The gang at BrianMadden.com is covering VMworld 2007:
Thoughts on Keynote (Adam Baum)
It’s interesting that the product that enables the easy distribution of
appliances is now becoming an appliance. I have mixed feelings about
appliances. When done right, they are great. Problem is most are not
done right. What I mean is that just because you take your software
and put it in a device without any visible interfaces does not make it
an appliance. Mgmt folks tend to hear the word "appliance" and think
toaster simplicity. This is not the case. Most modern IT appliances
need regular care and feeding. It’s no longer called patching, it’s
now a firmware update…
New DR capabilties from morning sessions (Chris Butters)
Besides being an HA type tool, SRM is also a planning tool. When you
use this tool, prepare to do a lot of thinking. This is a good thing
since you are really developing a semi-complete DR solution. Sort of
DC in a box. What does is take to build a DC? You need to know all
these things when using SRM.SRM is going to validate your
replication toplogy and that replication is working. It is going to
force you to determine which of your guests are important (good for SLA
mgmt), and it’s going to force you to figure out how to turn things
on. This last item is important. In a typical DC, your domain
controllers, DNS, whatever may be physical. What happens if they are
gone? If you had them in VM, you would need to make sure that they
come up first. In the world of DR and police & fire, we use
something called "run books". These tell us what to do, in what order,
who needs to do it, and such in a disaster. SRM can export its run
book so you can print it out. You can create multiple different plans
(run books) based on the nature of the disaster. Once a one book is
created, it’s a simple matter of clicking the play button to put
everything into action.
VMworld – Enivronmentalism (Mark Mathers)
The conference is being held in the Moscone Center which has been
touted as being environmentally friendly. This is through the use of
recycling and various energy conservation efforts. … The lunch that was
provided today was in plastic containers that are recyclable and they
passed out blankets where you could sit in the Yerba Buena Garden area
of the plaza and have a picnic. It was a nice change of pace from the
standard conference hall banquet eating area.
Final Day One thoughts (Adam Baum)
It was comforting to know that these guys have the same problems that I
do such as FUD, NIMBY, etc. Even though they had a C level champion
(Hector Ruiz), they still had difficulties in getting customer buy-in.
One area that was surprising is that there is not a whole lot of
communication with the chip engineering group. I expected that the two
groups would work closely together so that future chip designs would
incorporate characteristics that would improve performance based on
real world usage.
VMwares purchase of Dunes (Rene Vester)
After having looked at the Dunes technology i have to admit that i am
very excited that vmware bought this product suite. As i am coming from
the danish market(northern europe if anyone wonders). I am often
challenged with the fact that many vendors target companies with
x-hundreds of ESX servers, and fact its that with vmware purchasing
Dunes the product might in some form be delivered in an easier
digestible manner. As a another danish guys said to me.. Dunes is the
one thing to have, just a shame most of the people using VMware wont be
ready for the product for another couple of years. I think that made
alot of sense.
I had actually expected more on VDI and virtualized desktops from this crew. But good stuff — check it out.
