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VMware to release own version of OpenStack

Commodifying your rebellion and selling it back to you

VMworld 2014 VMware has moved to defuse the threat OpenStack poses by developing its own distribution of the cloudy collation called VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIOS).

OpenStack is often perceived as a threat to VMware because the two stacks have a fair amount of overlap.

We can now see that VMware thinks OpenStack makes a lot of sense to developers working at web-scale , but that those folks don't pause to think about the things a proper, disciplined, IT shop needs.

VMware's argument suggests that “... organizations, particularly enterprises, have found deploying OpenStack can be time and resource intensive, and the underlying infrastructure does not always meet their requirements for security, resilience and performance.”

The operations folks who do care about those things sometimes rely on VMware to provide the qualities listed above, so by making an OpenStack distro that driven by VMware devs and suits get the best of both worlds. VMware also deals itself in to a game in which it looked a stuffy old outsider the cool kids were laughing at. Instead it has found a way to commodify the OpenStack rebellion and sell it back to the same folks who started it, a neat old corporate trick.

Details about just what's in VIOS are sketchy, but the information provided to The Reg the night before the VMworld 2014 keynote says it will offer “full integration with VMware administration and management tools, allowing customers to leverage existing VMware expertise to manage and troubleshoot an OpenStack cloud.” Which sounds an awful lot like vCentre driving VIOS, quite possibly as just more resources to manage rather than as a silo.

The VMworld keynote will also reveal that likes of vCentre, and VMware's other management tools, now live under a brand called “vRealize Suite”. The suite won't just manage private clouds or hybrid clouds running in VMware's own Air public cloud: the company says workloads in Amazon Web Services' cloud will also be fair game.

Also on offer will be “Infrastructure service costing, metering and analysis including public cloud rate cards, facilitating optimal workload placement and transparent show/charge back” along with “On-demand delivery of applications and infrastructure services via a service portal/catalog or API and guided by policy – available with popular tools such as Puppet, Chef and Jenkins to enable DevOps methodologies.”

Analytics and performance optimization tools are other ingredients of the suite, along with “an ecosystem of third-party management packs for Microsoft, AWS, Cisco, SAP and more.”

The company will also reveal “vRealize Air Automation”, a subscription application and infrastructure service.

Another software announcement from the show is NSX 6.1, an update to VMware's network virtualization tool with a headline feature of improved network micro-segmentation. There's also a new version of VMware's top certification – the VCDX – focussed on network virtualization.

Material we've been provided ahead of the keynote doesn't mention a vSphere update, but does include news of a 5.8 release for vCloud Suite complete with “policy-based provisioning capabilities that will enable customers to add compute, network, security, storage and now disaster recovery services to their applications and infrastructure.”

VIOS is scheduled for the first half of 2015. vRealize Suite will land later in Q3 2014. NSX 6.1 and vCloud Suite 5.8 appear to be available now. ®

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