VMware: Driving IT Innovation and Disruption

IT infrastructure renewal: Code words, such as virtualization, cloud computing and even data center transformation help to give some sense of what is happening; however what it is really all about is reducing the complexity and improving the delivery of services from the IT infrastructure. The end goal is IT as a service, where end users get more value from their IT infrastructure while at the same time IT delivers those services more cost effectively.

Application development revolution: Maritz notes that you need to look carefully at what young developers are doing as they are the ones who are leading the revolution. Platform as a service (PaaS) will be used to get rid of the details, which today tend to cost IT customers a lot of time and resources. He stated that VMware’s Cloud Foundry is about how applications will be written in the future.

End user computing transformation: Maritz states that we are now in a post-PC world. Now, post-PC may be a bit of hyperbole because PCs still play an important role, but certainly the proliferation of other end user communicating and computing devices, such as smartphones and tablets, will continue. With Project Horizon, VMware will provision capabilities to people and not to devices; a physical phone will be split into "virtual" phones, where a user’s personal and business requirements are clearly, safely and securely separated.Now there are some possible questions that need to be answered about these trends:

Are they real? This is something that many ask. The answer is yes, as all three trends are part and parcel of what will be the cloud computer era that emphasizes IT as a service. First, consider how information infrastructure renewal dovetails with the never-ending quest for greater cost-effectiveness, while at the same time improving service across a number of dimensions. Maritz notes that virtual machines constitute more than half of all servers. He points out that this is an amazing milestone, and I would agree, as it is significant when anything passes the halfway mark and means the trend is here to stay. A virtual machine (VM) is being born every 6 seconds, which is more than the human birth rate in the United States. More VMs are in flight (using VMotion) than there are aircraft aloft. Now, server visualization is only one part of cloud computing, but it is at the heart of what is necessary for cloud computing and so illustrates that the information infrastructure renewal is a real trend. Second, on the application development side, Maritz points out the essential role of software as discussed by Marc Andreessen in his recent paper "Why Software Is Eating the World" (which I recommend that you read). That work reinforces what you should have already known about the importance of software but does not explain the revolution. Maritz notes that the existing data fabric, favoring relational databases, cannot handle the scale that will be demanded in the cloud computing era. The canonical applications (those that define the new era) will be about scale and real-time. He illustrated this with Facebook, whose users want to be able to get the content they need in real-time. Since traditional software approaches cannot keep up, new application development frameworks have emerged. Finally, Maritz pointed out that while 95% of the devices that were connected to the Internet three years ago were PCs, that number will dwindle to 20% in three more years. Those new devices will support a range of different capabilities, and end users will demand that their needs are met. And a world where IT does not own the device will present serious challenges.

What is the role of VMware in these trends? No broadly based IT trend is the sole province of any one vendor. Still, VMware has been a major instigator and prime mover in actually moving the information infrastructure renewal to a much faster track as the first mover and still dominant player in x86 server virtualization. But VMware also has to be considered much more than a server virtualization company. Its dynamic innovation along a number of fronts, as recognized in its plethora of products, is a major accelerator of all three trends, even though it is only one of many key players.

What is the role of other vendors in these three trends? Obviously, IT vendors large and small have jumped on the bandwagon with VMware. However, they have to not only decide where and how to partner with VMware, but also where their own agendas and innovation plans diverge. The cooperation/competition dynamics should prove to be very interesting. The one thing that IT vendors cannot do is sit on the sidelines and take their sweet time in figuring out what they are going to do. VMware is pushing the innovation envelope rapidly and is not waiting around for things to occur organically. Maritz and his organization are basically saying to other vendors: lead, follow or get out of the way.

An IT buyer would have found an information infrastructure shopper’s paradise at VMworld 2011, but only if he or she had particular problems or topics that needed addressing, such as virtual desktop infrastructures. A CIO or IT architect would have viewed the event from the point of view of where IT is going longer term and where investments in IT need to be made before delving in depth into how particular products could provide a piece of the overall IT infrastructure puzzle.

What we should all take away from VMworld 2011 is the broader perspective that VMware espoused. That requires understanding that there are three simultaneous trends in IT and, while they may seem to be independent, they overlap each other (in a Venn diagram sense). IT organizations have to have a strategy for each, but those strategies themselves need to be integrated if a company expects to gain the advantages of the punctuated equilibrium currently roiling the technology industry.

Information infrastructure renewal promises the rewards of IT as a service, but those rewards cannot be obtained to the fullest extent possible without taking advantage of the power of the impending application development revolution. Nor can it truly be said to be IT as a service if it cannot deliver capabilities whenever and wherever end users need them. VMware is leading the charge by leveraging the ecosystem of products and services from innumerable companies on display at VMworld 2011. That vision and those products constitute the means that will lead IT buyers to the era of cloud computing.

VMware is currently not a client of David Hill and the Mesabi Group.