VMworld 2020 is around the corner!

As you may know this year VMworld will be a global online event starting September 29 till October 1..so it´s around the corner.

This is the first time you can attend this awesome event from home so no excuses to register! 

https://www.vmworld.com/myvmworld-login.jspa

Since i came back to VMware, i was focused on VMware Cloud on AWS as an Architect for EMEA and this year i will be sharing the keys from a technical point of view in a roundtable.

The "Expert Roundtable: Cloud Customer Success for VMware Cloud on AWS [VI3117]" will be hosted by Marco Carrubba and also covered with Ruth Power and Claire Hackett as Customer Success Managers.

We will give an overview about Cloud Customer Success for VMConAWS, and how we help our customers on their journey to cloud plus how the team engages with customers of all types to understand and accelerate the realization of business objectives through the successful adoption of VMware Cloud on AWS.

There is a lot of definitions of Customer Success but all of them have something in common: anticipate customer challenges or questions and proactively provide solutions and answers to those issues prior to them arising.

VMware listen and capture what customer needs so we are moving to a subscription model and our team is the key for customers to go forward on this model.

Both roles of this teams cover all the topics that you can imagine: Customer Success Managers (CSM) and Customer Success Architects (CSA) working together solve and help to drive the adoption of VMConAWS.

Do you wanna know more? Join our Expert Roundtable this Wednesday:

https://my.vmworld.com/widget/vmware/vmworld2020/catalog?tab.deliveryfordisplay=1597089771221001YGg0&search=VI3117

vSphere 6.5 announced at VMworld 2016 Barcelona

vSphere 6.5 was announced at VMworld 2016 Barcelona.
As you may know, VCSA is the recommended deploy option since vSphere 6 was released in Feb`2015 and most of the new improvements are realted with that, for example, now we have native high availability for VCSA, the VUM (VMware Update Manager) is now integrated (remember that in vSphere 6.0 we need to install it only on Windows) and the new native backup and restore options which cover most of the complaints with the VCSA.

• ·      VMware vCenter Server® Appliance - will deliver a simplified building block for vSphere environments offering an easy to deploy and manage approach that reduces operational complexity by embedding key functionality into a single virtual appliance. The appliance will offer customers simplified patching, upgrading, backup and recovery, high availability and more, including a 2x increase in both scale and performance of their vCenter Server environments.
• ·      REST APIs - will improve both the IT and developer experience by enabling greater control and automation of virtual infrastructure for modern applications via new REST-based APIs.
• ·      VMware vSphere Client - based on HTML5, the new vSphere Client will simplify the administrative experience via a modern, native tool that meets the performance and usability needs and expectations of users for day-to-day operations.
• ·      VM Encryption - new virtual machine-level encryption will protect against unauthorized data access safeguarding data at rest as well as virtual machines that are moved with VMware vMotion®.
• ·      Secure Boot - new feature will prevent the tampering of images as well as the loading of unauthorized components into vSphere environments.
• ·      VMware vSphere Integrated Containers™ - will allow IT operations teams to provide a Docker-compatible interface to their app teams enabling vSphere customers to transform their businesses with containers without re-architecting their existing infrastructure.

Two great features for me right now is to have the option to backup and restore the VCSA removin the dependency with third party backup solutions in one hand, and to have the option  to secure and encriptyon the VMs in other hand, so security is now done with VCSA 6.5

In the next post i´ll cover one by one the new features, meanwhile you can check the official landing page: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/10/introducing-vsphere-6-5.html

vSphere 6 upgrade: repoint replicated embedded SSO or PSC to external PSC

One of the keys of the new vSphere 6 topology is decided which scenario will fits better following the best practices. The main best practice is deploy external PSC as it will help us to get high availability SLA and an easier upgrade path for the future. keep in mind that VCSA is the recommended option to deploy vCenter right now.

First of all, review on this image the upgrade path from the two different platforms: Windows Server and VCSA (vCenter Server Appliance):

Go ahead with a specific and common scenario: SSO embedded replicated between at least 2 vCenters.

First step is to deploy an external SSO replicating with the embedded SSO, second step is repoint vCenters to the external SSO and third uninstall the embedded SSO:

The quid here is the process to "repoint" the SSO, follow this KB and you´ll see it´s a piece of cake:

How to repoint and re-register vCenter Server 5.1 / 5.5 and components (2033620)

If you have PSC embedded instead the SSO embedded just follow this kb:

How to repoint vCenter Server 6.0 between External PSC within a site (2113917)

Once you have the new external SSO working, just upgrade it to PSC:

And last but not least, upgrade the vCenter 5.x to vCenter 6.x

You can use the same steps to upgrade a single vCenter install with embedded (or not) SSO or PSC.

Finally, remember that VMware recomeends:

• Deploy VCSA
• Deploy external(s) PSC
• Select a VMware "recommended" topology

VMWORLD 2016 - Breakout Sessions on-demand

The VMworld 2016 breakout sessions are now available on-demand:

http://www.vmworld.com/en/sessions/2016.html

VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture™ announced at VMworld 2016

Today VMware announced at VMworld the VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture™ enabling customers to run, manage, connect, and secure their applications across clouds and devices in a common operating environment.

In support of the company's cloud strategy, VMware also announced the following:

• VMware Cloud Foundation™ is a unified Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) platform that makes it easy for customers to manage and run their SDDC clouds;
• Technology Preview of Cross-Cloud Services™ to showcase how customers can manage, govern, and secure applications running in private and public clouds, including AWS, Azure and IBM Cloud;
• VMware vCloud® Availability™, a new family of disaster recovery offerings purpose-built for vCloud Air™ Network partners;
• A new release of VMware vCloud Air Hybrid Cloud Manager™ to provide VMware vSphere® users zero downtime application migration to VMware vCloud Air.

For the first time, VMware Cloud Foundation offers a new "as-a-service" option that delivers the full power of the SDDC in a hybrid cloud environment.IBM is the first VMware vCloud Air Network partner delivering new offerings based on VMware Cloud Foundation with its VMware Cloud Foundation™ on IBM Cloud offering. VMware Cloud Foundation will be available on additional public clouds, including vCloud Air, in the future. Read more about VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud in this announcement.

For private clouds, customers can procure turnkey VxRack Systems integrated solutions from EMC today, or combine Cloud Foundation software with qualified VMware Virtual SAN Ready Nodes from Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and QCT.

More info on the VMware CTO Blog by Raj Yavatkar: 
https://cto.vmware.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/

TAM Day at VMworld Europe 2015

El VMworld Europe 2015 de Barcelona esta a la vuelta de la esquina!!!  

Os dejo aqui los enlaces a la Agenda del TAM Day que se celebrar el Lunes 12 y la Agenda del TAM Customer Central (TCC) con las sesiones que se realizaran durante los 4 dias del VMworld. Ambos eventos son exclusivos para clientes TAM con sesiones reducidas por lo que es muy importante registrarse previamente.

TAM Customer Central  - Europe 2015

https://goo.gl/Dyq00b

TAM Day Europe Agenda (Tuesday, 12th)

https://goo.gl/LmpZE1

VMworld 2014 Europe: interview with Martin Casado = NSX

VMworld Eurpe 2014 .....tic tac tic tac

VMworld 2014 Barcelona ....blogger free pass!!!

Si tienes un blog y quieres ir este año al VMworld de Europa en Barcelona......tienes hasta el 1 de Julio para solicitar un pase gratuito en el enlace: http://bit.ly/1nwKy8R   go... go... go...!!!!!

VMworld Europe ya tiene fecha para 2011

Para los afortunados que podais asistir, VMworld 2011 Europe, October 18-20 in Copenhagen, el de los States sera en Las Vegas...como no! 

Como nota a destacar,NetApp se una como patrocinador del evento este año con mas fuerza, un buen indicador que cada vez mas gana terreno a otras soluciones de almacenamiento por su versatilidad, seguridad y sencillez de manejo, sobre todo para trabajar con NFS y vSphere http://www.vmworld.com/