VMWorld 2018 was big, bold, and as expected, full of the unexpected!

August 30th marked the end of another VMWorld here in the US, and there certainly was no lack of fanfare, or fantastical announcements. VMware has once again shown that they can weather the test of time in the IT Market and come out on top as a leader time and time again.

I’ve put together a list of the biggest announcements from the show. While this is by no means a fully comprehensive list, I do feel that these features were amongst the most impactful features announced at the show (you might disagree – let me know in the comments below). Let’s dive right in!

vSphere 6.7 Update 1

People who follow VMware circles likely aren’t surprised by this one. We’ve come to get used to vSphere updates being announced at VMWorld shows, but I always like to include them in these types of articles because vSphere is really the driving force behind all of these advanced features. You can’t have a house without the foundation, right? We’ll be giving 6.7 Update 1 a run through its paces, and its own blog post in the next week or two, but some of the notable enhancements include:

vCenter Converge Utility

Improvements for HCI and VSAN

Enhanced Content Libraries

vMotion support for vGPU

The HTML5 vSphere Client is now *THE* client

If you want to get technical, this item really falls into the 6.7 Update 1 item above, but it’s such a big deal (in my eyes) that it deserved its own line item. Anyone who has been using vSphere these last few years will know that we’ve had to often switch back and forth between the older vSphere flash-based client and the newer HTML5 based client. This is no longer needed. With the release of vSphere 6.7 Update 1, all of the management and administrative functions have finally been ported over to the HTML5 client. No more switching. It’s music to my ears!

vSphere Platinum Edition

A new SKU of vSphere was announced this year at VMworld. With the platinum designation, one would think there is a ton of hidden functionality contained within the walls of its code. Really that isn’t the case. What vSphere Platinum Edition really does is bring all the functionality of Enterprise Plus, and bundle it together with VMware’s AppDefense offering. In addition to the bundling of products there, VMware also includes a unified management tool (via a plugin) so you have tighter control over AppDefense built right into the vSphere Client. More functionality, fewer tools. This is exactly what businesses want. A+ Rating from me!

Amazon RDS on vSphere

Amazon and VMware made waves last year with their announcement regarding vSphere on AWS. Since then, the two companies have made it quite apparent that the partnership is proceeding well. So, while some administrators were more than ready to jump on the all-cloud bandwagon, others weren’t ready, or couldn’t. So, with this in mind, the two companies have taken to bringing some of the AWS technologies to vSphere in on-prem and hybrid workloads. The big announcement in this space is the fact that you will now have the ability to run Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) on-prem and it will be easily moved up into Amazon AWS as needed. The cloud brings flexibility, and data services are often where we need the most flexibility, so this is a welcome addition to the product lineup.

Project Magna – The Self-Driving Datacenter

In reviewing the announcements and news centered around the event, this particular item (you’ll have to scroll down the page a bit) caught my attention. While this project is still in the early days, it’s a vastly ambitious one. The idea here is to use AI and machine learning to have the infrastructure of your datacenter to “self-optimize” for the running workload/application. I could see many applications to this technology given the fact that many workloads today run in datacenters that have no people in them. However, I could also see the loss of control as problematic if not handle carefully as well. Sure, the administrator could simply disable the optimization, but my point is, this feature is going to bring about a whole new set of capabilities and considerations for administrators to focus on. Think of the careful security implications you’ll have to take into account when you have multiple services on your network sniffing and snooping into the status of your workloads. Not saying it’s a bad thing if handled properly, just that it’s another layer we have to secure. In the long run, I think it will be an amazing technology hands-down.

Wrap-Up

Again, while this is not a comprehensive list, I felt these announcements warranted calling out. Do note that I didn’t pull anything from the vRealize announcements, as we’ll be including that in a future blog series on that whole suite. As for other content, be sure to be on the lookout for our posts covering vSphere 6.7 Update 1!

Disagree with my big announcement shortlist? What were your favorite announcements from the show? Were there any that you don’t see in this list? Let us know in the comments section below!

Thanks for reading!