VMware Explore 2023 Las Vegas – Day 3 – The Expo

Another intense day at VMware Explore 2023 Las Vegas. The plan for the day was simple – visit the Expo, talk to the vendors, do some blogging, take part in learning session and go to a party. The plan worked.

The Expo

I started the day with a visit to the Expo, where over 70 companies presented their products and services. This is a great opportunity to talk to engineers from various companies. I was able to share my experience with their products, discuss future plans and improvements, and ask a few questions about common issues. But it’s also a fantastic way to learn about new products, for example, I’ve never heard of the ControlUp product. Apparently, this is a great cloud-based monitoring tool that allows you to monitor servers and VDI. This tool is very powerful and allows you to monitor and control the entire OS and user’s activity.

I’ve also visited Google booth, where an engineer demonstrated to me how artificial intelligence works within the vSphere client. I had the opportunity to test this feature myself. For instance, I issued a command to the AI, asking it to “show me all servers with the highest memory usage.” In response, I received a list of VMs with highest memory usage. Another example, ask the AI to provide a list of all VMs with snapshots. Similarly, this could be utilized with a command like “delete all snapshots that are older than 5 days”. I think that this may revolutionize the administration of large vSphere environments. I am convinced that AI has the potential to eliminate the need for manual performance reporting, reduce the reliance on scripts in large environments, and significantly shorten the time required to solve specific issues.

Thank you to Cohesity for the vExpert gift!

Session

After visiting the Expo, it was time for some learning session. This time I chose:

Availability and Resilience of Azure VMware Solution [CEIB2540LV]

The presentation showcased how availability and resiliency function in Azure VMware Solution, detailing its capabilities and monitoring mechanisms. Potential issues were also discussed, along with their swift resolution methods – for instance, replacing a lost ESXi host takes just a matter of minutes. Coupled with Azure’s built-in VM replication tools or third-party solutions like Zerto, you can establish two or more Azure VMware Solution environments with high availability and resilience against any disruptions, including ransomware attacks. As a DRaaS engineer, this was a highly intriguing session that provided insights into numerous new possibilities within Azure.