Our dedicated Cloud Tech Journalist Jackson Lucas shares his top 5 must-see multi-cloud sessions at VMworld 2019. From security to multi-cloud ops management, these are the sessions you don’t want to miss.
We’re just over a month away until more than 21,000 attendees descend on San Francisco for VMworld US 2019. While I’m certain there will be no shortage of new partnerships, product announcements, and networking, I’m personally most excited for the speaking sessions and learning labs taking place throughout the week (I know I can’t be the only one!).
I browsed this year’s session catalog and picked out the top 5 multicloud sessions I’m most excited to attend this year (and why you’d be crazy to even think about skipping them). They include everything from managing security and reducing costs through RI management to enterprise migration and taking advantage of VMware’s incredible MSP community. Take a look at the top 5 sessions already penned into my VMworld event calendar.
To see the full lineup of sessions, check out VMworld’s content catalog.
I browsed this year’s session catalog and picked out the top 5 multicloud sessions I’m most excited to attend this year (and why you’d be crazy to even think about skipping them).
1. Managing security across clouds
Many of us know that reigning in developers is no easy task (especially because that can often mean a decrease in their production and agility). So how can you increase security while maintaining the flexibility needed by your dev team to execute efficiently? And how do you recover when a security incident does occur despite your best efforts?
You should attend the session: How to Manage Developers from Working Outside Security on AWS/Azure
Why I’m excited?
Based on real-world experiences, this session will show you how to prevent basic security breaches on AWS using VMware Secure State. Learn how VMware manages the security of their own environments, the issues they try to prevent, and how to best recover when a security incident occurs.
This session will highlight the recovery process from a real, very serious security issue that is difficult to recover from (an AWS account being hacked), how to prevent such incidents in the future (using a suite of open-source tools), and how to best recover from it using VMware Secure State and CloudHealth.
2. Maintaining your multicloud budget
Organizations are adopting the cloud to transform their business. The key to success is to drive accountability across all business groups to understand who is spending what, where. While this may seem daunting at first, it can be achieved through effective multicloud management—especially if you start using automation to help you out.
You should attend the session: Keep Track of Your Costs; It’s Imperative and Good for Your Health
Why I’m excited?
In this session, you’ll learn how to accurately track your spend across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and GCP. Learn what management platforms are available to help you determine your spend by business unit, owner, environment, function, or any other custom business grouping. Learn how to create policies that work for you and help inform you of spend over a certain threshold, and find out how you can control this spend through automation, where actions can be taken on your behalf to keep costs under control.
3. Reducing spend with Reserved Instance management
One of the most effective ways to reduce your cloud spend is to purchase Reserved Instances (RIs). However, many organizations get caught up in the complexity of purchasing and managing RIs, losing out on numerous cost-saving opportunities.
You should attend the session: Master Reserved Instance Management with CloudHealth
Why I’m excited?
I know this session is specific to the CloudHealth Platform, but that doesn’t stop me from putting it on my list of the multicloud sessions I’m most excited about this year. Join our Sr. Product Manager Mike Giacometti as he shares a wealth of best practices on how you can utilize RIs to make the biggest financial impact on your cloud bottom line. He’ll compare different reservation types and offerings available through AWS and Microsoft Azure, and provide tips on how to purchase, modify, and exchange them throughout their lifecycle to best fit your changing business needs (and how to make the most of all this through automation). If you’re looking for a session packed with actionable next steps and best practices, you won’t want to miss this.
4. How MSPs can help enterprises succeed in a multicloud world
Multicloud adoption is vital to every enterprise’s digital transformation journey. To support these needs, VMware has been expanding its portfolio to include new products and services like VMware Cloud on AWS, VMware Cloud Services, and VMware End-User Computing Services to help enterprises adopt multicloud—and ensure their continued multicloud success in the long run. But not every enterprise has the resources to manage multicloud adoption themselves, which is where the VMware partner community comes into play.
You should attend the session: Accelerate Multicloud Adoption via VMware Managed Service Providers
Why I’m excited?
In this session, you’ll hear from VMware MSPs on how they’re leveraging VMware Cloud on AWS, CloudHealth, and other VMware cloud services on VMware Cloud Provider Hub to help enterprises accelerate and simplify their multicloud journey. These services include provisioning, operating and supporting multicloud deployments extending from the enterprise’s data centers and partner data centers to the public cloud, and offerings around migration, security, backup, disaster recovery, and more. Learn how MSPs can help provide the visibility and managed services you need to run a successful cloud operation.
5. VMware takes a dose of their own medicine (and wins!)
Building a multicloud strategy is no easy task. Each cloud vendor brings its own cost model, intricate ways of optimization, and back-end complexities for negotiating the best deals on services. Where do you even begin? What tools and services are best suited for organizations like yours? How do you know you’re applying a strategy that’s proven effective with others?
You should attend the session: Totally Bankable—Making Multicloud Management a (Cost-Effective) Reality
Why I’m excited?
It says a lot when a company uses its own portfolio of products and services to reach the success they talk about with their customers—and that’s exactly what VMware is doing. This session will focus on how VMware IT took the risk and mystique out of managing a multicloud environment by building a Cloud Center of Excellence, with a specific focus on cloud cost optimization and security.
To help get there, VMware used a phased approach to deploying CloudHealth by VMware (for cost visibility, usage analytics, and automated remediation) and VMware Secure State (for understanding and managing security). If you’re looking for a way to start managing your multicloud environment, this session will certainly be a good place to start.
Look for members of the CloudHealth team in the Solution Exchange and Cloud City areas to learn more about the CloudHealth Platform!
