Hosting the final day of VMworld in the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark was no accident; all week the virtualization giants had hit the ball out of the park.
VMworld 2015 showcased a series of exciting announcements around hybrid cloud solutions, virtual SAN storage, hyperconverged hardware, Database as a Service (DBaaS), and application containers. From the beginning, it was clear that IT transformation was in the air, and that VMware has a solid vision for how that transformation will take place.
CEO Pat Gelsinger stressed several main messages that resonated throughout the four-day event. According to Gelsinger, we as an industry are entering an age where technology no longer simply supports the enterprise but actually defines it. In this new age, enterprises need to innovate as though they were a startup, but deliver that innovation with the high levels of uptime and security expected from an enterprise. In addition, Gelsinger stressed that the greatest risk facing enterprises today is inaction, noting that IT departments need to overcome the challenges of change to drive transformation and innovation.
VMware announced a lot of new, next-generation products and services at VMworld this year, which generally fit into three categories: enterprise infrastructure, cloud solutions, and applications. Picking the top two announcements from each category, my half-dozen highlights from the show are…
Enterprise Infrastructure
- VMware is listening to customers by incorporating key changes in EVO RAIL! In addition they announced the new hyperconverged platform EVO SDDC, which enables enterprises to deploy a complete software-defined data center in single, server-size blocks.
- With the announcement of VSAN 6.1, VMware’s virtual SAN solution now stacks up favorably to physical SAN solutions, promising to make the data center even smaller.
Cloud Solutions
- The demonstration that cross-cloud vMotion could now move workloads seamlessly between a private cloud and vCloud Air with zero downtime was a nice surprise, and makes the value proposition for VMware’s vCloud service more compelling than ever.
- vCloud Air DR can revolutionize how you protect your enterprise by leveraging cloud technologies. In addition, Site Recovery Manager Air gives you the ability to test and orchestrate your DR workflow. Finally DR that works and is affordable!
Next-Generation Applications
- This year, VMware unveiled the vision of how the hypervisor and containers work together in its vSphere Integrated Containers. In this model, the hypervisor provides key management, availability, and security services to the containers. This will be required until all applications are modernized.
- With growing interest in Database as a Service (DBaaS), VMware announced its own DBaaS offering, vCloud Air SQL.
One important takeaway from this year’s VMworld is the reality of hybrid cloud environments. VMware is betting its future on the fact that enterprise IT will need to live in the dual worlds of public and private clouds. At Rolta AdvizeX, we believe that hybrid cloud environments will play an increasingly important role as enterprises look to meet growing demands for scalability, mobility, and flexibility. The development of standards around cloud deployments (e.g., OpenStack) bears watching, as does the rapid evolution of hyperconverged hardware.
Count on Rolta AdvizeX to keep its eyes on these future developments and to keep you informed of what’s available in the market. ▪