VMware’s multi-cloud strategy: Choice and freedom in delivering apps and DX
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
WMworld 2021 started last week and during the news conference after, CEO Raghu Raghuram, and VMware President Sumit Dhawan, detailed a little bit more about their strategy with media from the APJ region.
Talking about the event overall, Raghu observed that the key news really was the strategic direction VMware is embarking upon.
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“What we are observing is enterprises are in Phase 2 of their digital transformation journey.
In Phase 1, they were able to use the cloud very successfully, to build their business through consumer applications, and deliver their digital outcomes.”
He also observed that overall, companies are looking at their entire application portfolio and modernising it. This activity goes hand in hand with a strategy that is not only prioritising cloud, but being smart about how they are using cloud.
Raghu further explained, “The essence of the cloud smart strategy is to be able to deploy the right application in the right cloud based upon the tactical business factors, and they’re doing this in order to be able to accelerate their digital transformation.”
During the conference’s first day general session, Raghu had stated, “At this stage, it’s clear: multi-cloud is going to be the model we’re going to use for the next 20 years.”
The reasons behind this are clear.
The essence of the cloud smart strategy is to be able to deploy the right application in the right cloud based upon the tactical business factors, and they’re doing this in order to be able to accelerate their digital transformation.
We are heading towards, if not already living in, a multi-cloud world. This is due to the different types of clouds available for deployment, and the variety of applications to deploy them on. This is to be able to better serve the diverse distributed workforce and customers that will be accessing them, from any where, on any device.
So multi-cloud is the next modality for our customers, Raghu pointed out.
But he also cautioned, ‘… with multi-cloud environments there comes a whole range of challenges.” In no particular order, these challenges range from:
- enabling developers to build applications easily and productively at the cloud of their choice,
- being able to take enterprise applications and run them on the cloud that the customers want,
- being able to manage all of this consistently, and also
- delivering management and security to end users accessing all of these from the edge.
Cross-cloud, multi-cloud….
Of course, to enable this multi-cloud capability with flexibility and choice, VMware has announced Cross-Cloud Services. This is touted to be able to deliver:
* an accelerated journey to the cloud,
* cost efficiency,
* flexibility and control across any cloud.
Another way to look at this service is it gives customers ability to build, run, and secure their applications across any cloud. So yes, it is about five key areas that VMware already delivers in and wants to enhance their capabilities in.
These five areas are:
- Building and deploying cloud native applications
- Cloud infrastructure for operating and running enterprise apps
- Cloud management for monitoring and managing performance and cost of apps across different clouds
- Security and networking
- Digital workspace solutions for distributed workers at the edge
A slew of projects and products are introduced
Raghu also touched upon Project Arctic, describing it as part of VMware’s cloud insfrastructure strategy to enable vSphere to be managed from the cloud. He talked about the vSphere capability which allows customers to take advantage of capacity, or use capacity for disaster recovery.
Project Ensemble addresses next-level capabilities in multi-cloud management, and security and management are beefed up with a whole new set of Kubernetes security capabilities to enable customers to connect and secure API-driven connectivity across applications.
VMware Edge, a new family of offerings to secure users and devices at the edge, as well as to deploy edge native applications, was also introduced.
Project Arctic: VMware’s cloud insfrastructure strategy to enable vSphere to be managed from the cloud
Benefits of being ‘Switzerland’ of the industry
Raghu emphasised the breadth and depth of their offerings, saying VMware considers itself the ‘Switzerland’ of the industry, with very strong partnerships with all cloud players and all infrastructure players.
“Today, there are over 25 announcements for my ecosystem partners from very large ecosystem cloud players to the little companies. The combination of the ecosystem announcements and VMware’s own innovation, makes it possible for customers to accelerate their multi-cloud journey.”
Sumit and I, each went out personally to talk to our customers in the first 100 days of us taking office. This and a customer survey yielded a very consistent set of themes.
When asked about customers’ response to their direction, Raghu explained, “Sumit and I, each went out personally to talk to our customers in the first 100 days of us taking office. This and a customer survey yielded a very consistent set of themes.”
He shared that these set of themes showed:
* 75% of customers are using two public clouds or more
* 40% are using three public clouds or more
These customers are also using the private cloud and they are building out their edge.
Hence, the reported set of problems customers face are remarkably consistent. These are:
- The scarcity of developers and need for common developer experience
- To be able to run their applications in the cloud of their choice
- To be able to connect and secure all of this
- To manage all of these at lesser cost
Raghu concluded, “So, we see a lot of resonance from our customers and our partners see these announcements as good opportunity to be of either even greater service, or to become even more strategic, to our customers’ cloud journey.”