VMworld 2016 US has wrapped up in Las Vegas. The biggest event in virtualization saw over 23,000 people in attendance – meaning there was no shortage of hustle and bustle on the floors of the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Thank you to our customers and partners whose energy and enthusiasm demonstrated how together we can truly be_TOMORROW.
We were on-site to help recap the action – catch our Virtual Blocks recaps of Days 1-3 below:
The VMware Storage and Availability solutions team was busy in Las Vegas, as VSAN was one of the hottest topics at the conference. Seeing customer interest like never before, there were over 70 Breakout Sessions – including 7 VSAN repeat sessions, 30 Meet the Experts Sessions, and over 80 in person customer meetings. Partners were also well represented at the Partner Exchange (PEX) with 2 Software-Defined Storage boot camps and a Partner Round table.
Sessions
Yanbing Li, Senior VP and GM of Storage and Availability Business Unit at VMware spoke on Tuesday of VMworld about VMware’s commitment to HCI, as well as in the increasing presence of VMware Virtual SAN. Catch the replay of her keynote below:
Several storage-track breakout sessions made the VMworld Top 10 Sessions List. Take a look at two of the top sessions that made the list:
STO9424 – VMware VSAN Vision: The Future of HCI
STO7645 Virtual Volumes Technical Deep Dive
The momentum didn’t stop there – two other storage-track sessions made the Top 10 VMworld sessions:
- STO9617-SPO – Containers and vVols – A Technical Deep Dive on New Technologies That Revolutionize Storage for vSphere
- STO7973 – Architecting Site Recovery Manager to Meet Your Recovery Goals
We’ll update the blog to have these replays as they become available, so stay tuned!
HCI Zone at the VMworld Solutions Exchange
A featured area within the Solutions Exchange floor, the HCI Zone served as hands-on approach to storage, offering attendees a chance to learn more about VSAN’s breadth and depth of consumption options from the jointly engineered HCI Appliance VCE VxRail to the various certified deployment platforms with VSAN Ready Nodes.
We were live on the show floor to give a tour of the HCI Zone – take a look below:
The HCI Zone featured 7 strategic partners who showcased their “Powered by VSAN” solutions, from demos to servers to the VxRail appliance. Intel showcased their NVMe 8 Node Cluster which was a popular attraction. The partners at the HCI Zone included:
- Dell
- HPE
- Cisco
- Intel
- Lenovo
- VCE VxRail
- Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)
Over 30 theater presentations were delivered over 4 days – these presentations included information such as: Lenovo VSAN Ready Nodes, Dell HCI Solutions for VSAN, NexentaConnect File Services on VSAN, Introduction to VMware Cloud Foundation as well as next-generation hyperconvergence with Hitachi.
With the VSAN team broadcasting live at VMworld, we interviewed some of our strategic partners who were at the HCI Zone:
Within the HCI Zone there were several activities for attendees to participate in: The VxRail Social Locker and the #HCIselfie Contest, which saw attendees take their best #HCIselfie to get an awesome “I am Powered by Virtual SAN” t-shirt!
Congratulations to our Grand Prize winner, Jason Langer, who is the new owner of an Amazon Echo!
Stopped by the #HCIzone for my #HCIselfie. @vmwarevsanpic.twitter.com/yycy9A7SSR
— Jason Langer (@jaslanger) August 29, 2016
Hands-on Labs at VMworld
This is one of the most popular VMworld attractions and 2016 was no different. At this year’s VMworld, the Hands-on Labs broke a record of over 10,000 labs completed!
Credit to the VMware Hands-on Labs team for the picture – take a look at what happened during VMworld:
#VMworld#vsan lab finally crept up to #2 behind #NSX. More interest this year in vsan than last wi/version 6.2 features #hdshci#hdsHC_v240
— David Wohlford (@WohlfordHDS) August 31, 2016
Of those 10,000+ labs completed, Virtual SAN 6.2 Hands-on Lab was #2 on the most popular labs list, with 772 labs deployed! Thanks to all who took the storage and availability HOLs and special thanks to the Hands-on Labs team at VMware for their hard work!
HCI-SDS Party
All work and no play makes for a dull time, so they say. Which is why on Tuesday of VMworld, the Storage and Availability solutions team held the HCI-SDS Party, held at LAX at Luxor. With over 600 attendees, the HCI-SDS Party was one of the most popular VMworld parties.
Featuring notable appearances by folks such as Michael Dell, Chad Sakac, Kit Colbert, Ray O’Farrell and Robin Matlock, the HCI-SDS Party was a great time accompanied by fun and music from PJ Static band!
Thank you to the VMware Storage and Availability solutions team, as well as our sponsors who helped make it happen:
- Intel
- NetApp
- Dell
- EMC
- Cohesity
- Pure Storage
- Avnet
- Brocade
Though VMworld 2016 US has closed its doors, we’re eager to share what the team has in store for VMworld Europe, happening next month in Barcelona – October 17 – 20.
Stay tuned on Virtual Blocks for more details!
For the latest and greatest updates around Virtual SAN, be sure to follow us on Twitter @vmwarevsan, and ‘like’ us on Facebook at Facebook.com/vmwarevsan.
