Sunday 30 October 2016

VMware boss Pat Gelsinger tackles life after Dell buyout


Pat Gelsinger is not your usual CEO of Silicon Valley. A committed Christian who was almost to the church rather than the technology, which emits 40pc of their salary, pray and sing hymns in his office in California trip at the airport and decided early in life never read the newspaper every day until I had read the Bible first.


Today, however, everything that everyone wants to hear how the CEO of VMware, the market capitalization technology group $ 32bn (£ 26.2bn) US is Michael Dell.


epĆ³nima manufacturer Dell private equity supported by computer just paid $ 67 billion for EMC, the US group that owns 80pc of VMware, and the following 10,000 men in the conference VMworld Europe in Barcelona this month flooded interest in how the duo gel.

Gelsinger, after all, is a technocrat who has worked for 30 years at Intel, reaching CTO, while the spirit of Dell founded the company famous PC company in his college dorm in Austin, Texas.

"We get very well," insists Gelsinger, 54. "We just had our first board meeting with Michael as the new president who presides my advice and I would say that in general, while it is still early and I do not think none of us say we think all over again, all the signs are encouraging.

"We have committed $ 1 billion in synergies, so we have to go and start building organizations to materialize." This precaution discreet approach to Gelsinger characterized. More Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, who fell to the ground, attractive and polite.



What are your impressions of your new boss so far? He is pleased that Dell has declared its support for the "ecosystem" VMware reseller partners even greater US company VMworld conference in Las Vegas.

He thinks Dell was impressed with 25,000 intense episode of crowd - more than double the participants to the annual shindigs EMC or Dell. There are many Dell to get your head around. EMC is an unusual company with a portfolio strategy parts companies supply property including VMware and Pivotal, a spinoff jointly owned with Microsoft, Ford and General Electric and chaired by Paul Maritz, a former Microsoft executive and veteran of VMware .

"Michael has bought into this whole strategy," Gelsinger said. "Certainly it includes a software company like VMware is a different society, a different culture.

"People are different software people making the supply chain and materials. There is no advantage in a software company than people. This is a key to managing a company like ours look and see us as a very successful company.

"It gives us the space and support to go out and execute what we do. And it has much to do with the merger of Dell and EMC. There are 140,000 people there to assemble the product lines merge and create organizations".

VMware's name stands for "virtual machine software" - technology that essentially allows companies to package their data in fewer server computers. The company recently struck major alliances with leading cloud computing Amazon and IBM. its listing after making preserved.

"I am pleased to see shareholders every 90 days," Gelsinger smiles. However, shares of VMware almost halved from $ 80 to a minimum of $ 43 after the announcement of the transaction. "That was a very painful process," he said.

"Clearly there is concern about whether Dell could make a successful software company." There were questions about values ​​track that was part of the takeover and the implications of that. As with any large acquisition, there were also concerns about whether the deal would be. "


There were also questions about the activity of VMware, because the addresses presented in income last year was less than Wall Street expected. However, the share price has increased as companies have come together to complete the transaction.

Gelsinger "We were able to indicate on the market consistent and independence of VMware ecosystem and some of the new products and cloud strategy deployed have helped answer some of the concerns," he said.

"With stocks now around £ 77, which are not yet trading at a multiple of the software we should have, so we're not quite through the fog. But we have come a long way and I think that 'there is considerable potential growth. "

Gelsinger, who chairs the Bay Transformation with Christ, a group designed to provide the "spiritual and social" change in the area of ​​San Francisco, VMware is clearly with the same kind of missionary zeal.

He speaks of "digital transformation" and how some of the largest companies in the world simplify their IT infrastructure to innovate at a faster pace. With the machine powered devices expected to break human efforts focused on 2019, he believes that many companies are still fully prepared for the imminent explosion of the "Internet of things".


He also argues that the technology sector is still in its teenage years "" with an enormous tension between control and freedom. Half of the largest technology companies US have disappeared in time 10 years because of these and other difficulties, he predicted.

He will not name any, of course, but Nokia, BlackBerry and Yahoo are three brands of IT whose star has dimmed considerably since predicted big industry slaughter in the Daily Telegraph there three years, while British chip designer took ARM team and of course EMC.

VMware, however, has been an excellent investment for EMC. Founded by Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum her husband with colleagues in California in 1998, was acquired by EMC, six years after £ 625m.

In 2007, EMC launched the company on the New York Stock Exchange, which retains a stake of 80pc. Maritz replaced as CEO Greene, quadrupling revenues of $ 4.5 billion. Gelsinger then change to succeed Maritz EMC in 2012.

VMware now has 400,000 customers, 19,000 employees, 2015 revenues of $ 6.6 billion and 120 locations worldwide, including its headquarters in the UK in Frimley, Surrey. Gelsinger was raised on a farm in Pennsylvania.

His father was one of nine children, while his mother was from a family of 11 and jumped the last year of high school at age 17 to take a scholarship to study electronics at Lincoln Technical Institute in its original state.

His faith increasing clarity. a weekly Bible study was conducted for 16 years and served as a Sunday school teacher, while his philanthropy supports medical aid, church planting organizations, educational work and an orphanage he and his wife Linda helped build in Nairobi.

Intel, where he entered high school, often worked 80 hours a week, prompting complaints from the payroll was working too much overtime.

To resolve this problem, for a period of their married life, he and Linda has designed a system by which scored two points to get home before 17 hours, one point if before 18:15 to zero thereafter and least one point remote weekends.

Even wrote about it in a book entitled Balancing family, faith and work. "I have written three books and now I'm working in my room," smiled Gelsinger. He is one of those labors of love. "Since the merger, of course. Watch this space.

Sunday 23 October 2016

Cisco and VMware Eat Their Anticloud Words

Compete with Amazon Web Services is difficult. Just ask Cisco and VMware, both of which have been made to eat humble pie rain in recent days.

The two companies AWS derided for being a weak or no product margin player a few years ago, one that would never touch their "most valuable" products. Now? We will talk with them themselves.

 Cisco sells millions of networked computers and has been the dominant network provider it seems centuries. It is a great company with a glorious past. It also runs the serious risk through AWS, Microsoft Azure, and other public cloud providers to encourage businesses to hire critical infrastructure.

There are two years, Cisco has hired Nick Earle as senior vice president of sales and cloud-to-market. At that time, Earle was not worried about the AWS. "Goods rabble!" It seemed to be the thought that entered a statement he made to CRN:

"If you look at what [AWS is] doing is clearly a perforation line and are price and will lose money strategically cutting. Cisco does not believe in wasting money strategically."

 Instead, Earle asked, "ACI programmability and dynamic network allows us to provide differentiated services and value-added." Apparently providers like AWS low margin are "shaking because this is a very expensive game. To continue building and data between continue lowering the prices are not the strategy we believe."

Unfortunately, it is a strategy that AWS customers, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud believe. Oh, and it is difficult enough profitable, with AWS notched healthy margins are large enough to carry all Amazon operations and in the dark.

 Cisco, to his credit, he realized.

The last week of European Cisco, Middle East, Africa, and Russian President Edwin Paalvast took the stage at Canalys Forum canal and told them to dig for niche markets because "undoubtedly [AWS] is won the mass start [] markets as very large data applications. They are standard and can not be beaten more. "Hmm," can not be better "? This does not look good.

However, Cisco remains convinced that the model of AWS is likely unsustainable. Paalvast says: "AWS is a bet If you really look at their financial statements, was hired for all, if they continue to grow as they are today, will win.". However, he continues, "If they have a hiccup, they will be bankrupt."

With all due respect, Cisco, I would not bet on a strategy based on prayer for hiccups. VMware did not work for, after all.

Beat the bookseller

 First, he was president and chief operating officer of Carl Eschenbach VMware, which in 2013 took stock of the brand and the ecosystem of the strength of VMware and said. "I find it very hard to believe that we can not overcome collectively a company that sells books "not to be outdone, CEO of VMware Gelsinger went further and insists that the victory of AWS was to defeat all if the" burden of Amazon work is lost, and lost forever. "

The "we" Gelsinger was called VMware and its partners. It sounds an alarm about the threat to public cloud domination of VMware data centers:

"We want to own the workload of the company. We all lose if they are in these fine public clouds. We want to extend our franchise in the private cloud and public cloud only allow our customers the benefits of both. Owning corporate load work now and forever. "

 Gelsinger finally decidedly changed his mind last week when he came on stage with AWS chief Andy Jassy announce a partnership in which VMware software is offered as a service on AWS. The Register snarkily titled as follows: "Amazon AWS". Hi VMware. 'We submit Please save us! "

Gelsinger, a little more humble now, and said: "This is the result of our customers tell us what they need," You're right, it would have been just as well admit that three years ago ..

The reason VMware actually fought for so long it is self-preservation. As suggested InfoWorld Eric Knorr, "This is ultimately a ramp [AWS public cloud] without a detour." It's a great way to extend the private cloud, VMware that control public cloud, which is the strength of AWS. Do not expect AWS to pave the way back to the private cloud.

A cloudy Hotel California

 This is the problem of all these old trucks, these wired-called "dead works". They can not explain the gravitational attraction of public clouds like AWS or Microsoft Azure, but they have no way to stop them, either.

Chowdhry chip analyst, speaking of the holders of materials, it is clear that something profound is happening throughout the IT environment of the company, a trend that is not only key equipment providers:

"We are seeing 8-11 technology conferences every month. We have not come in a single customer increasing their spending on hardware company. In fact, all customers are talking about is the decline of its equipment business spending. All guests talk continues to increase their workloads on AWS and Microsoft Azure more than 100 percent. "

That will accelerate. At least now Cisco and VMware support, however, can be painful.

Thursday 20 October 2016

VCP550D Exam Question No 57

Question No 57:

Which statement is true about the hardware configuration for ESXi hosts participating in a virtual SAN?

A. The hosts must have identical hardware.
B. Each host must have at least one Solid State Drive (SSD).
C. The hosts must have network attached storage.
D. Each host must have a RAID Controller.

Answer: B

Sunday 16 October 2016

Cloud superpowers Amazon and VMWare Team up

Rivals cloud dynasties Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VMware have announced a partnership awaited Friday - they expect it easy to sell in an increasingly competitive market, said CEO "Squawk Alley" CNBC.

The association between the two heavyweights of the technology is based on one of the most important trends in business. Increasingly, companies store more data, and want to be able to access it from anywhere and use in multiple applications.

The new offering, VMware cloud AWS is a software sold with the support of VMWare, which operates public cloud Amazon. Its aim is to help the many companies that already use VMWare in your business, but are hoping to move more of its external data servers, such as those offered by Amazon.


 "The announcement that we have done together is really a real win for customers," said Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS. "With the announcement, customers should not take this bit decision more, and get VMWare to use this software used for use on AWS - and do so without having to purchase additional hardware, like most businesses these days not they are looking to buy more equipment. "

Although VMware offers its own cloud services because AWS and VMWare are not well integrated before, customers felt they had to choose, Jassy said. Pat Gelsinger, general manager of VMware, said customers pushed the two companies.

"What we see is that this is already our joint customers, and that's what really makes this powerful announcement," Gelsinger said. "Andy and I were driven by customer demand, because ... basically all companies [is] now takes advantage of Amazon, the creation of this hybrid seamless experience where they get the best of both worlds. "

 Amazon has 31 percent of global market share in the clouds, and increasingly, according to research firm synergy studies. But as companies look for flexible combinations of software and data storage, companies like Oracle and Microsoft build cloud offerings, too.

offers hybrid clouds, as offered by VMware and Amazon, it is supposed to be used by 80 percent of IT organizations in 2018, according to IDC estimates. Nutanix saw its shares rise more than 130% after its IPO last month, offering a hybrid version of cloud service.

 The combined product from Amazon and VMWare should allow companies to do more, much more profitable and faster, Jassy said.

"When our customers we are pushing is an easy thing to sell," Gelsinger said.