Five lessons learned from VMworld 2011

VMworld 2011 was once again a major event for the world of virtualization and cloud computing, with 19,000 people in attendance at this year’s extravaganza in Las Vegas.

I’m happy to report there were no tigers in my hotel bathroom, no babies left in my closet, and I made it home with the same amount of teeth in my mouth as when I left and my full memory of the event. I still needed some time to decompress from my experience and to think about the things I heard, the discussions I had, and the trends I noticed at the show.

[ Also on InfoWorld.com: The real story behind VMworld 2011. | Also read about how Windows 8 with Hyper-V will require new hardware. ]

Here are five key takeaways from another great VMworld experience.

1. VMware’s partner ecosystem is doing just fine.

With the number of acquisitions taking place and the number of companies running out of VC funding, I thought for sure this year’s exhibit hall would be much smaller compared to VMworld last year in San Francisco. I was pleasantly surprised to see that wasn’t the case. When I walked into the hall for Monday night’s Welcome Reception, my jaw hit the floor. Maybe it was the Vegas lighting or the noise from the casino still ringing in my ears, but it actually felt much larger to me. As I went from booth to booth and navigated from aisle to aisle, I knew that VMware’s partner ecosystem was going to be just fine, in spite of the virtualization giant’s spending spree of acquisitions, which may ultimately challenge many of its partners.

2. The dust seems to have settled with vSphere 5’s new licensing methodology.

A lot of the good news and product enhancements around vSphere 5 was lost in a sea of noise around VMware’s decision to move from a licensing model based on the number of physical server cores to one that also takes into account the amount of vRAM, the memory that is allocated and used by virtual machines on the host server.

However, only a few weeks after that initial announcement was made, all seemed relatively quiet on the licensing front during VMworld. VMware CEO Paul Maritz didn’t make mention of the vSphere 5 licensing issue during his keynote presentation on day 1. Likewise, other than a humorous drive-by comment from VMware CTO Stephen Herrod, nothing was said about it during the second day’s keynote presentation either.

Instead of trying to address the licensing elephant in the room during a keynote presentation with such a broad audience, VMware instead created a dedicated breakout session for consumers still concerned with licensing changes. Perhaps that was enough for most. I only had a handful of discussions about the subject with end-users that I ran into. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean the issue is completely settled or that everyone has moved on.

Microsoft did take the opportunity to try and fan the flames around the vSphere vRAM tax, stating that the licensing change doesn’t just affect customers today but will continue to impact them going forward into the future. Microsoft seems to have high hopes that VMware’s licensing change may still motivate users to consider moving some, if not all, of their virtualization infrastructure from vSphere over to Hyper-V. Only time will tell if that theory will hold true.

3. Solid-state drives have come a long way since last year’s virtualization event.

A year ago, companies were trying to convince show attendees that traditional hard drives were a thing of the past and solid-state storage drives (SSDs) were the future. Those exhibitors at VMworld 2010 seemed to be selling promises as opposed to delivering ready-set technology that people could go home and start implementing. But this year, things “felt” different. Every aisle you turned down seemed to have some SSD vendor singing a similar tune to last year — but this time, it made more sense. SSD prices are coming down, the technology seems to have matured and is gaining traction, and virtual machines are beginning to outnumber their physical counterparts. As organizations continue to move toward virtualizing more mission-critical business applications, expect to see them implementing at least some sort of tiered solution around SSD.

4. End-user computing, mobility, and desktop virtualization are a big deal.

The virtualization giant spent much of the day two keynote focusing on an array of end-user computing products. Herrod devoted the first 45 minutes of his talk to VMware’s goals of bringing anytime, anywhere access to mobile users.

One key piece of this puzzle was Horizon Mobile, which uses virtualization to split a work-issued smartphone or tablet into separate personal and company workspaces. This would allow consumers to not have to carry around multiple devices while providing them with a secure and safe environment that would separate the personal from the office environment as well as any work-related applications and data.

Other key efforts included projects such as AppBlast, which provides universal delivery of any application, including Windows-based applications, to any off-the-shelf browser or device supporting HTML5, enabling instant remote access to non-HTML based applications; and Project Octopus, which leverages data sync technology from VMware Zimbra and Mozy to enable enterprise-grade collaboration and information/data sharing — think a Dropbox service for the enterprise.

The other side of the coin had VMware focused on its desktop virtualization offering, VMware View 5. VMware’s goal is to make virtual desktops function in a way that makes them almost indistinguishable from their physical counterparts. One way to try and accomplish that is by introducing new 3D graphic support, a common complaint in the world of desktop virtualization users.

5. Virtualization is great. But is this a cloud world now?

Well, that’s what VMware has been suggesting anyway. If you couldn’t tell where VMware was going by the events and discussions that took place back at VMworld 2010, there was little room for confusion at VMworld 2011.

Just look at the way VMware promoted the world’s largest virtualization event — “VMworld 2011, Own It. Your Cloud.” The company also said that VMworld 2011 is “specifically designed for IT professionals seeking to accelerate success in their enterprises as they preserve existing investments while aligning their specific requirements to enable the cloud.” There’s that “C” word again, and no mention of the “V” word.

For VMware, it seems to be all about the cloud baby! Judging from the vendors exhibiting their wares in the Solutions Exchange, it was clear VMware isn’t the only company infected with what Maritz described as “cloud fever.” After seeing many new company names and faces this year, I was convinced that there is a host of XaaS solutions out there ready to take up the charge and fill in any 10-by-10 booth space left vacant by virtualization (remember that old term?) solution providers. Just don’t tell all the virtualization administrators who showed up to see virtualization solutions.

During the day one keynote, I could almost picture Maritz as a WWE wrestler promoting himself as ready to take on any and all challengers. His vision, built on the cloud, seemed primed and ready to go after IBM mainframes, Unix environments, and Windows, Linux, and Mac OS-based workloads. This vision of the “new IT” would replace this older methodology with a new approach that leverages modern applications developed using new tools, new application frameworks, and run in the cloud. These would then be accessed by Web browsers and mobile devices — spelling the end of the PC era as we know it. Though I must admit, I’m not ready to type any articles on my smartphone.

Cloud Foundry, VMware’s platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution, had a much larger role at VMworld 2011 and seemed to be an integral part of the company’s cloud vision. If VMware has any say in the matter, Cloud Foundry will be the way in which cloud applications are developed in the future. However, like anything else that seems like a good idea, it isn’t without competition. But then again, Maritz has proven he’s ready to put on the tights and step up to the challenge… brother!