Throughout VMworld I was asked again and again, “What’s the most exciting thing you’ve seen?”. And while there were a lot of great tools on display (check out SearchServerVirtualization’s Best of VMworld), the one that sold me after just a few minutes was VMware’s Octopus. I convinced J.J. Zhuang to give me an extended tour of the package, the video of which I’ll post soon, but it looks great – much better, in fact, than the Project Octopus VMware CTO Steve Herrod demonstrated that same morning during his keynote.

First off, Octopus looks and acts a lot like Dropbox: Corporate users install a small app, sign in, and their files magically sync into the Octopus folder. That kind of syncing is a very hot area at the moment, but I haven’t seen another corporate company actually succeed at it until now, and this area, it really does need to be absolutely seamless if Dropbox is to fully succeed. If it doesn’t, as Herrod noted during his own keynote, users (even users who should know much better, like the IT crowd in attendance that almost all copped to using the service) will keep on using a service that has serious security holes.

Full disclosure: I am one of those people.

But Zhuang explained that security was baked in from the very beginning, and more importantly ultimate control lies with IT, not a third-party cloud provider. You can install Octopus servers on your own machines (preferably virtualized: It was designed from the ground up to place nicely with the rest of VMware’s suite), and layer on as much or as little security as you need. Third-party service providers can also host it for you, giving you the benefits of both shiny consumer-like service coupled with a long-standing partner you trust.

Second, it has great mobile versions tightly integrated with the rest of VMware’s suite, making using it with the other corporate products easier than not using it, another way to ensure that whether users are on the road or at the desk, they stick to the proscribed and protected corporate route rather than the consumer DIY approach.

Third, and what had me really excited, was that the web access of Octopus spotted some very basic, but very nicely integrated, collaboration features: You can roll back or compare versions, quickly share files with a co-worker, and even comment on files outside of the file itself. In short, a pared down version of SharePoint, but one that looks and works beautifully.

Full disclosure: I use – and deeply hate – SharePoint.

It looks like VMware has really nailed an almost zero-friction collaboration suite that will set the groundwork for recapturing a lot of the ground lost to consumerized applications while giving IT administrators the flexibility and control they need.

But perhaps what I’m most excited about is the team behind Octopus. Zimbra, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2007 and then sold to VMware last year, has a track record of clever touches that just make sense, often in a direction that the rest of the industry isn’t really moving. Zhuang, who joined Zimbra before the Yahoo! acquisition, said most of the original technical team is in place and that while they’re continuing to build on the Zimbra mail product, Octopus has been the major focus the past four months.

I can’t wait to see how this tight little package develops, but for now it’s in private beta: You can sign up for more information, and I’ll be posting video of Octopus in action shortly.

Michael Morisy is the editorial director for ITKnowledgeExchange. He can be followed on Twitter or you can reach him at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

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The demo he gave looked great: Apps were responsive, alerts from one OS popped up on the other’s notifications, and switching back and forth was a relative breeze. The concept of a dual-mode work life/personal life phone isn’t new, but VMware might have the first credible take at making it a reality: The “work” side of the phone is completely encrypted and can be remotely wiped by IT.

The two biggest questions that remain in my mind are, like with many of VMware’s ambitious new launches:

• How well will this work compared to not running a virtualized OS? It’s an extra layer of complexity and software on already limited devices, and there’s been speculation that the phone processors could drag.
• How well can VMware partner to bring these phones out into the market?

The second question is important: VMware and LG first partnered about a year ago, no commercial products that support the technology are shipping yet, and Krishnamurti said it was impossible to pinpoint when MVP devices would hit the market due to ongoing negotiations with carriers. And while a VMware employee proudly touted that LG and Samsung were the two largest phone makers, that’s not necessarily an indicator of future success.

Michael Morisy is the editorial director for ITKnowledgeExchange. He can be followed on Twitter or you can reach him at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

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This isn’t the first case of Microsoft playing dirty, something VMware has grown accustomed to in the past few years. What are your thoughts on the feud and the ad? Does Microsoft have a case or are they blowing smoke?

Let me know in the comments section or send an email directly to Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

With Red Hat KVM and RHEL, Whitehurst also observed that companies won’t have to worry about extracting their value from the cloud. If, for example, you don’t like your cloud provider, or you just want to move from say a private cloud to a public one, the Red Hat KVM-based PaaS will let you shift cloud providers easily.

That is not the case, according to Whitehurst, with companies that use VMware-based solutions. In the long run, by 2016, corporate users will be moving to Red Hat and other OVA partners from VMware solutions, Whitehurst believes.

Whitehurst also sees VMware as being more of a pure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), ala Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (AWS), play. IaaS’ are fine, as far as they go, but Whitehurst believes that Red Hat’s KVM-based solution simply offers more power and ease of use to corporate customers.

The friendly competition shouldn’t be surprising: Red Hat’s been a corporate maverick its entire existence, and all the trend lines point to the deeper levels of control, flexibility and modularity that virtualization provides, particularly as businesses look to balance portability and security against the numerous benefits cloud giants like Amazon and SalesForce.com can offer.

The big question is whether Red Hat’s approach, leveraging open-source Kernel-based Virtual Machine, can trump the fast-expanding portfolio of products VMware seems to be unveiling daily. In fact, the company’s major marketing for this particular event – Go public, go private, go hybrid – tout that same flexibility and portability.

Have some thoughts on which virtualization technology is – or should – win out? Let me know at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Image is original to this blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons share alike license. It is based on VMware’s copyrighted logo.

This year’s attendees might be facing a little of both as they make their way to VMware’s annual conference: Even as Hurricane-cum-Tropical Storm Irene was wreaking H20 havoc across the Northeast and canceling Sunday, Monday and even Tuesday flights, conference host Las Vegas was flirting with temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Fortunately, it looks like the conference won’t be a wash: Virtualization Room/SearchServerVirtualization contributor Eric Siebert reported via Twitter that attendance was up to 10,000 paid attendees (20,000 total) from 6,000 last year. Look back to 2009, when attendance was dropping, and it might help one feel better about the state of virtualization adoption, the economy or simply the enduring appeal of Sin City. Either way, I think it’s a win.

Among the 20,000 in attendance will be myself, Mr. Denny of SQL Server fame and a large contingent of top-notch reporters and editors from SearchVirtualization, already on the ground in force. Follow their coverage at SearchVMworld2011.com.

Michael Morisy is the editorial director for ITKnowledgeExchange. He can be followed on Twitter or you can reach him at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Photo source is Flickr user rdmathers and licensed under Creative Commons.

Photo via Sky Mall

Next week is the much-anticipated VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. IT Knowledge Exchange is gearing up to bring you live coverage from the conference – with you in mind, of course – and part of that is outlining some great virtualization books you should take with you to read on the plane. So put down that Sky Mall magazine, and dive into one of these great virtualization reads.

In no particular order…

• Virtualization: From the Desktop to the Enterprise, Chris Wolf & Erick M. Halter- Author Chris Wolf covers the gamut of enterprise virtualization, exploring the interrelationships of technologies.
• The Best Damn Server Virtualization Book Period: Including VMware, Xen, and Microsoft Virtual Server, David Rule – With a title like that, what more information do you need? From planning and deployment to learning the best ways to cut costs with virtualization, this resource will help you create a virtual network that best fits your needs.
• Network Virtualization, Victor Moreno – Moreno covers the businesses drivers for the enterprise as well as the obstacles network designers must face. With real-world case studies, configuration and deployment scenarios, this resource should be within reach throughout your project.
• The Book of VMware, Brian Ward – Get full coverage of the VMware 3.0 Workstation for both Windows and Linux. While reviewers don’t praise the prose as being particularly riveting, the information in here is valuable enough for when you’re in need.
• VMware vSphere 5 Clustering, Frank Denneman – For the basic steps to create vSphere HA and DRS cluster or to implement vSphere Storage DRS, this is your book. If you’re planning on taking a VMware VCDX, VCP or VCAP exam, some of the questions or case studies in this book can be a great help.
• VMware ESX and ESXi in the Enterprise: Planning Deployment of Virtualization Server, 2nd Edition, Edward Haletky – This updated and extended edition is a “real-world guide to planning, deploying, and managing VMware ESX Server 3.5, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), or VMware vSphere 4.x cloud computing in mission-critical environments.”
• VMware vSphere Design, Forbes Guthrie – For designing the most widely deployed virtualization platform, VMware vSphere, check out this great resource.

Have you read any of these titles? Share your thoughts, review, or additional reading suggestions, let us know in the comments section or send me an email directly.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Up-to-date Coverage:

September 1, 2011

VMware Day 3
Denny Cherry, SQL Server with Mr. Denny

Today was day 3 of VMworld. All the sessions that I attended today were pretty much recaps of the things which I covered earlier in the week. I went to these more in depth sessions because the information learned today will help me with my day to day deployments of VMware as well as helping me learn more about the specific items within VMware that I need to look at to ensure that VMware is running smoothly day to day….CONTINUED

August 31, 2011

Like Superman/Clark Kent for your phone: VMware’s Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP)
Michael Morisy, IT Watch Blog

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I had a chance to sit down with Srinivas Krishnamurti, VMware’s senior director of mobile products, and check out the Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP). MVP is an interesting concept that blends both personal and professional phone usage by actually installing a separate virtual instance of Android on select handsets…CONTINUED

VMworld Day 2 – Lots of product announcements today
Denny Cherry, SQL Server with Mr. Denny

So today was day 2 of VMworld 2011 and today was a great day at the conference. We had a great keynote with some demos which were pretty funny (I really hope that they were supposed to be funny). Granted I was a little late to the keynote so I missed the first few minutes, but I over slept breakfast is the most important meal of the day….CONTINUED

August 30, 2011

Microsoft wedges its way into VMworld 2011 with anti-VMware video
Melanie Yarbrough, IT Watch Blog

Not to be left out, Microsoft has asserted its opinion of host of this week’s big conference in Las Vegas, VMworld 2011, by way of a YouTube video touting its private cloud services. The video pokes fun at VMware’s longstanding decision to stay out of multi-hypervisor management (since, according to VMware, no one is demanding Hyper-V management anyway) and appeals to the ultimate nightmare in technology: getting left behind….SEE THE VIDEO HERE

VMworld, Day 1
Denny Cherry, SQL Server with Mr. Denny

Today was day 1 of VMware and I had a blast, even though I was only able to attend for part of the day. I flew in Vegas this morning instead of spending the night last night. I didn’t hit any sessions today, but I did catch the keynote which was given by Paul Maritz, the CEO of VMware…CONTINUED

Far from VMworld, virtualization contender Red Hat starts lobbing stones
Michael Morisy, IT Watch Blog

How do you know you’re successful? You start finding more enemies. A recent article by Steven Vaughn-Nichols should bring a smile to fans of VMware: Red Hat, the enterprise Linux giant, sees itself facing off not against enterprise mainstays like Oracle in the future but virtualization and cloud companies. Specifically, VMWare…CONTINUED

August 29, 2011

VMworld, come hell or high water
Michael Morisy, IT Watch Blog

This year’s attendees might be facing a little of both as they make their way to VMware’s annual conference: Even as Hurricane-cum-Tropical Storm Irene was wreaking H20 havoc across the Northeast and canceling Sunday, Monday and even Tuesday flights, conference host Las Vegas was flirting with temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit…CONTINUED

The Essentials:

• Check out all of the IT Watch Blog’s VMWorld coverage
• SearchVMWare has kicked off SearchVMWorld2011 for round-the-clock coverage
• MrDenny will also be blogging throughout the conference at SQL Server

VMWorld Know before you Go:

• What is the future of cloud computing?
• What tools does Microsoft offer for cloud computing?
• What would it take for you to jump into cloud computing?
• The best books on cloud computing

Still have unanswered questions? See what others are asking about cloud computing or ask your own IT question in our forums!

For a deeper dive, take a look at some of these excellent cloud computing book recommendations we’ve pulled together, or suggest your own:

Books on Enterprise Cloud Computing:

• Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud
• Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide
• Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online

Have another suggestion for this list? E-mail me at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com or leave it in the comments.

Want to connect directly with experts? Read their blogs to hear straight from the horse’s mouth: The pioneers, chearleaders and critics of cloud computing are often just a click away, and we’ve helped to organize the best of the best.

Top VMWorld Bloggers:

• Cloud news bloggers
• Cloud vendors’ blogs
• Cloud analyst blogs
• Cloud groups & association blogs

The list is a work in progress, so leave a message in the comments if you know of a blog to add.

What else would make this guide useful to you? Let me know in the comments or e-mail me directly at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com with any additions, corrections or suggestions.