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Now also VMworld EU 2017 is concluded, so finally it’s possible to give the takeovers of this event, there was something new compared to VMworld US 2017?

Let’s start from the general sessions that where unfortunately too much similar (in some part identical) as the US edition… have two events so close (just two weeks of distance) is not useful at all, and the risk is to make the EU edition just a reply of the other… It’s already the small brother, but make it also a copy it’s a risk. Fortunately, the next year, VMworld EU 2018 will be at the beginning of November, so enough distance from the US one… I still think that was better in February (like the first Cannes edition) but for sure it’s better than now.

What I’ve appreciated from the first general session was the demo from Alan Renouf, not for the demo itself (because I’ve not found so innovative, was nice but nothing so new and unique), but to see somebody that has start from the community and now was on stage at a general conference… Wow!

During the rest of the first general session, Pat Gelsinger and Sanjay Poonen as they explore the essential pillars responsible for reshaping industries – cloud, mobility, networking and security — and hear from customers who are succeeding in their own transformation journeys.

The second general session with Pat Gelsinger and Ray O’Farrell has some few key announcements, but then was mainly a big practical example of digital transformation to demostrate how a company can transform by embracing VMware, partner and open-source technologies.

Lot of people have not like the “sit-com” part, but honestly I think that it’s not enough just talking about digital transformation, some examples and case studies are needed to make it real and possible. This was a good try, maybe not perfect, but a good try.

What it quite obvious from the general sessions is that VMware is changing the target of his message (at least for the general sessions): no more primarily focused on technical people, but more on the C-levels people. This reflect also how VMware is approaching their customers, talking no more (or not only) with the tech-guys but more on the high level of each company.

About the products announcements there where only few new products (the other where already presented at VMworld US). The overall list, across the events, is quite long.

But at VMworld EU the main announcents were:

• VMware AppDefense: is a new data center endpoint security solution that embeds threat detection and response directly into data center application endpoints. Because AppDefense is installed in the vSphere hypervisor, it has rich context and visibility into all provisioning events. Wasn’t NSX the way to provide also endopoint secuity? From this event seems mor that NSX will become an infrastructure platform security layer and AppDefense will be a deep guest security layer.
• VMware vSphere Integrated Containers 1.2: to provide an easy way to container adoption, enabling enterprises with vSphere 6.x to run containers in their existing SDDC environment.
• VMware HCX Technologies: not only VMware Cloud on AWS, but also a general and similar solutions for partners (initially with IBM and OVH starting from late 2017) to abstract multisite resources and presents them to the apps as one continuous hybrid cloud, providing infrastructure hybridity. More important, compared to VMware Cloud on AWS, also with compatibility with previous vSphere releases (and not only for 6.5U1)!

Of course a lot about VMware Cloud on AWS, but nothing much new from the US edition, and still with no effective date on when will be available in Europe. First step is active another region in US and then probabily the first region in UK. The risk will be that HCX will become more interesting in Europe and have more adoption… let’s see.

An interesting thought is about who will have more benefits from this type of partnership between VMware and Amazon: for sure initially VMware because will increase its portfolio with a new offer… but in the long term could be more interesting for AWS if people will start using native AWS services. About the costs is still not clear for me if could be really effective… if you look at the costs per hour seems very high, but different people from VMware have tried to demonstrate how could be cheaper compared with the costs of EC2 instances – of course, using enough numbers of workloads.

About the Solution Exchange area I’m not sure if was bigger or smallest compared to the previous year (because the layout and logistic was different)… for sure it’s always smallest than the US edition with several companies that are focused mostly (or first) on the US market.

About the Community, I’ve found a lot of improvements from the vExpert and VMTN communities with lot of new ideas and goals for the future. And a wide grow of the {code} initiatives, primary with the Hackathon, but not only.

And the logistic has also improved a lot, with a new entrance for the event, better layout and space usage (also during the final party)… Let’s see next year, considering that will be in the same venue.

Andrea Mauro

Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.