VMworld Europe 2019 and Pure Storage

It’s that time of the year again…again! Pure Storage is back at VMworld in Barcelona.

Before we get into what’s happening at Barcelona, let’s recap a bit what happened in the US conference. As the best way to look to the future sometimes is to analyze the past.

Also check out this panel session I did with Rubrik on VMworld US.

  • VMware Cloud on AWS was once again a major topic–this is increasingly getting more attention and something we are paying a close eye on. The most important step around this for Pure is our new offering that is now fully GA, called Cloud Block Store. Our FlashArray software (Purity) now fully running AWS. See my posts here and here on that.
  • VMware Cloud Foundations. This is the basis for pretty much all automated VMware stacks–SDDC manager allows you to deploy vCenter, NSX, vRealize (etc. etc.) and of course their lifecycles. SDDC Manager (the management point of vCF) provides the ability to create on “management” domain–this is where all of the VMware services are deployed, and also one or more “workload” domains. Workloads domains are basically a new vCenter server–which gets hooked in via ELM. When deploying a workload domain the storage options used to be only be vSAN or NFS. You could then add block after the fact. In the 3.9.0.0 release, you can now choose Fibre Channel storage as the option. Check out our KB here on it. I expect to hear more about this in Barcelona.
  • Containers, K8s, and more containers. VMware’s work since the Heptio acquisition has not slowed down. I would be fairly comfortable saying that the announcement of Project Pacific and Project Tanzu were the talk of the town during and certainly after VMworld. I have no doubt this will bubble up more in Barcelona. The use case around First Class Disks and vVols I think is particularly intriguing.
  • vRealize Automation Cloud and vRealize 8.0. vRealize Automation 8.0 is now GA. There are two major things here to unpack. First VMware Cloud Automation Services was renamed to vRealize Automation Cloud. This in and of itself doesn’t mean anything (VMware loves to name things) but what is actually important about that is the “traditional” vRealize Automation set. vRealize Automation 8 is now entirely based on the features/design/architecture of vRealize Automation Cloud. Meaning that what vRAC offers is what vRA on-premises offers (same tools, integrations, features). This makes choosing between the two easier (one question to ask, do I want to host it, or do I want VMware to?). I expect details on this to be expanded in Barcelona.
  • vVols. Did you think I wouldn’t bring this up?! Of course I would. vVols is coming back in a big way, and in no small part due to VMware’s renewed push on vVols in their products and with their partners. The automation, integration, and benefits of vVols are making more and more sense these days. VMware gets that, and so do the storage partners. A major topic around vVols is Site Recovery Manager support. Expect to see more vendors talking about that as they furiously work on vVol replication support.
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VMworld 2017 Session Wrap-Up

I’m back from VMworld 2017 US and then VMworld Europe and a nice vacation. Time to get back to work and of course some (well a lot hopefully) blogging.

Had a great time catching up with friends at VMworld and talking about the new stuff that both Pure Storage and VMware have coming. I had quite a few sessions this year–VMware was kind enough to post online–many of them publically (no login required).

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VMworld 2014 Pure Storage Recap

Phew another VMworld under my belt! Tons of fun and tons of work! Pure Storage had  its largest presence ever at VMworld–we certainly painted Moscone orange in addition to unleashing an arsenal of nerf guns (4,500) upon the city. This post is meant to be more of a photo album of the week and what Pure was involved in–technical posts of things that we did there will be forthcoming.booth

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Come for VMworld 2014, Stay for Evolve!

Just like last year, Pure Storage is sponsoring a post-VMworld event called “Evolve”. This will feature some great keynote speakers as well as some technical sessions on the state of the industry. This will take place on Thursday, August 28th after VMworld has officially come to a close and will be right there next to the Moscone Center. I highly recommend you stick around for this (yes, it’s free)!

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Pure Storage at VMworld 2014

A lot of activity coming up this year at VMworld 2014 and Pure Storage has a large part in it. Between our booth, staffing presence, tons of sessions and 1:1 meetings there aren’t any steps we are missing. This will be my 7th VMworld and from a storage perspective I have never been more excited! A lot in store by VMware (notably vVols) and Pure has some great demo we are working on as well.

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EMC Storage Analytics (ESA) 2.0 with VMAX arrays

So I (Drew Tonnesen, @drewtonnesen) am guest blogging again here at Cody’s site.  I’ll add my name now in the beginning to avoid the confusion (yes there has been) that this post isn’t from Cody but given the blog URL I suppose it is inevitable no matter what I do.  And since I am not starting my own blog which would more likely contain hints on how to avoid going insane with kids (yes alcohol helps) I trust the readers can figure it out.  On to the post…

I’ve been working on this new release for EMC Storage Analytics (ESA) 2.0 for what seems like ages now.  The first two releases of ESA (1.0, 1.5) supported the VNX  platforms.  The 2.0 release is the first with VMAX support!  As the Symmetrix engineering contact for the VMAX component of ESA, I have had first-hand input and testing of the product, along with putting together a good part of the documentation.  This post jumps the gun a little as the product will be officially revealed next week at VMworld but what’s a little pre-announcement among friends?  I’ll give a brief run-down of the release below.

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