Where to begin.....VMworld 2020
Oh, how time flies…… VMworld 2020 is right around the corner now and actually kicks off this week on Wednesday the 30th of September! If you haven't registered yet for your free General Pass it’s time to get on it. The number of great looking session options is quite impressive but I guess the good thing is they'll be available "On Demand" so no real rush. There are plenty of good curated lists from Industry figures like Duncan Epping’s Top 15 and I thought I’d add my take with some sessions of interest (possibly influenced by what I’ve been working on recently….)
vLCM or vSphere Lifecycle Manager is essentially the next generation of VMware Update Manager or VUM. It integrates with a vendor "Hardware Support Manager" (HSM) to provide unified updates not only to the hypervisor but also including drivers, firmware and vendor specific patches. If you've ever managed infrastructure this is quite appealing!
Simplifying vSphere Lifecycle for Consistency and Easy Updates [HCP1937]
Niels Hagoort, Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
Nigel Hickey, Sr. Product Line Marketing Manager, VMware -
VMware vSphere 7 comes with many enhancements for lifecycle management, making it easier and more efficient to update and upgrade your virtual infrastructures. We’ll discuss how to implement consistency across VMware ESXi hosts and VMware vCenter Server instances. This session will cover how to use vSphere Lifecycle Manager for declarative ESXi cluster management. Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager allows you to integrate vSphere with selected hardware vendors to push out full-stack firmware updates. Learn how to use the simplified image creator to include vendor components and additional drivers. This session also details how to manage vCenter Server configurations and updates for desired state consistency.
Session Type: Breakout Session
Session Platform: Event Platform
Track and Subtrack: Multi-Cloud: Hybrid Cloud
Product: vCenter Server, vSAN, vSphere, vSphere Hypervisor
Pass Type: General and Premier Passes
Level: Technical 300
Primary Audience: SysAdmin/VI Admin
vCenter Server 7 and vSphere 7 are the latest generation products that were working with in DevTest and will look to be updating production to at somepoint
vCenter Server 7 Deconstructed [HCP2328]
Emad Younis, Staff Cloud Architect, VMware -
Niels Hagoort, Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
VMware vCenter Server has evolved over the years. With the release of VMware vSphere 7, there are significant enhancements to vCenter Server, including simplified architecture, integration of Kubernetes and improved lifecycle management, to name a few. In this session, we will discuss how these changes impact your current infrastructure and how to transition to vSphere 7 to leverage these new capabilities. We will also demonstrate how to create a consistent set of configurations across all vCenter Server deployments throughout its lifecycle.
Session Type: Breakout Session
Session Platform: Event Platform
Track and Subtrack: Multi-Cloud: Hybrid Cloud
Product: vCenter Server, VMware vCenter, vSphere, vSphere Hypervisor
Pass Type: General and Premier Passes
Level: Technical 300
Primary Audience: SysAdmin/VI Admin
vSAN is the HCI solution we're currently using for our Management Clusters
vSAN 7.0: A Platform for Both Virtual Machine and Containerized Workloads [HCI1814]
Duncan Epping, Senior Director and Chief Technologist, VMware -
Cormac Hogan, Director and Chief Technologist, Storage, VMware -
Join Cormac Hogan and Duncan Epping as they discuss the new VMware vSAN 7.0 features. One of the major enhancements to vSAN 7.0 is the inclusion of file services. Now, vSAN can offer both block volumes and file shares to your applications. Not only that, with improvements made in the VMware vSphere Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver, containerized applications can request block-based Kubernetes Persistent Volumes and also dynamically request vSAN based file shares. Duncan and Cormac will take you through all of this, with lots of technical content and demos. This session should appeal to customers already using vSAN, as well as to customers considering vSAN. It should also be a useful session to customers researching how to provide storage for both virtual machine and containerized workloads.
Session Type: Breakout Session
Session Platform: Event Platform
Track and Subtrack: Multi-Cloud: Hybrid Cloud
Product: HCI Powered by VMware vSan, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, vSAN, vSphere
Pass Type: General and Premier Passes
Level: Technical 200
Primary Audience: SysAdmin/VI Admin
What’s New in vSphere 7 Core Storage [HCI1689]
Jason Massae, Sr. Technical Marketing Architect, VMware -
This year, VMware announced a major release: VMware vSphere 7. Numerous storage features have been added in this release, such as NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF), shared VMDKs and affinity manager, to name a few. Learn about these external storage features and how they may be used in your environment.
Session Type: Breakout Session
Session Platform: Event Platform
Track and Subtrack: Multi-Cloud: Hybrid Cloud
Product: Virtual Volumes, vSphere
Pass Type: General and Premier Passes
Level: Technical 200
Primary Audience: SysAdmin/VI Admin
VMware NSX is clearly the direction that VMware is taking for its next generation networking solution and something we'll no doubt be working with at somepoint down the track.
The Future of Networking with VMware NSX [VCNC1555]
Bruce Davie, CTO, Asia Pacific & Japan, VMware -
In this session, we will look into the future to see why networking will be the enabling force behind many breakthrough innovations, from next-generation applications to the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G. To better understand the future of networking, we will explore the progression of networking as it has become increasingly software based. Network virtualization has become a key enabler of modern apps, providing automation and security controls required by these apps. We will look into some emerging technologies inside VMware NSX-T, such as support for Kubernetes and service mesh, intrusion detection, and other innovations designed to provide the necessary control for complex and distributed cloud applications. We’ll also include demos of new networking capabilities.
Session Type: Breakout Session
Session Platform: Event Platform
Track and Subtrack: Virtual Cloud Network: Cloud-Scale Networking
Product: NSX Advanced Load Balancer, NSX Distributed IDS/IPS, NSX Intelligence, NSX
Pass Type: General and Premier Passes
Level: Technical 200
Primary Audience: Director, Networking
These tend to be repeated each year but are always worth a look:
What's New in vSphere [HCP2110]
Jared Rosoff, Sr Director, Product Management, VMware
This session is a VMworld staple. Find out what’s new with the most robust and widely adopted virtualization platform in the industry. This session will provide a high-level overview of new and existing features, direction updates and changes, tech previews, and other critical data points (such as end-of-support reminders) that will help you stay on top of VMware vSphere in 2020. Don’t miss your chance to get the latest and greatest details on vSphere.
Session Type: Breakout Session
Session Platform: Event Platform
Track and Subtrack: Multi-Cloud: Hybrid Cloud
Product: vSphere
Pass Type: General and Premier Passes
Level: Business 200
Primary Audience: SysAdmin/VI Admin
Deep Dive: What's New with vCenter Server [HCP1100]
Sandeep Byreddy, Group Product Manager, VMware -
In this session, you will learn about all-new features and capabilities in the latest VMware vCenter Server release (VMware vSphere 7.0). We will dive deep and showcase improvements to vCenter Server, including the tools available, VMware vSphere with Tanzu, vCenter profiles for desired state config management, federation support, lifecycle capabilities, FQDN change, multihoming, certificate management, performance and scale, and much more. You will receive guidance and best practices along with a peek into potential enhancements beyond this release. You will get an opportunity to understand how these new capabilities in 7.0 will help in managing your infrastructure more efficiently.
Session Type: Breakout Session
Session Platform: Event Platform
Track and Subtrack: Multi-Cloud: Hybrid Cloud
Product: vCenter Server, vSphere, vSphere Hypervisor
Pass Type: General and Premier Passes
Level: Technical 200
Primary Audience: SysAdmin/VI Admin
vSAN Technical Deep Dive [HCI1069]
Rakesh Radhakrishnan, Director, vSAN Product Management, VMware -
Matthew Amdur, Principal Engineer, VMware
VMware vSAN is the largest and fastest growing hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) product in the market today. vSAN has always been at the forefront of technology innovation. In this session, we will cover the enhancements in the latest vSAN release, and how vSAN interoperates with other products across the entire software-defined data center (SDDC) stack. You will learn about some of the coolest innovations in vSAN (VMware HCI Mesh, file services, VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager, compression only) and advances in hardware enablement. We will also touch on some key management and monitoring enhancements, including how easy it is to install, manage and monitor vSAN for your daily operations. We will provide a demo of the newest features in core vSAN and full-stack HCI. This is one VMworld session you do not want to miss.
Session Type: Breakout Session
Session Platform: Event Platform
Track and Subtrack: Multi-Cloud: Hybrid Cloud
Product: vCloud Suite, VMware Cloud Foundation, vRealize Suite, vSAN
Pass Type: General and Premier Passes
Level: Technical 300
Primary Audience: SysAdmin/VI Admin
And of course, don’t forget a keynote or two. These can be quite interesting (if not a little long) and even feature the odd fireside chat or two between key figures....not to be missed
VMworld General Session [GEN2859]
Pat Gelsinger, Chief Executive Officer, VMware
Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer, Customer Operations, VMware
CEO Pat Gelsinger will kick off VMworld 2020 welcoming attendees to the first ever virtual event in VMworld history. He will offer his perspective on the critical role that digital innovation is playing as we navigate this extraordinary chapter in human history. He will emphasize the important role of technology as a force for good in service of humanity. Gelsinger will celebrate the unique role of all of you—the VMware community—in these times. He will provide an insight into VMware’s strategy, with a focus on how leading-edge organizations around the world are re-thinking their approach across key areas of their business.
This session will also feature numerous customers and industry luminaries, who will share their thoughts on the big issues of the day, technology trends and VMware solutions. You will leave this opening keynote session with a handful of provocative and actionable ideas and a good dose of inspiration.
Hopefully you find something of interest in session catalogs. As I mentioned there is a ton of content and I haven't even touched on Tanzu, containers, Nvidia and GPU virtualization, multicloud, automation, security.........
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