VMware has revealed a dual focus at its US VMworld event, where end user computing (EUC) and the software defined data centre (SDDC) took centre stage.
Ian Moore, country manager Ireland, spoke to TechPro between the US and European events to expand on the announcements and give some context for developments.
Moore said that the company’s recent acquisitions in the area of EUC as well as its internal development were now coming together to offer a full stack.
“What VMware is delivering is the ability to deliver any application to any device, anywhere, anytime in a secure fashion, while managing identity, access and content,” said Moore.
Within EUC, he said that there were three key areas: desktop, mobile and content.
Raised expectations
In desktop, said Moore, the consumer experience has raised expectations. With various elements influencing the user experience, from a dizzying array of smart connected devices (SCD) to the increasing use of Chromebooks and services such as Google Docs and Office 365. Moore even confessed to being subject to the returning trend of Macs being used as high end productivity devices.
All of these developments have meant that meeting user expectations, while ensuring security and manageability is challenge. He said that despite reports of the ‘Bring Your Own’ trend slowing, a user who chooses to bring their own device for work should not be viewed as a problem.
Moore said that being able to put a common foundation and a tailored experience across the average of three SCDs that people now use is very important.
He gave the example of an oncologist, as clinicians are often at the forefront of adoption.
Moore said that a typical usage pattern for such a medical professional might be to use a personal device at home in the morning to log on to hospital systems to view email, or medical reports, scans, charts and the like. Then, she leaves for work where she goes to an office and logs in via desktop. There a large format monitor is perfect for fine detail in MRI scans, x-rays and other high definition documents. Then, she goes on her rounds where a small SCD is more appropriate. As she logs into it, she can still receive the full benefit of the desktop experience.
Moore said that he has seen examples of clinicians being able to log into such services anywhere, via a personal device such as a smart phone to give instant decisions as to treatment without having to dash back to the hospital.
This is greatly extending the power and effectiveness of the medical resources of the hospital.
Beyond medical
Beyond medical, teamed up with Nvidia and Google has resulted in the virtual graphics processing unit (GPU), which has enabled almost any application to be delivered to almost any device.
“Photoshop can be delivered to an iPad,” he said.
This has allowed graphics intensive applications to be shared and distributed like never before, fostering collaboration that was previously impossible.
Jaguar Land Rover now has car designers working in follow the sun modes, despite the need for utter secrecy in terms of new designs. The base information is secure and never leaves the data centre, but designers from teams around the world can still collaborate on it.
Oil and gas companies similarly, can share work on prospecting and yields without the fear of data loss, while making information available to teams from the drilling rigs and to the prospecting ship and back to head office and out to partners.
The final part of this is content, said Moore.
Frictionless
He said that what brings people back to services such as Dropbox is ease of use — “Frictionless” was the term used.
“When it comes to our content, we had to go down the frictionless route,” said Moore.
The enterprise is still worried about who can access what data, on what device and when, said Moore. They are concerned about whether access is made over the company network, whether it is it on a VPN, and if it by a company issued device.
“The Airwatch acquisition has allowed VMware to seamlessly deliver that content piece,” said Moore. It has allowed VMware to roll out device management and manage applications within that.
Moore said that users can now have one, single identity that can be used to access every single application within the delivery infrastructure. This is very powerful from an IT management point of view, where there is no need for individuals to manage their credentials across multiple applications.
All of this begs the inevitable question of direct competition with Citrix, who have long been the leaders in application delivery.
Moore said that while that may be the case, VMware was responding to long standing customer request for these capabilities.
With a common infrastructure and common management stack, Moore said, it makes sense to capitalise the familiarity and confidence to extend to the desktop, the mobile and content world.
He said that VMware has had significant wins in the end-user computing space that validate the investment and the work in the area, all of which is backed up by the company’s Gartner Magic Quadrant evaluation.
Data centres
In the area of the software defined data centre, Moore said that NASX was possibly the most exciting product that VMware is currently offering.
Virtualising the network is the last key step in enabling automation, he said.
The virtualised network is allowing for the software defined enterprise to become a reality, and network segmentation is also very important for some industries, and it further enables that too.
Moore said that an Irish customer has taken a 40 man hour task, from an infrastructural point of view and, through automation, has condensed that into sub 40 minutes, and it is done with the press of a button. This was the complete customer on-boarding process for a platform.
This has allowed this company to onboard customers faster than bigger players around them, who are still struggling with their legacy systems, reports Moore
When one customer saw the automation tools, their reaction was to say “This is going to allow me to do my day job”.
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