With over 600 sessions taking place at VMworld this year, you would imagine that a lot of the key themes and announcements would be phased out, struggling to make a real impact and given the required air time they need. This however was not the case, as right from the outset at the day one keynote, Kubernetes was placed in the limelight.
You may be thinking so what, why does this affect me? For a long time, Kubernetes and containers have been spoken about as the next big thing but technology adoption rates dictate it still being a long way away. We’ve now learnt that through strategic foresight, strong acquisitions and existing industry standard infrastructure, VMware have accelerated this ‘future’ to today.
Apps are at the centre of our lives and the impact of these are prominent throughout business and society. A well versed stat tells us that there has been a 600% increase in the number of apps in the last decade and more apps will be provisioned in the next 5 years as the previous 40. Today, organisations want the option to run any app on any cloud but with existing apps, off-the-shelf apps and emerging cloud-native apps they’ll be asking, how am I going to run these apps across all the different and diverse infrastructures?
Historically, there has always been a gap between what developers want to do and what operators can do to support and Kubernetes is the ubiquitous software framework to close this gap. Kubernetes is emerging as the magic layer that brings the developer and the IT Operator together. This new technology has been created at a level that enables app developers to build the right apps but at a high enough level so it gives the right experience for on-prem, public or private cloud and the edge.
This is all well and good but the business challenge still remains – “how do I build modern applications that’s repeatable, secure and agile and how do I take advantage of all this technology?” By using the intuitive and familiar UI, developers are able to run containers and VM’s together on existing infrastructure. To manage this complexity, VMware have announced Tanzu, a portfolio of products and services to help build modern apps, run a Kubernetes framework and manage this environment.
Build - Bitnami, a May 2019 acquisition, simplifies building cloud-native apps by giving access to one of the largest trusted catalogues where you can manage your app repositories and build modern apps form start to finish.
Run - Project Pacific is the fusing and integration of vSphere and Kubernetes establishing vSphere as the modern platform and bringing vSphere into the future. This deep integration has gone beyond the control layer and into the virtualisation layer enhancing ESXi so it runs Kubernetes workloads natively.
Manage - Tanzu Mission Control allows you to manage multiple Kubernetes clusters across multiple public clouds all in one cloud neutral management pane. It enables you to simplify policies from one console rather than going into each cluster on each cloud platform.
Kubernetes is the new standard for next generation infrastructure and will be the most impactful change to vSphere in 15 years. They have avoided the bolt-on tag, making Kubernetes intrinsic within vSphere by re-architecting it into a Kubernetes native platform.
Neither VMware or anyone else for that matter outrightly own Kubernetes, but through astute acquisitions directed by Pat Gelsinger, VMware’s CEO, they have positioned themselves well and have a strong hand. By integrating this technology into a established hypervisor already running millions of workloads globally, VMware have a platform for many to be excited about.
Written by Mike Rogers, Virtualisation Product Specialist
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