VMworld 2011 Review
So for those that didn't get the opportunity to go to VMworld 2011 this year in Las Vegas, you missed a very informative and entertaining conference. The week long event at the Venitian was one of the largest in the events history hosting somwhere in the range of 15000-20000 registered individuals.
The event housed a large lab environment spanning four data centers and nearly 1000 thin clients connecting to a lab session via VMware View, numerous general sessions covering every corner of the virutal infrastructure, cloud computing concepts, virtual desktops, and best practices to execute in these environments.
During my time at the event I looked at infrastructure best practices when utilizing HA and DRS as well as some of the public sector issues we are encountering trying to keep up with trending virutalization and cloud computing technolgies. Additionally, I completed a few labs using the new VMware vSphere infrastructure on networking and performance configurations and optimization.
Like many of these IT conferences, there was a very large vendor area where companies from all over the country (and world) had setup shop that included simulated demos, games, and new technologies and features within products. Some of the vendors I really enjoyed meeting with were Dell, VMware, NetApp, EMC, LG (yeah that LG - they had a really neat phone app that tied into a View environment to allow corporate phone use on a personally owned smart phone), World Wide Technology, and WYSE.
Next years event will be in San Francisco and like previous events will be hosted the very last week of August going into early September. I highly recommend going if you have never been before. There is a lot to learn here.
VMware vSphere and View 5
VMware announced at VMworld the newest version of the vSphere and View product line. Version 5 introduces new features and optimized capabilities over its previous versions.
With vSphere 5 there were new features introduced (most notably) Storage DRS and vMotion over the WAN. Additionally, there are new maximums to allow for scalability within VM provisioning and a stateless firewall engine within the ESXi server. Of course with this release introduces a new VM version (8) and this allows for 3D graphics processing (better for Aero in Windows 7) and USB 3.0 support.
A full list of details can be found here...
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsphere/vmware-what-is-new-vsphere5.pdf
On the View side of the house I've spent a lot of my time looking at these features and benefits because I'm currently engineering a VDI concept design for my customer. This has been my first look at the desktop side of virtualization but it has been very interesting nonetheless.
Looking at how the PCoIP protocol has evolved since View 4 was released is really making VDI hosting over a WAN link more possible and with robust storage architecture with linked clones hosted on SSD makes these environments boot quickly during log-in storms as well as perform optimally during peak hours.
EMC's VNX solution did a case study running View 5 on vSphere 5 and booted 500 virtual desktops that were stored on an EMC VNX NFS mount and they booted up into a ready state in five minutes. These are promisiing statistics as one would look at hosting clones on a SAN (of faster storage platform).
A full list of benefits of View 5 are listed below. Most notably are the new optimized PCoIP controls, 3D graphics procesing capabilities, and View mobile clients (like my LG booth example at VMworld).
http://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2011/09/view-5-in-the-house.html
The EMC study details and other benefits of running VMware View 5 and vSphere 5 on an EMC VNX tiered storage architecture. The article can be viewed below...
http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/2011/20110830-01.htm
All in all there are some very promising features released with the VMware 5 platform of products. Next time I post something, I may discuss some findings from my possible trip to Dell World in Austin, TX in October and my experience from my upcoming VMware Advanced Fast Track training course in DC. Stay Tuned and thanks for reading!
Did you think a week was long enough? Almost sounds like too much for one week. I am just now getting into the VM side of the house. Hope to attend this within a few years.
ReplyDelete