One of the things I’ve been meaning to write about more is the cool technology that I didn’t realize existed inside the VMware portfolio. One of the main themes that’s emerged with my clients is having a true private cloud infrastructure. If this is on your mind, I’d encourage you to go check out the sessions on VMware Validated Design (VVD) at VMworld 2016.
Private Cloud fits into the basic maturity vision in the transition from having “just” virtualization in the data center to having “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS). That maturity transition involves having a portal for either internal IT customers or even IT practitioners having access to a portal which allows users to get virtual machines (or groups of VMs), virtual networking, security policies, storage, and showback/chargeback information, all as part of a single provisioning process. In the VMware world, this involves deploying multiple products, each of which has it’s own quirks and complexities, not to mention the complexities of the interaction between the products.
VMware Validated Design is a less a product and closer to a reference architecture or specification and process on deploying the multiple products together. This includes the Bill of Materials that the process depends on as well as a fully documented walk-through. The VVD team has also talked about documenting the process of upgrading between versions of the specification as new versions of the underlying BOM become available.
Oh, that Bill of Materials includes:
- vSphere (hypervisor)
- vRealize Operations (optimization)
- vRealize Log Insight (log aggregation and analysis)
- NSX (network virtualization)
- vRealize Automation (Cloud Management and Self-Service Portal)
- vRealize Business (chargeback/showback)
- Virtual SAN (storage for at least the management cluster)
Resources
So if Private Cloud is really part of your future (that should be almost everyone) check out the sessions this week on VMware Validated Design at VMworld 2016.
Ryan Johnson’s view of this year’s VVD sessions.
Self-Paced Lab:
Guide to SDDC: VMware Validated Designs [SPL-1706-SDC-6]
Monday
Software-Defined Networking in VMware Validated Designs [SDDC7587R]
Mike Brown, Senior SDDC Integration Architect, VMware
Monday, Aug 29, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Islander A, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
Monday, Aug 29, 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. | Lagoon H, Level 2, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
VVD 101: Build Your Cloud the Right Way, First Time [SDDC9025]
Forbes Guthrie, Product Line Manager, VMware
Darren Pham, Product Marketing Manager, VMware
Monday, Aug 29, 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. | Islander I, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
VMware Validated Design for SDDC – Operations Architecture Technical Deepdive [SDDC8423]
Blair Fritz, Staff Product Integration Architect, VMware
Ryan Johnson, Senior Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
Monday, Aug 29, 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. | Islander I, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
VMware Validated Design for Microsegmentation Deepdive [SDDC8445]
Ryan Johnson, Senior Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
Ryan Shondell, Director, R&D, VMware
Tuesday, Aug 30, 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. | South Pacific G, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
Deep Dive into Deploying the vRealize Cloud Management Platform the VMware Validated Designs Way! [SDDC8946]
Tom Harrington, Staff Engineer, VMware
Tuesday, Aug 30, 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. | South Pacific C, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Consistency: Standardizing Datacenter Designs [SDDC7808-S]
Edward Dinel, Director of Product Management, VMware
Joshua Lory, Director, SDDC Architecture, VMware
Tuesday, Aug 30, 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. | Oceanside C, Level 2, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
Group Discussion: VMware Validated Designs and Reference Architectures for the Software-Defined Data Center with Ryan Johnson [SDDC10713-GD]
Ryan Johnson, Senior Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
Tuesday, Aug 30, 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. | Shell Seekers B, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
Group Discussion: VMware Validated Designs and Reference Architectures for the Software-Defined Data Center with Ryan Johnson (Repeat Session) [SDDC10714-GD]
Ryan Johnson, Senior Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
Wednesday, Aug 31, 8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. | Shell Seekers A, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
Early VVD Adopter Experience: Building a Secure and Automated Cloud [MGT7759]
Marco Righini, Datacenter Solution Architect, Intel Corp
Andrea Siviero, Staff Solution Architect, VMware
Wednesday, Aug 31, 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | South Pacific I, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
VMware Validated Design for SDDC: A Technical Deep Dive [SDDC8414]
Mike Brown, Senior SDDC Integration Architect, VMware
Ryan Johnson, Senior Technical Marketing Architect, VMware
Wednesday, Aug 31, 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. | South Pacific G, Level 0, Mandalay Bay Convention Center
