“VMware partners benefit from market leading virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions, combined with award-winning programs”

The company has outlined its corporate strategy for the multi-device era sometime back. What are the growth priorities and strategies to meet the challenges?

At a Strategic Forum for Institutional Investors earlier in March this year, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger outlined the company’s strategy, revealing more details about the company’s plans to deliver the software-defined datacenter expand its hybrid cloud offerings and empower the multi-device era.
In 2013, VMware will execute against three growth priorities:

Redefining Infrastructure:The Software-Defined Data Center

Through the software-defined data center VMware will extend the benefits of virtualization to all areas of the data center – network, security, storage and management.
VMware’s vCloud Suite, unveiled at VMworld® 2012, is an integrated solution for building and managing a complete cloud infrastructure that meets IT’s most critical needs. vCloud Suite fulfills the promise of the software-defined datacenter by pooling industry-standard hardware and running each layer of the datacenter as software-defined services. It creates pools of servers, storage and networking with dynamically configurable security, availability and management services which can meet the needs of any and all applications. Built-in self-service portal and catalog, policy-based infrastructure and application provisioning and automated operations management help to complete the picture.

The Software-Defined Data Center is a unified data center platform that provides unprecedented automation, flexibility, and efficiency to transform the way organizations deliver IT. Compute, storage, networking, security, and availability services are pooled, aggregated, and delivered as software, and managed by intelligent, policy-driven software. Self-service, policy-based provisioning, automated infrastructure, and application and business management complete the picture. The result is a data center optimized for the cloud era, providing unmatched business agility, the highest SLAs for all applications, dramatically simpler operations, and lower costs.

Delivering the Hybrid Cloud

VMware recently unveiled its VMware vCloud® Hybrid Service™, an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud operated by VMware and built on the trusted foundation of VMware vSphere®, giving customers a common platform to seamlessly extend their data center to the cloud. vCloud Hybrid Service will seamlessly extend VMware software used by hundreds of thousands of customers into the public cloud. This means customers will be able to extend the same skills, tools, networking and security models across both on-premise and off-premise environments.
VMware vCloud Hybrid Service will be delivered by partners and compatible with other VMware-based cloud services. vCloud Hybrid Service can be sold the same way as on-premise VMware licenses with a standard SKU, and partners can retain the billing relationship with customers. In addition, cloud service providers will have the opportunity to provide value-added services or add vCloud Hybrid Service to their portfolio. VMware is committed to driving rapid innovation and service delivery to market, which VMware will make available to VMware service providers in the form of technology and IP.

Empowering the Multi-Device Era

VMware recently also unveiled the VMware® Horizon Suite™, a comprehensive platform for workforce mobility that will connect end users to their data, applications and desktops on any device without sacrificing IT security and control. With updates to VMware Horizon View™ and VMware Horizon Mirage™, as well as a new product, VMware Horizon Workspace™, the VMware Horizon Suite will enable IT organizations to empower users with a secure, easy-to-manage virtual workspace that delivers a consistent, compelling experience across devices.
VMware Horizon Suite connects end users to their data, applications, and desktops on any device while maintaining IT security and control and lowering TCO. By transforming technology silos into centralized services, IT can improve operational efficiency, security, and agility through policy-based management across the organization. Moreover, end-users get a consistent experience across devices – in the office, at home, or on the go
VMware Horizon Suite is a comprehensive platform for workforce mobility that connects end-users to their data, applications and desktops on any device without sacrificing IT security and control. It is comprised of three products – VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon Mirage, and a new product, VMware Horizon Workspace. The VMware Horizon Suite allows IT organizations to empower users with a secure, easy-to-manage virtual workspace that delivers a consistent, compelling experience across devices.

Could you elaborate on VMware’s cloud strategy and your partner model?

The journey to cloud consists of 3 stages. VMware provides solutions across the 3-layer of IT environment: Infrastructure, Application and End-user computing, and thus helps the customer adopt a complete cloud environment. VMware aims to deliver IT as a service to its customers with this approach and enable their journey to the cloud. We would like to emphasize and advise “Hybrid cloud/ Your cloud” as the way forward.
At each of these individual layers, we have different partners who offer VMware solutions to end customers.
 VMware Solution Providers combine their technology expertise and services to design, plan, and deploy sophisticated virtualization and cloud computing solutions.
 Service Provider Program (VSPP) partners provide cloud services built on VMware virtualization and Cloud technology to the end customers in a hosted environment.
 Technology Alliance Partner program enables software and hardware vendors to develop and market integrated VMware solutions that deliver enhanced value to customers.
 Our OEM Alliance Partners integrate, support and OEM their hardware and software with VMware technology.
 System Integrators help customers design, plan, integrate and deploy the most sophisticated virtual infrastructures to meet the demanding business needs of customers.
 VMware Authorized Training Centers (VATCs) are training partners that deliver authorized VMware technical trainings to customers and channel partners.
In India, our business is completely (100%) driven through our partners.

What are you doing in order to enable partners in the cloud computing space?

By joining the VMware Partner Network (VPN), our partners benefit from market leading virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions, combined with award-winning programs that reward them and help them distinguish their business. Partners gain exclusive access to resources to help drive both license and service businesses, create new opportunities, increase profitability, and close deals faster.

VMware Solution Competencies and Specializations are two paths that we encourage our partners to take to expand their VMware business. We are strongly focused on Solution Competencies as the #1 way we can help our partners increase profitability. Partners that have earned Solution Competencies have 2-4 times higher revenue. In addition to sales and marketing benefits (e.g. branding, support), partners can earn additional financial incentives and rebates as well. We offer multiple Solution Competencies, developed to clearly differentiate our partners’ expertise to customers.

VMware Specializations recognize a partner’s level of expertise in selling VMware solutions into a vertical market segment. These Specializations reward partners for the unique value they bring to customers in that market. Specializations are earned through experience in a specific marketplace plus successful completion of VMware training. Specializations give partners access to market-specific pricing, education, and market information, and help them drive cross-sell and up-sell revenue opportunities in their area of expertise.

We run a very elaborate Partner Enablement program that helps equip our partners with the necessary technical expertise to help to build their competencies. We also conduct many business planning meets along with sales and technical training programs.

Premier events like Partner Exchange on Tour, Partner Leadership Summit, Solution Trainings, among others helps enables our partners and their teams to build their business with us.
The recently introduced Sales Reward program has been designed to reward accredited sales Professionals within the VMware Solution Provider community. The program offers rewards for sales of eligible VMware products and for taking part in various earning activities. As a member of Sales Rewards participants will accrue points, which can then be redeemed for rewards. We have also restructured our incentive model recently that will help our partners drive profits even further.
As partners deepen their VMware expertise, they benefit more, and so do their customers.

Software defined data center is being plugged as the next best thing in IT. What are the capabilities necessary for enterprises to make the most of it?

There are several customers in India who have already begun and are at different stages of their journey to the Software-Defined Datacenter. Some of the early adopters are Hexaware Technologies who have adopted Self-service portal in their private cloud, NSL Group which has virtualized their most business critical applications and adopted software-defined availability, SMR Automotive who has adopted software-defined management.

The Software-Defined Datacenter is a unified data center platform that provides unprecedented automation, flexibility, and efficiency to transform the way organizations deliver IT. Compute, storage, networking, security, and availability services are pooled, aggregated, and delivered as software, and managed by intelligent, policy-driven software. Self-service, policy-based provisioning, automated infrastructure, and application and business management complete the picture. The result is a data center optimized for the cloud era, providing unmatched business agility, the highest SLAs for all applications, dramatically simpler operations, and lower costs.
The market in India has matured significantly in the past year. Customers have begun to see the benefits and advantages cloud infrastructure solutions offer them and are willing to invest in technologies that can enable their business and operations further. India has been slow on the uptake, but we do see many of our early customers already planning for their Software-Defined Data centers in India.

What is VMware’s strategy’s for SDDC?

Through the software-defined data center VMware will extend the benefits of virtualization to all areas of the data center – network, security, storage and management.
VMware’s vCloud Suite, unveiled at VMworld® 2012, is an integrated solution for building and managing a complete cloud infrastructure that meets IT’s most critical needs. vCloud Suite fulfills the promise of the software-defined datacenter by pooling industry-standard hardware and running each layer of the datacenter as software-defined services. It creates pools of servers, storage and networking with dynamically configurable security, availability and management services which can meet the needs of any and all applications. Built-in self-service portal and catalog, policy-based infrastructure and application provisioning and automated operations management help to complete the picture.

As part of VMware’s strategy for 2013, the company will extend the benefits of virtualization to all areas of the data center – network, security, storage and management. We also revealed our intentions to merge the VMware vCloud Networking and Security™ product line with the Nicira Network Virtualization Platform (NVP) into a single product family based on a common technology foundation, to be named VMware NSX.

The company is going to be merging VMware vCloud Networking and Security product line with the Nicira Network Virtualization Platform. How will this benefit enterprises?

It wasn’t that long ago when provisioning server resources for an application was manual, time consuming, hardware dependent, error prone, and grossly inefficient. As with many computer science problems, the solution to this inefficiency was automation through software abstraction – enabled by server virtualization. The release of VMware ESX paved the way for enterprises to rapidly deploy any application on any server, non-disruptively, by enabling the fundamental abstraction of servers from hardware – creating the virtual machine. Through server virtualization software, application servers are encapsulated into virtual machines, and programmatically deployed with APIs on top generalized pools of CPU and memory resources. The first important step toward the software defined data center.

Meanwhile, through all of the advances in server virtualization and cloud computing, networking has remained stuck in the past. Still today, provisioning network and security for an application is a manual effort; requiring a human, keyboard, and CLI. Each manual configuration must be carefully engineered across numerous devices, resulting in time consuming and error prone deployments. And coupling the network’s capabilities to hardware limits choice, creates choke points, and restricts workload placement – creating an unnecessary drag on the overall efficiency of everything in the infrastructure (servers and storage) attached to the traditional networking paradigms conceived in the 20th century.

To realize the full potential of the software defined data center, networking and security must move forward into the 21st century with a similar software abstraction layer that transformed computing – network virtualization. VMware NSX paves the way for enterprises to rapidly deploy networking and security for any application, on any general purpose hardware, non-disruptively, by enabling the fundamental abstraction of networks from networking hardware – creating the virtual network.

Through network virtualization, more simplified logical networking devices and services can be abstracted away from the complexities of physical network engineering, exposed as logical networking objects across a fully distributed virtualization layer, and consumable through northbound APIs. In this process, the network virtualization layer leaves behind a more simplified physical network layer. VMware NSX exposes these simplified logical networking devices and services as logical ports, logical switches, logical routers, distributed virtual firewalls, virtual load balancers, and more, with monitoring, QoS, and security; backed by VMware NSX edge virtualization software or partner appliances.

These logical network abstractions are similar in principle to how server virtualization abstracts and exposes simplified elements of virtual CPU, virtual memory, and virtual storage – assembled in any combination to create a virtual machine. And like server virtualization, any combination of logical network device and security policy can be assembled together into any topology — creating a virtual network — deployed programmatically through APIs. A complete and feature rich virtual network can be defined at liberty from any constraints in physical switching infrastructure features, topologies or resources.

With network virtualization, each application’s virtual network and security topology is equally mobile and in lock-step with the fluid virtual compute layer, automated with APIs, and decoupled from custom/proprietary hardware.

VMware NSX will be the world’s leading network and security virtualization platform providing a full-service, programmatic, and mobile virtual network for virtual machines, deployed on top of any general purpose IP network hardware. The VMware NSX platform brings together the best of Nicira NVP and VMware vCloud Network and Security (vCNS) into one unified platform. VMware NSX exposes a complete suite of simplified logical networking elements and services including logical switches, routers, firewalls, load balancers, VPN, QoS, monitoring, and security; arranged in any topology with isolation and multi-tenancy through programmable APIs – deployed on top of any physical IP network fabric, resident with any compute hypervisor, connecting to any external network, and consumed by any cloud management platform (e.g. vCloud, OpenStack, CloudStack).

A VMware NSX blog is available here http://blogs.vmware.com/console/2013/03/vmware-nsx-network-virtualization.html.