developed with VMware that will be announced at VMworld 2008.
Paul closes with a question “Will it be moist and chewy?” This is a play at the current Microsoft commercials in the US with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. The answer is “yes” and will be expanded on in tomorrow’s keynote.
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