VMware acquisition Nicira accelerates cloud computing management

VMware's Nicira acquisition program suggests that its overall cloud computing strategy will change in the near future. While its proprietary virtualization technology makes it a strong place, it is also open to platform-independent support for cloud users ' needs.

VMware announced this week that it would buy a network virtualization software supplier, Nicira, at a price of nearly 1.26 billion dollars, the largest acquisition so far, and soon after its financial analysts began discussing the company's second-quarter earnings.

The Nicira company's network virtualization Platform (NVP) creates an abstraction layer between the physical network and virtual switches deployed on the hypervisor host. It uses controller software to manage network services for virtual server workloads without regard to network hardware types.

This makes up for a major flaw in VMware's cloud computing virtualization strategy, which one analyst says will help boost the company's software definition network (SDN) products.

"Objectively speaking, it has a strong complementarity with VMware," said Boris Renski, co-founder of Cloud Computing Systems integrator Mirantis, based in Kings View, Calif.

"With SDN, virtual machines won't have to think about where they run, which is definitely a good thing, judging from the customer's values." ”

If VMware can successfully integrate Nicira and other products into the finished product family, the company will have the opportunity to make great strides in cloud computing management, says Alessandro Perilli, research director at Stanford Gartner, Connecticut State.

However, "VMware has not proven that vcloud Director, vcenter Operations Management, Dynamicops, Nicira, and all other products can be integrated into a cohesive cloud management platform," Perilli said.

"Automation of virtual machine deployments is the easiest part," Perilli added. "There is no doubt that the automation of storage configuration and network reconfiguration is more challenging." ”

VMware's acquisition reinforces the company's cloud computing strategy

Nicira is the most recent of VMware's series of acquisitions related to cloud computing.

The company announced it would be interested in acquiring Dynamicops company in early July, a manufacturer of cloud management software for multiple management programs. VMware also acquired the cloud computing data Analysis Provider Cetas software company earlier this year.

In the Dynamicops and Nicira acquisitions, VMware focused on supporting multiple platforms to meet the growing needs of users.

"They are changing their strategy and offering customers more options at the lowest level of the stack, which is where demand is growing, strong competitors (such as Microsoft) are not strong enough to have a real competitive threat in the near future," Perilli said.

The Nicira acquisition is expected to be formally completed in the second half of 2012.

Cloud computing stripping remains unproven

VMware announced record earnings last week and officially restructured its executive team.

In the analysis conference call, former CEO Paul Maritz to do his best to eliminate the customer and partner's concern for VMware split open source Asset program, that is, open source assets including cloud Foundry as an independent company or department, In order to facilitate the future of the non-virtualization market better development and better positioning.

Last week's speculation about potential VMware cloud-splitting has surfaced. While VMware executives have struggled to downplay the possibility of the scheme, they have not categorically denied the claims of customers and experts.

"For now, we don't have a spin-off plan," Maritz said in a Monday phone call to answer an analyst's question.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)