I joined VMware in May 2008 as the first presales engineer (Account SE is the industry term) in ASEAN for VMware strategic accounts. That was more than 6 years ago—a long time in the rapidly-evolving world of virtualization. I have been fortunate to meet many different customers in the ASEAN region. In a sense, the book documents the lessons that my customers and I have learned in their journey to the fully virtualized data center. It is very rare for customers to master the virtual world, both architecturally and operationally, part of the reason for this is that Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) is not yet matured. The biggest reason, however, is the lack of an in-depth understanding of what exactly virtualization means to IT.

There are, in fact, many misunderstandings of even the fundamentals. For example, almost all IT professionals will say they understand a Virtual Machine (VM). However, do they really understand the ramifications? A lot of CIOs still manage their virtual data centers the same way they manage their physical data centers. This creates a lot of complexity as the two platforms are radically different.

This book started many years ago with a presentation that I delivered to customers. Some of the presentations were eventually posted on my LinkedIn profile and at https://communities.vmware.com/ as customers ask for it. There have been requests to convert these presentations into a book, so they can share it with their peers. After a long time, I am both humbled and honored to present to you this book.