For anyone that has been following VMware for any amount of time will know they like to keep their Beta programs very limited and usually most people don’t know what’s going on until it’s announced in public at an event. However without a wider audience involved in the use and testing of VMware vSphere in beta form there is less chance to catch bugs and the GA product quality may not be as good as what it could have been.

This is why the news of VMware Announcing a Public Beta for the next vSphere is such a great move. This is the best way we all have to help VMware improve product quality and get all the features working that we need and love.  I would encourage everyone, and I mean everyone, to go and sign up on the vSphere Beta Page, download the product, test it out, and provide feedback. The beta is still under NDA, so I can’t tell you what you’ll find or what the features are, but I can tell you that there is some awesome things coming. I’ve personally tested out a lot of functionality in the earlier beta 1 release and logged about 40 defects, most of which are fixed in beta 2 (This is a great turnaround on defect fixes!). You’ll have the chance to interact with VMware engineers and product managers and post feedback to the forums. If you have any interest at all in helping shape VMware vSphere product direction and get your favourite features and functions tested, then this is the way.

VMware is making a major investment in product quality here by offering this public beta and all the staff that will be supporting it behind the scenes. I’m sure they also appreciate the great amount of time and energy it takes on our part (as the IT community) to actually download and test it out (it is time consuming). Now the public beta isn’t just a thing that Microsoft does (and they did it to good effect to catch up on VMware), we have VMware doing it too. Who will be next? Who will be able to harness the power of the IT community to help with their testing, QA and produce not only a cost effective and commercially successful product, but one that is robust, of high quality, and a rock solid foundation for the SDDC of the future? Seems VMware is very serious about doing so and is laying down the gauntlet for others to now follow.

Final Word

Thanks VMware for making the next vSphere beta a public event and engaging the community, I greatly appreciate your investment and the effort of all the people behind the scenes that make this happen. I hope we can share more about this at VMworld this year, and maybe someone in VMware Marketing would like to give the first thousand or so beta testers, or the top bug finders, a T-Shirt or something as a momento of their effort? What do you all think?

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This post first appeared on the Long White Virtual Clouds blog at longwhiteclouds.com. By Michael Webster +. Copyright © 2012 – 2014 – IT Solutions 2000 Ltd and Michael Webster +. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.