VMware Evolves to Deliver Hybrid Platform

VMWARE VMWORLD — VMware on Monday unveiled its concept of the Hybrid Cloud Platform, combining the advances the company has made in the software-defined data center (SDDC), its work with the virtual cloud network – such as with NSX and VeloCloud – and vRealize hybrid cloud operations, now to be delivered as a service.

VMware’s new vision for hybrid cloud is not a standalone product, but the intent to support existing hybrid cloud platforms.

It’s an evolutionary expansion of the SDDC and represents the right architecture going forward, according to Kit Colbert, vice president and cloud CTO, cloud platforms business unit, at VMware.

VMware’s Kit Colbert

“We talked about some of these concepts, or different aspects of them, over the past few years, but what the Hybrid Cloud Platform represents is these ideas coming together in a holistic solution,” Colbert said on a conference call. “What we’re doing here is flushing out this specific idea and this new concept of the hybrid cloud platform.”

The unveiling came at VMworld in San Francisco.

Not only is VMware bringing together many investments made to date into this holistic experience, called the Hybrid Cloud Platform, it continues to support several consumer consumption models: traditional customer managed; partner managed via the VMware Cloud Provider Program; and the latest one – VMware Managed – where VMware delivers a cloud service to customer.

In the VMware Managed model, VMware is responsible for SLAs and life-cycle management via the following offerings: VMware Cloud on AWS, VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts, and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.

On Monday, the company made announcements about VMware Hybrid Cloud infrastructure and VMware Hybrid Cloud operations management.

First, here’s what’s new in the VMware Hybrid Cloud infrastructure: VMware Cloud on Dell EMC initial availability; VMware Cloud on AWS; and VMware Cloud Solutions, new integrated solutions for hybrid IT.

VMware Cloud on Dell EMC is cloud infrastructure delivered as a service on premises. VMware Cloud on AWS, now available for two years, has, reportedly, grown by leaps and bounds since just a year ago, with 150% growth in partner competency achievement and a 140% increase in ISV validated solutions, three-times growth in customers, and eightfold increase in the number of total VMs.

The new VMware Cloud Solutions begin with Cloud Migration for VMware Cloud on AWS, a prescriptive way for IT operations to deliver large-scale migrations to the cloud. It features workflow management across assessment, building and migration of workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS; integration with VMware Network Insight and VMware HCS; and includes online documentation and onboarding handbooks.

VMware’s Purnima Padmanabhan

“What we’re doing with VMware Cloud Solutions is just the beginning here. We have a lot of things that we want to do about Kubernetes, desktop as a service, workload self-service,” said Colbert.

On the operations side, customers realize significant ROI from consistent operations — more than 300% ROI, according to Purnima Padmanabhan, vice president of product management, cloud management business unit, VMware.

“That’s the power of adding consistent operations on top of consistent infrastructure,” she said, referring to recently conducted research.

Here’s what’s new with Hybrid Cloud Operations: VMware vRealize Operations 8, VMware vRealize Automation 8, VMware Cloud Health Hybrid, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Cloud Marketplace and VMware Skyline enhancements. VMware is extending many of the vRealize capabilities to also manage the VMware Cloud environment.