My top 10ish must-attend VMworld sessions (by a VMworld first-timer)

As a first-time attendee and with close to 1000 sessions (!), I find #VMworld2021 pretty intimidating. Following the path set forth by the brave explorers before me, who ventured off fearlessly into the realm of virtual events between must-attend meetings and quiet solo lunches, I will look to offer you my curated session list from this premier multi-cloud industry event. While my focus is on the telecommunications space, I will also touch on what I see as critical trends, including AI and multi-cloud adoption. All you need to do is?register for the event?for free and add each session to your schedule.?

1. Solution Keynote: The Future of Distributed Enterprise Edge Runs through Service Providers [EDG3058]

Edge?Computing offers both a promise of giant fortunes and great challenges to everyone from the communications service providers offering the services, the enterprises looking to harness its capabilities, and the software engineers who will embrace its vast new toolset.?The edge places cloud-like compute and storage capabilities closer to customers, devices, and data to overcome the latency limitations imposed by cloud computing. Telcos are well placed to win this race due to their vast set of physical locations, and VMware’s deep array of development and IT tools can simplify much of the complexity inherent in this paradigm shift. Join VMware’s Sanjay Uppal, SVP and General Manager of the Service Provider and Edge Business Unit, AT&T’s Rupesh Chokshi, Telia’s Dr. Rainer Deutschmann and an enterprise customer – Michelin’s Andre DeVillars – who will discuss how the move to the edge can be viewed from multiple lens, supporting enterprise applications and improving end user experiences.

To learn more about CSPs’ real-world Edge experiences and how VMware is collaborating with partners and customers to realize this future today, I picked a few deeper dive sessions for you in the bottom of this post.

2. Accelerate Open RAN Deployments with Validated Solutions [EDG1881]

Communications service providers are facing a giant challenge in the transition to 5G: vendor disaggregation. While diminishing vendor lock-in, disaggregation comes with the need to build a best-of-breed network from components and software sourced from an array of vendors without inherent guarantee the integration will be successful. Nowhere is that more evident than in setting up their 5G radio access network (RAN), where capital investment outlay is biggest. One approach to addressing this challenge is to work with trusted vendors to establish a consistent stack that offers peace of mind without sacrificing flexibility. VMware’s Stephen Spellicy is joined by Dell Technologies’ Sandro Tavares and Mavenir’s John Baker to review our joint RAN solution.?

VMware partner Accenture addressed this challenge by establishing a 5G lab, giving communications service providers a safe space to test a complete end-to-end solution validated by Accenture. In “Leveraging Accenture Labs for Real-World Cloud Transformation and 5G Ops [EDG3066S]”, Accenture’s Simone Catenacci will discuss this offering and explain how the firm’s expertise and hands-on use of the lab can help service providers accelerate 5G rollout while mitigating much of the risk involved in the effort.

3.?Next-Gen Services for Business Model Innovation, New Revenue Opportunities [EDG1946]

Throughout VMworld you will hear a large amount of buzzwords and the most searched tech industry terms flung about, and while the media crows about #5G, #Edge, #Multi-Cloud and #AI, how do these innovations actually affect enterprise IT? This talk, presented by VMware’s Mahesh Seshadri and Vijay Kanchi, along with Accenture’s Hillol Roy, will provide a clear view into many of the concepts discussed at VMworld and discuss business cases where these innovations are being used in the real world.?

4. Mythbusting the TCO of Cloud Solutions with Craig Stanley [MCL1179]

Accelerated by COVID and the need to support employees working remotely, companies are embracing the cloud with increasing pace and adopting hybrid- and multi-cloud with gusto. With VMware accelerating and reducing the complexity of this new work reality, the technical bar has never been lower, but questions about cloud costs, efficiency and sustainability linger. In this talk, VMware’s lead economist Craig Stanley will dive into the fray to explore aspects IT leaders need to incorporate into their assessments and offer an evaluation model that may assist in the process.?

5. BMW and NVIDIA Design the Virtual Factory of the Future Using VMware [VI1419]

The automotive industry is undergoing a massive shift to electrification with a growing emphasis on efficiency and sustainability. At the same time, car startups are forcing incumbent leaders to quickly adapt to maintain their lead with the aid of #AI. GPUs are critical to making AI viable but require a considerable investment. BMW’s Marc Kamradt and Sebastian Heim, joined by NVIDIA’s Adolf Hohl, will share the company’s journey offering #NVIDIA GPU power to the engineers who rely on it to do their jobs using VMware’s tools to control and maximize access while optimizing resource utilization.?

6. 10 Things You Need to Know About Project Monterey [MCL1833]

Today’s computer CPUs waste a lot of time and power handling many essential business processes such as managing network traffic, talking to storage devices, and keeping your data safe. Project Monterey seeks to offload many of these tasks to SmartNICs – network interface cards (AKA DPU or IPU) with their own dedicated processors. Implementing such a change will be profound to operating system vendors, but using VMware’s ESXi, the hypervisor gives the OS the data it needs without having to bother with some of the busy work. VMware’s Sudhanshu Jain and Niels Hagoort will provide more information on our work enabling the use of processors from #Intel, #NVIDIA and others that help realize this vision.?

A deeper dive into our joint offering with Intel, focused on communications service providers, will be offered in the session “Accelerate Infrastructure Functions and Improve Data Center Utilization [NET2847S]”, where Sudhanshu will be joined by Intel’s Derek Collier.?

7. A Case for Deploying an Elastic CDN Solution on VMware Telco Cloud Platform [EDG2081]

Video continuously challenges communications service providers to deliver the shows and live sports we grew accustomed to stream. With consumers quickly upgrading to 4K, the demands on broadband networks keep growing. Research into viewer behaviors demonstrated that this traffic spikes for limited periods of time and ebbs the rest of the time. Which brings to question the age-old adage that throwing in more servers will solve load problems. VMware’s Karthik Krishna, along with Intel’s Nehal Mehta and Broadpeak’s Xavier Leclercq will discuss how to elastically increase capacity with demand while avoiding expensive and inefficient alternatives.

8. The VMware, ASOCS and Metaswitch 5G Private Connectivity Solution [EDG2409]

#5G is not just about communications service providers; a fair amount of spectrum previously used by CB radios is now available for enterprise looking to harness the technology to scale up and secure their networks. The scale and speed offered by 5G – enabling the tracking of a million devices per base station – has the potential to drive IoT innovation and change the way business is done. Join ASOCS’ Gilad Garon and VMware’s Ram Venkataramani as they offer a glimpse into this already-deployed future, no monthly service bills included.

9. Deliver Reliability, Better Security and Scalability with Edge Computing and SASE [EDG2417]

The work-from-anywhere world imposed by the pandemic is here to stay. Securing workforce resource access and ensuring productivity remains a high priority using SaaS applications - emerged as major hurdles enterprises are looking to overcome. VMware’s secure access service edge (SASE, pronounced “Sassy!”, with flair, ideally) offers a way to not only solve these problems but also expand its platform for hosting edge applications. This talk, led by VMware’s Shefali Chinni and Craig Connors, along with Intel’s Bob Ghaffari and Lumen’s Paul Savill, will walk attendees through how this solution is realized in the field.?

10. Where Is the Path to 6G, and How Do We Get There? [EDG1535]

This is the session for those looking to see what’s coming beyond the horizon. With 5G rollout and adoption driving enterprise leaders’ emerging visions of what’s feasible, 6G will bring with it innovation built on the grids and time-sensitive distributed applications of today. Hear from VMware’s Kaniz Mahdi, Meryem Simsek and Sven van der Meer as they peer into this ever-more-connected future.

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So there you have it. VMworld really does have sessions for (almost) every interest. From an inspiring sessions with Michael J. Fox and Will Smith to discussions about how technology can help our planet address environmental and social problems. Join us and the terrific lineup of experts and gain the edge you need to compete and #welcomechange.?

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Learn more about Edge Computing in these sessions:

In the session “Edge Computing Will be the Fastest Monetizing Service for CSPs [EDG2594]”, hosted by VMware’s Muneyb Minhazuddin will provide a glimpse into what service providers see evolving in the field today, with Telefonica’s Emilio Jose Moreno Escobosa and NTT Docomo’s Hisakazu Tsuboya sharing lessons learned.

The session “SK Telecom: The Road to the World's First 5G MEC Platform [EDG2425]” will discuss SKTelecom’s rollout of Multi-access Edge Computing (#MEC) across its standalone wireless network. The session is presented by VMware’s Vinod Joseph and SKTelecom’s Sangho Shin.

VMware and #NVIDIA will provide a deeper dive into one use case – bringing rapid-response AI to the edge – in the session “Enable the Convergent Telco Edge to Deliver Multiple Edge AI Apps [EDG1386]”.

Finally, “How Edge Cloud Lets Telcos Reinvent Their Role in Creating a New Internet [EDG2181]” will showcase VMware’s collaboration with Ori Industries and KX to help #BT lay the foundations to this new Edge-enabled Internet while rapidly monetizing these services.