vSphere 5.1 – The Sum of the Whole is Greater than its Parts

Note: This a cut & paste from a post that resides on the VMTN Communities – it was easier just to point to original locations that start all the links again.

When I was deciding upon a title for this post I did a Google on the phrase “The sum of the whole is greater than its parts”. I’m one of those guys who likes to know where certain words/phrases come from. Sometimes it helps to get back to the root of the definition especially as we routinely use and abuse language and quotations – often applying them incorrectly. Don’t get me on the subject of the meaning of the word “disinterested” and the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” at a cocktail party, okay?

Anyway, the title. Some folks think the phrase comes from Aristotle, whereas others cite Gestalt Theory as proposed by Max Wertheimer. For me the phrase has come to mean that when you take a breakdown a technology into its various parts – you sometimes loose the vision of the “whole”. That’s certain myopic view that prevails in the field of technology. We get so focused on feature matrices and comparing one vendor to another; one isolated feature from another – that we often forget that the value of these individual features is when they come together and are used together – is where in fact the real value resides…

Anyway, this rather convoluted philosophical opening gambit to this blogpost is a prelude to something that’s actually prosaic. It’s merely a collection of all the posts I’ve made about the new product launches announced at VMworld. 🙂

[Note: These links point back to the original source location on the VMTN Communities before mikelaverick.com got started]

What is the Software-Defined Datacenter?

Part 1: What’s New vSphere5.1: The Web-Client

Part 2: What’s New in vSphere 5.1 – ESXi 5.1

Part 4: What’s New in vSphere 5.1 – Hardware Levels & VMware Tools

Part 5: What’s New in vSphere 5.1: The Virtual Machine

Part 6: What’s New vSphere5.1 – vCenter

Part 7: What’s new in vSphere5.1: Storage

Part 8: What’s New in vSphere5.1 – vSphere Replication (VR) and Site Recovery Manager (SRM)

Part 9: What’s New in vSphere5.1: vSphere Data Protection

Part 10: What’s New in vSphere5.1 – Distributed Virtual Switch

Part 11: What’s New in vCloud Networking and Security (VXLAN)