“Ready for any” was the theme at VMworld Europe, and the company continues to push the boundaries of the data centre.
Carl Eschenbach, president and chief operating officer of VMware, points out that one of the major challenges for IT organisations is the creation of cloud silos.
“We need to figure out how these silos can become seamless,” he says.
Application silos are also a problem, with traditional applications not able to talk to cloud-native apps.
There is a proliferation of content, applications and devices, Eschenbach adds. “A very big challenge for all of us to address as IT professionals,” he says.
VMware is advocating a strategy that embraces one cloud, any application and any device.
In terms of one cloud, Eschenbach explains: “This is not one homogeneous cloud; but the seamless integration of the private cloud with public clouds. This seamless extension needs to then go out to one managed cloud.
“This is what we call the unified hybrid cloud.”
For IT, it is possible to manage one virtual cloud. “This changes the world from the silos, to one logical cloud on one management console.”
The distinction between on-premise and off-premise cloud is eliminated, Eschenbach says. “You can build solutions either on-premise or off-premise and move workloads seamlessly as well.”
IT is ultimately about the application, Eschenbach says. “We all have hundreds or thousands of traditional applications – and those are the applications that run our businesses today.
“But we know that the application development and delivery models are changing. So we have to support traditional as well as cloud-native applications.
“We have a unified platform that can deliver any application at any time,” he says.
Getting access to applications has changed as well. “Users want to use any device to get access; and they want to be able to move from device to device with the same experience they have always had,” Eschenbach says.
“But all of the onus falls back on IT to make sure they are still secure.”
VMware believes it is setting the platform for the future of IT with the one cloud, any application, any device architecture.