At VMworld 2008, we announced a number of name changes to our product lines. In broad strokes, Virtual Center becomes VMware vCenter and a brand for our management and automation products; and the product line for the enterprise desktop and our vClient Initiative become VMware View. Today we revamped the website to reflect these new names.

VMware vCenter
Brand name for all infrastructure and application management products from VMware

VMware VirtualCenter  → VMware vCenter Server
The central management product for VMware Infrastructure

VMware Lifecycle Manager → VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager
Workflow automation product for creation, deployment and decommissioning of virtual machines

VMware Converter → VMware vCenter Converter (for the version integrated into vCenter)
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone (for the separately downloadable version); comes in two flavors: Enterprise and Starter
Physical to virtual (P2V) conversion product

VMware Lab Manager → VMware vCenter Lab Manager
Automation product for application development environments

VMware Stage Manager → VMware vCenter Stage Manager
Automation product for application staging and deployment environments

VMware Update Manager → VMware vCenter Update Manager
Host and virtual machine patch management product integrated with vCenter Server

VMware Site Recovery Manager → VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
Disaster recovery orchestration product

VirtualCenter Foundation → vCenter Server Foundation
Node limited version of vCenter Server

VMFS → VMware vStorage VMFS
VMware’s cluster file system

VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure → VMware View
VMware’s integrated desktop virtualization solution that delivers enterprise-class control and manageability

Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM) → VMware View Manager
Enterprise class server which manages connections from end points to virtual desktops or hosted desktops while helping rapidly provision desktops

VMware Administrator Interface → VMware View Administrator
Administrator Interface for View Manager

VDM Agent → VMware View Manager Agent
Agent for View Manager to talk to the virtual desktop

VDM Web Access → VMware View Portal
Access to virtual desktops through web browser

VDM Client for Windows → VMware View Client for Windows
Client used to install on Win 32 PC or Win XP embedded thin client to connect to View Manager for virtual desktop access

VDM Client for Linux → VMware View Client for Linux
Client used to install on Linux thin clients to connect to View Manager for virtual desktop access

Only the current versions change their names — older versions keep the older names, so you won’t have to do that translation in your head. It’s hopefully not too confusing, and it sets us up for more logical naming going forward. Behind such seemingly simple changes go a lot of work, so congrats to the team for pulling it off.

Richard Garsthagen, evangelist extraordinaire, giving the VMware overview at Microsoft TechEd EMEA. It’s a good short overview that gets past the "my hypervisor is better than yours" argument to talk about the entire suite of infrastructure and management software that we offer. Also, make sure you watch to the very end. Richard can be very, very sneaky.

(click for the video)

Richard is also coordinating the bloggers (and many other things) at VMworld Europe 2009. If you have a blog and are going to be in Cannes this February, drop me a line (jtroyer @ vmware).

Check out our new ads, appearing in a business publication near you.

I usually try to weave the commerce a bit more seamlessly into the technical info and virtualization news that we traffic in here. But we just launched two special offers that I wanted to let people know about. In the future, I’ll try to keep this kind of stuff over in the right sidebar.

• Through December 24, 2008, you can save 15 percent off the list price of VMware Site Recovery Manager when you purchase Site Recovery Manager with VMware Infrastructure Enterprise. Learn more.
• Save up to $5,100 on the VMware Infrastructure Acceleration Kits. Get enterprise-class virtualization with business continuity capabilities along with centralize management and credits for training or professional services. Learn More.

We’ve been holding a great series of day-long seminars all over the world this year called the VMware Virtualization Forums. (Most of the US ones have finished for the year, but they are still going on worldwide.) They are a great way of getting up to speed on VMware and the virtualization ecosystem, talk to existing customers, and meet your peers. Some have called them "mini-VMworlds," and I’ve seen very positive feedback on the value you get — we try hard not to make it just a sales pitch.

Richard Garsthagen, who blogs over at run-virtual.com, gave the VMware overview at the Swedish Virtualization Forum entitled "VMware Vision and Future Direction". Even if you’ve been following along since the beginning, it’s a good review of where we are now and how to explain virtualization to someone who may still think it’s too complicated or too overhyped or just about server consolidation. It also talks about the forward-looking technologies we talked about at VMworld, if you want a second look.

I’ve been here for a few years now, and I tend to fall back on explaining virtualization from the basis of the technology stack.  What I liked about this presentation is that instead of that standard explanation, it talks about how people have used virtualization to get to virtual infrastructure very quickly and goes from there. Recommended, even for us old-timers.

You may be hearing a lot of sound and fury coming from some of VMware’s competitors these days. Now VMware is better known for having products and technologies that "just work" than making overblown marketing claims. So instead of more sound bites, we just launched a new section of our website called Why Choose VMware. It goes through in great detail the reasons why over 120,000 customers have chosen to work with us to provide their virtual infrastructure.

Link: Why Choose VMware for your Virtual Infrastructure – VMware.

Q: Which Vendor Meets All Your Requirements for a Complete, Robust, Proven Virtual Infrastructure?

A: Only VMware.

 

1. Is built on a robust, proven foundation
2. Delivers a platform for shared IT services
3. Provides a complete solution for virtualization management
4. Supports your entire IT infrastructure
5. Is proven across tens of thousands of customer deployments.

As
you’ll see, it quickly becomes clear that only VMware delivers on all
of these important requirements. And best of all, VMware delivers while
providing low total-cost-of-ownership (TCO).