VMworld 2013 Live: Day 1

In today’s keynote at the 10^th annual VMworld conference in San Francisco Pat Gelsinger, CEO for VMware, laid the foundation for VMware’s vision of the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) for the 20,000+ attendees. Pat explained VMware’s vision that the next evolution of IT beyond the Client-Server era is the Cloud-Mobile era and that the SDDC provides the technology required to support the data centers of the future. Some of the key announcements Pat made in his VMworld 2013 keynote included: 

vSphere 5.5

vSphere 5.5 is the next evolution of vSphere. Pat called vSphere 5.5 the 2x release because the maximums of many of the scalability limitations were doubled. Some of the important new stats for vSphere 5.5 include:

vCloud Suite 5.5

Pat Gelsinger also announced the release of the vCloud Suite 5.5. One of the main changes with vCloud 5.5 is that the vCloud Automation Center will be available in the Standard, Advanced and Enterprise editions of the vCloud Suite.

Virtual SAN 1.0

Pat also announced that VMware is currently in beta with a product call Virtual SAN. The new Virtual SAN product uses local storage to create a cost effective high performance shared storage infrastructure for VM’s. Unlike VMware’s Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA), Virtual SAN is built into the vSphere 5.5 hypervisor. However, at the present time it will require a separate license. General availability is expected in the first half of 2014.

VMware NSX Network Virtualization

One of the most significant announcements for the establishment of the SDDC was VMware’s NSX network virtualization. Exactly like the ESX server provides a virtual abstraction layer over a physical server, VMware NSX provide a virtual abstraction layer over your existing network infrastructure – essentially enabling you to virtualize your networks. NSX is implemented as an extension of VMware’s virtual switch and it works with all existing network hardware. VMware NSX is expected to be available in Q4 2013.

Hybrid Cloud Suite

Bill Fathers,Senior Vice President and General Manager, Hybrid Cloud Services Business Unit for VMware, announced the immediate general availability of VMware Hybrid Services. VMware is expanding their cloud presence with two new data centers; one in San Rafael CA and the other in Sterling VA. In addition, Bill announced that VMware would continue to expand its hybrid datacenter services via a partnership with Savvis the hosting provider.

Today’s keynote was highlighted with some high profile customer success stories including Columbia Sportswear, eBay, GE, Citi Group and Harley Davidson.