Take Five With Tom Fenton

5 Must-See AWS Sessions at VMworld 2017

Lots of cloudy options this year.

• By Tom Fenton
• 08/07/2017

Judging by the number of sessions being offered at VMworld 2017 relating to "VMware Cloud on AWS" (more than 40 of the 700 sessions at VMworld mention Amazon Web Services (AWS)), it's safe to assume that this vSphere-based cloud service is going to have a major impact on how business is going to be conducted in datacenters moving forward.

VMware has been talking about and imagining the hybrid datacenter, in which a local datacenter is seamlessly coupled to the public cloud, for years. And now, with its partnership with AWS, it looks like VMware has finally come up with a strategy to enable its hybrid cloud strategy. Yes, it will take a while to flesh out this technology, but you should get yourself ahead of the game by familiarizing yourself with and investigating this technology now.

I spent some time to comb through the VMworld sessions that delve into AWS in one way or another, and selected five sessions that stood out to me as looking the most promising. I'm sure that these sessions will be well-attended, so add them to your VMworld 2017 schedule builder early on. (The session ID is in brackets.)

1. Creating Your VMware Cloud on AWS Datacenter: VMware Cloud on AWS Fundamentals [LHC1547BU]. If you need an overview of the fundamentals of VMware Cloud on AWS, this will be a session you won't want to miss. Although this session is intended for enterprise architects and senior IT decision-makers, the broad perspective would be excellent starting point for anyone not yet familiar this technology.
2. VMC Hybrid Cloud Architectural Deep Dive: Networking and Storage Best Practices [LHC3375BUS]. Obviously, storage and networking in a VMware and AWS hybrid environment will be an interesting challenge. This session will not only take a deep dive into these technologies, but also offer examples of how companies have already integrated them. Wen Yu, one of the presenters, previously worked for VMware and currently works for AWS, so he should have an excellent handle and bring a valuable perspective on the technologies from both companies.
3. VMware Cloud on AWS: A Technical Deep Dive [LHC2384BU]. Whereas the previous session is being presented from an AWS perspective, this session is being presented by two VMware employees. As such, it should offer a different perspective, and will cover not only networking (NSX) but elastic clusters as well.
4. Using vRealize with VMware Cloud on AWS [LHC1910BU]. Nothing excites me more at VMworld than sessions that offer demos of products, and this session promises to be demo-heavy to provide a comprehensive overview of how to use VMware vRealize products with VMware Cloud on AWS. Being able to efficiently manage a VMware Cloud on AWS environment will be key in a deployment, and this session will show you how to use the existing vRealize tool suite to do just that.
5. VMware Cloud on AWS -- Getting Started [SPL188701U]. I saved the best for last for those who, like me, are a hands-on type of learner. This lab will give you the chance interact with the VMware Cloud interface to perform basic tasks and manage your VMs in the public cloud. If this lab sounds interesting and useful to you, make sure to reserve your spot in this lab, since I'm sure it will fill up fast.