VMworld 2014: VMware’s SDDC Is Offering Customers Choice

At this year’s VMworld 2014, I met with Mark Chuang, Senior Director Product Management for VMware, to discuss VMware’s  Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) announcements. Some of the topics we discussed included the new VMware’s vCloud Suite 5.8 release, VMware’s new EVO family of products, and the rebranding of VMware’s operations management products into the new vRealize Suite.

Related: VMworld 2014 Day One: Without Limits

With the vCloud Suite 5.8, VMware added a greater level of engineering into the products. For instance,  the vCloud Automation Center is now integrated with Site Recovery Manager and NSX. You can use vCloud Automation Center to deploy VMs with a built-in VM protection tier.  In addition, vCloud Automation can now work with NSX to perform virtual network configurations.

Mark explained that the new EVO family is all about helping customers move to the SDDC more quickly. The EVO family consists of the new RAIL and RACK offerings. As their names suggest, they each target different levels of scalability. RAIL is a 2U appliance with up to four processors – you can implement it on a single rail with a rack. RAIL can scale to four 2U units. RACK on the other hand represents the cloud/enterprise level of computing power that might be contained in a full rack. RAIL is available immediately. RACK is a future product offering. You can purchase both through VMware OEM partners.

Mark also discussed how VMware’s new vRealize rebranding was all about giving their operations management products a consistent name and umbrella brand. The new vRealize Suite consists of the former vCenter Operations  Manager, vCloud Automation Center,  Log Insight Manager, and IT Business Management products. The new vRealize Suite can be consumed as either an on-premises offering or as a SaaS offering.

Mark summarized that, in the end, VMware’s new SDDC announcements are all about offering customers choice. VMware has 500,000 customers that need to capitalize on their existing investments but they may also need to extend their infrastructure into the cloud or to use open source products. VMware’s SDDC is designed to enable customers to choose the type of support that best fits their business.