I was very impressed by the information disseminated in the second VMworld keynote, led by CTO Steve Herrod. Here’s a summary of the thoughts I tweeted during the morning keynote (in chronological order).
- Steve Herrod talked about a “people centric” approach. VMware’s technology needs to understand desktop user behavior. The existing offline VDI model (requiring a manual “check-out”) is not people centric.
- VMware’s announcement to OEM RTO Software’s Virtual Profiles was a good move. Burton Group considers profile virtualization a required element of enterprise desktop virtualization architecture.
- VMware’s Steve Herrod and Mike Coleman discussed VMware’s software-based PC-over-IP (PCoIP) protocol. Feedback from Burton Group clients who were early PCoIP beta testers indicates that the protocol’s development is progressing well.
- Herrod showed a picture of “hosted virtualization” for employee owned PCs on a MacBook. Is that a hint of a forthcoming announcement?
- I would like to know if VMware’s Type I CVP client hypervisor will have VMsafe-like support in the 1.0 release. VMware has made few public statements regarding CVP architecture.
- VMware’s CVP demo looked good, but it didn’t reach the “wow factor” achieved by Citrix when Citrix demoed a type I client hypervisor on a Mac at their Synergy conference.
- The Wyse PocketCloud demonstration was impressive. PocketCloud is VMware’s first answer to the Citrix Receiver for iPhone.
- VMware demonstrated the execution of a Google Android application on a Windows Mobile-based smart phone. Many opportunities exist for VMware and Google to collaborate in the user service and application delivery space.
- Burton Group client experience backs VMware’s claims that vSphere 4.0 is a suitable platform for tier 1 applications. We recommend that x86 virtualization be the default platform for all newly deployed x86 applications, unless an application owner can justify why physical hardware is required (e.g., for a proprietary interface that is unsupported by virtualization).
- To support tier 1 application dynamic load balancing, storage and network I/O must be included in the DRS VM placement calculations. It’s good to see that VMware is heading in that direction. DRS will also need to evaluate non-performance metrics such as vShield Zone membership as part of the VM placement metric (no word on this yet).
- I would like to hear more from folks who have tested AppSpeed. Burton Group clients I have spoken with to date have not been impressed.
- The DMTF needs to start doing more to evangelize the role of OVF as it pertains to cloud computing and service manifests.
- I like vSphere’s VMsafe security API, but I want to see tighter integration with external management (exposed via the SDK), and better integration with VMware’s DRS and DPM services.
- VMware talked about Lab Manager as a tool to promote user self-service for server VMs and applications, but I haven’t heard mention of a similar interface for desktop applications (like Citrix Dazzle). A user application service catalog is a missing part of VMware’s current virtual desktop architecture, and will need to be addressed by either VMware or a third party.
- The data center on the show floor running 37,248 VMs on 776 physical servers would be more impressive if VMware disclosed the applications running on the VMs, along with the application workloads. Otherwise, the demonstration is really just a density science project.
- I liked VMware’s coverage of virtual data centers. They are also defined in Burton Group’s internal cloud hardware infrastructure as a service (HIaaS) reference architecture.
- Herrod mentioned forthcoming network L3 improvements that will make it easier to separate location and identity. This is something to follow.
- Both Cisco and F5 are enablers for VMware’s long distance VMotion and are vendors to follow as this technology further matures.
- VMware’s cloud layered architecture is very similar to the architecture defined in the Drue Reeves’ report “Cloud Computing: Transforming IT.”
- Herrod did a great job articulating the importance of SpringSource to the VMware software solution. VMware needs an application platform to have a chance at holding off Microsoft long term, and SpringSource gives them that.
That’s it for my thoughts on day 2. As always, I’d love to hear your feedback. VMworld 2009 was a great conference. I enjoyed my time meeting with Burton Group clients as well as the several conversations that I had with many attendees. See you next year!
#1 by Paul - September 7th, 2009 at 05:04
Hey Chris, your session on Thursday was brilliant and I’d love to somehow get you in front of some of my Australian and South African clients. It was as entertaining as it was interesting. Hey, slightly at a tangent but I find myself perplexed by Cisco’s Swiss army knife approach with their UCS. Seems a mighty bold move. Asked a few folks at the conference whether they’d seriously consider the approach for their next upgrade. Most said the Cisco brand represented ‘trust’ for them (on the upside) but ‘expensive’ (on the downside) and couldn’t really see Cisco winning this one for a long time. I guess they did it in the voice world and dethroned the PBX guys so I guess you never know?
#2 by Omer Ansari - September 7th, 2009 at 19:51
Thanks for posting these updates Chris.
You stated:
“To support tier 1 application dynamic load balancing, storage and network I/O must be included in the DRS VM placement calculations. It’s good to see that VMware is heading in that direction. DRS will also need to evaluate non-performance metrics such as vShield Zone membership as part of the VM placement metric (no word on this yet).”
Can you expand specifically what the new modifications to DRS/HA will be, and tell us when these updates to vSphere will come out?
Omer
#3 by Chris - September 8th, 2009 at 09:01
Thanks for the feedback, Paul. I’ll follow-up with you via email on your first question. Regarding Cisco, they do have an uphill battle. Take a typical HP shop, for example. Introducing UCS means that they’ll have to take on additional TCO for device management, being that they’ll need separate tools for the HP and Cisco environments (assuming they are already using OV). This has been a barrier with some Burton Group clients. Still, others are very intrigued. With many enterprises working to modularize hardware refresh cycles, an opportunity exists for Cisco. Still, I don’t expect vendors like HP and IBM to help out with device management for the sake of cannibalizing their own hardware sales. Cisco will get some market share. They have a good platform and they’ll win some deals. Also, they have done well with leading with a message that talks to the server groups (instead of the network team). In many shops, the networking team is already sold, but it’s the server guys that need to be won over. You’re right that this will play out over several years. It will get more interesting once Cisco adds rack mount servers to their lineup.
#4 by Chris - September 8th, 2009 at 09:10
Hi Omer,
Unfortunately I can’t comment on feature specifics or product timelines, as both would violate my NDA with VMware. At the vSphere launch this spring, I brought up the I/O issue and Steve Herrod said to me “You’re right. We should be dinged for that.” So to me it wasn’t a surprise to hear Steve talking about it on stage last week. I’ve also talked to the product managers in VMware’s management space and they also agreed with my feedback on greater intelligence around security integration. VMware realizes that these points are important for many enterprises, and I expect them to be in their products sooner rather than later. Still, we’re talking about complex elements of virtual infrastructure management, so it will take time. I have an idea of when that time will be, but am not comfortable speculating on it due to the terms of my NDA with VMware. I/O metrics for dynamic VM load balancing are in XenServer 5.5. Evaluating XenServer would give you a good idea of the technology’s current state.
#5 by Omer Ansari - September 8th, 2009 at 14:25
Good to know Chris. Thank you!
#6 by latoga - September 8th, 2009 at 16:28
Chris,
RE: you bullet item on the VMworld Data Center work loads…
My understanding was that the data center at VMworld was running all the hands on labs. If you made it over to the Marriott, the were a couple hundred workstations for hands on labs (as well as the walk in lab in Moscone). Each lab attendee had access to multiple ESX hosts and VMs based upon the lab.
So that would make the VMworld data center a larger private lab cloud since the labs were being brought up and torn down after each session. Which means the workloads were varied based upon what labs were running.
#7 by Chris - September 8th, 2009 at 17:11
Great input, Greg. Thanks for passing this along. Unfortunately I did not have any time for the hands on labs at the show.