After our Silicon Valley Tour it was VMworld 2015 time! We registered on Sunday and immediately felt it was going to be pretty busy, numbers-of-people-wise. This was confirmed in the first general keynote. It was said there were approximately 23.000 attendees at VMworld US. That’s insane!!
The general keynotes withheld some cool announcements, but it did lack of a real ‘wow’ factor. The most significant announcements were;
- EVO:SDDC; A rebranded name for the EVO:RACK offering that includes SDDC manager and the following (updated) products:
- vRealize Suite for management
- vSphere 6
- NSX 6.2 for Software Defined Networking
- VSAN 6.1 for Software Defined Storage
- Project SkyScraper
- Cross cloud vMotion; Demoed and looking very nifty! vMotion virtual machines between your on-premises (private cloud) to vCloud Air (public cloud).
- Content Sync; seamlessly sync your on-premises content library with the content catalog in vCloud Air.
- Cloud Native Applications
- vSphere Integrated Containers; extending vSphere for visibility of deployed containers running in a VM from an IT infrastructure point-of-view.
- VMware Photon platform; new platform built and optimized for cloud native apps
- Windows 10 + VMware AirWatch = Project A2; VMware has brought the capabilities of AirWatch and App Volumes together to create unified employee management. This allows simple movement of apps from previous Windows operating systems into the Windows 10 environment.
Sessions
We did not attend that much sessions as all sessions can be watched online after both VMworlds. This year, I wanted to attend at least a few sessions about topics relativily new to me. So we started of with an panel discussion about Cloud Native Apps. Interesting stuff going on in the world of DevOps, containers, etc.
Some other good sessions were about the new VSAN release, especially the new metro cluster functionality. Looks like VSAN is maturing very fast. Of course we attended the session about the 5 functions of software defined availability by the dynamic duo Frank and Duncan. It’s been a while since they last presented together.
Hangspace & Giveback
The hangspace is always buzzing. From games to the DevOps area and the vBrownbag podium, it’s all there. Good fun and a great place to meet up with other virtualization/storage enthusiasts.
A must do is the VMware Giveback collective. This is all about support for NGOs around the world, focused on children, education, environment, human rights and women & girls. Select the cause of your choice > do the picture > that’s it! Make sure you participate at the next VMworld if you didn’t already!!
Solutions Exchange
My most favorite place to be at when attending VMworld. All the big players in the industry are represented as well as all the (new) startups. Very interesting to speak to them and hear what they are all about. We had several very good meetups with ZeroStack, AirVM, Datrium and many more.
VMware campus tour
The thursday was reserved for a tour to the VMware campus. We never got to see the insides of the buildings which was a shame, but nevertheless it was impressive and good to finally visited it. Seems like a nice and inspiring place to work. 🙂
Dinner & parties
Wow, did we have a great time in the evenings. The evenings/nights proved once more to be THE time for meeting old and new friends. San Francisco is a great place to have pretty decent food. Favorites were the Zero zero (awesome! pizza) and the Amber India restaurant among others.
Because of the great food and drinks, we did not get to attend all the parties. We kicked off Sunday with the Dutch vBeers in the Chieftain. Good fun to see our dutch colleagues. After that, we walked to the Metreon for the VMunderground party. I was the only dumb *ss to forget my drivers license (required to gain access). Amy (Lewis) to the rescue to smuggle me in! 😀
Monday we went to the PernixData party in the Minna Gallery. Had a fair amount of cocktails and beers right after we had a photo shoot with the Star Wars cast. 🙂
The Tuesday evening was spend in club Slide where the VMware Software-Defined Storage party was held. And again… we had an awesome time!
On several occasions, we ended up in the bars of the W hotel to finish off the night. Lots of familiar people… beers… awesome!
That rounds up our VMworld 2015 US experience! Had a great time. Now it’s time for several weeks of hard work. About 5 weeks until we will board the plane to Barcelona. Already looking forward to it!! See you there!
p.s. We will try to do some ‘normal’ photos over there for a change. 😉
