Just as I’m about to board a plane to Barcelona for VMworld 2014 there – this crosses my path. Tres apropos!
The gang at Wikibon have done a deep dive of VMware integration with the ecosystem – but not like in years past with a focus on storage level integration only (2013, and 2012). This year they were looking at the topic more broadly – it seems like it’s focused on what I would call: “integration with the IaaS Management and Orchestration stack” (In the VMware context, this is the vRealize suite).
It’s clear that this wasn’t a last-minute thing for VMworld – not only because of the detailed analysis, but because they must have started the work well before VMware renamed the suite from the “vCloud Suite” to the “vRealize” suite of tools :-)
I think this is a real reflection of where the “puck is going”. VAAI still matters (and in early 2015, VVOLs as well) but these things aren’t what make IaaS work (though they help!). What makes IaaS work is automation.
I’ve spent the last 4 months diving into this topic (my night job) and looking at strategic options for EMC to do more. It’s not just me – the topic of “how do we help customers accelerate IaaS” (which is most about M&O) is the goal of the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud program (now on 2.5!) and the Federation SDDC solution (EHC leaves the SDN open for people who want choice there – the Federation SDDC = EHC + NSX for customers that want the full federation stack).
Seperate from the assessment of M&O integration, it was also interesting to see was how Wikibon caracterized each IT vendor’s strategic posture when it comes to building IaaS models, their tactical posture when it comes to VMware, Openstack and other choices. BTW – Wikibon – no Cisco? C’est dommage.
Wikibon correctly notes that EMC has a strong VMware focus as always (not just for the reason people think, but rather driven by the proportion of our customers who bias that way), but also are doing a lot around Openstack. Trust me, there’s a LOT more than people think going on there. Yes, I’m referring to the news re Cloudscaling (more on that later), but more than just that. For a hint, check out the open commit tracking at stackalytics here. Does the graph below make one think that we made some strategic decisions in June ‘14? Yup – a strong recognition about the importance of Openstack in the whole ecosystem. VMware’s VIO approach (make Openstack simple and easy to deploy on vSphere) is one way. Other customers will want other distributions, and may want different software stacks. EMC must clearly support both.
… Without further ado – here’s Wikibon’s summary of their research – haters don’t hate. If you disagree, look at their research and conclusions. It’s public. Tear down the data. Click on the graph to link to the doc itself.
VMworld Barcelona – here I come!
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