In the dynamic world of technology, where innovation sets the pace for progress, VMware Explore highlighted many insights and revelations.

This year’s event brought together industry leaders and experts to delve into the future of application development.

“VMware has a ton of open source,” said Betty Junod (pictured, right), vice president of product marketing, modern apps and management business group at VMware Inc. “Not only do we contribute to all of the big projects that you’ve heard of, like Backstage, Kubernetes, all of that, we also author and open source a lot of technology.”

Junod and Ryan Morgan (left), vice president of software engineering at VMware, spoke with theCUBE industry analysts John Furrier and Rob Strechay at VMware Explore 2023, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the intersection of artificial intelligence and application frameworks, the transformative power of the Tanzu platform, the harmony between open source and enterprise, and strategies to overcome industry challenges.  (* Disclosure below.)

AI and the modern application landscape

The integration of AI into modern applications emerged as a prominent theme during VMware Explore. For example, the Spring AI project, an initiative simplifying the incorporation of AI models by Spring developers, gives developers access to a variety of starters and templates for rapid integration with both open-source and Azure AI models.

“One of the things we focused on for this conference is a new project called Spring AI, which makes it very simple for Spring developers to interface with open AI models. It gives you a variety of starters and templates and gets you going very, very quickly,” Morgan said.

In addition, VMware’s commitment to revolutionizing application platforms was discussed, with talk centering around Tanzu in particular. The expanded Tanzu platform encompasses both development and runtime, offering a holistic approach to application lifecycle management. The engine, a crucial component, codifies business requirements and orchestrates various elements, abstracting complexity from Kubernetes and enabling smoother operations.

“We’ve expanded the definition of the platform, because the platform is both the development platform side as well as the runtime,” Junod said. “Those two things need to go together. It’s part of a lifecycle. That’s really why we expanded it. It doesn’t get rid of what we had before, the portal, supply chains or Kubernetes operations.”

The impact of open-source, community collaboration and overcoming challenges

VMware also has a lot of involvement in open-source projects. The company feels it is important to combine open-source technologies with enterprise controls to create robust products, according to Junod and Morgan. The incorporation of projects, such as Backstage and Project Antrea CNI reflects VMware’s commitment to community collaboration.

“We sometimes donate those into the foundation. Sometimes we just continue to maintain them,” Junod said. “But what we do then is bring it together, integrate, add enterprise controls, all those other features that enterprises are looking for. That’s what we ship as product.”

Going forward, VMware’s vision involves further integrations within Tanzu and enhancing intelligence services. The spotlight will be on making Spring applications seamlessly accessible in Tanzu, ensuring developers benefit from the platform’s features and capabilities, according to Morgan and Junod.

One challenge has been Oracle Corp.’s licensing changes, which have had an impact on the Java developer community, presenting some difficulties within the industry. VMware has developed strategies for overcoming these challenges, with a strong focus on innovation, integration and developer empowerment.

“Java as a platform has been moving faster than ever,” Morgan said. “They’ve moved to a six-month release cycle, new features coming out every six months. At the Spring team, we’ve decided that we are going to fast follow-up to be able to bring all the great innovations that you are seeing on the [Java virtual machine] to developers.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of VMware Explore 2023:

(* Disclosure: This is an unsponsored editorial segment. However, theCUBE is a paid media partner for VMware Explore 2023. VMware Inc. and other sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE