Nov 28 2018
Pete Flecha from VMware and I just finished recording a webinar on VVols where we discuss challenges with external storage, the benefits of VVols along with the latest adoption trends and ecosystem readiness. If you are on the fence about VVols or just want to learn more about it be sure and check it out.
Nov 24 2018
This is a multi-part series covering various aspects of VMware Virtual Volumes (VVols) from support to adoption to benefits to predictions and more. In part 1 we’ll take a look at what VMware has delivered so far with VVols and the VASA specification.
In the first part of this series on VVols let’s do a brief history of the timeline for VMware’s development of VVols:
From this timeline we can see that VMware has been working on the development of VVols for over 7 years and it has been part of vSphere for almost 4 years. That’s a pretty long time but what’s important to note is it’s been a bit of a work in progress as VVols required massive engineering on VMware’s part, to get VVols to work VMware had to request changes to the SCSI T10 specifications and also filed patents on the new architecture.
The initial release of VVols in vSphere 6.0 had some shortcomings, the biggest being lack of support for VVols replication. In addition there was very limited partner support for VVols early, only 2 major storage vendors supported it at launch. vSphere 6.5 brought both maturity for VVols and support for array replication and I consider that to be the release that was ready for prime time. The support for array replication however came with an important caveat, there was no support for SRM and all BC/DR operations had to be manually scripted using PowerCLI which made the solution unappealing.
vSphere 6.7 further enhanced VVols in small ways and today VVols is pretty rock solid from VMware’s side. Now it’s really on the partners to build out their solutions for VVols, the only barriers that exist today for partners to do whatever they want with VVols are their engineering resources. As VVols represented a massive engineering feat from VMware the same is equally true for partners as well. VVols represents a fundamental change in how storage arrays interact with vSphere and the greatly increased number of objects that a storage array needs to support for VVols. As a result this put a pretty hefty burden on partners to engineer their arrays to support this new architecture.
The introduction of VVols also had a ripple impact on other VMware products as well, one of the biggest challenges to VVols adoption has to do with support for VVols across VMware products such as SRM, vROps, vCloud Director and more. As those products were in other BUs from the core storage development team it was up to the other product teams to prioritize their support for VVols. As a result support for VVols in other VMware products has come at varying paces. Today almost all VMware products support VVols, the lone exception being SRM but that is in the works and is expected to come next year.
So what’s next for VVols? As I mentioned VMware is mostly done with the current VASA spec for VVols and there are no longer any limitations or barriers for partners to build solutions. It may seem like VMware isn’t doing that much further development with VVols today but that’s simply not true. While VMware is waiting for partners to play catch up, I have seen the VVols roadmap going forward and there is plenty on it to optimize and enhance VVols further and support some newer storage technologies. I also know that VMware has even beefed up their VVols engineering team.
I feel that VVols is in a very good place today and VMware has done a great job to get to this point as this was no easy feat and represents almost a decade of work on their part. VVols has a bright future ahead of it and at some point I would expect that VMFS will eventually go away much like the old ESX hypervisor did when it was replaced by ESXi. The burden is mostly on partners at this point but continue to look for further refinements from VMware going forward as storage policy based management becomes the de facto standard in the virtual data center.
Nov 19 2018
It’s that time of year again, well a little later then usual. My annual Top vBlog contest just kicked off and anyone can vote on their favorite VMware & virtualization blogs through 12/15. I first want to introduce our awesome official sponsor of Top vBlog 2018 which is Turbonomic again this year, also special thanks to Nutanix for helping out as well
Last year I added some additional scoring criteria and I believe those worked out well to help better define the Top vBlogs. The total points that a blog can accumulate will be based on 3 factors:
Total Points = Voting points + Post points + PageSpeed points
These factors combined make up the total points a blog can score and determines how they end up ranked in the final results. Some other changes and rules this year:
So please go vote and show the bloggers your appreciation for the hard work they do!
Nov 18 2018
After a slight delay, voting for Top vBlog 2018 is now open! The number of blogs devoted to VMware and virtualization continues to stay at an amazingly high level, this year there are again almost 300 of them on the ballot. Here’s your chance to show your appreciation to the bloggers for all their hard work by picking your favorites which will determine the Top vBlogs for 2018. Last year over 1,600 people voted from all over the world and when the votes were tallied the top 25 bloggers were revealed. Now it’s time to do it all over again as new blogs are born and old blogs fade away and bloggers move up and down the rankings. When casting your votes please keep the following in mind about the blogs.
So please take all this into account when casting your votes, here are some more details on the voting:
So what are you waiting for, head on over and take the survey to cast your ballot and reward the best bloggers for their hard work and dedication by letting them know that you appreciate them.
Nov 11 2018
Over 200 people took the vQuiz to test their knowledge on how well they know the history of VMware through a series of 20 timed questions. I made the questions fairly challenging and I didn’t expect to see any person get all 20 questions correct and that was mostly the case. In fact I may have made it a bit too challenging as more than half the people who took the quiz got 10 or less answers correct. There was one very obscure question in particular that I was confident almost nobody would get correct. Below are the results and answers of the quiz to help educate everyone on history of VMware. Scroll down to the end to see the people who scored the highest and won the Amazon gift cards.
All future quiz’s will have sponsors and better prizes, if you are interested in sponsoring a themed vQuiz (i.e. storage, performance, VVols, cloud, backups, etc…) reach out to me and let me know. Sponsored quiz’s will feature a mix of general questions specific to the topic and some related to the sponsor.
Question Answer % Correct Comments
What year was VMware founded in?
1998 71% Remember the 20 year anniversary this year!
What release was the High Availability feature introduced in? Virtual Center 2.5 45% #2 answer was vCenter Server 4.0 (28%)
What was the original marketing name for the hypervisor that was abbreviated to ESX? Elastic Sky X 79% The question most people got correct
What year was the first VMworld held? 2004 49% In San Diego, CA at the Hyatt Convention Center, was the size of a VMUG UserCon back then (1,400)
Who was VMware's co-founder and chief scientist? Mendel Rosenblum 49% Thought more people would get this correct, #2 answer was Stephen Herrod (16%)
The vSphere product name was introduced in what new release? ESX 4.0 & vCenter 4.0 53% I remember this well as it was a big shock to everyone, was the successor to VI3
What year did EMC announce their intent to acquire VMware? 2003 12% Has it really been that long, #1 answer was 2007 (36%)
The very first VMworld was held in what US city? San Diego, CA 36% I didn't think many would know this as the 1st VMworld only had 1,400 attendees, #2 answer was San Fran (34%)
Before joining EMC and eventually becoming VMware's CEO, which company did Pat Gelsinger work at for 30 years? Intel 70% #2 answer was IBM (15%)
What was the very first virtualization product that VMware released in 1999? Workstation 56% Remember GSX (Server) that was the #2 answer (31%), GSX & ESX were released the same year (2001)
Who was VMware's Chief Marketing Officer before Robin Matlock filled the position in 2013 Rick Jackson 34% CMO is usually not that visible and it shows, #2 answer was Carl Eschenbach (32%), Rick Vanover (Veeam) was chosen 12%
VMware has had 3 CEO's over the years, who took over as CEO in 2008 succeeding Diane Greene Paul Maritz 66% Thought more would know this but it was a decade ago, #2 answer was Pat Gelsinger (19%) (huh?)
What was the original code name for the company before it was officially called VMware? Disco 16% I didn't know this either, I stumbled upon it in an obscure Stephen Herrod interview: "Our original code name for the company was Disco, because it was a cool idea from the 1970s that we wanted to bring back", most people answered Merlin (45%)
Who succeeded Stephen Herrod as VMware's CTO in 2014? Ben Fathi 23% His tenure as CTO was short 2014-2015 so not alot of people remembered him, Ray O'Farrell was the #1 answer (39%) who succeeded him in 2016
What year did VMware debut on the New York Stock Exchange with a first day closing value of $19.1 billion 2007 23% Answers were pretty evenly split between all 5 choices
What aquatic creature is a feature attraction in the VMware Promontory pond at their Palo Alto campus? Turtle 71% If you read my blog you would know this: http://vsphere-land.com/news/the-legendary-turtles-at-vmware-hq.html
The first VMworld Europe was held in February 2008 in which city? Cannes, France 30% It was in Cannes the first 2 years before moving to Copenhagen, #1 answer was Barcelona (40%)
VMware announced the general availability of Virtual SAN in what year? 2014 40% And hyper-converged madness ensued...
VMware acquired what software defined networking company in 2012? Nicira 74% #2 answer was AirWatch (12%)
VMware is celebrating this company anniversary milestone this year? 20th 82% If you knew the first answer or paid attention at VMworld you should have known this and it seems most people did
