VMware Explore US 2023 – That’s a wrap and just the beginning
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Sandra Dunbar
About a year ago, NetApp and VMware executives got together and renewed a long-term relationship, enabling NetApp as a VMware Design Partner to further its integrations across the VMware portfolio.
As a result, NetApp continues to deliver innovation to customers like you through NetApp® ONTAP® deep integrations with the VMware vSphere platform. At the recent VMware Explore US event in Las Vegas, NetApp showcased more than 35 demonstrations of these integrations. We demonstrated easy tools to upgrade to vSphere 8, NVMe performance optimization for VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols), and first-party cloud migrations for any cloud—just to name a few. You can dive deeper into these latest innovations on the NetApp Community site.
During Q&A at the conference, VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram mentioned how collaboration with NetApp stands out. “We were owned by EMC for a long time, but companies like NetApp were and continue to be our best partners,” said Raghuram.
It’s great to see the head of VMware recognizing NetApp as a top partner. The feeling is mutual. By working together, our technologies bring our joint customers the best of workload management and the best of data management, no matter where the customer’s data lives.
Optimal storage for VMware
Our deep integration and continuous innovation with VMware across the NetApp flash portfolio help you maximize your VMware investments. You can start small and grow fast, or you can refresh your on-premises infrastructure to optimize your VMware environment. Do you just want to move your data to the cloud? Only NetApp offers modern cloud-connected data management for VMware with first-party managed cloud services to seamlessly move your data-intensive VMware workloads to any cloud. To find out how, review this VMware cloud-smart architecture guide.
At VMware Explore, we were amazed by the content that VMware delivered. From cloud smart to generative AI, VMware kept us on our toes, along with the more than 10,000 attendees. It was a week of “show me what NetApp can do” discussions.
Two of our customers presented in a NetApp breakout session that you can replay. Home Trust presented its cloud-first strategy that used Azure NetApp Files with Azure VMware Solution to move all their data to the cloud, without sacrificing performance. Baptist Health responded to incoming users from acquisitions and moved data to the cloud with Azure NetApp Files and Azure VMware Solution for more than 30,000 endpoints.
You can replay the VMware Explore session or listen to the podcasts about the Baptist Health and Home Trust deployments. These customer stories are interesting, and more than likely they’re relevant to what you’re trying to accomplish with your VMware environment today.
LeRoy Vanek, solution architect at Baptist Health, explained why NetApp and VMware solutions are a good choice: “When selecting technology to move VMware workloads to the cloud, it’s critical to choose solutions that are certified and supported.”
The following photo shows LeRoy Vanek from Baptist Health and Mark Sahadeo from Home Trust participating in the breakout session. By presenting their stories in detail, these two customers showcased Azure NetApp Files architectures and how the designs complement Azure VMware Solution.
LeRoy Vanek explains the role that Azure NetApp Files datastores played in enabling Baptist Health to easily and efficiently move data to the cloud.
With the presentation of NetApp’s innovative solutions, our booth and our representatives drew a lot of attention, as you can see in the following photos!
To round out our week, we joined theCUBE for discussions on topics ranging from economics, to moving to the cloud, to the value of our VMware partnership and AI Enterprise validations with NVIDIA. Check out the interviews!
NetApp and VMware partnership
Learn more about our partnership from Phil Brotherton, VP of Solutions at NetApp, and John Gilmartin, Senior VP and General Manager of Cloud Infrastructure at VMware.
AI Enterprise
Learn about AI Enterprise from Keith Norbie, Partner Director at NetApp, and Matt Hull, Global VP of AI Solutions at NVIDIA, in an interview at VMware Explore.
Economics of moving VMware to the cloud on Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
Find out how FSx for ONTAP efficiently moves VMware to the cloud. Phil Brotherton, VP of Solutions at NetApp, and Samir Kadoo, Worldwide Director of VMware Alliances, explain.
And it’s just the beginning
We returned from VMware Explore even more motivated to continue offering our customers the VMware integrations that they need to maximize and to optimize their VMware investments. Look for more news from NetApp at the upcoming VMware Explore EMEA in November!
To stay up to date with NetApp and VMware integrations, be sure to bookmark our VMware page.
Sandra Dunbar
Sandra leads the hybrid multicloud product marketing for alliance partners like VMware. Her career has been focused on building and executing fully integrated marketing programs for the enterprise audience. Based in Los Angeles, she has previously held senior level positions with Nutanix, OpenDrives, Cisco, EMC, Sun Microsystems, IBM and various startups.
