VMworld 2009 Bumpage

Jon Brodkin on Network World reports some bumps in the road at VMworld 2009 in his article VMworld 2009: Virtualization, controversy and eating your own dog food.

“ …the data center didn't work as well as intended, with attendees reporting continuous technological problems during a vSphere boot camp Sunday and during hands-on lab sessions on Monday. "It was rather unpleasant," said attendee Jay Weinshenker, a database administrator for Luminex Corp., in Austin. "The labs I really look forward to. There is huge demand for them and they're good to get a lot of hands on experience. They talk to you a little bit and then you get to click around, try actually messing around with some of it, and you couldn't really."

He also seems to object to booth babes, the mark of a dedicated IT Pro. Well, it’s the mark of something or other…

“…"Booth babes" were not absent from the conference show floor, with PHD Virtual Technologies displaying two young ladies dressed as nurses. BlueCat Networks one-upped the competition with their well-traveled reps clad in skintight silver spandex, as also seen at Interop Las Vegas.

However, the disturbing factoid was

“…even among VMworld attendees most customers are not putting the majority of business-critical applications on virtual servers. Nearly 7 out of ten respondents are virtualizing fewer than 50% of business-critical apps, according to a survey of 200 VMworld attendees by the vendor Virtual Instruments. Concern about performance is the main roadblock limiting adoption of virtualization for critical workloads.”

Wow. I wonder how many of those businesses have read any of the case studies about Microsoft running it’s global enterprise on virtualized infrastructure for the last several years?

See:

• Microsoft.com runs on Hyper-V
• Leading by Example: Microsoft Streamlines Creation and Allocation of Virtual Machines
• Microsoft Uses Virtualization in Branches to Achieve Agility, Improved Service Levels
• Microsoft Division Connects Systems and Virtualizes Servers to Improve Productivity
• Deploying Application Virtualization at Microsoft
• Best Practices for Deploying Virtual Machines by Using Hyper-V Virtualization Technology
• How Microsoft Designs the Virtualization Host and Network Infrastructure
• Identifying Server Candidates for Virtualization
• Architecting the Virtual Application Infrastructure at Microsoft
• Improving IT Efficiency at Microsoft using Virtual Server 2005
• Microsoft Builds a Green Campus to Save Costs and Reduce Carbon Footprint
• Microsoft China Research and Development Group Implements Virtualization
• Microsoft IT Virtualization - Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V Configuration, Supporting Core Application Workloads: Exchange, SharePoint and SQL Server
• SQL Server Consolidation at Microsoft
• Using Ops Manager to Identify Server Candidates for Virtualization
• Virtualization - Business impact of Windows Server Virtualization in Microsoft IT
• Virtualization Moves Datacenter Functionality to the Branch Office
• Virtualization Quickly and Effectively Meets the Demands of Rapidly Changing Businesses

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