Huge attendees, exhibitors at VMworld 2008

BANGALORE, INDIA: VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter has announced that it expects a record 14,000 attendees at VMworld 2008, VMware’s fifth annual virtualization conference being held at The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas next week, which represents a 30 percent increase over attendance at last year’s conference.  At VMworld, VMware will unveil next-generation virtualization capabilities and product direction.

VMworld 2008 will feature more than 300 breakout sessions in seven tracks: Automating the Virtual Datacenter; Building Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery; Exploring Technology and Architecture; Planning and Operations in the Datacenter; Running Enterprise Applications in Virtual Machines; Virtualization 101; and Virtualizing the Desktop. VMworld will also feature 13 instructor-led and five self-paced labs with nearly 8,000 total lab seats. More than 200 sponsors and exhibitors are supporting the conference, including Platinum Sponsors Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, NetApp and Symantec who will be delivering keynotes.

Leading the keynotes is VMware President and CEO Paul Maritz, who will look back at virtualization history and ahead to the industry trends that are influencing VMware’s future and its solutions. Since VMware introduced the ESX hypervisor in 2001, virtualization has reshaped computing – from servers to storage to networking to security to management to operating systems to desktops to applications – by transforming the physical into the virtual. Just as electronic banking transformed bills into bytes to radically redefine the velocity, reach, ease, costs and kinds of commerce possible, virtualization has freed computing from the confines of hardware to enable radical new opportunities not possible in the physical world. Looking ahead, Maritz sees a future of virtualization expanding from the datacenter to the desktop and beyond to the cloud.

As shown by the theme, “Virtually Anything is Possible,” VMworld 2008 is a celebration of virtual possibilities – as well as the geniuses, forward-thinkers and pioneers who turn possibilities into reality and potential into impact. These are the front-line soldiers of what many analysts call the highest impact trend in computing of this decade. At its founding ten years ago, VMware took the concept of virtualization and applied it to solve the problems of the modern datacenter, including server proliferation, rigid hardware limitations, excessive power use, brittle and static systems and manageability. A decade later, more than 120,000 VMware customers have transformed their datacenters and business operations by using a technology that only a handful of people had even heard about just a few years ago. Millions of virtual servers are being deployed while datacenters are shrinking. Energy costs are curtailed while IT productivity is rising. Applications are running without interruption even in the face of disasters. IT professionals are spending less time administrating and more time innovating.

The VMworld 2008 theme will be further exemplified and amplified by more than 100 success stories offering insight into what VMware and virtualization are making possible. Featured VMware customers include AT&T, Burt’s Bees, Chevron, eBay, First American, Nationwide, Qualcomm, Siemens AG, United Bancorp and Whirlpool.