Transition from VMware to a new global enterprise IT landscape

2018 is the 20 anniversary of VMware's founding and the year of the transition to the cloud since the 2012 Pat Gelsinger became CEO of VMware. VMware's share price reached its lowest point in February 2016 with Dell's acquisition of EMC, followed by a 3 times-fold rise of about $155 in August 2018, about $45 from the 2016 lows.

Why is 2018 the year of VMware's transition to the cloud? Since 2012, when Pat Gelsinger became CEO, VMware has begun to transform its entire product portfolio into a cloud-computing age. According to the VMware 2018 fiscal year (February 2017 to February 2018), VMware's primary software licensing revenue has come from a wide range of software and solutions beyond server virtualization, although VMware's vsphere server virtualization software license revenue is strong.

On VMworld 2016, VMware launched the VMware Cloud Foundation, which is both a hardware and software appliance and a suite of public cloud management systems. The software section includes the three major product lines for Vshpere server virtualization, Vsan storage virtualization and NSX network virtualization, as well as the SDDC Manager management software, which were introduced in VMware for the previous five years. Cloud Foundation makes it easy to build a private cloud environment, while also deploying the entire Cloud Foundation software component into a public data center to form public cloud infrastructure services.

On VMworld 2017, VMware and AWS announced the launch of VMware Cloud on AWS, the Cloud Foundation deployed on AWS's Naked metal servers, to provide the enterprise with a public cloud-based managed private cloud. On VMworld 2018, VMware announces that VMware Cloud on AWS is on-line in all major regions of the world, and by 2019 it will be more in-depth coverage of all areas and advanced services such as online virtualization and direct Connect, enterprise apps, and software license migration and container services.

At the end of August 2018 at VMworld 2018, VMware was incrementally updated on the basis of a new generation of cloud products released in previous years. For example, the previous version of the VMware Cloud Foundation has strict hardware requirements and must use the specified servers and switches, and this new version of VMware Cloud Foundation 3.0 has breached these limits, Users can select any type of network switch and use VSAN readynode to build cloud Foundation systems. In addition, VMware has launched Project Dimension, which extends cloud Foundation to edge Computing to form a complete new enterprise IT infrastructure based on cloud foundation spanning public, private, virtualized it and Edge computing. Coupled with the WAN connectivity capabilities of VMware NSX Sd-wan by Velocloud, VMware calls it the enterprise digital infrastructure.

As early as April 2016, Pat Gelsinger visited China when he pointed out: cloud computing is new hardware. In other words, the Cloud Foundation has done this by unifying the public cloud data center into VMware's new software platform. VMware's cloud-based platform, from the on-premises version of Vrealize to the SaaS-extended VMware Cloud Services, forms a comprehensive hybrid cloud management capability. While VMware Cloud Services continues to expand the management and scheduling capabilities of public Cloud resources, VMworld 2018 also announced the acquisition of Cloudhealth company, enhancing operational capabilities across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google cloud.

Building on the next generation of enterprise IT Infrastructure layouts, VMworld 2018 announces the launch of three cloud services related to up-and-up support for cross-cloud programming: VMware Cloud Assembly, a cross-cloud automation service that allows users to blueprint or cloud API to invoke its capabilities to automatically provision cloud service resources, VMware Service Broker, which is the agent (broker) between Cloud Assembly and the third party cloud service, provides the service invocation interface, and the VMware Code Stream, the SaaS version of the VRealize Code Stream supports DevOps continuous delivery, providing and development tools.

In short, today's VMware has become a complete enterprise digital infrastructure software provider, not just a server virtualization technology provider. Even, VMworld 2018 offers a technology-preview version of the VMware Cloud Marketplace Cloud services Marketplace for users to browse, subscribe to, purchase, download, and deploy third-party solutions based on the VMware SDDC architecture, as well as the AWS The RDS Database hosting service takes you to VMware's hybrid cloud platform, connecting to a database connection between the VMware private cloud and the VMware Cloud on AWS public cloud to support Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, A variety of databases such as MySQL and MariaDB.

As VMware's next-generation enterprise IT infrastructure is laid out and products are closing, the new landscape of the global enterprise IT Infrastructure market is becoming clearer: a global enterprise hybrid cloud infrastructure, represented by VMware Technology, a global enterprise hybrid cloud infrastructure represented by Microsoft technology, A global enterprise public cloud infrastructure represented by AWS Technology.

VMware technology is a unified global enterprise IT infrastructure that is based on VMware Technology, from private cloud and enterprise it point of view, Microsoft is the public cloud, private cloud and enterprise it point of view, Microsoft technology as the core, unified global Enterprise IT Infrastructure , while AWS provides global public cloud infrastructure for developers and businesses worldwide, from a public cloud perspective. These three, VMware is a hybrid cloud that is a public cloud from a private cloud, and AWS is a hybrid cloud that goes from a public cloud to a private cloud, while Microsoft pushes it from both ends to the hybrid cloud.

For now, these three models are ripe, especially for VMware and Microsoft solutions that are compatible with the enterprise's existing IT infrastructure investments, while being compatible with the open source ecosystem represented by Linux, OpenStack, and Kubernetes. This explains to a large extent the reason why OpenStack is not bright in the West: in parts of Asia, where autonomous and controllable countries are required to push OpenStack technology, they need to re-establish a new enterprise it ecosystem, and in most European and American countries, It is more welcome to new solutions from traditional it vendors that have better compatibility with the existing enterprise IT ecosystem. Once the new cloud-oriented solutions of traditional it enterprises such as VMware and Microsoft mature, they can better deal with the existing enterprise IT investment, which solves the biggest pain point of traditional enterprises.

Whether it is VMware, Microsoft or AWS's Enterprise IT Infrastructure model, it's a global public cloud + local private cloud (edge computing) for operational features across the enterprise. In other words, a new generation of enterprise IT infrastructures will be a hybrid IT infrastructure that combines global deployment operations with local customisation, no longer the IT infrastructure for a single market and country, but a digital platform that serves the expansion of the globalized market of the enterprise. A unified management service provider and management platform will address the complexity challenges of the entire enterprise IT infrastructure.

This is actually the true nature of cloud computing: in a digital new era of deep integration of it and business, the integration of global IT resources into a single platform and a supplier system eliminates the complexities of enterprise IT operations and business operations, providing real flexibility for business innovation. The new landscape of global enterprise IT infrastructures emerges. (Wen/Ningchuang)

Transition from VMware to a new global enterprise IT landscape