VMworld2007

Liveblogging the Keynote

VMworld 2007 is beginning. The Tuesday morning session has just started with some crashing music and Karthik Rau, our master of ceremonies, is beginning. We have a few people liveblogging today, so refresh here, and also check out

Diane Greene’s on stage.
8:13 Virtualizatiion: A Complete Infrastructure Refresh. It’s a better way…

8:15 The Hypervisor (ESX Server) is NOT the Operating System. The OS manages the apps, the end users — the hypervisor just manages the resources. The hypervisor is NOT the virtual infrastructure. The VI manages and aggregates the resources. 90% of ESX Server’s footprint is the Service Console. What happens when we just use the 32MB hypervisor?

Announcing ESX SErver 3i: Compact 32MB footprint, Unparalleled security and reliability, OS-independent design. Right way to deploy and manage, intuitive start up experiences, reduces complexity and improves user experience. The first box will be from Dell…

8:19 Dell Chief Marketing Officer, Mark Jarvis. "This demo is so easy that a chief marketing officer can do it." Two socket, virtualization-optimized — lots of memory, lots of I/O. 40% better performance & 25% less power. Diskless system, up and running in two minutes. And CIM interfaces.

8:25 Michael Dell is now visiting us in spirit, er, video. Also Bill Zeitler at IBM and James Mouton at HP and Barbara Schaedler at Fujitsu Siemens, Yoshikazu Maruyama at NEC Computer. IBM and HP servers are also on stage.

8:29 ESX Server 3i beta users speak. It’s a no-brainer. The ops crew can plug it in and get it going. Small footprint, low management. A big impact on security, especially in the government. You can remotely administer your hypervisor so the host itself is almost unbreakable. The impact: IT professionals will stop thinking of virtualization as software but rather as a component of the hardware itself. I believe that within 5 years everything will be virtualized.

8:32 Introducing: OVF the Open Virtualizaton Format, a standard format for virtual appliances and virtual machines.

8:32 Announcing: VMware Site Recovery Manager. Integrates with other data recovery software. Creating a way for apps and organizations that don’t have DR built-in to now have that capability.

8:35 The nature of the desktop is changing: announcing Virtual Desktop Manager

8:36 Virtual Appliances. 600 and growing. BEA’s Liquid VM can scale very well.

8:37 20 more utilities are in the process of launching virtualization incentive programs.

In conclusion: (1) Virtualization is driving huge value; (2) ESX 3i is the next generation hypervisor, driving virtualization-enabled hardware; (3)  Solutions can take advantage of virtualization in a better way not possible before.

8:40 Pat Gelsinger, Intel. Pat is focusing on how the technology pillars support business objectives — and a common layer across those pillars is virtualization.

8:47 V12n disaggregates the OS and builds the "new data center operating system"

8:48 Server consolidation; Multi-OS workstation; dynamic load balancing; disaster recovery

8:51 Intel virtualization support – ID "spoofing" for easier VMotion, extended page tables, directed I/O, virtualized I/O, standards

8:54 Challenges: I/O, Energy Efficiency, Reliability, QoS, security, fault tolerance

8:58 "VMDq" directed v12n i/o – can double i/o performance on a VM

8:59 Energy efficiency. How can we free up IT Budget away from power so that they can spend more on Intel (and VMware :-)? Step 1 – node-level energy mgmnt at the VMM level, not just at the HW layer; Step 2 – datacenter-wide view. Why can’t we migrate VMs to fewer HW servers and shut down the idle servers?

9:02 Reliability. How can we hasten the decline of the mainframe? (I like that Pat is open about his agenda!) Virtualization amplifies the importance of reliability.

9:05 Pat is showing off a new quad-core Intel Xeon 7300 blade. Better scalability benchmarks on ESX than previous generations.

We’re at the beginning of something very powerful with virtualization. We’re building the data center operating system of tomorrow.

9:08 Hector de J. Ruiz, Chairman/CEO AMD. Innovation that accelerates the change in control from IT vendors to IT customers.

9:12 Launched 2003, AMD Opteron 2-core 64-bit.

9:13 Co-founded the green grid. 2005 server energy costs: $2.7B, doubling from 2000 to 2005. It is time to face up to our responsibilities. (And for every $1 spent on HW, we spend 50cents on energy.)

9:16 AMD’s Austin data center had a 79% reduction in power consumption after 117 servers consolidated down to 9 ESX Servers.

9:18 IDC 5% servers shipped for virtualization in 2005 – 15% in 2010. 1.4M VMs –> 7.9M. 

Virtualization has reached the tipping point.

9:20 30+ AMD servers currently certified for ESX Server 3.

9:21 Introducing: quad-core Opteron processors launched yesterday. (Barcelona) Now coming on stage Leendert van Doorn, senior fellow at AMD

9:22 second generation of hardware virtualization support. "rapid virtualization indexing" ie nested page tables

9:26 the virtualized data center – replicate your entire data center with virtualization. VMMs everywhere. Every desktop, every notebook with multiple virtual machines. Separate work and play, confidential information and your everyday working environment, helps you support your mother-in-law’s computer and helps you support your data center.

9:28 50 by 50 initiative — 50% of the world should have affordable Internet connectivity by 2050.

9:32 And as Karthik thanks the sponsors — a who’s who of the IT industry — the early birds are sneaking out to get a head start on coffee and the first break-out sessions. Many sessions are overbooked, so get there early.

9:33 A moment of silence for those around the world affected by September 11, 2001. 

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Thank you

The video contest is still going winners will be announced on Wednesday, but a new VMworld video contest is coming next — more details at vmworld.com. And just on more thing — a USB key with ESX Server 3i for every attendee here at the conference!


 

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