The other major piece of the SDDC architecture is storage, and after the Virsto acquisition, VMware will have a good story to tell and a lot to say.
As with SDN, software-defined storage (SDS) separates a virtual data plane--with abstracted pools of storage glued together from multiple, heterogeneous platforms--from a control plane used for management and policy enforcement. This isn't exactly new, but expect more details on how VMware supports virtual SANs and better utilizes server-side flash caches, with several sessions devoted to each.
VMware Virtual SAN, announced last year as part of vSphere Distributed Storage, has been in private beta, but the "VMware Virtual SAN Panel Discussion" should be an interesting discussion among several participants on their experiences and use cases.
Other talks will cover VSAN best practices, a Virsto technical overview, outlining its technique of moving an SDS subsystem into the hypervisor to improve block storage performance and efficiency. There will also be several sessions on vSphere Flash Read Cache, a hypervisor-based virtual storage tier that pools server-side flash capacity from multiple hosts into a read and write-through cache available to any VM.
Lest we forget, last spring VMware also introduced its own hybrid cloud service, seeking to ease the path of public cloud migration for existing vSphere workloads.
That announcement, made to a room full of Wall Street analysts, was about marketing and competitive positioning. VMworld should provide the venue for filling in the technical details and showcasing early adopters. Potential hybrid customers may be interested in the session on "How To Build Your Hybrid Cloud and Consume the Public Cloud."
VMworld 2013 promises to be a busy and information-packed event. Follow our complete coverage and look for my analysis of key themes, important technologies, and interesting products and vendors all next week.
In the meantime, what are you hoping to see come out of VMworld this year? And are you ready to embrace the notion of a fully abstracted data center?
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