VMware Explore – vLenzker – a comdivision partner

#VMwareExplore: VMware Partner Keynote: Hock Tan’s Strategic Vision

4. November 20244. November 2024lenzker

My first session of this years #VMwareExplore was around the partner ecosystem. At the VMware Partner Keynote, Hock Tan laid out a comprehensive strategy that underscores the importance of VMware’s partner ecosystem in driving future success.

His insights into the evolving cloud landscape and VMware’s direction were both thought-provoking and inspiring. Here are the key points from his presentation:

ESX: Strength with a Need for Simplicity ESX remains a cornerstone of VMware’s offering—robust and reliable. However, Hock acknowledged a pressing demand from customers: greater ease of use and more seamless integration across VMware’s suite of solutions. Simplifying the user experience is clearly a priority. #IMO ☑️
Challenges in Public Cloud Hock highlighted a significant trend—organizations are beginning to retreat from public cloud environments, citing issues such as high costs, complexity, and compliance challenges. This shift underscores the growing appeal of private cloud solutions that offer more control and predictability. #IMO ☑️
The Future is Private Cloud and AI The combination of private cloud infrastructure with AI capabilities is poised to redefine enterprise operations. This approach not only enhances data control but also empowers businesses to innovate more efficiently. #IMO I need to understand more about the specifics in the private AI offering. What I have seen as a bundle by Nvidia has been impressive. Not sure at this point in time what the value add of VCF Private AI is on top of existing Nvidia solutions
Addressing Legacy System Silos Legacy systems often result in operational silos, making service delivery inefficient and troubleshooting difficult. VMware’s strategy includes breaking down these silos to streamline operations and improve overall efficiency. # IMO ☑️ – I am fighting this silos for years. Luckily we are slowly making progress.
VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) VCF was introduced as a key solution for simplifying data center operations and reducing costs. Its unified platform approach addresses the complexities of managing modern IT environments, offering a more cohesive and streamlined management experience. #IMO ☑️ A lot of improvements still must be made with VCF. I really hope VCF 9 will address to topics.

Hock outlined three strategic Commitments

Fostering Partner Success Collaboration with distributors and resellers is a priority, as VMware seeks to ensure its partners are well-equipped to deploy and support services effectively. This focus on partnership underscores the company’s belief in mutual growth and success.
Bringing Public Cloud Experience to Private Solutions VMware aims to deliver the flexibility and user-friendliness of public cloud environments through its private cloud solutions, addressing customer demands for a balanced approach.
Empowering Partners Through Professional Services Hock emphasized a shift toward enabling partners to take on more professional services, enhancing their role in customer support and solution delivery.

Hock Tan’s keynote wasn’t just about VMware’s technology—it was a clear statement of intent about building a sustainable, collaborative future with its partners. His vision reinforces the critical role that partners will play in delivering innovative, customer-centric solutions. Not all Partner‘s are happy with the current state, but I see a lot of upcoming opportunities in case you are dedicated to #VMware.

If you’re exploring how to align your business with VMware’s strategic direction, now is the time to engage. Let’s connect and discuss how these insights can translate into actionable strategies for you. comdivision is ready to support you on your #VCF journey. Feel free to register for our #VCF readiness assessment.

#VMware Explore 2024: Join Us in Barcelona to get even more confident in the new #Broadcom Chapter

13. September 2024lenzker

Due to some personal health incidents I was not able to join VMware Explore in Las Vegas -> But guess WHOOOO’s backkkk….

VMware Explore is back this year in Barcelona November 4th-7yh. This event marks the first European VMware Explore in the new VMware Broadcom era following the Broadcom acquisition. Attendees will gain insights into the evolving dynamics of VMware under Broadcom’s ownership, with a focus on VMware Cloud Foundation 9 and leveraging VMware for AI workloads.

For sure we all know William Lam’s playlist to bingewatch the session that have been presented at the US conference (https://github.com/lamw/vmware-explore-2024-session-urls/), but still there are several good reasons to attend Barcelona in Person.

Why Attend VMware Explore? Here Are 10 Compelling Reasons:

Connect and Network: Forge meaningful connections with fellow data center enthusiasts. Whether you’re meeting new faces, sharing a meal, or engaging in business discussions, VMware Explore offers the perfect platform to build lasting relationships. Contribute to the community through blogs, tweets, or vBeers, and you’ll find that giving often leads to receiving valuable insights and support.
Explore the Solutions Exchange: Dive into the core of the software-defined data center and multi-cloud ecosystem. The Solutions Exchange provides a unique opportunity to explore the latest innovations. Engage in in-depth discussions with booth representatives, and if needed, schedule one-on-one meetings to address your specific needs and ideas.
Attend High-Quality Breakout Sessions: Choose from a wide range of breakout sessions designed to enhance your knowledge and skills. Your VMware Explore ticket grants access to all sessions, even post-event. Be sure to check out William Lam’s comprehensive collection of direct links to previous sessions for a preview of the valuable content you can expect.
Engage with the Community at VMTN: Visit the VMTN booth and join discussions at the blogger table. Share your expertise or learn from others in a welcoming, community-focused environment. Submit your own session proposal or simply absorb the wealth of knowledge available. Unfortunately, vBrownbag will not be attending this year, but don’t miss out on joining the VMware #code program at the community booth.
Meet the Experts: VMware Explore gathers a high concentration of industry experts. Arrange meetings to discuss specific challenges, design questions, or product insights. This is a unique opportunity to gain direct input from some of the best in the field.
Pre-Event Networking: Connect with attendees beforehand on social media platforms like Twitter/X, TikTok, LinkedIn, and more. Discover what’s happening in Las Vegas, join or organize public meetings, and keep up with vendor and community-sponsored evening activities. Register early for various late-night events to secure your spot.
Participate in the Hackathon: Join the hackathon for a collaborative and intellectually stimulating experience. Work with brilliant minds to tackle specific challenges. Even with limited time and resources, the hackathon is a fantastic way to engage with peers and enjoy a creative challenge.
Meet the Community and Social Media Team: A highlight each year is the community booth, where you can interact with bloggers and active community members. Engage with VMware’s social media team, including Eric Nielsen and Corey Romero, who help make this community vibrant and welcoming.
Return to Work with New Ideas: Gain fresh perspectives and innovative solutions to apply in your daily job. Engaging with thousands of smart, forward-thinking individuals will inspire new approaches to technologies, methodologies, and problem-solving.
Discover Business and Job Opportunities: While this might not be the primary argument for your boss, VMware Explore offers the potential to uncover new business and job opportunities in the SDDC and cloud sectors. Understanding the market and environment at VMware Explore will help you identify and capitalize on these opportunities.

Ready to Transform Your Career?

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to enhance your skills, network with industry leaders, and explore the latest in VMware technology. Convince your boss and register for VMware Explore 2024.

And if you are still reading this and meet me in person; let’s catch up… I will be at one of the pre-conference event starting on Sunday [and I hope to not end up in a club at the beach this year :)]

#VMware Explore 2024: Join Us in Las Vegas to get confident in the new #Broadcom Chapter

27. May 20246. June 2024lenzker

LAS VEGAS | THE VENETIAN | AUGUST 26 – 29, 2024

VMware Explore returns this year at The Venetian in Las Vegas. This event marks the first VMware Explore since the acquisition by Broadcom, and by now, everyone will understand how things work in the new VMware Broadcom era. The focus will be on VMware Cloud Foundation and utilizing VMware for AI workloads, providing valuable insights and updates for all attendees.

Why Attend VMware Explore? Here Are 10 Compelling Reasons:

Connect and Network Forge meaningful connections with fellow datacenter enthusiasts. Whether you’re meeting new people, sharing a meal, or engaging in business discussions, VMware Explore is the perfect platform to build lasting relationships. Contribute to the community through blogs, tweets, or vBeers, and you’ll find that giving often leads to receiving valuable insights and support.
Explore the Solutions Exchange Dive into the heart of the software-defined datacenter and multi-cloud ecosystem. The Solutions Exchange offers an unparalleled opportunity to engage with the latest innovations. Take the time to have in-depth discussions with booth representatives, and if needed, schedule one-on-one meetings to address your specific needs and ideas.
Attend High-Quality Breakout Sessions Choose from a wide array of breakout sessions tailored to enhance your knowledge and skills. With your VMware Explore ticket, you’ll have access to all sessions, even after the event. Make sure to check out William Lam’s comprehensive collection of direct links to previous sessions for a preview of the valuable content you can expect.
Engage with the Community at VMTN Visit the VMTN booth and participate in discussions at the blogger table. Share your expertise or learn from others in an inclusive, community-focused environment. Submit your own session proposal or simply absorb the wealth of knowledge available. Unfortunalty vBrownbag will not attending this year anymore, but don’t forget to join the VMware #code program at the community booth.
Meet the Experts VMware Explore will host a high concentration of industry experts. Arrange meetings to discuss specific challenges, wishes, or design and product questions. Take advantage of this unique opportunity to gain insights directly from the best in the field.
Pre-Event Networking Connect with attendees in advance on Twitter/X/TikTok/LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Discover what’s happening in Las Vegas, organize or join public meetings and events, and stay updated on vendor and community-sponsored evening activities. Don’t miss the various late-night events—register early to secure your spot.
Participate in the Hackathon Join the hackathon for a collaborative and intellectually stimulating experience. Work alongside brilliant minds to tackle specific problems. Even with limited time and resources, the hackathon is a fantastic way to engage with peers and enjoy a creative challenge.
Meet the Community and Social Media Team One of the highlights every year is the community booth, where you can interact with bloggers and active community members. Engage with VMware’s social media team Eric Nielsen’s team (including Corey Romero) and others who make this community vibrant and welcoming.
Return to Work with New Ideas Gain fresh perspectives and innovative solutions that you can apply in your daily job. Engaging with thousands of smart, forward-thinking individuals will open your mind to new technologies, methodologies, and problem-solving approaches.
Discover Business and Job Opportunities While this may not be the main argument for convincing your boss, the potential to uncover new business and job opportunities within the SDDC and cloud sectors is significant. Understanding the market and environment at VMware Explore will help you identify and seize these opportunities.

Ready to Transform Your Career?

#VMware Explore 2023 – 10 reasons why you should go

4. July 202323. May 2024lenzker

VMworld is dead – long live VMware Explore. We are back and it is getting physical again. Barcelona & San Francisco welcomes us back to celebrate VMware’s yearly conference.

Why you should go to VMware Explore? Let me give you 10 reasons:

Meeting/Connecting/Drinking/Eating or in business-talk: Connecting with people who love the datacenter field is such a great selling point of yourself. If you are passionate about something and you give something to others (blogs, tweets, vBeers or a simple thank you) there will come the day that you will get something back from them. Use VMware Explore to find new friends.
The Solutions Exchange is a great chance to get in-touch with the overall ecosystem in our software-defined datacenter & multi-cloud world. Seek for a discussion with the people at the booth. I know, sometimes they cannot give you the level of information you want to have, therefore try to figure out which product might interest you and schedule an appointment with a specific person to discuss your needs and ideas.
Many of the breakout-sessions are really really good. Remember: many Gin Tonic’s are good as well, but if you get too many …. you might know what I mean. Select your breakout session wisely. Remember that with a VMware Explore ticket you can access all breakout sessions later on (even though most of the session will get public-accessible after a longer-term). Check out William Lam’s fantastic collection of all direct-links to last years VMworld sessions. But hey: don’t think now you have everything you need. I am pretty sure there is a lot of great/new stuff is coming this year.
Check the VMTN booth, vBrownbag & blogger table. Many of the people in our field would love to share their knowledge during this conference.. Unfortunately their session is not getting accepted for political, technical or whatever reasons :) -> Apply for a vBrownbag session & check the VMTN booth at the community space to listen and learn from other experts in the field . Send in your own proposal or just learn from the others in small community-agnostic way.
Meet the experts: VMware Explore will have a very high density of Experts. Try to make appointments to talk about certain problems, wishes, design/product-questions you have.
Connect with people in advance. Go on twitter, figure out what’s going on in San Francisco. Organize or join those public meetings & events. Figure out what the vendors/community-members are sponsoring in the evening. The VMware Explore party is NOT the only event in the evening. Make sure that you register early for those late-night events. Do not miss the chance to talk to the presenter after the session or try to use twitter to figure out where us geeks meet after-hours.
If you feel lonely…. join the Hackathon [I am sure there will be one :)]. I have joined the hackathon a few years agon in Las Vegas and we had a great time. You get together with very very smart people and try to solve specific problems. Even though small the amount of time (and minor technical challenges) are not allowing to create a new hypervisor, people loved this event.
Meet the community and VMware’s social media persons behind the scene. My favorite place every year is community booth with the tables where all the blogger and community active persons are. Take your time to talk with me/us. Take your time to talk to the persons who manage the social media branch within VMware. Big thanks to everyone involved: Corey Romero, Tom Berry, Tej Cheema, Jenni Gonzales, Julia Klaus, Eric Nielsen and all the others that are part of this fantastic team.
Come back in your daily job with new ideas. I discovered that multiple times. Many of us know a lot of things, but over the years or during specific problem-solving tasks you end up in a very specific situation based on initial assumptions. Assumptions that might have been changed by newer technologies, methodologies, smart peoples words, etc. Getting together with thousands of other smart people will definitely give you a better chance to open the box of your mind.
Find business and job opportunities: Not a solid argument to convince your boss, but the opportunities within the SDDC and cloud era are big. New opportunities will come up outside and inside your company. To be able to recognize the opportunities you need to have a feeling for the market and environment. I realized during last VMworlds that this is the perfect location to develop such a feeling.

What’s next? Convinvce your boss & Register here.

VMware Explore 2022 – The 2 minute story around multi cloud in the Virtual Machine & Dev world

3. July 20223. July 2022lenzker

Things have changed over the last few years. I have become a dad, my blog was on pause, but now I am back :) And so are our IT-events. Like Olivia Newton-John have foreseen it in 1982 – let’s get physical.

VMworld is now VMware Explore – and a lot has changed. The window for VMware was open just for a short timeframe (a little reference to himym) has decided to not be solo anymore & get part of broadcom. Even though we are in the middle of the takeover and certain scenarios have been discussed I am looking forward to how VMware will present itself during this years VMware Explore. To bring you on track what major topics are going to be the theme I am going to give you a short wrap up about the current state of VMware’s VM & Container/Dev strategy.

Register HERE

As in the years before VMware will have two main conferences in the United States (San Francisco) & Europe (Barcelona). Besides that 4 more 2 day events are coming to countries with a huge growing market around IT.

The topic will remain the same as the last years: multi-cloud multi-cloud & multi-cloud (and for sure workplace :). VMware’s Cloud Console is gaining more and more cloud services. A lot of common products we use are available as a subscription based service & still there is a lot to do from my point of view.

VMware follows certain strategies in the world of multi-cloud. One of those strategies is

“One (cloud) foundation to rule it all”

Within the pure infrastructure & virtual machine space VMware is pushing its cloud foundation (vSphere, vSAN & NSX) into all major clouds for several years now. The goal here is to convince customers & enterprises getting rid of their datacenters to migrate everything as it is in a lift & shift manor to AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba, Oracle Cloud or one of the plenty VMware Cloud Provider’s out there.

And if you don’t want to go to the cloud? If you simply want to keep your datacenter or choose a partner as a co-location for your datacenter VMware is going to give us surely more insights in vSphere+ & vSAN+: the new subscriptions around vSphere & vSAN included in a centralized cloud console. What would be the target of the business to go that road?

This strategy is is something we have seen for years now. What are the challenges for VMware & it’s partners? Convince companies that it is more useful to keep the current operations models you have to today & migrate it to the cloud. That will just works when you talk to companies that are satisfied with how the IT is operates today. Otherwise the CIO will prefer a way to migrate to the native infrastructure service instead of putting it on a vmware-in-the-middle stack.

If you have a solution based on vSphere/vSAN/etc. running today, that satisfies the business goals but lacks scaleability, availability (in terms of – I need that solution on all continents within days) and maybe operability the VMware Cloud Story is just great. IMO the best way to get the quick wins of lift & shift projects into the cloud.

But since most cloud initiatives also wants to reduce the amount of legacy VMs with a concrete set of things like cpu, memory & disk we need to talk about modern applications that are not just installed on a ‘fat’ system. We need to talk about applications that scale out if required & scale down to zero once they are not used. The answer to that is:

tanzu

Now you see it :) VMware’s Tanzu is an interesting name for all tools & solutions around developing application & running them. Over the years the story around kuberentes has changed a lot and seems to be finally finalized (the story is finalized not the products & velocity of features / products within tanzu).

Within the comdivision team we did some cool stuff around the infrastructure part of tanzu & if someone would ask me what the goal here is I would say the following.

The cloud native landscape is huge and to get things here up & running from scratch is nearly impossible for enterprises.

With tanzu & its tools VMware tries to make a lot of those things consumable in an easy fashion. From an infrastructure point of view Tanzu Kubernetes (Grid) clusters are the key.

You run this K8s conformant (VMware supported) cluster everywhere (on vSphere/EC2/Azure VMs), manage it centrally with the SaaS solution Tanzu Mission Control.

If you want to create new clusters -> Just do it. If you want to scale out k8s clusters -> Just do it. If you want to extend clusters with services from the Cloud Native landscape? -> Just do it.

With just do it I mean -> run a simple cmdlet for the pros or click on the proper buttons in Tanzu Mission Control.

From my point of view what Cloud Foundation is the core foundation for the infrastructure within all the clouds, is the Tanzu Kubernetes (Grid) cluster for everything cloud native.

So I am really looking forward on new things coming into the cloud native world & I am really hoping that broadcom will follow VMware’s current strategy in the cloud-native space.