VMware’s Preferred Hybrid Cloud Is Not Alibaba Cloud, But……
This is not only the best time but also the worst time. The best time is that compared with traditional business, the flexibility and low cost provided by the public cloud can quickly meet the needs of the business; The worst time is that departments in the industry have realized that they are gradually losing control of the business department. What’s worse, the business department purchases and uses the public cloud by itself, which brings greater management challenges.
I: Challenges of Cross-Cloud Management
The public cloud is easy to go up, but it can’t go down. This has almost become a common consensus. The reason is that each public cloud is an independent and closed system. What makes traditional enterprises more worried is that the public cloud cannot fully meet their needs in terms of regulatory compliance and data protection management, and users lose control of data.
So, is there a perfect choice between private cloud and public cloud? Cross-Cloud management and even Hybrid Cloud have become a common demand. But how easy is it to achieve Hybrid Cloud management? Even VMware, its Cross-Cloud Management tool, Cross-Cloud Service, is not expected to come out until 2017.
Is there a compromise? To this end, VMware has offered an olive branch to public cloud manufacturers – VMware Cloud Air Network (VCAN) plan. By the way, don’t confuse VCAN with VSAN. To get back to business, IBM is the first public cloud manufacturer to take over the olive branch. Relying on IBM SoftLayer public cloud services, IBM provides cloud services based on VMware Cloud Foundation for enterprise users. The benefits of this are:
Hybrid Cloud: Based on the same vSphere technology, ensure the absolute compatibility of public cloud and private cloud workloads. The homogeneous environment helps users freely migrate and move workloads between private and public clouds, and enjoy the application experience of hybrid cloud;
Security Compliance: vSphere’s internal security isolation and NSX technology guarantee can ensure that users can realize security policy control based on virtual machine level and meet the needs of business and industry standards;
Data Autonomy: through local VCAN partners, countries’ requirements for data localization and other security standards can be realized, and the problem of operation qualification can be solved;
Service Authentication and Compatibility: cloud service providers in different regions adopt the same authentication service. When domestic enterprises go abroad or foreign enterprises come to China for development, the workload of system transplantation will be greatly reduced to realize the compatibility of private cloud, public cloud, and cross-regional cloud services.
Following IBM SoftLayer, VMware and AWS reached cooperation on VMware Cloud on AWS. Previous competitors shook hands and made peace on the issue of hybrid cloud, which also shocked the industry.
II: VCAN Landing in China
At the beginning of this year, VMware experienced an earthquake of personnel management in China. Guo Zunhua became president of VMware Greater China. In the face of the fierce impact from the public cloud, Guo Zunhua’s burden can be imagined. After SVM, VMware China still needs to make greater breakthroughs.
After VMware signed AWS globally, people expect VMware Greater China to make a difference. Alibaba Cloud should be the most appropriate choice in terms of brand and reputation. But the results were unexpected. VMware chose Huayun.
VMware China chose Huayun, which was unexpected and reasonable. In fact, careful people have seen the clue from VMware vFORUM around the world in August this year (reference: Guo Zunhua, Xu Guangbin: Las Vegas is coming, you might as well cooperate to “gamble”). Before that, Guo Zunhua and Xu Guangbin, chairman and CEO of Huayun data, took a group photo of Yanhuan and spread wildly on WeChat. On October 27, the two sides signed a memorandum of cooperation during the vforum 2016 China Conference, announcing the results.
Why is Huayun not Alibaba cloud? What is VMware’s real intention to sign Huayun? The answer is not complicated.
Compared with Alibaba cloud, Huayun is more in line with VMware’s aura. Among many public cloud service providers in China, Huayun is a very characteristic company. From the perspective of background, Chinese public cloud manufacturers can be divided into three categories: one is Internet enterprises, such as BAT; The other is IDC manufacturers, such as century Internet, halo new network, etc; Another category is the technology school, whose personnel come from traditional IT large enterprises, such as Qingyun. Public cloud service providers come from different backgrounds and are good at different content. BAT has rich experience on Internet, and to C is an expert, but it does not know enough about to B business, especially traditional enterprise users; IDC is proficient in infrastructures such as wind, fire, water, and electricity, has little understanding of the IT system above the computer room, and has little experience in cloud services; The technology party has a good grasp of the trend and skilled technology application experience, which can well meet the needs of Internet innovative enterprises. The transformation of traditional industries is not their focus.
Huayun can be regarded as an alternative. On the one hand, Huayun comes from IDC and has various operation qualifications; However, on the other hand, Humayun’s technology capability is comparable to that of the technical school, but the service provided is to help traditional enterprises step into the cloud. First, Huayun helps IDC transform its cloud services and improve its cloud computing capabilities; On the other hand, Huayun is not afraid of dirty work and tiring work to help traditional enterprises realize the transformation of cloud business. In terms of business direction, Huayun is most consistent with VMware.
The connection between Guo Zunhua and Xu Guangbin is not an olive branch, not a throw and a pick. In fact, there is still a sense of competition between the two. But all this gave way to a common target market, and the two of them hit it off.
III: Form of Cooperation
Unlike AWS and Azure, VMware is not interested in the qualifications of Huayun. Both sides have their own requirements for cooperation. In the practice of transferring to the cloud for traditional users such as China Power Grid and Wuxi metro, VMware attaches great importance to the technical capability and market coverage of Huayun’s hybrid cloud. In fact, these are also the most traditional users of VMware. These users want to turn to the cloud and combine it with Huayun’s public cloud. In that case, why not adopt the idea of VMware vCloud Air?
For Huayun, accepting the vCloud Air solution undoubtedly realizes the connection with a large number of traditional VMware users. At the same time, accepting vCloud Air also provides users with one more choice, and the transformation from traditional mode to cloud will be smoother. In fact, this is also an important reason why AWS can accept VMware.
“AWS has strong technical strength, but in essence, AWS is a service company, which is willing to transform technology into various SaaS services. In a sense, VMware vCloud Air can also be regarded as a type of SaaS service. ” Zhu Linsen, vice president of Huayun data product capability center, said.
Compared with AWS, Alibaba Cloud not only wants to be a public cloud but also wants to penetrate into private clouds, which is also the inheritance of Alibaba’s corporate culture. Therefore, Alibaba Cloud will not easily accept VMware vCloud Air. spotodumps
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