VMware CTO: Cloud computing toward software-defined data centers

During the fourth session of China's cloud computing conference, VMware Chief technology officer and senior Vice president of research and Development, Dr. Steve Herrod, said in an interview that VMware has shifted from mere virtualization to providing a holistic cloud infrastructure to customers, The software definition (or software-led) data center is an important trend in the future development of cloud computing.

Because of its efficiency, ease of use and energy efficiency, software-defined data centers are a direction for the future of the data center, and will change the development of the entire storage and network industries and help companies build public and private clouds, Steve Herrod.

Dr. Steve Herrod, chief technology Officer and Senior VP of Research and Development, VMware

As for VMware's response, he said VMware will continue to carry out China research and development activities at two major points in Beijing and Shanghai, and its research and development center in China will continue to provide technical support for software-led data centers and many other projects.

From virtualization to cloud infrastructure

VMware, it can be said, is the domain of virtualization, but Steve Herrod says virtualization is a central part of cloud computing, and VMware has shifted from mere virtualization to providing customers with a holistic cloud infrastructure, the infrastructure package. In this package process, including disaster recovery, monitoring, as well as access to the cloud and VShield, to manage security. He says only a handful of VMware's engineers are dedicated to virtualization, most of which are managed and automated tools, especially in the cloud architecture.

Do not stop at IaaS. Steve Herrod also believes that the PAAs represents the future trend of application development, and now more and more developers need personalized development applications. VMware's vsphere is a good platform to offer today. And Cloud Foundry, an open source PAAs. He said that the future trend of this technology is that people can develop programs on different terminals, such as mobile devices, according to their own needs. There are new applications that are richer, and in response to such needs and trends, companies and companies need to modernize their existing devices to make them more personalized and socially demanding.

Software-defined data centers change storage and network

Earlier, Steve Herrod, predicting the 2012 technology trend, said that the software-defined network (SDN) would be the backbone of the datacenter architecture. This is because server virtualization, massive consolidation and integration, and mobility requirements will highlight the drawbacks of existing static, ip-based 3-tier data center networks, so SDN technology will begin to deploy, including network virtualization, logical networks, and software controllers.

Now, Steve Herrod further that the software definition (or software-led) data Center is a direction for the future development of the data center. Because it can improve the efficiency and ease of use of the data center, make the energy utilization rate higher. VMware believes that in the next two years, the software-led data center will change the entire storage industry and the development of the network industry.

"There are already a lot of cases of building data centers in the public cloud," he said. Our current focus is to bring this technology back to the data center as a private cloud for the enterprise. "said Steve Herrod.

Reliable cloud computing: openness takes precedence over open source

Steve Herrod says VMware also offers a number of open source solutions. But on different levels, such as vsphere, and the virtual platform of the core architecture, we put this reliability first. Therefore, we are to ensure its openness, not open source. We have 1000 engineers, nothing else to do, is constantly testing every barcode, in order to ensure the reliability of the entire vsphere and core virtual platform. Go up again, as in this cascade continuously upward, the more open, more and more, innovation more and more.

VMware company Steve Herrod in the media interview

When it comes to PAAs, it's on the vsphere, and we do 100% of the open source at the PAAs level. PAAs can support all clouds, and every cloud can. Either the Amazon cloud or the VMware cloud. When it comes to open source, the most important requirement is an open API. Our current offerings can support more than 2000 different servers and more than 200 different storage network arrays. Each layer encourages an open API.

Virtual platform security out of hardware

When it comes to safety, Steve Herrod that people now have to do it in a new way because it is in a virtual environment. In response to this situation and demand, VMware put forward the VShield products, is in the virtual platform to do security. The difference is that there is no hardware, nor a downtime time.

In addition, Steve Herrod says mobility is evident in the world of cloud computing. Traditional fixed hardware can not be a good solution to the security of mobile situations. Like a virtual machine security is very good to do the mobile domain, not only to ensure its mobility, but also to ensure security.

He also said that the development focus of the VMware Beijing Research and Development team--vshield is the solution and product that VMware puts forward in the security field.

Vsphere Embracing large data applications

On big data, Steve Herrod that new applications will be more and more. VMware wants to put a lot of new apps on vsphere. One typical representative is Vhadoop, placed on vsphere. We try to make the Hadoop program as simple as possible, not as it is now, not very simple. Our goal is to keep it on top of the vsphere and to be as simple as possible. And can be more flexible, can be expanded, can be narrowed, and not to a large extent by the hardware constraints.

' We've seen the rise of databases in memory and the larger use of distributed systems, ' says Steve Herrod. VMware spends a lot of time ensuring that these types of applications are appropriate for virtualization.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)