December 2014 archive

…according to VMware, they posted this banner on their website a week or so ago hinting at a big announcement coming soon. Hmmm, I wonder what that could be? If one had to make a guess I would suspect a new vSphere version which is overdue. The date corresponds with VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) which runs from 2/2 to 2/5 this year, there are no keynotes on Monday (2/2), just the Welcome Reception which opens at 5:00pm. Being that PEX is only a partner audience I suspect VMware will hold a separate online event earlier that day so customers can hear all about whatever big thing they are announcing. They did this with the release of vSphere 5 (banner below) which was a small event broadcast live at the Terra Galley in SF at which I was one of a handful of bloggers that VMware invited to.

I still have the solid metal keepsake that they gave out to us at the vSphere 6 event.

One thing to note is that all of VMware’s recent new vSphere version launches have occurred at VMworld, and PEX has always been pretty un-exciting so hopefully this will spice it up. It also breaks VMware’s traditional one year release cycle of new vSphere major releases as I outlined in this post on VMware’s ever shortening release cycle for hypervisor versions. I suspect that the new VVOLs storage architecture took more effort to perfect than anticipated which may have caused the delay. Whatever they are announcing though I’ll guess you’ll have to wait a few more days until they officially let the cat out of the bag. I’ll be at PEX so I’ll be reporting on whatever they announce and show off at the event.

My last post triggered my memory that a few years ago (5 actually, my doesn’t time fly) I put together a list of the top 100 people to follow that were influential with VMware and virtualization technologies. It’s been quite a while since I updated that list (5 years!), so I thought I would bring it up to date by removing some people an adding new ones based on who I think are good people to follow these days.

Putting together these types of lists is always difficult, I try and research a bit to see who is fairly active on Twitter and tweets about VMware & virtualization stuff a good amount of time. It is entirely possible I missed some people though (I’m sure I did) that should be on the list, it wasn’t easy to limit it to 100 as there are tons of great people that tweet about VMware & virtualization but I did the best I could. So I apologize in advance if I missed someone that I probably should of included.

So without further ado, click the image below to see my Twitter list of the Top 100 VMware/virtualization people you MUST follow on Twitter.

I was contacted by the folks at Techopedia a few weeks ago and notified that they had added me to their Twitter list for Top Influencers for Virtualization. Not sure what the qualifications were or why they picked me but I’m thrilled to have been recognized by them. They also asked me if I had any recommendations for other people to add to the list so I gave them some names of the top bloggers in the community. While there are certainly a lot of worthy people on the list I’m not sure I agree with all of them (there certainly a lot of good people missing), for instance one person on the list hasn’t tweeted in over 2 years. So if you’re looking for virtualization people to follow on Twitter be sure and check the list out and start following the people on it.

Last year at VMware’s annual Partner Exchange (PEX) conference, VMware told both Veeam and Nutanix that they were not welcome there. Both companies had planned on being there already and did show up anyway and had a presence outside of the Moscone to engage with attendees. This year it looks like VMware has had a change of heart and both companies will be there. I noticed this when I was submitting a sponsor session submission and both companies were listed in the sponsor selection, they are also listed in the PEX Content Catalog (yeah Rick Vanover will be there).

Why did VMware do this last year? It could be that they felt threatened by them and VMware wanted partners to focus on VMware’s offerings instead. To single them out doesn’t make a lot of sense though as almost every other vendor competes with VMware these days as well. About the only vendors left that do not compete with VMware in some way are SuperMicro and Seagate who sell hardware solutions only that are server-based and cannot be virtualized.

Why the change of heart this year? Could be that they don’t want to call attention to them and cause a Streisand Effect and thereby giving them even more exposure. Also PEX has mainly be a mostly VMware show in the past, however this year VMware is limiting partner activities at PEX by cutting down on the Solutions Exchange hours to only Monday from 5:00-7:00 and Tuesday/Wednesday from 11:00-3:30. There are also only 14 sponsor sessions versus 153 VMware only sessions.

Regardless of why, it should be a good show as we finally have a PEX that will be aligned with a major vSphere product launch. I’ll be there again this year and if you’re going as well I hope to see you there.