vCloud Automation Center: Time For a Closer Look
By no means am I a visionary, but occasionally I'll latch on to something that I keep very close watch on. Way back in 2011 (which seems like forever ago), I wrote a piece outlining my first impressions of vCloud Director. At the time, I focused three key points:
- On-premise is still an option
- The networking will be different
- There is metadata, and it's important
What is interesting is that this is pretty much the same top three points today. I've been working a bit with vCloud Director recently and can formulate a good direction on this "level" of virtualization now. That being said, things have changed a bit since VMworld 2011 in San Francisco with vCloud Director. Take a moment to read these three blogs and KB article:
Now, that's a lot to take in; I appreciate that. But one key thing to remember is that vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) is part of the VMware software defined data center now. vCAC brings an ease of use to this new level of virtualization that, frankly, vCloud Director was missing.
This is important to me in particular; we're in a time now where we can't just teach ourselves virtualization technologies. I'm pretty sure that most of us (me, included) have not fundamentally changed our virtualization practice since 2006 or so.
A number of key concepts are introduced by vCAC, such as a self-service portal, lifecycle management, and multi-tenancy logic. This is important to meet the demands of our stakeholders today. Whether we provide internal IT to a single organization, a multi-departmental organization or a hosted service; these requirements are somewhat universal. In our practice today, we can truly draw up a seamless deployment and availability mechanism to give what is needed when it is needed.
This doesn't mean there won't be a learning curve; I get that. There will be trials and tribulations along the way. The good news is that I'm going there also, and there is no better way to learn something then let someone else solve the problem and write a blog about it. (Hint: Bookmark the Everyday Virtualization blog now!)
I'm convinced that the time is right to give a modern look to the virtualization practice and maybe vCAC is part of that step. Have you given vCAC a good look? What's your take and experiences (include the learning curve challenges)? Share your comments here.
Posted by Rick Vanover on 09/11/2013 at 3:27 PM