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VMworld: VMware Talks Up Hybrid Cloud and Software-Defined Datacenters
VMware's Robin Matlock, Pat Gelsinger, Bill Fathers and Carl Eschenbach took the stage to urge IT to be "brave" when it comes to hybrid cloud adoption.
VMware Inc. used the first keynote of its VMworld conference -- running this week through Thursday in San Francisco -- to rally IT around jumping head-first into the concept of the software-defined datacenter and taking the cloud to the next level.
"This week is all about pushing boundaries," said Robin Matlock, CMO of VMware, during her opening segment to the keynote. Matlock discussed that boundaries, including wider integration of hybrid cloud in the enterprise, need to be met by a "brave" IT -- a theme that ran strong throughout the hour-and-a-half presentation.
VMware CTO Pat Gelsinger continued this note, discussing how the company is focused on tearing down the barriers that might be holding back enterprise adoption of a cloud-based IT model -- choosing traditional apps vs. cloud-based apps, going with on-premises vs. off-premises or prioritizing security vs. elasticity, to name a few. Instead, the company's goal has been on eliminating IT's need to choose one or the other.
"Our approach at VMware is to bridge these two worlds," said Gelsinger. "We believe we have the unique power to be the 'and' between these two worlds."
Gelsinger sees this coming to fruition through new versions of existing services, like VMware vCloud Suite 5.8 (which will be available in Q3 of this year), vSphere 6.0 (currently in open beta), vRealize Suite and VMware integrated with OpenStack, which Gelsinger briefly mentioned as some of the new products the company has announced over the past few days. Gelsinger noted that the tools are here, now it's up to enterprises to take advantage of them. "Now is the time for IT to step forward in a powerful way," said Gelsinger.
Gelsinger then delved into a new line of hyper-converged infrastructure offerings announced at the show, EVO:RAIL. While light on specifics, the new line will include EMC Corp., Fujitsu, Dell Inc. Inspur Group Co. Ltd., and Supermicro, to name a few, as partners to deliver a single unit of deployment for apps and storage. Gelsinger said the goal of the EVO line is to provide deployment in less than 15 minutes, a simple and consistent price structure and the ability to scale out to datacenters in less than two hours through a long list of certified hardware solutions. More information can be found in a company blog post announcing the new line yesterday.
Products such as the EVO:RAIL and the company's vCloud Air (formerly known as VMware vCloud Hybrid Service) are just two ways in which VMware is focused on providing IT with an "industrial-grade cloud solution," Gelsinger said -- an important next step for cloud adoption and acceptance.
In fact, according to Bill Fathers, executive vice president and general manager of the Hybrid Cloud Services Business unit at VMware, IT is currently in that next step. Taking the baton from Gelsinger in today's keynote, Fathers discussed how he has seen a large acceleration of VMs being deployed in the public cloud over the past nine months and how this has led to the "professional" era of cloud adoption.
Fathers then laid out the company's future vision for vCloud Air and how it will fit perfectly with IT's strategy for rapid app deployment and disaster recovery. He also slipped in the announcement of vCloud Government service, which will bring many of the same features of vCloud Air, but will be compliant with FedRAMP security standards.
The morning keynote then concluded with VMware President Carl Eschenbach reiterating the battle cry for IT to fully commit to an on-premises and off-premises model. "We will forever live in a world of a hybrid cloud," said Eschenbach.
Look for VMware to elaborate further on its new and revamped product offerings during this week's conference.