VMworld Europe in Cannes: day 2

On the second day, the keynotes were presented by Doctor Mendel Rosenblum from VMware.

Together with the Break-out sessions, a few more interesting features were mentioned:

1. VCB enhancements
As you already know, VCB had to be run on a physical W2K3 server and have a HBA adapter to access the SAN storage in order for it to function. Now, VCB can be run on a VM and access not only SAN storage, but also iSCSI, NAS and local storage!

2. Platform enhancements
The VM's running on ESX hosts can be made aware that they are virtual machines and that the hardware they see it actually not really there. This gives as benifits that calls to the memory and processor can be encapsulated differently, resulting in better performance.

3. VMsafe
One of the biggest points on the second day. VMsafe is the new technology that will keep virtual systems more secure than physical systems. It will use host- and network based protection that cannot be compromised by malware (literally the best of both worlds). With this technology it is actually possible to have secure Vm's while your physical server is compromised.
Also very cool is that VMware does not try to do everything themselves, but provides API's that the security vendors can use to build their products on.
McAfee will ship its first VMsafe enabled products within 2 months!

4. SRM: Site Recovery Manager
This feature is very cool! When an entire datacenter goes down, a second, stand-by datacenter can be configured that will automatically restart the VM's with all it's functionalities. For this to work, you will have to have a backup environment of course, together with the required licenses, but hey: what's the price for a day of downtime? ;)
When SRM is configured, the VM's are automatically duplicated in the backup site but without HD's. In case of a disaster, the files on the datastores are unlocked and moved to the backup site. The HD is connected to the already existing VM and the VM is powered on. All within 10 - 15 minutes!

5. Vservices
Last new features I noticed while I was over there. But very cool none the less. vServices contain multiple VM's that work together, for example CRM, Sharepoint, ... Idea is that a specialist in that matter can create a complete package that you only have to download and drop it in your environment. During the demo from Dr. Rosenblum CRM was installed under a minute that way! :)

That's about it for me, I guess. And how about the last day? Well, those were troubleshooting sessions, labs or technical deep dives. I'll try to post some of the most interesting points, when I find the time.