This year, instead of invading VMware opening keynotes, the Platinum sponsors have their own presentations, at different times, and delegates can decide to attend instead of VMware breakout session.
One of the most awaited partner keynote is the Cisco one, because today Cisco is expected to unveil its virtual switch for the upcoming ESX 4.0.
Ed Bugnion, VP and CTO of Server Access and Virtualization Business Unit at Cisco (and former VMware co-founder and CTO), first clarifies how the network challenges are changing: customers need network access control defined per virtual machine, consistent policies across all the networking equipment and all virtualization hosts (even if you move a VM with VMotion), higher capacity links for highly consolidated environments, etc.
To address these new challenges Cisco announces the VN-Link initiative.
VN-Link is delivered through the new virtual switch Nexus 1000V, a piece of software built on NX-OS, that plugs into ESX and that can be configured through the familiar Cisco command line interface.
Cisco will deliver this product in 1H 2009.
Even if Bugnion didn’t say it, there’s a beta program available for this product: enroll for it here.
Steve Herrod, Vice President of Technology Development at VMware, takes the stage.
He announces that Nexus 1000V will be open for 3rd party plug-ins, and that the two companies are working together to integrate Cisco TrustSec and VMware VMsafe.
Herrod says that more details will be revealed tomorrow in the second day keynote.
So stay tuned for the live coverage tomorrow!