With cloud computing and virtualization growing by leaps and bounds, industry heavyweight VMware announced Tuesday a variety of new cloud-computing products and services to support its “IT as a Service” vision. The announcement was made at its VMworld 2010 event, now taking place in San Francisco, Calif.
The company said it intends to move beyond “IT as cost center.” President and CEO Paul Maritz said that, just as the company set out two years ago “a vision to modernize the data center and transform IT,” so it will now take steps to “bring this new world of IT as a Service and hybrid cloud computing to reality.”
More Apps on Virtual Than Physical Servers
He noted a report from industry research firm IDC that, in 2009, the number of server applications on virtualized infrastructures surpassed the number on physical servers, and that the growth rate for virtual machines is 28 percent annually, worldwide.
IT as a Service is focused on outcomes, such as operational efficiency, competitiveness and rapid response, by using VMware’s cloud-infrastructure solutions that span resources. The emphasis, the company said, is to “focus on the features our customers need,” rather than focusing on “technologies needed to support IT.”
With the new infrastructure model, the company said, IT can produce service in a “self-service model.” The new cloud-infrastructure products and service utilize a “hybrid cloud model” that combines aspects of private and public clouds.
vCloud Director enables IT to create “virtual data centers,” or VDCs, which are logical pools of resources with specified management policies, service-level agreements, and pricing. IT can then offer the VDCs, along with application services such as virtual appliances, VMs and OS images, to its users through self-service. IT teams, in essence, act as service providers to their own businesses.
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