As most of you know, VMworld was held last week in the city by the bay. It was a great show… but why? This was the first tradeshow event I went to this year that had the technology vibe. No one was talking about the downside of the economy. Instead, they were talking about how to make the future better and more efficient and benefit the world by using fewer resources to do more work.
Making things better has always been a hallmark of the technology business. Our businesses are built on dreams, ideas and cutting-edge intellectual property. To that end, I think they should have changed the theme of this show from “Hello Freedom” to “Hello Optimism.” Optimism is one of the essential elements in the technology business, for without it, as an industry, we cannot drive the global economic engine and make the world a better place.
Signs of this optimism were all over the show, from VMware themselves to end users, vendors to press and analysts. As I have read in many of the blogs that were written as summaries of VMworld, they too felt the optimism. This is not to say that we still don’t have work to do to fulfill the promises of virtualization and network convergence, but it was clear that the ecosystems and momentum around virtualization and network convergence is building, and the market is maturing into usable technology for the data center.
Just prior to VMworld, we joined IBM and BNT in announcing the IBM BladeCenter Virtual Fabric solution for the IBM BladeCenter. This solution helps IT managers deploy virtualization and network convergence together to lower capital costs, lower operational expenses and reduce power and cooling requirements. The Virtual Fabric solution provides the means to deploy Virtual network interface cards (NICs) that can support IP, iSCSI and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) in a 10GbE network that increases performance and provides investment protection by supporting network convergence based on 10Gb-enhanced Ethernet. This type of technology innovation creates optimism about the technology business and reinforces how technology can make the world a better place.
In addition to this product announcement, and demonstration of Universal Converged Network Adapter (UCNA) technology, we announced the second release of the Convergenomics Solutions Guide at VMworld. The book offers IT managers a resource to help them craft their next-generation network strategy and explains how to converge protocols, such as Fibre Channel and iSCSI, onto a 10Gb/s enhanced Ethernet backbone. The latest edition includes new contributions from key ecosystem participants, including BLADE Network Technologies, Brocade, Fulcrum, Juniper Networks, Novell and Oracle, in addition to previous contributions from Cisco, EMC, Panduit, Scalent Systems and VMware. Even before this announcement, we were ramping for version three, as we have had more partners interested in participating.
To download the latest Convergenomics guide, go to http://www.emulex.com/solutions/convergence/convergence-solution-guide.html
Emulex is optimistic about the network convergence market and the value it can bring to the data center. If the vibe and innovation shown at VMworld are indicative of things to come, the technology business should be optimistic about making the data center and the world better places.