Ramin Sayar, VP Products, Cloud and Virtualization Management at VMware, looks back at the first day at VMworld Europe 2011 and talks about the new management suites and what it means for the management of the cloud.
Yesterday was Day 3 for me here in Copenhagen. The clear blue skies of Sunday and Monday had given way to the grey clouds and rain of Tuesday. But the non-cooperating weather couldn't dampen the high spirits and tangible excitement surrounding the big news of VMworld as we kicked off the show properly.
On mainstage yesterday, Steve Herrod announced what we're billing as – with no exaggeration – the biggest management launch in the history of VMware. Steve then walked through each of our three new product suites designed to help simplify the complexity of managing your virtual and cloud environments.
Why is this launch such big news? Well, for me it's because VMware has clearly demonstrated how we are continuing to methodically move beyond just the infrastructure layer with solutions for managing applications in both pre- and post-production as well as solutions to help our customers run IT more like a business (more on that later). As you're probably well aware, VMware has laid out a vision of the IT landscape in which applications are abstracted from underlying infrastructure as well as the devices on which users experience those apps. With this launch we are coming to market with automated operations and application management solutions to help you address the challenges of those technologies and silos as well as bring them together in a service context with the visibility and control that our IT business management solutions deliver.
Before Steve's keynote, I had given a sneak preview of the launch in my SuperSession at 9 am. The room was completely sold out – so much so that we've arranged a follow up session on Thursday at 11 am for the folks who couldn't get in. It was gratifying to see such interest in our launch – and I don't think it had anything to do with the free t-shirts we were giving away either (we shot them into the room using those t-shirt guns – it was pretty cool). Instead, I think it has to do with the fact that the realization has sunk in that traditional management no longer works in the era of cloud computing. Something's got to change.
Let's take a step back and see how we got to this point. If you think about it, every major technology disruption – mainframe computing, client/server, web – led to an equally fundamental change in the way IT is managed. And it's no different for virtualization and cloud. In a world where the only constant is dynamic change, traditional management approaches can't keep up. They can't cope. In a world of virtualization and cloud computing, a new approach to managing IT is needed.
Enter VMware. Our approach is rooted in our management philosophy. First, embedded, integrated management: we are constantly striving to improve the manageability of our cloud platforms – vSphere and vFabric – by embedding management and then tightly integrating our other solutions. Second, converged management: bringing together disparate teams and processes (e.g., performance, configuration and capacity management) to streamline operations and applications management. And third, run IT like a business: new solutions based on the acquisition of Digital Fuel for IT financial management, service level management and vendor governance. I won’t go into detail here as Steve does a great job of explaining our approach in his blog.
What this all boils down to is that we think it’s time to rethink the way you manage IT. And that’s what our new suites – vCenter Operations Management Suite, the vFabric Application Management Suite, and the VMware IT Business Management Suite, and the 7 new, 2 major, and 2 updated product releases that comprise them – are designed to help you do.
Yesterday was a near perfect day – it’s always a great feeling to stand in front of customers, the press and analysts and represent your company when you know you are bringing something new and different and game-changing to the market. But it was an even better feeling for me to represent the entire VMware Management team who had worked thousands and thousands of hours to bring these new solutions to the market and more importantly to you…our customers.
I say a near perfect day because I was pretty jet lagged and, as I mentioned earlier, the weather wasn’t that great. There wasn’t much I could do about the jet lag besides gulp down some cappuccinos (I found a great machine next to the VMware Briefing Center – go check it out) but lo and behold, the weather finally cooperated. By the afternoon, the sun had broken through the clouds – hopefully, a good omen for VMware’s Management initiative. With the sun shining once again and the launch having gone so well, I just might sneak off for a few hours tomorrow and play tourist. Last year the Little Mermaid was on loan to China but now she’s back and I think I’ll pay her a visit and take a few pictures for the kids…
Here are some links where you can learn more about the launch:
IT Management Launch Site (click on the arrow in the grey box)
VMware Virtualization and Cloud Management
