VMware Partner News

We are very excited to announce the launch of the VMware Partner Resource Center (PRC). Based in Austin, the PRC is dedicated to providing the highest level of service to you, our valued partners. The charter of the Resource Center team is to provide sales support and timely assistance to ensure the success of VMware's partner community.

Contact the PRC for:

• VMware product configuration help
• Help or questions regarding programs such as advantage+ and VPP
• Pricing support and help with working with our valued distribution partners
• Assistance with navigation of VMware and Partner Central.

The PRC is here to serve you - we want to make it easy for you to do business with VMware. Start using the Partner Resource Center today by calling 1-877-4 VMW VIP. The PRC operates between 7:00 am CST and 7:00 pm CST and is currently only available to partners in the United States.

VMware Fusion 1.1, which includes support for Mac OS X Leopard, localization in French, German, and Japanese, and over 25 other improvements and enhancements, has launched. VMware Fusion seamlessly allows Mac users to run Windows applications, and more than 60 other operating systems on the Mac. It opens the door for the Mac into the enterprise, letting users run mission critical, Windows-only enterprise applications such as Outlook, Visio, OneNote, FrameMaker, and Internet Explorer 6, on their Mac.

With the VMware Fusion 1.1 launch, we have included the beta release of VMware Importer for Parallels-based virtual machines. Converting your Parallels virtual machine to run under VMware Fusion is as easy as drag and drop. Get familiar with VMware Fusion's function and capabilities by ordering your NFR version today. The License Form can be found on Partner Central under the Sales tab >> Complimentary Not-For Resale (NFR) License Form.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine serves as the foundation for a large academic health center that combines medical education, biomedical research, patient care and community service. Find out how they reduced unexpected downtime from hours to seconds and saved thousands of dollars working with systems integrator System Source by designing and deploying a complete VMware/LeftHand Networks storage solution.

Read more

Partner Central is the interactive online resource center that allows Partners exclusive access to valuable sales tools and marketing resources, program information and collateral and more. Maximize your membership by visiting Partner Central.For more navigation tips on how to use Partner Central, please refer to the user guide found on Partner Central under InfoCenter >> Partner Central Resources.

VMLive

Previous VMLives Now Posted.  These are found on the home page in the VMLive section > All previous shows.

• SMB Update - Dec 11 2007
• VMware Launches it's 2nd Generation ROI/TCO Calculator - Dec 13 2007

Products and Solutions

• Capacity Planner 2.6 Presentation, Datasheets, and Sales tools (Products & Solutions Tab > Capacity Planner)
• VI3 Updated Presentation, Pricing & Packaging, and Boxshots (Products & Solution Tab > VI3)
• Acceleration Kits for the SMB - Description, Boxshots and FAQS (Products & Solutions Tab > SMB)

Marketing Campaigns

• TCO/ROI Calculator (Marketing Tab)
• Joint SMB Storage Campaign with LeftHand Networks (Marketing Tab)

Sales Tools

• Competitive Quick Positioning Cards (Info Center > Sales Tools > Competition)
• Tools for each specific product or solution are located in their resepctive product or solution folders

Responding to Customer Demand, VMware and SAP Establish Global Technology Partnership; VMware Infrastructure Supports SAP® Solutions with Both Windows and Linux on Industry-standard Hardware .

Two days ago, VMware announced AG will provide immediate full support to its solutions in 64-bit Windows- and Linux-based production environments running on VMware ESX Server. Servers from Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, IBM and Sun have achieved hardware platform certification for SAP® solutions running on Windows and Linux with VMware ESX Server, a component of the VMware Infrastructure software suite. VMware Infrastructure supports SAP solutions with both Windows and Linux on industry-standard hardware. SAP and VMware will assist joint customers in cooperative support services and problem resolution, backed by a global technology partnership agreement and dedicated support staffing.

“There has been overwhelming customer demand for SAP and VMware solutions. Support of SAP solutions on VMware ESX Server means customers can extend the numerous benefits of infrastructure virtualization to the business-critical and functionally rich SAP solutions in their IT environments,” said Brian Byun, vice president of global partners and solutions at VMware. “This support reflects the increasingly productive relationship between SAP and VMware, and it provides a sought-after solution for customers looking to combine the powerful process management capabilities of SAP solutions with the robust data center management and cost-saving features of VMware Infrastructure.”

By supporting its applications in production environments running on VMware ESX Server, SAP enables its customers to capitalize on the robust benefits of infrastructure virtualization, including:

• Improved data center automation and management: Customers can more easily manage IT resources to boost performance of mission-critical SAP solution-based workloads
• Business continuity and data protection: VMware Infrastructure reduces downtime by automatically restarting virtual machines on different physical servers in the event of hardware failure, and the suite provides cost-effective, hardware-independent disaster recovery
• Reduced server sprawl: Customers can run SAP application layers in virtual machines that are consolidated onto fewer, highly scalable and reliable enterprise servers, enabling a smaller data-center footprint and lowering hardware costs
• Quick and easy server provisioning: New virtualized servers can be provisioned and new SAP solution-based environments can be set up in minutes instead of the hours or days it can take to acquire and set up new hardware

Read full press release >>

1. Register Now for Virtual Infrastracture SolutionTrack
We’ve added more cities due to overwhelming response. But hurry as seats are filling out fast. By attending the SolutionTrack, you will learn how to sell the full virtual infrastructure message via whiteboarding techniques to get to that bigger sale quicker. Register now.

2. Get VSP (VMware Sales Professional) Certified
You need to be certified to attend the SolutionTrack. Here’s how:

• Go to Partner Central
• Click on Training Tab, then click on your language preference
• Go to the VSP section and click on the Get Started
• You will need to complete all six required VSP courses and at least one specialty course to get certified

3. VMware Infrastructure 3 is much more than server consolidation software. 
If you are only positioning VI3 to customer is this scenario then you are leaving money on the table and excluding yourself from opportunities.  Come learn the full scope of VMware solutions available for you to position to customers.  The VI SolutionTrack  is highly applicable for sales reps and technical sales staff at resellers.

Quick Positioning Cards are 1-page flyers created to quickly deposition a competitor that highlights the top reasons why VMware is a better solution for your customers. You can use the cards to position VMware against the competition or print out the pdf files from Partner Central to leave behind with your customers.

10 new Competitive Quick Positioning Cards are now available for your use covering the following competitors:

• Microsoft Windows Server Virtualization
• Microsoft Virtual Server 2005
• Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
• Citrix XenServer (formerly XenSource XenEnterprise)
• Red Hat Linux (Xen)
• Novell SUSE Linux (Xen)
• Virtual Iron (Xen)
• KVM (server virtualization focused)
• SWsoft Virtuozzo (OS-level virtualization)
• Egenera (complementary VMware + Egenera positioning)

The cards can be located in Partner Central under Info Center >> Sales Tools >> Competition.

On December 11th, VMware announced that the latest version of VMware Infrastructure 3, including VMware ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5, is generally available. The release provides new capabilities for increased levels of automation, improved overall infrastructure availability and higher performance for mission critical workloads.

VMware ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5 provides the following new features:

• Virtualization platform enhancements help deliver significant performance gains for the most memory and I/O intensive workloads
• VMware Storage VMotion enables live migration of virtual machine disks from one data storage system to another with little to no disruption or downtime.
• VMware Update Manager automates patch and update management for VMware ESX Server hosts and virtual machines by tracking certain patch levels and manually applying the latest security/bug fixes.
• VMware Guided Consolidation, a feature of VMware VirtualCenter enables smaller companies to easily and quickly get started with server consolidation in a step-by-step tutorial fashion.
• VMware Distributed Power Management is an experimental feature that reduces power consumption in the data center through intelligent workload balancing.

Read the full press release >>

Availability, Pricing and Packaging (in USD)

VMware Infrastructure is available for purchase in the following editions: 

• VMware Infrastructure 3 Foundation
• VMware Infrastructure 3 Standard
• VMware Infrastructure 3 Enterprise
• VMware Infrastructure 3 Foundation Acceleration Kit
• VMware Infrastructure 3 Standard High Availability Acceleration Kit
• VMware Infrastructure 3 Midsize Acceleration Kit

A Detailed Pricing and Packaing presentation along with other VI3 sales tools can be found in Partner Central > Products & Solutions Tab > Products Page >>

Recorded VMLives trainings on the new VI3 can also be found in the VMLive Portal on the Partner Central Home Page.

VMLive is VMware's interactive webinar series designed specifically for our partner community. There are two versions of VMLive - Tech Edition and Sales Edition. Tech Edition is intended for the System Engineer and Technical Consultant audience; the Sales Edition is intended for sales, marketing and business audience. VMLive is available exclusively to VMware partners.

Learn how you can skillfully use your knowledge of virtualization to overcome customer objections and close business in Q4, as well as get our monthly update on what's new in the Partner Learning Center and on Partner Central. Topic: Successfully Selling Virtualization to SMBs, Part III - Enabling Partners for Sucess: Closing Business in Q4 Date: December 11th, 2007 Time: 8:30am PST, 11:30am EST, 4:30pm London Register Now >> All authorized VMware partners are encouraged to attend; each show will feature exciting prizes for the best questions submitted via Webex Chat so don't miss out.

If you missed part I and part II, please visit Partner Central and inside the VMLive section on the home page, click "All Previous Shows".

CRN Magazine just named VMware Infrastructure 3 with Lab Manager the Virtualization Product of the year.

"When you think virtualization, you think VMware... [The company's] products are technologically ahead of its rivals, in part because of the innovative components it offers. That's more than enough reason for the Channel Test Center to name VMware Infrastructure 3 with Lab Manager as the Virtualization Product of the Year.

We really liked advances VMware has brought to bear in its Lab Manager, a Web tool designed to support developers and testers in highly distributed environments. Lab Manager provides end-to-end software life-cycle management capabilities that are far and away better than any other offering in the industry...

The bottom line: during a period when the industry is moving toward server and storage consolidation, and when solution providers are being tested on how well they can deliver virtualization services and solutions, VMware Infrastructure 3 provides a channel-friendly, powerful path for VARs and their customers."

- CRN

Read More >>