VMworld 2010: Will it be a virtualization show or a cloud show?

VMworld 2010 is right around the corner, kicking off on Aug. 30, and coming back to the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The show, now in its seventh year, has been considered the premiere virtualization trade show by many in the industry even though it is owned and operated by one sole vendor, VMware. Because it’s owned and operated by a single vendor, the show certainly hasn’t been without its problems, as various controversies between competitors have cropped up now and again.

After last year’s event, I wrote “Make no mistake, VMworld is a VMware show” because it became clear by the show’s conclusion that VMworld is not a vendor-neutral virtualization industry event. Rather, it is a VMware event that other virtualization technologies and platform vendors cannot afford to miss. If you want to get your wares in front of a virtualization trade show audience, there is perhaps no better place to do it on this scale than VMworld — even if you are the competition and feel pigeonholed into a 10-by-10-foot booth.

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VMworld 2010 pre-registration has barely begun, yet I’m already asking questions. Is VMworld still the premiere virtualization trade show it once was? Or is it now becoming a cloud event? Why do I ask?

Last year, VMworld 2009 was about freedom, stated in its slogan of “Hello Freedom,” and it seemed to focus on how virtualization was revolutionizing the next generation of computing and IT by liberating nearly every aspect of the data center and the desktop. VMware itself wrote in a press release announcing the show:

The “Hello Freedom” theme highlights the ability of virtualization to empower IT professionals to rid themselves of the technical limitations of conventional computing, and recognizes the resourceful, creative and forward-thinking IT professionals and developers who leverage virtualization to turn possibilities into reality and potential into impact.  Thousands of VMware customers worldwide are transforming their organizations by saying “goodbye” to the inflexible and inefficient traditional approach to computing and saying “hello” to a future of infinite possibilities powered by virtualization.

The show’s audience has predominantly been made up of virtualization architects and administrators attending to find out about the latest virtualization technologies and best practices, but last year there was a lot of cloud talk taking place and a lot of discussions around the VMware acquisition of SpringSource and how it would eventually play out. Were virtualization administrators interested in SpringSource? At the time of the show, I didn’t get that impression. After all, what did it have to do with their virtualization implementations?

It does make sense, though. Almost since the beginning, VMware has been synonymous with server virtualization and VMware ESX. This has been the company’s mainstay product. As the hypervisor becomes (or many argue already has become) a commodity, VMware has to take it to another place or another layer: the cloud. Cloud computing may be 2010’s buzzword bingo of the year — the term itself isn’t always clearly defined and remains partly “cloudy” for many of us — but that definitely is the course being taken by many of the larger virtualization platform providers.

VMware’s parent company, EMC, just finished up its annual EMC World conference. And the theme? “The Journey to the Private Cloud Starts Now.” Judging from the session tracks announced on VMworld.com, a similar theme could be headed to VMworld 2010. Of the eight sessions listed, four of them are on the cloud (Hybrid & Public Cloud; Private Cloud — Management; Private Cloud — Business Continuity; Private Cloud — Security). Only two have the word “virtualization” in their title (Desktop Virtualization and Virtualization 101).

That doesn’t mean virtualization will be hidden away in a corner. The overall topics may be cloud, but the individual sessions are still about virtualization. With sessions like “vCenter Best Practices,” “Why It’s Imperative to Maintain a Strategic Approach to Virtualization,” and “10 Best Free Tools for vSphere Management,” virtualization is still top of mind. Only a year ago, these presentations would have stood on their own and would have been found under different session topics.

This year, we can expect to see more of a push to wrap these things up into a nice cloud package thanks to vendor marketing, analysts, and yes, the media. Instead of learning how server virtualization will affect your data center, you will likely hear how it will affect your private cloud. Some of the names and terminology may have been changed to something more cloud-like, but show attendees should still get their usual dose of virtualization goodness to help them along their virtualization maturity journey.

Cloud seems to make sense for VMware as a company. Because of that, cloud may make sense for the coming VMworld event. But like the confusion or the lack of interest in the SpringSource news during VMworld 2009, does this make sense for the virtualization administrators who make up the bulk of the show’s attendees list? Do they care about public, private, or hybrid clouds?

What do you say? Are you ready for VMworld to transform into vCloudWorld? Or is it still too early in your virtualization journey? Are you still just trying to figure out what virtualization is and how to implement it in your lab, organization, or data center?

Something new this year at VMworld: If you want to participate in deciding what breakout sessions will be made available, head over to VMworld.com to the public voting section where you can give a thumbs-up to the content you’d like to see.

This article, “VMworld 2010: Will it be a virtualization show or a cloud show?” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of David Marshall’s Virtualization Report blog and follow the latest developments in virtualization at InfoWorld.com.