Wow… what an announcement at Dell Technologies World in Vegas yesterday!!!

In fact I’m so excited by the announcement that I’ve broken my blog silence!! On that subject first – one the hardest things I’m doing at the moment is juggling my new job alongside my new baby. I told my boss recently that it feels like I currently have 2 jobs and 2 managers – the daytime one and the evening one! =D

The new job at CloudHealth is fantastic, but there’s such a steep onboarding (90 day plan) that I’m spending my working hours reading documents and doing training (even on my commute to work)… then when I go home I’m busy dealing with both my kids. My weekends are pretty much dedicated to family and I’ve really not had much time to sit down and write my final two “Big Bets” blog pieces… >_<”

So where to start, well the obvious place is the unveiling of a new platform call Dell Technologies Cloud, basically a new set of cloud infrastructure solutions to make cloud environments simpler to deploy and manage – a consistent infrastructure and operating model for both hybrid and public cloud.
It’s a comprehensive vision for cloud – “From the data centre, to the edge, to the cloud!” – across the whole Dell Technologies family!

There are basically two ways to consume this new platform, the traditional “purchased CapEx solution” and the cloud-like “subscription-based OpEx pricing”.
Both consumption models are based on VxRail HyperConverged Infrastructure pre-loaded with VMware Cloud Foundation software.
The traditional purchased solution is aimed for private cloud solutions using the recently announced vCF + VxRail VMware Validated Design (VVD).

The new Dell Technologies Cloud Data Center-as-a-Service offering – VMware Cloud on Dell EMC – will provide simple, more secure and scalable infrastructure delivered as-a-service to customer’s on-premises data centre and edge locations. This is the first productisation of what was announced at VMworld 2018 as “Project Dimension.”
This Dell Technologies Cloud offering enables organisations to consume infrastructure, like a public cloud service, allowing IT organisations to eliminate the need for basic tasks, such as infrastructure management, troubleshooting and maintenance, with subscription-based pricing. It will be a fully managed service by VMware.

More info available on their press-releases:
https://corporate.delltechnologies.com/en-us/newsroom/delltechnologies-cloud-accelerates-customers-multi-cloud-journey.htm
https://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-newsfeed.VMware-Transforms-Data-Center-and-Edge-Infrastructure-with-VMware-Cloud-on-Dell-EMC.1811531.html
The other exciting announcement was the partnership between VMware, Microsoft and Dell EMC. Through this collaboration, Microsoft will offer a fully supported and certified VMware cloud infrastructure service on Microsoft Azure!
The service will be delivered through VMware Cloud Verified partners, Virtustream and CloudSimple, and will be called Azure VMware Solutions. It will be built on VMware Cloud Foundation and deployed in Azure along with an integrated set of Azure services.
This is exciting news as now you can consume VMware infrastructure and operations on both AWS and Azure public cloud…. The top two pubic cloud players who dominate the enterprise market!
I’m just waiting for a demo to appear where you can vMotion from your on-prem vSphere environment onto VMware Cloud on AWS and then onto Azure VMware Solutions!!
This really is bringing the whole VMware vision of “Any Application, Any Device, Any Cloud” into reality….
Super stoked to see what CloudHealth have in store to help manage this new “Multi-cloud VMware world!”

More info available in the press-releases:
https://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-newsfeed.Dell-Technologies-and-Microsoft-Expand-Partnership-to-Help-Customers-Accelerate-Their-Digital-Transformation.1811530.html
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2019/04/29/dell-technologies-and-microsoft-expand-partnership-with-new-vmware-solutions/

BTW, there was also other announcements (which I don’t have time to write about):

• Dell Technologies Unified Workspace, which integrates solutions across Dell devices and services, VMware Workspace ONE and Secureworks – pretty much an evolution of Dell EMC’s VDI Complete solution now encompassing Secureworks.
• Integration of Workspace ONE and Office365 – so many organisations are already on that Microsoft 365 journey and customers will now be able to use Workspace ONE to manage and secure Office 365 across devices via integration with Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory Premium as part of the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security suite.
• Support of Windows Virtual Desktop in VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure – delivering a multi-session Windows 10 experience in the cloud, optimizations for Office 365 ProPlus, and support for Windows Server Remote Desktop Services (RDS) desktops and apps.