Andy Hunt, Vice President for the EMEA Partner Organization from VMware kicked off partner day today, which traditionally is the opening day for VMworld. He welcomed us all and thanked us for coming to VMworld despite that poor economic climate. He was very happy to see about 1,500 visitors at partner day, and was happy to announce that there should be about 5,000 visitors at VMworld in total.

Next to take the stage was CEO of VMware Paul Maritz. Maritz explained that VMware has a budget of $515 billion dollars for research and development (R&D) and that the team of engineers in VMware’s R&D department is larger than any team he has ever worked with while working for Microsoft.

This may sound like a typical blanket statement, but keep in mind that Maritz has worked with Microsoft for 14 years where, amongst other functions, he has been Vice President of the Platform Strategy and Developer Group where he oversaw the development and marketing of System Software Products (including Windows 95, Windows NT and Windows 2000).

Maritz also showed us that in today’s world, IT departments use 70% of their budget to just keep the lights on –  a mere 30% is used for research and competitive development. VMware sees potential to move that 70% around, and is focusing on ways to reduce typical running costs so that more money is available for R&D.

The three biggest VMware initiatives at the moment are:

1. Foundation for the cloud. This is an area where the Virtual Data Center OS (VDC-OS) will play a big role. VDC-OS will be about service and policy (namely availability, security and scalability) on one side and about aggregation (with products like vCompute, vStorage, vNetwork) on the other side. VDC-OS should become the new software mainframe.
2. Choice and cloud federation. This is all about vCloud working on and with standards to provide high interoperability between in-house and external clouds.
3. Desktop as a service. The key is to provision to users, not to provision devices. Depending on the type of worker, users could get a virtual desktop or a client-side hypervisor.

Maritz also announced the new name for VDC-OS. It’s officially vSphere. The name didn’t really come as a surprise because rumors have been humming for a few weeks now, but finally all those people under a non-disclosure agreement can shout it out loud:  VSphere is here! (But not entirely, the name may be official but the product isn’t here just yet.)

Three more announcements Maritz made:

1. Collaboration with Teradici. On the desktop side, VMware has announced the collaboration with Teradici to improve the VDI protocol. Tomorrow, VMware will announce the VMware Client Hypervisor.
2. VCenter Server Heartbeat. Maritz announced a new vCenter Server add on called vCenter Heartbeat. Through vCenter Heartbeat it will be possible to make your vCenter fully redundant. VCenter Heartbeat is to be expected in mid March.
3. Additional security. VMware vShield zones will make it possible to deliver security and compliance to the internal cloud.

As a consultant, these are all products that I expect to see at customer’s sites very soon, and I welcome the product announcements.

These releases should give VMware a new boost in the battle for the data center. Bring it on!

The concept of VDC-OS is to better define the various roles and to change how we as administrators view and manage our virtualized data centers. However, with tools like Bluelane the view begins to muddy.

An operating system provides the basic security and fundamentals to run applications and perform tasks as the users dictate. Users do not want to worry about security, they want to have the system just work. Bluelane helps this by allowing VMs to run even if they are not patched yet reap the benefits of some of these patches. Granted not all patching happens by Bluelane, but those patches that are network related will. Less patching means less downtime.

However, are there diminishing returns? Yes, you get protection but at what cost? Higher CPU utilization to handle all the myriad of network related patches that are necessary? Are you protected by zero day attacks? What if Bluelane is attacked directly?

Even with these questions to be answered, VMware’s purchase of Bluelane shows an intriguing picture of a true data center operating system that just works regardless of the application being run; one that has its basic security handled for them. This is one more tool that can be used with the distributed virtual switch that will span the data center.

Picture a ThinApp running as a virtual appliance with Bluelane to handle the network patching required? Where is the operating system in this picture?

In the short term, it will most likely be business as usual. ESX Update 3 is rumored to be released soon which will keep us busy updating our servers for a while. Beyond that we have ESX 4.0 to look forward to which promises to be a major upgrade with many exciting new features such as a new look and feel, distributed vSwitches, Fault Tolerance, Host Profiles, Storage vMotion GUI and much more.

In the long term, VMware will be leading us towards their Virtual Data Center OS vision. The migration itself, however, will be a work in progress. VMware will not be releasing it all at once and it is not really an actual product but a name for a complete framework of components and services. Some of these components are just some of the new features that have already been mentioned wrapped in new fancy V-words. For example one of the pieces of the VDC-OS is Infrastructure vServices which has several components under it:

vCompute – a V-word for the optimal usage of all server resources which includes many of the technologies that ESX uses today. Adding to this in 2009 and presumably in ESX 4.0 is Paravirtualized storage and their new VMDirect technology which will allow VM’s to directly access host hardware.

vNetwork – a V-word for their set of networking technologies that will help optimize I/O and provide better integrated networking. Today this is basically just their current network I/O optimization that they already do. To build on this in 2009 and presumably in ESX 4.0 is the Distributed vSwitch, Network vMotion and 3rd party vSwitches like the Cisco Nexus 1000 that was announced.

vStorage – a V-word for maximizing storage utilization and efficiency. Today this includes their VMFS technology. Expanding on this in 2009 and presumably in ESX 4.0 is Thin Provisioning (yes you can do this today but not easily unless you use NFS storage), Linked Clones (another feature that exists today in Workstation) and new storage APIs to enable array software to manage individual VMs.

Additionally there are other new features coming that are positioned under the Application vServices pillar, these features include vCenter (new name for VirtualCenter) Data Recovery, VMsafe integrated products, VM’s with 8-way vSMP and up to 256GB of RAM and hot plug virtual hardware.

I know I was initially pretty confused after hearing Paul Maritz’s keynote session, but afterwards I took some time to read through the details on everything that was announced and realized that it wasn’t as complicated as I initially thought. So don’t let the new V-words overwhelm you, they are basically just marketing terms that most systems administrators will not even need to know. All that will matter to us are the many exciting new features that are coming soon.

The release date of ESX 4.0 has not yet been announced, although it is currently in a private beta. My guess is around Feb-March 2009. I do know one thing for sure though, I’m definitely excited about all these new features and I can’t wait until VMware releases them.

Now there is nothing wrong with initiative. I applaud VMware for putting their weight, money and research behind the idea of a data center OS founded upon virtualization technology. This tact, however, has an all-too-familiar feel from VMware. Take VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) or VMware Desktop Initiative (VDI) — both of these “technologies” were actually a lot closer to initiatives. I remember when I first heard of each, and I could not wait to get my hands on them. As it turns out, VCB was not the end-to-end backup solution that everyone expected it to be and VDI was little more than a partner program.

VMware recognizes that IT professionals like myself are getting a little tired of being sold initiatives instead of actual products. On their own website, out of the gate, VMware answers the charge that the Cloud vServices initiative is not simply a way to sell its customers on VMware partners. We’ll see if they live up to this promise.

One of the reasons that VI has been so successful is that it is a boxed product. It installs, you run it, and it does its thing. Software ecosystems are a harder sell, and even harder to manage. VCB and VDI have certainly not had the reception that VMware has likely hoped for. I for one am looking forward to the technologies included under the VDC-OS umbrella, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that it is not deja vu.