VMworld Europe 2013 Partner day #PAR3241 #PAR3242

Today VMworld Europe 2013 started with the partner day at the Fira Grand Via in Barcelona. Yesterday evening the FlexVirtual team including me arrived at Girona airport an hour outside Barcelona.

This year we rented an apartment for the four of us instead of an hotel. A comfortable place with all that you need for a week.

But back to VMworld. I attended three sessions today including the “Partner General Session”, but more on that later. Spoke to several peers during lunch and during the partner welcome reception, nice to see everyone made it again this year. Networking is still one of the main reasons to visit such an event as VMworld.

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The first session I attended was presented by Spencer Pitts and was titled “VMware Horizon View: Finally the Replacement for Server-Based Computing”. The session room was packed and had almost no seats left. Spencer talked about the history of VMware (Horizon) View, about the adoption of vdi and the changing demands from users perspective. In the earlier day there were four major causes why View wasn’t adopted as being an alternative for SBC:

  • Cost of storage
  • Microsoft Licensing model
  • Density
  • Not 100% of use cases

Nowadays View is capable of serving 99,x% of the use cases, instead of a couple of years ago when it only was suitable for 50% of the use cases.

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Next up was a fellow partner from the Netherlands called Imtech in person of Edwin Weijdema (@viperian) he explained how Imtech has been implementing View in a hybrid scenario. Imtech started by talking to customers and the business to define the business architecture and aligning a reference architecture which has proven its value before. Thus being able to define some black boxes which are more or less standard so they can focus on the critical business applications the customer has.

Spencer Pitts concluded with 5 key TakeAways:

1. Picking a VDI vendor, a hardware vendor and making an architecture that’s proven and repeatable

2. VDI is now able to cover almost all use cases

3. SBC is no longer  so much cheaper than VDI used to be

4. Solution Enablement Toolkits help partners implement using VMware’s best practices

5. Use VMware Solution Briefs/ Designs

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The second session I attended was titled “End-User Computing in the 21st Century, shifting Sands and the Imperative for Change” by Garry Owen.

End User Computing (EUC) used to be easier. Now trends are forcing a massive change on IT:

  • New device;  new way to work, not just windows
  • New apps;  SAAS,  mobile, quantity
  • New user expectations; new demands, performance

Devices:

Mobility is changing everything, 52% of the information workers have three or more devices

Apps:

4:1 ration of mobile app development projects to native pc projects in 2015

Tablets are the fastest growing device, the speed of how your customers are adopting these technologies.

Past

  • It owned
  • 90% windows apps
  • Ethernet
  • 1 desktop

Now

  • 33% BYOD
  • 50% non windows apps
  • 3G/4G
  • 10% completely mobile/ laptop

Future

  • 85% BYOD
  • 4:1
  • Wi-Fi
  • 50% completely mobile/laptop

 

Lots of good solutions are used: but most of them are point solutions and have their own management interface. What to do about it?

Do what you’ve always done and get what you’ve always got.  The business value is relatively limited

Do something different… Break out of the vicious spiral Potential This has a huge potential business value

Manage the user, not the device.

VMware has Horizon Suite which covers all areas with one solution and one management interface.

 

Message of the day:

Architect for change and continual improvement Embrace co-ownership. Prioritize end user experience (live or dies with this). Treat mobile as first.

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