Today is really about: –

1. Sessions
2. Solutions Exchange
3. VMUG Leader Lunch
4. Booth Time in the Solutions Exchange.

Sessions

NET2745 vSphere Distributed Switch: Technical Deep Dive with @thejasonnash & @chriswahl

I think Jason’s been running this session for at least 3 years consecutively, so it was good to see the Network Virtualisation man himself Chris Wahl presenting alongside, these guys played well together and the light hearted approach proved to be a good format.  Basically the guys cover 6 typical use cases around what to do with vDS, this was a great session and I’d recommend post event viewing, especially if you’re considering your VCAP-DCA?

BCO2701 vSphere HA Best Practices and FT Tech Preview with @gurusimran and @manojkkrish

It was great to see GS present at VMworld, for me the main points of this presentation were around what FT with SMP would look like and how HA will change.

FT

So FT SMP will support up to 4vCPU’s and 64GB RAM (this looks a lot better than the current version, it would seem that to get SMP support VMware have moved away from CPU lockstep and have moved toward some form of ‘super fast’ check-pointing which wasn’t really discussed in much detail.  The other change of interest was the use of separate storage for primary and secondary VMs.

HA

The key takeaways for me were APD/PDL detection, VM to VM anti-affinity rules which are long overdue, VSAN/AppHA integration and finally GUI visibility of what you want to protect against.

Solutions Exchange

Had a chance to talk with friends at Cloud Physics and also talked with Ravello Systems (check both these solutions out as they have some really cool stuff).  I wanted to write more about them but just haven’t had the time, sorry.

VMUG Leader Lunch

This is usually one of the highlights for me attending VMworld, not only do you get the chance to speak with other VMUG Leaders about how they run their chapters and tips on gaining attendees, but there is usually a Q&A session with the VMware top brass.  Today was not disappointing as we had Pat Gelsinger CEO, Ben Faithi CTO, and Raghu Raghuram EVP SDDC.

The Questions that were discussed included (but were not limited to): –

• VMTN, is it every going to get here?  As you may have saw from my tweets, the message was that a single signature was all that was required before this program would get off the ground, so here’s waiting to see what’s next…?
• Access to vCHS or should I say vCloud Air for VMUG attendees/Leaders, this was requested and management said they would look into this…
• Where was VCDX going with the announcement that @vcdx001, @markbrunstead and @amitchel all leaving VMware at the same time, along with VCIX being announced and VCDX-NVs being selected (fairly or not as the case being made).  There was also talk about VCDX being grown to over 500 in the next 18-24 months.  Now I think this took our panel by surprise as they did acknowledge that their was a change in the ‘leadership team’ (Pat’s words) but were unable to provide any feedback on direction (let’s just hope they take this feedback on and share the future roadmap and where these changes leave the VCAP program?

Booth Duty

To wrap up the day I had several hours on the Pure Storage booth with Nerf guns.  It was great to get the chance to pitch the solution to potential customers, along with hearing some of the sales team in action 🙂  I also go the chance to see more about VVOLs and SRM integration (remember this is only my 3rd Week with Pure).  I even met an existing customer and heard how with FlashArray they we consolidating their server and desktop virtual infrastructures on a single all flash solution!

Just to finish off, If you’re here (or know someone who’s here) and have time on Thursday Afternoon (tomorrow), might I suggest you come along and attend our Evolve conference? I’m really looking forward to this!

See you tomorrow for the final day wrap-up!