Shulou(Shulou.com)06/01 Report--

The VMworld 2014 conference further clarified the meaning of the software-defined data center and presented a rapid deployment solution-the VMware super-converged architecture, which can deploy a software-defined data center in more than ten minutes.

VMworld 2014 opened as scheduled at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, USA. The annual event in the field of virtualization is on a larger scale this year, with more than 30,000 participants from 85 countries and more than 200 sponsors and partners. It also shows that industry users are paying more and more attention to and acceptance of these new technologies and ideas such as virtualization, cloud computing and software-defined data centers.

As of this year, VMworld has held ten consecutive sessions. Among the previous sessions attended by reporters, the two conferences last year and this year left the deepest impression on reporters. Under the background of the gradual landing of cloud applications and the wave of "software definition" sweeping the world, VMware is also faced with a new choice: whether to lie on and off the merits of server virtualization, or to achieve the sustainable development of the company and further enhance its core competitiveness through unremitting innovation? At last year's conference, VMware gave a clear answer: the software-defined data center (SDDC) will be the strategic core of the entire business in the future. The proposal of SDDC strategy also shows that VMware has transformed from a server virtualization software vendor to a cloud data center overall architecture solution provider. The significance of VMworld 2014 is that, on the basis of further clarifying the connotation of SDDC, it provides methods and solutions to help users deploy SDDC quickly.

Be brave but not rash

"all of you here are leaders in IT practice, and you have been very brave and decisive in the face of the difficulties and challenges of the IT project." VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger (Pat Kissinger) pointed out in the keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the conference, "from previously predictable loads to today's unpredictable loads and application requirements, IT applications are constantly changing. Although we know that we will encounter risks in the process of innovation and transformation, we must move forward bravely. Many of mankind's' first times' are very difficult, but as long as they have the courage to accept the challenge, the difficulties will always be overcome. For example, Tesla, which was criticized when it was first launched, is now the darling of the auto market. Or, thanks to the efforts of 23andMe, a personal genetic testing company, genetic tests that used to cost millions of dollars now cost as little as $100. Behind many successful enterprises and applications, there is a solid technical foundation as a guarantee. "

Why did Pat Kissinger ask the question of "bravery"? Reviewing the history of the development of IT, we are now standing at an important level of change. Cloud computing, big data, social and mobile bring unprecedented pressure and challenges to enterprises. When new technologies and new applications challenge old ideas and habits, enterprises will inevitably struggle and even feel at a loss. The more in this case, the more enterprises need to be "brave", as Pat Kissinger said, although they will encounter difficulties or even setbacks in the process of trying to apply new technologies, as long as they find the right methods and suitable solutions, we will certainly be able to tide over the difficulties of transformation.

Pat Kissinger's "bravery" should include three meanings: first, when facing the challenges brought by new technologies and new applications, enterprises should move forward bravely; second, bravery does not mean rash advance. Enterprises should pay more attention to find their own technologies and solutions, and move forward steadily. Third, VMware itself dares to be the first in the world, starting from server virtualization, and now extends to the field of storage virtualization and network virtualization, gradually establishing its own advantages in the broader SDDC market. " The past three years have been three years of brave innovation for VMware. The company now has more than 60, 000 employees and 6000 R & D personnel. We are reshaping the software with SDDC as our target. " Pat Kissinger said.

VMware itself is a model of daring to practice. At present, all the financial systems of VMware have been migrated to VMware vCloud platform. VMware NSX network virtualization technology has also become the core of VMware's IT infrastructure. In the future, VMware will implement IT as a service at 100%. With the help of VMware, many industry customers have bravely taken the first step of transformation. For example, Medtronic, a leading global medical technology company, has built SDDC with the help of VMware to improve the efficiency, agility and automation of data centers. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a typical heterogeneous IT environment, and 90% of its virtualized applications run on VMware platforms. Relying on the private cloud based on VMware vSphere, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology actively embraces the open source system and adopts the OpenStack cloud operating system. This step-by-step IT construction idea can be used for reference by users in various industries.

Break the limit

The theme "No Limits" of VMworld 2014 is very concise and powerful, but in order to find a matching Chinese translation of the theme, it made people in the marketing department of VMware take great pains, and finally "vertical and horizontal infinity" was unanimously recognized. VMworld 2014 only talks about three things: SDDC, hybrid cloud, and ubiquitous terminal computing, which don't seem to have much to do with infinity. However, after a few days of meeting, the reporter still summed up several meanings of "vertical and horizontal infinity": first, the SDDC field that VMware entered is a big market full of unlimited opportunities, which provides unlimited possibilities for the future development of VMware; second, from vSphere to NSX to vSAN,VMware, several major technical pillars necessary for SDDC have been launched step by step, and then the technological innovation of VMware in the field of SDDC is endless. Third, the landing of SDDC also needs to make breakthroughs in many aspects, such as simplifying deployment, enriching management functions and so on. Breaking through the limitations of traditional data centers is an important mission of SDDC.

On VMworld 2014, VMware released a lot of new products, and some of the original products were combed and renamed. In addition to some basic product upgrades, such as vSphere 6.1and vSAN 2.0Beta,VMware, this product update focuses on two aspects: first, the launch of more software suites, including VMware vRealize Suite, VMware vCloud Suite 5.8, etc., with more emphasis on the overall solution; and second, great efforts have been made to strengthen the management of data centers and cloud systems. The above products are the right remedy to the case, solving the problems of complex deployment and management of SDDC, and it is also the innovation of VMware to break through the limit of SDDC.

Pat Kissinger's explanation of "vertical and horizontal infinity" is: in the face of the pressure brought about by technological change, enterprises should build confidence and break through the original limits and obstacles; "vertical and horizontal infinity" requires enterprises to break down internal and external boundaries and eliminate the gap between IT maintenance personnel and developers. Even if IT applications are already running on virtual machines, there are still boundaries between all levels of IT architecture and between departments of the enterprise, and within the larger scope of OpenStack, it is easier to break these boundaries. " In the process of transforming the data center, enterprises should always grasp the core of 'software definition'. " Pat Kissinger said.

Accelerate SDDC deployment

There are three paths to SDDC: first, users build their own cloud; second, they adopt integrated architecture and solutions; and third, they adopt super-converged architecture and solutions. At the VMworld 2014 conference, the most talked about is the super-converged architecture and solutions, because VMware gave its super-converged architecture solution EVO.

VMware EVO is divided into two types of schemes: one is EVO ∶ RAIL, the other is EVO ∶ RACK. Specifically, VMware EVO ∶ RAIL provides integrated computing, networking, storage and management software that enables customers to quickly and repeatedly use and extend software-defined infrastructure services. VMware EVO ∶ RAIL comes with a pre-tested, pre-integrated VMware software stack optimized for 2U, 4-node hardware platforms. VMware EVO ∶ RAIL includes VMware vSphere, VMware Virtual SAN, VMware vCenter Log Insight and the new EVO ∶ RAIL engine. This software solution can be integrated with proven hardware. Along with the launch of the VMware EVO ∶ RAIL solution, VMware also announced the list of the first hardware vendors to support EVO ∶ RAIL, including Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Tide, NetOne and Supermicro. These vendors can integrate their products with EVO ∶ RAIL to provide users with an integrated SDDC solution.

It is particularly worth mentioning that Chaochao is the only one from China among the first hardware manufacturers to support EVO ∶ RAIL. In recent years, there are more and more Chinese elements on VMwolrd. The earliest, the reporter has seen from China's storage manufacturer UIT (Innovation Section) on VMwolrd. At the VMworld 2014 conference, the reporter saw Huawei, Tide, Lenovo and other Chinese manufacturers in the exhibition area. Huawei demonstrated the overall data center solution, including servers, storage and switches. The name of the wave is conspicuous in the VMware EVO ∶ RAIL program exhibition area.

VMware EVO ∶ RAIL simplifies the deployment and configuration of devices, as well as online management, software batching, and upgrades. VMware EVO ∶ RAIL has a new intuitive user interface that greatly simplifies the process of creating and managing virtual machines manually. If customers adopt VMware EVO ∶ RAIL, they can configure virtual machines in minutes, automatically expand VMware EVO ∶ RAIL devices, and batch and upgrade all VMware software to simplify virtual machine lifecycle management.

VMware EVO ∶ RAIL is aimed at midmarket and enterprise segments with specific needs, such as for application environments such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), remote offices / branch offices, and so on. In terms of scalability, VMware EVO ∶ RAIL can be expanded from 4 nodes to 16 nodes, and the system can automatically identify and add new devices to the original VMware EVO ∶ RAIL cluster. A single device can support approximately 100 general-purpose virtual machines or 250 desktop virtual machines with approximately 13 TB of storage capacity. VMware EVO ∶ RAIL can coexist with the customer's existing VMware vSphere environment and can be used as an on-ramp for VMware vCloud Air (formerly known as VMware vCloud Hybrid Service,vCHS).

VMware can provide EVO ∶ RACK solutions for larger data center and cloud computing users who need better scalability. However, VMware EVO ∶ RACK is still in the planning process, and VMware did not disclose more technical details. The reporter only saw the prototype equipment of VMware EVO ∶ RACK in the exhibition area.

With the emergence of VMware EVO solutions, the landing of SDDC is no longer empty talk. It only takes more than ten minutes to deploy a SDDC. Will you try?

In terms of data centers, another positive change made by VMware is to embrace open source. VMware's VMware Integrated OpenStack solution is designed to help IT provide developers with an open cloud type of API and access to VMware infrastructure quickly and economically. VMware Integrated OpenStack will take full advantage of VMware's mature SDDC technology in computing, networking, storage, and management to provide an enterprise-class infrastructure, thereby reducing the total cost of ownership of production-level OpenStack deployments.

Build a new brand of hybrid cloud

At this conference, VMware renamed many of the original classic products, such as VMware vCloud Hybrid Service (vCHS) renamed VMware vCloud Air, which is also the hybrid cloud brand that VMware will focus on in the future. At last year's VMworld, VMware officially launched the vCHS hybrid cloud service, which has been launched in more than 100 countries around the world, and VMware has more than 3900 partners in this field. Not long ago, China Telecom cooperated with VMware in hybrid cloud, which is also an achievement of vCHS's global promotion.

VMware organically integrates existing cloud automation, cloud operation and cloud business management solutions into a product suite named after VMware vRealize. The comprehensive management platform is designed to manage different environments and hybrid clouds and to provide the control needed by the IT department. The VMware vRealize suite has three main functions: delivering applications and infrastructure on demand, according to policy, through service portals / directories or API; enabling cloud analytics and advanced management to optimize the performance, capacity, and security of existing and next-generation applications; and enabling costing, metering and analysis of infrastructure services. VMware also launched VMware vRealize Air Automation, the first service-oriented cloud management product. This new subscription service helps customers automate delivery, manage the lifecycle of ongoing applications and infrastructure services, and maintain IT compliance.

VMware also announced further partnerships with Docker, Google and Pivotal at the conference to help enterprises run and manage container-based (Container) applications on large-scale common platforms for private, public and hybrid clouds. This collaboration can help enterprises upgrade their existing VMware infrastructure to a unified, scalable, and secure platform to run and manage enterprise applications. For example, Docker and VMware will work together on open source projects related to Docker, including libswarm, libcontainer, and libchan. In addition, the two sides will join hands to promote interoperability between products.

Relying on the VMware vCloud Air platform, VMware has also launched many extended services, the most important of which is a hybrid cloud service that integrates third-party mobile applications, which aims to enable enterprises and application developers to better meet the needs of mobile business. From 2009 to 2014, the market share of public clouds increased from 2 per cent to 6 per cent, according to IDC. Thus it can be seen that the hybrid cloud will be the mainstream of the future market. VMware has begun to focus on the hybrid cloud market.

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