Started Tuesday with the Maritz/Herrod keynote.  I have to say that this was probably the bestkeynote I’ve seen at any of the VMWorlds. The message was relatively clear, they transitioned well from one topicto another and stuck with a common theme through all three speakers.

It started with a short video “explaining” the concept ofthe cloud.  Extremely well done withreferences to Microsoft (“As we contemplate the azure skys”), pizza parloranalogies (order what you want from a list of options and someone delivers itcompleted to you) and many references to the Matrix (the cloud exists in ourcollective consciousness).

The statistics of VMWorld attendance were astounding.  VMWorld started in 2004 with 1400 attendees;2009 had 12,500, and this year they had over 17,000 attendees (their original goalwas for 14,000).  I have heard this ismakes VMWorld the second largest tech conference to Oracle.  Out of these 17,000 people, only 55 have beento all seven VMWorld conferences (I am lucky to be one of them).

There was a great call out to the VMUG organization and thenew board of directors.  I know many ofthe folks on the board of directors, and I think they’ll do a great job withthe new structure for the VMUGs.

The journey to the cloud message then began.  The following were a few of the interestingstatistics they used:

• 2009 VM Cross over: more VMs than physical machines
• 10 million VMs will be deployed in 2010
• 190,000 VMware customers
•  50,000 VCPs
• 25,000 partners
• There are now more copies of Operating systems that no longer see the hardware than ever before.

One of the interesting things I noticed was that in oneslide, security was added to the core resources, sitting equal to CPU, Memoryand Storage.

The three layers VMware is focusing are:

• Decrease OpEx, focus on innovation in the compute layer (layer 1)
• “Are old apps on new infrastructure enough?” which indicates that new application platforms are needed, resulting in a reduction of the current operating systems to just app platforms on the hypervisor, which runs the hardware. (layer 2)
• End user computing will include multiple devices that all need access and management and a consistent user experience (layer 3)

Steve Herrod, VMware’s CTO, then took over the stage anddiscussed several aspects of the cloud and how VMware is enabling it.  He pointed out that small customers can pushthe cost of virtual machines to just $18 using average consolidation on 6 coresusing the vSphere Essentials bundle.

There were also the following announcements:

• Acquisition of Integrien - a proactive analytics engine presented with a dashboard interface
• vCloud Director – http://www.vmware.com/products/vcloud-director/
• vShield Endpoint – http://www.vmware.com/products/vshield-endpoint/
• vSheild App - http://www.vmware.com/products/vshield-app/
• vShield Edge – http://www.vmware.com/products/vshield-edge/
• vFabric – frameworks for directly taking full advantage of the cloud infrastructure
• Tricypher acquisition – provides single sign-on capabilities for Horizon

Demos were performed of vCloud Director and Horizon(complete with scooters!).

View 4.5 was officially announced, with full Windows 7support, offline mode support, a native Mac client, and support for vSphere 4.1.  View 4.5 will also work with vShield Endpointfor offloading AV processing.  They arealso publishing a reference architecture to push down the acquisition costs below$500.

After the keynote, I wasn’t feeling too well (cold, notalcohol related), so I returned to the hotel to try and get some rest.  After resting I headed to the VMWorldLabs.  The setup this year for the labswas absolutely amazing!  I completed twolabs and was thoroughly impressed by the performance and the ease of use.  Kudos to everyone who put these labstogether.

As has been the case for the last two years, my first twodays of this VMWorld were spent in the Partner Technical Advisory Board.  This board is made up of the top engineersand architects of the top 1% of all VMware North America partners, butrepresent almost 50% of all the revenue brought to VMware from its NorthAmerican partners.  Needless to say, it’sa great group to be a part of, and it has been my honor to sit on this board forthe fourth time.

The first day (Sunday) was desktop based.  Unfortunately, pretty much all of theinformation presented was repeat from back in February when PTAB last met atPartner Exchange.  It was kicked off byVittorio Viarengo, VMware VP of Desktop Product Management.  He explained that the delay in deliveringView 4.5 was purely about the quality of the product, as well as covering someof the new features.  He also stated thatthere will be a stronger emphasis on assessments prior to the proof of conceptfor VDI deployments.  The rest of thespeakers proceeded to dig deeper into the View 4.5 features and a fewconversations about features in future releases, including a look into the EndUser Computing and Project Horizon concepts that are being introduced this yearat VMWorld.

Carl Eschenbach, VMware’s EVP of Worldwide Sales, stopped byto greet us, and ended up staying for nearly 45 minutes.  It was a great discussion that helped todefine how VMware’s partners need to adjust our business models to incorporatethe introduction of the cloud.

The second day (Monday) was cloud based.  The discussions on this day were farbetter.  We received a lot of futures,and it seemed that the product managers were definitely listening to ourinput.  The highlight was an “imagine yourselftwo years in the future” discussion of SRM features that really showed thevalue of PTAB for both the members and VMware. There was also a live demonstration of vCloud Director by Eddie Dinel(who also did the keynote demonstration).

Definitely a great start to VMWorld.  The only major issue was the fact thatVMWorld included sessions and labs on Monday, which resulted in the PTABmembers missing an entire day of conference goodness.