Whilst at VMware Explore in Barcelona I attended this awesome session regarding the new features in vSphere 8. This session was hosted by Dave Morera and Himanshu Singh both from VMware. Much of the session focused on how vSphere 8 can now be used in many hybrid configuration with vSphere+ as well as the new hardware architectures allowing vSphere to make use of DPU’s for offloading of processing.

If you would like to read more about vSphere 8 be sure to check out the blog linked below.

What's New in vSphere 8? | VMware

You can see my doodle below capturing my key thoughts from the session.

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My second day of VMware Explore was just as jam-packed as day one. I started the day by attending the Microsoft Keynote, hosted by Jeff Woolsey.

Jeff discussed how over the past two years, we have gone through unprecedented change and how this has shifted our focus and objectives as an industry. One message that resonated with me and reflected what VMware presented in the general session, is the message around a cloud smart strategy. Jeff discussed how it is unrealistic to believe that we will have all apps and data in the public cloud, but actually the reality is that we will use hybrid & multi-cloud.

The two key technologies discussed in the session were Azure VMware Solution (AVS) and Azure Arc for vSphere.

Azure VMware Solution

Jeff discussed how AVS allows you to run a vSphere environment within Azure. Therefore, you are able to use the familiar VMware infrastructure you know (and love), within the cloud. Throughout the session, Jeff discussed different use cases where AVS can be extremely beneficial.

The first use case was for organisations that want to migrate their workloads to Azure with simplicity and ease. This may be good for people that are starting their cloud journey or that need to move their workloads to the cloud quickly. The most important factor that Jeff stated and emphasised was that with any move to the cloud, it should always be planned correctly. This resonated with the ‘cloud smart’ message from VMware.

The second use case was to be used for Disaster Recovery. With AVS, you are able to replicate your vSphere workloads on-premises to Azure.

Azure Arc

Azure Arc simplifies governance and management by delivering a consistent multi-cloud and on-premises management platform. Arc allows you to configure, manage and secure your environments regardless of where they are located.

Jeff discussed how this technology is able to save organisations time and resource as it is all centrally managed, allowing teams more time to innovate. We also saw a customer case study from Greggs. It was interesting to hear first-hand how this food chain was using Azure Arc to free up their time to be able to innovate and plan for the future.

It was great to learn more about these technologies and ultimately, it was great to see how Microsoft and VMware are coming together to give customers the best experience, regardless of the technology they use.

vSphere 8 updates

Following this session, I attended the overflowing vSphere 8 session to learn more about the new innovations and features that are introduced with vSphere 8. There was lots covered so I have summarised the key announcements:

• vSphere 8 introduces a cloud consumption interface bringing self-service access to IaaS

• vSphere 8 builds a flexible and open ecosystem of DPU solutions

• vSphere 8 supports higher complexity AI & ML workloads

• vSphere 8 allows you to monitor your workload power consumption so that you can make sustainable adjustments where necessary

In the afternoon, I took the time to explore the expo floor. It was good to learn more about what VMware partners are doing to innovate and ultimately help their customers. There was a lot to learn about the new products from partners and some great conversations about the industry. In my opinion, this is a key element that we miss at virtual events and is great to be able to immerse myself in the industry again.

And lastly, as always, it was great to attend the VMware party. This year, the band was Simple Minds, who put on a great show and of course it was great to catch up with more of the community. I am looking forward to the last day today and learning even more!

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BizTechMeg to keep up with my live snapshots, short vlogs and more throughout the event!

The general session is always a favourite of mine at VMware Explore because it gives such great insight into what the vision of VMware is, what the focus is for the organisation and of course, there is always some great announcements thrown in for good measure.

Check out the video below to hear my thoughts and what my key take aways were from the session this year.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BizTechMeg to keep up with my live snapshots, short vlogs and more throughout the event!

Today was the first day of VMware Explore 2022. The event was kicked off with a general session which is always a great opportunity to learn more about VMware’s vision, key announcements and new technology.

The session was kicked off with VMware’s CEO, Raghu Raghuram. Raghu’s key message of the session was focused on shifting focus from a ‘cloud first’ approach to a ‘cloud smart’ approach. VMware found that many with a cloud first approach actually didn’t achieve what they wanted to as effectively or efficiently as they would like. This ineffective cloud first approach has now led to cloud chaos!

Raghuram believes companies that adopt a cloud smart approach can move from disparate teams to a consistent cloud strategy, providing better experiences and a more secure strategy.

The keynote moved quickly with lots of content and announcements from a number of great speakers. Some of the key messages and announcements were:

• How we need to innovate to reduce energy costs and ultimately help ourselves in the future

• vSAN 8 & vSphere 8 are Generally Available (GA) as of today

• That VMware Cross Cloud services give you consistent experiences across any cloud and we need to accept that it is inevitable that businesses will use multiple clouds, not just one.

• Flexible working is here to stay and 75% of organisations recognise the Digital Employee Experience needs to be a top priority

• That organisations need not only to try and prevent Ransomware attacks but have the right tools in place to recover from an attack. An attack happens every 11 seconds, so you need to be able to recover to a good point as quickly as possible. VMware Ransomware Recovery can help.

• And there were some great customer stories from Mclaren and Llyods Banking about how VMware have allowed them to innovate and improve their experiences

Following the general session, I attended an influencer & press panel session with a number of VMware execs, hosted by Joe Baguley. It was great to hear a little more about the company’s vision and get some real detailed answers about various areas of the organisation, building upon what we heard in the general session.

There were great questions and discussions about the Broadcom acquisition, reducing carbon footprint, security and more and it was great to get these insights from the exec’s first hand.

After some lunch and a catch-up with the community, I joined the EUC solutions keynote hosted by Shankar Iyer. The key message from this session was focused on how work has fundamentally changed, and we need to adapt to ensure that the employee experience is consistent and personalised to enable employees to work effectively.

Shankar discussed how organisations also need to bring together experience and security and make sure they are balanced. Many don’t get this balance right and it can either put too much emphasis on security, negatively impacting the experience, or prioritising experience over security and putting your business at risk.
A big focus of session was about automation and how with automated tools and processes, we are able to do more with less. There were some great customer stories and demonstrations that discussed and showed how these organisations are using automation to improve experiences without impacting security.

Lastly, Shawn Bass was on stage demonstrating and discussing some of the Workspace ONE technologies and the autonomous workspace in action. This was a great insight into how this technology can work and actually see some real benefit it can bring organisations.

Whilst my brain was full of content and I was busy digesting all that I had already heard throughout the day, I took a lap around the solutions exchange to learn more about what is happening in the industry. Tomorrow, I want to spend longer in the solutions exchange to learn more about how these VMware partners are enabling businesses and improving experiences, whether that is related to cloud, employee experiences or security.

I am already excited for another day of exploring tomorrow!

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BizTechMeg to keep up with my live snapshots, short vlogs and more throughout the event!