vForum Tokyo 2018 Recap

vForum Tokyo is a two-day event traditionally attended by some of the top VMware executives like Pat Gelsinger, Ray O'Farrell, Raghu Raghuram and Guido Appenzeller. The first General Session reminded a lot the General Session from VMworld US and Europe, but there was one significant announcement that dominated the vForum discussions, exhibitors’ floor and sessions – the availability of VMware Cloud on AWS in Japan. Runecast Analyzer is certified for VMC on AWS since last year. In fact, we were one of the first vendors to certify and I was happy to inform people they can run Runecast across their on-prem environment and VMC on AWS.

Many of the system integrators had specialized booths on the exhibitors’ floor showcasing VMC on AWS, including Fujisoft. In fact, Fujisoft Fellow and my co-presenter at VMworld Barcelona, Kohei Matsumoto, had a session about VMC on AWS including a cool demo.

Speaking of specialized booths, in the middle of the exhibitors’ floor there was a chain of booths dedicated to HCI. The one that stood out for me (no surprise here) was the Fujisoft booth. Their key differentiator was Runecast. Their customers can enjoy benefits of VxRail and get the most out of their HCI infrastructure keeping it continuously available and security compliant running Runecast Analyzer on top.

That was not all from Fujisoft and Runecast. At the main Fujisoft booth, we had the Runecast Analyzer demos loaded up for people to try and experience the value of proactive analytics. We were happy to welcome an incredible number of people interested in Runecast. I was glad to be able to demo our product to some of them.

One of the big highlights of the event was the joint session between Runecast and Fujisoft. We had a full house (just like at vForum 2017, and VMworld 2018 US and Europe)! This time I was co-presenting with Ayumu Shimizu, who spoke about the decreasing number of IT professionals in Japan and the need for automation, simplicity and proactivity. Naturally, I was thrilled to showcase the latest Runecast Analyzer 2.1 to the Japanese audience. It has been a whole year since our session at vForum 2017 and we’ve been busy developing, so there was a lot to cover – NSX and vSAN integrations, historical data, managerial reporting, new security standards and the whole new UI. I was planning to start my part with a few sentences in Japanese but ended up saying just a few words in the beginning and then switched to English. Luckily there was a simultaneous translation.

Stan co-presenting with Ayumu Shimizu at vForum Tokyo 2018

This was not the only session where Runecast was mentioned. A customer of ours, CNCi, had a really interesting case study session where they also explained how they use Runecast Analyzer to keep their critical vSphere and vSAN environment in top shape.

The event wouldn’t be the same without the energetic VMUG team and their shining leader and good friend Kaz Igarashi. Their incredible spirit lit up the exhibitors’ floor and I am not surprised that they signed up so many new VMUG members. I am also happy they are such fans (and some of them customers) of Runecast. They really enjoyed The KB Hunt too – I gave out some slide decks and just a few minutes later I saw a deck of cards was already put into play.

Thank you to our awesome partners, distributors, customers, prospects and fans! Your feedback and trust in Runecast keeps us excited about delivering bigger and bigger value. Thank you for the exceptional hospitality and for making this vForum another unforgettable experience for me and Runecast!