VMware Inc. kicked off the opening day of its VMworld 2019 conference early today with a number of announcements that aim to further its hybrid cloud strategy.

As the leading public cloud companies all fight among themselves to grab enterprise workloads that were previously deployed in on-premises data centers, VMware has cleverly positioned itself as the go-to partner for each of those providers.

It’s playing an increasingly important role in the so-called “hybrid cloud” world by leveraging its infrastructure to help shift workloads across various cloud and on-premises platforms. The idea is to help enterprises easily deploy their applications as they see fit on a range of different cloud infrastructures.

VMware’s launch today of its new Hybrid Cloud Platform appears to mark the culmination of that strategy. The platform encompasses the entire set of VMware’s cloud and software services, and is meant to act as a single portal from which enterprises can manage their hybrid cloud deployments.

Some of the key components of VMware Hybrid Cloud Platform include a new version of the VMware vRealize Suite. This includes vRealize Operations, which enables operations management across physical, virtual and cloud environments. One of the key functions of vRealize Operations is it lets users continuously optimize application performance based on business and operational intent. Also included in the suite is vRealize Automation, which is used to automate application delivery and container management.

VMware Hybrid Cloud Platform also integrates a brand new service called CloudHealth Hybrid, which is essentially just a multicloud version of its CloudHealth platform for public clouds. CloudHealth is used for cost optimization, and to provide governance assessments and security functionality in order to accelerate the app migration process.

Wavefront meanwhile provides an interface that offers enterprises a single view of their infrastructure operations. With it, DevOps teams and others can monitor the health and performance of thousands of applications, Kubernetes deployments and microservices from the same interface.

There’s also a new VMware Cloud Marketplace that provides access to “hundreds” of validated, third-party tools that can be used in tandem with VMware’s platforms and services across public, private and hybrid cloud environments.

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller said VMware’s Hybrid Cloud Platform is all about giving customers the choice on how and where to deploy their apps, while using its familiar tools.

“[They can] use the AWS control planes, on-premises and in the cloud, or the VMware control planes on-premises which are familiar and extend to the cloud,” Mueller said.  “It’s no surprise VMworld is all about using the VMware control plane ahead. We will need to compare with the AWS re:Invent announcements in a few months’ time, but familiarity is the big driver that helps VMware. CIOs and their teams have enough challenges at hand and like to have less moving pieces, and cloud control planes are mission critical.”

Embracing Kubernetes

VMware is also doubling down on Kubernetes, which is perhaps the single most important tool for enabling hybrid cloud. Kubernetes allows enterprises to effectively manage large clusters of software containers, which are used to host the components of modern apps that can run on different infrastructures.

The company is launching a portfolio of products and services called VMware Tanzu that’s meant to make it easier to build apps based on Kubernetes. The first product in this suite is called Tanzu Mission Control, which is “a single point of control from which customers will be able to manage all their Kubernetes clusters regardless of where they run.” With Tanzu Mission Control, customers can easily check on the health of their Kubernetes clusters, perform diagnostics for more detail, and apply policies around access, security and backups.

More exciting, perhaps, is VMware’s first preview of a new project called “Pacific” that the company says is part of its effort to embed Kubernetes fully into a future release of its vSphere virtualization platform. The idea is to enable convergence of containers and virtual machines onto a single platform, the company said. Some of the benefits of Project Pacific include a ‘high performance container runtime” embedded directly into the hypervisor; a native virtual network that spans VMs and containers; and better support for artificial intelligence apps that run on graphics processing units.

Mueller said VMware’s continued focus here shows Kubernetes is extending its lead as the de facto platform for modern applications to be built on.

“VMware, with its virtual machine architecture, had a viable and widely adopted alternative, but it’s now delivering its VMs and control planes on Kubernetes too,” the analyst said. “This makes Kubernetes the fastest cross-vendor-adopted piece of open-source software in history. It’s great news for CIOs and CTOs because it gives them interoperability, which is one less standard to worry about. It also gives them strategies to avoid the dreaded vendor lock-in.”

Also today, VMware said it’s updating its Workspace ONE platform that allows information technology administrators to exert centralized control and management of users’ mobile devices, cloud-hosted virtual desktops and apps.

The platform is getting a bunch of new features, the most important of which is something called “Concierge Services” that allows admins to personalize each employee’s experience. The personalized experience is enabled by a virtual assistant powered by IBM Watson Assistant.

With the service, employees will be able to complete numerous IT- and human resources-related tasks such as procuring and registering a new device, troubleshooting Wi-Fi profiles, opening and managing service desk tickets, and enrolling into company benefits. They can also use the virtual assistant to access resources such as company policies, office locations and seating maps, as well as other company and team processes.

The new edition also adds new features that enable admins to automate device management across multiple sites, plus new integrations with platforms, including Windows 10, Apple and Google, and support for cybersecurity services including Carbon Black, Lookout and Netskope.

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