In a recent VMware Inc. survey, 55% of 350 IT decision-makers said they are running Kubernetes on-prem. The Kubernetes system automates management of containerized applications.

High numbers: The problem is, though, that almost all of those polled (96%) can’t figure out which Kubernetes distribution to use — there are 60 Cloud Native Computing Foundation distributions, according to Scott Buchanan (pictured right), vice president of marketing of VMware. And not only that, but the main reason for selecting a distribution is that it should be easy to use. The respondents are having difficulty getting out of the starting gate, in other words.

“And so I think that this is where VMware and HPE get to come together to try to keep things as simple as possible,” Buchanan stated.

Buchanan and Toby Weiss (pictured left), vice president of the global hybrid cloud practice at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the HPE Discover event. They discussed how the customer base is changing and how an HPE and VMware partnership is attempting to cater to, and help, the evolving marketplace. (* Disclosure below.)

Containerization a part of the infrastructure

“We have to make it easier for developers to speed their innovations to market,” Weiss said. He believes that HPE is seeing developers becoming more important, as customers, superseding a more generalized IT base. That’s because enterprise is requiring new data-intensive application capabilities.

“We need to build these kinds of platforms that allow developers to innovate more quickly,” he said.

Kubernetes and containerization are crucial elements today. So, a goal for VMware is to make the package a part of the infrastructure. In part “so that building with and working with containers can be done on the same platform that you’re using for virtual machines,” Weiss said.

The same goes for cloud in terms of making it integral.

“How can we replicate that [good] experience in an on-premises environment?” Weiss asked. He believes that the innovations brought about by public cloud have to be applied to on-prem — in other words, an on-prem cloud (such as is found in HPE’s GreenLake).

“Cloud more as an experience we want for our developers and our end users and our IT organizations,” he added.

Security in the life cycle of the container

Another way the partnership’s players say they want to progress and to make infrastructure more appropriate for the now application-intensive customers is by ramping up security practices.

“How can they embrace a DevSecOps mindset in their organization” and adopt some of these more modern patterns? Buchanan posed. The answer, he thinks, is to set up a kind of guard rail pattern within the infrastructure so that the developers can “work with freedom” inside the guarded area.

Building blocks, such as APIs and templates, can then be drawn upon without security or compliance issue: security and compliance being built in.

“Customers have choices,” Weiss said. While HPE has skills in building the infrastructures, along with automation of continuous integration and continuous deployment), cloud native and so on, “we depend on technologies and partners like them to make these outcomes real for our customers,” he said, referring to the VMware partnership mix.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the HPE Discover event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for HPE Discover. Neither Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE