VMware push Vfabric Data Director: Providing a database as a service

Since entering the database, the service market, VMware's Vfabric data director has allowed database administrators and application administrators to provide self-service at the application level rather than at the server infrastructure level.

"This is the level that Vcloud director implemented," said Mathew Lodge, senior executive of VMware's cloud computing services. "You are extracting the concept of a database and providing it as a service model." ”

Data director allows you to create standardized database templates (such as small, medium, and large templates of different sizes) and identify their characteristics. There is also a self-service interface for application development and end-user use that can be used to make requests to the database for centralized configuration, backup, security, and backup.

At the time of its first release, data director will support only the PostgreSQL 9 database, but VMware officials say the project plan will eventually support more popular databases such as Oracle and SQL Server.

The new product also integrates VMware's vsphere System Management program features, including elastic Memory, Linkedclones, and ha. This product is not only suitable for application development and database production deployments of private cloud applications within an enterprise, but it can also run on the Cloud Foundry platform of VMware Inc., a service (PaaS), in a public cloud.

Is this a cliché?

VMware is not the first it vendor to provide a database, a service product, for an enterprise, and there are a number of related databases, service offerings, in the public cloud and private cloud areas. For example, Amazon is based on Oracle's relational database service (RDS), while Microsoft has SQL Azure in the public cloud.

In the private cloud, the Vfabric middleware can be higher than the industry giants, including Oracle's WebLogic and IBM's WebSphere, which are centrally integrated into the Exalogic and Purescale respectively.

Still, industry experts say the product's ability to run Vfabric Data director on private cloud platforms and public cloud platforms, as well as its integration with vsphere management programs, makes it unique.

"Amazon and Google are all very important in the public cloud market, but they haven't really dabbled in private cloud, and the private cloud is exactly where many companies first experience cloud computing technology," said Al Hilwa, project director for IDC's application software development.

At the same time, "VMware knows that it is a novice in the middleware market compared to Oracle and IBM," said Charlotte Dunlap, senior analyst at current Analytics. But together with cloud foundry, it is considered the company's cash cow. Both Oracle and IBM have lacked strategic thinking about platform-service (PaaS). ”

Another source of influence on the market structure was the postgres, a service product, released last week by Enterprisedb, the company that prides itself as "corporate PostgreSQL." "It is reported that the product, released on August 31, is also available for public and private clouds and will support Amazon EC2 and eucalyptus."

Supporting multiple databases will be the key to success

Even Vfabric Data director's products are located somewhere in the grey zone between public cloud Daas products and private cloud Daas products, analysts predict, and this situation will not last.

"I sometimes wonder if they already occupy a place in the data access market, especially the database," Dunlap said. "If they are like this, surely not in the long run ... It is certain that Oracle will introduce products similar to their MySQL technology. ”

Analysts agree, and say that the Vfabric director's future development is not only to support PostgreSQL, but to support Oracle's database and SQL Server in particular.

"I expect VMware to support all the major database vendors, and in fact this is the only way to succeed in business, which is what the company is doing," Hilwa said.