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We're back from vmworld and it did not disappoint. as expected the announcements were pretty impactful and with vmware's reach across the Enterprise, the number of attendees as well as exhibitors was impressive.

There were a bunch of announcements to support what Pat Gelsinger called the tech superpowers: cloud, mobile, AI/ML, and Edge/IoT. From vSAN and NSX to workspace One and VMware Cloud on AWS, announcements touched most of VMwares products, but here are a couple that I think deserve a bit of a double click.

First is Amazon Relational Database service on VMware - bringing the RDS cloud service to the data center and the edge. And the core value of this annoucnement is simplicity - making it easier for organizations to deploy, manage, and run mission-critical databases where they want, whether on-premises, in a hybrid environemnt, or on VMware Cloud on AWS. The big takeaway here for me is that this announcement proves that the AWS and VMware relationship is much more than a one-way street with VMware simply allowing customers to run ESX on AWS. This is AWS recognizing the reach of VMware in on-premises environemnts and embracing the fact that there will always be a need for on-prem environments, especially at the edge. And that’s not to say they didn't think this before, but announcements like this make it more real, while also serving as a bit of an alarm for all the other on-prem technology providers.

The other announcement that caught my attention was Project Dimension. There's a growing need to analyze high volumes of data to make real-time decisions at the edge, but between management and cost complexity, it's been a challenge. There’s been too much focus on operational aspects of the business as opposed to deriving business value. Project Dimension is looking to solve this problem by enabling organizations to consume compute, storage, and networking at the edge the same way they do in the public cloud. Project Dimension is VMware's new cloud service to deliver hardware as-a-service and a software-defined data center to on-premises locations. It's anchored by vSAN and also leverages NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud to enable connectivity across a distributed environment, whether edge, a core data center or the cloud. And the key piece here is that it’s a managed service - VMware manages the infrastructure including trouibleshooting, patching, and maintenance, while the customers focus on applications, data, and gaining business value.

And finally, I have to mention the keynote demo that caused my eyeborws to raise in anticipation and excitement - VMware is getting into the device game. Not by creating their own devices, but by enabling organizations to run ESX on ARM chips on devices. I’m looking forward to much more on this in the coming months.

Overall, while I wasn't expecting such a focus on the edge and IoT, it makes sense why it was at the forefront. VMware is armed with massive adoption, proven technology, and very strategic partnerships that make it a natural fit for distributed organizations looking to gain more insight and value at the edge.

Stay tuned for more announcements from VMware, especially on the edge front, as they look to further cement themselves as market leaders in a constantly growing space of hybrid cloud providers and enablers.