virtualization.info

VMware’s VMworld 2010 is just two weeks away and, like always, virtualization.info will publish a live report from the keynote stage. 
From his Twitter account, Steve Herrod, CTO and Senior Vice President of R&D, hinted that this year there will be more announcements than ever, so there will be a lot to cover.

But the keynotes are not the only must-see presentations to watch this year. The VMworld’s agenda offers a higher than ever number of interesting break out sessions, and, surprisingly, many of them are about the VMware’s products roadmaps. 
In mid July virtualization.info published an early recommendation list but a number of key sessions were published only after the article. So here’s the updated, definitive list of 22 sessions (23 if you are a partner) that readers are encouraged to attend (roadmap sessions have an asterisk):

Platform sessions:

• SS1001 Introducing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware

Storage sessions:

• *TA8218 VMware Storage Vision
• *TA7805 Tech Preview: Storage DRS
• PC8051 Infrastructure Technologies to Long Distance VMotion – What Is “VM Teleportation”?

Networking sessions:

• *TA8361 Future Direction of Networking Virtualization

Management sessions:

• MA8030 Saving Time with vCenter Orchestrator
• MA8181 Optimizing Capacity using vCenter CapacityIQ

Business Continuity sessions:

• *BC8432 SRM Futures: Host Based Replication
• *BC8537 VMware Data Protection Roadmap

Desktop Virtualization sessions:

• *DV7281 Virtual Desktop Cloud – The Future Vision of End-User Computing
• *DV6946 The Future of VMware Workstation and Cloud Development
• *DV7180 ThinApp : What’s New and Future Vision

Private cloud computing sessions:

• *PC7303 Bridging Application Management Between Public & Private Clouds: A Technology Preview of VMware’s Next Generation Solution
• MA8940 Self-Service and Workflow Automation for the Private Cloud
• MA7140 vCloud Architecture Design Strategies and Design Pattern
• SP9721 How to Use Virtual I/O to Provision and Manage Networks and Storage Resources in a Private Cloud
• SE7813 vShield Edge & Application Protection – Architecture and Use Cases
• *SE9600 How to Attest Host Platform Security for Cloud Deployments: A Technology Preview from VMware, Intel, and RSA
• SE7835 Securing Your Cloud
• MA8649 VMware vCenter Configuration Manager: Our Foundation for Compliance in the Private Cloud
• SP8262 Cisco Nexus 1000V Update: Preparing the Virtual Machine Networking for the Cloud
• MA8027 Provisioning Cloud Computing on Vblock using VMware vCloud Service Director
• (for partners only) PA9444 VMware Service Provider Cloud Licensing Programs

While we already know that session TA8361 (Future Direction of Networking Virtualization) will cover a new technology that will be announced on stage, a few additional sessions in the list above are especially interesting.

The first one is SS1001 (Introducing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware): this is an extended session (aka Super Session) that will cover VMware plans to leverage SLES as its guest OS of choice for all virtual appliances.  
It features a key speaker: Raghu Raghuram, General Manager and Vice President, Server Business Unit at VMware. Raghuram was in the 10-people team that launched VMware and his visibility into the company is really deep. He’s a top executive definitively worth to listen to.

Another one is TA7805 (Tech Preview: Storage DRS) for obvious reasons: here VMware is expected to clarify the implementation of the Distributed Resource Scheduling technology to storage arrays.

A third one is MA8940 (Self-Service and Workflow Automation for the Private Cloud). This session features an unexpected speaker: John MacLean, Director of Products, VMware Service Manager.
Service Manager is the configuration management database (CMDB) product that VMware acquired from EMC as part of Ionix management portfolio. It’s a key component of the strategy if VMware really plans to become a physical and virtual infrastructure management vendor (and in fact this is the only product that is not included in the “vCenter” porfolio). So it’s significant that the person in charge for this piece is also talking about provisioning and orchestration in the private cloud.

Note: If any reader feels generous and wants to submit a complete report about one or more sessions above for the community, it will be published online on virtualization.info and cloudcomputing.info (where applicable), with proper credit.

Submit them to vmworld2010@virtualization.info, including the session code, title, and your full name in the email subject.

Update: Some readers report that, for mysterious reasons, the sessions about vCloud Service Director (vCSD), like the MA8027 above, don’t appear anymore in the VMworld’s content catalog. 
VMware doesn’t allow seat registration, so this can’t be because those sessions are already full. Hopefully it’s just a technical glitch.