Last year saw a resurgence in vCloud related sessions at VMworld and the trend has continued this year at the 2017 event. Looking through the sessions at Partner Exchange and VMworld proper the refocus on the vCloud Air Network that was announced at VMworld 2015 has gathered steam. This together with the subsequent release of vCloud Director SP 8.20 and the pending release of the next version of vCD, things are looking good for service providers that have built their platforms on VMware technologies.

If you are attending Partner Exchange there are a number of sessions that should be on your list for the Sunday. The sessions seem to be down on last year but that’s due to vCloud Air no longer being a going concern. I’ve listed down my top picks below added links to them for easy searchability in the VMworld Session Catalog. I’ve added a session on AWS and a session on vSAN as service providers should understand how both technologies fit into their strategy.

  • PAR4360BU – Cloud Service Provider Platform: Evolution and Future
  • PAR4358BU – How to Build a Hybrid Cloud Using NSX and vCloud Director-A Service Provider Perspective
  • PAR4383BU – Delivering Hybrid Cloud Architectures for Your Customers with VMware Cloud on AWS
  • PAR4382BU – Embracing VMware Cloud on AWS – How Can You Deliver Value to Your Customers
  • PAR4367BU – What’s New in vSAN 6.6 – A Deep Dive 

Looking through the breakout sessions there are 20 sessions directly relating to vCloud Director which is an excellent result. The rest that i’ve listed below tie in a mix of disaster recovery, hybrid cloud and NSX related networking sessions.

  • LHC1661BU—Getting Started with vCloud Air Network (Technical Tips and Tricks)
  • LHC1716BU—On-Ramp to the Cloud: Migration Tools and Strategies
  • LHC1753BU—Case Study: How VMware NSX Is Empowering a Service Provider to Help Customers Achieve and Maintain Industry Compliance
  • LHC1809BU—Use NSX to Deploy a Secure Virtual Network Bridging Multiple Locations for a True Hybrid Cloud
  • LHC1951BU—Automated Cloud Recovery for When You are Nuked from Orbit
  • LHC2424BU—200 to 40,000 VMs in 24 Months: Building Highly Scalable SDDC on Hybrid Cloud: Real-World Example
  • LHC2573BU—Achieving Hybrid Cloud Data Agility Securely with VMware NSX
  • LHC1739GU—Disaster Recovery to the Cloud: What Has Changed in the Past Year?
  • LHC3179GU—Choosing the Ideal Cloud Provider Partner
  • LHC3180GU—Effective DR Strategies
  • LHC1566PU—Ask the vCloud Air Network Cloud Experts
  • LHC3139SU— Achieving Success in a Multi-Cloud World
  • LHC2626BU—Build VMware Powered Hybrid Clouds: See How vCloud Director and NSX work together to build true Hybrid Clouds

There are also a number of vCloud Air Network partners on the exhibit floor.

  • CenturyLink
  • OVH
  • Faction
  • phoenixNAP
  • Fujitsu
  • Rackspace
  • IBM
  • SkyTap
  • iland
  • SwissCom
  • Navisite
  • Virtustream

Apart from what I have listed above there will also be a lot of vCAN talent hovering around the conference so make sure you make an effort to connect, network and share vCAN experiences. The vCloud Air Network is a symbiotic ecosystem and if the vCAN grows stronger…the ecosystem grows stronger.

#LongLivevCD

References:

https://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/2017/08/have-you-signed-up-your-vmworld-cloud-provider-sessions.html

https://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/2017/08/vcloud-air-network-partners-can-accelerate-your-success-in-the-cloud.html