By Raj Yavatkar, VMware Fellow
When I arrived at VMware in early 2014, Converged Infrastructure (CI) solutions that pre-integrated hardware and software for networking, compute, storage, and virtualization were the rage. Designed to provide IT a relatively painless way of standing up the infrastructure, CI products such as VCE Vblock, which integrate vSphere, have been highly successful. During that period, VMware also introduced virtualized compute and storage (vSphere and Virtual SAN integrated) hyper-converged infrastructure solutions that delivered simplicity, high performance, lower cost, and scalability using industry-standard x86 servers.
In 2012, VMware had painted an ultimate vision of software-defined data center (SDDC) that extends the pool, abstract, and automate model across compute, storage, and network virtualization, and the supporting physical infrastructure. With SDDC, policy-driven automation enables provisioning and ongoing management of logical compute, storage, and network services.
When I started talking with large enterprise and service provider customers, I saw a huge demand for simplicity and agility promised by SDDC. IT operators struggled to provide its on-premises customers a public cloud experience because integrating disparate pieces of hardware and software components together requires a lot of time and expertise. Worse yet, IT didn’t feel that effort was well spent.
So we asked ourselves “what will it take to deliver our customers a solution to match our SDDC vision?”
VMware already had multiple investments and efforts underway to bring this vision to reality. Those components spanned data plane (compute/storage/networking in the hypervisor), management (vCenter, vRealize Automation), operations/analytics (vRealize Operations, vRealize Log Insight), hybrid cloud infrastructure (vCloud Air), and an internal private cloud that implemented an SDDC.
It took a lot of thinking, analysis, and efforts of many people before we architected a new and highly simplified way to deploy a fully self-contained private cloud system based on VMware’s software-defined data center architecture. At VMworld 2014, we highlighted a technology preview (code named EVO:RACK™ – read blog here) of the proposed solution. With a prototype solution in place, we held customer boot camps, launched Early Field Trails (EFTs) at customer sites, and incorporated the learnings to fine-tune our architecture and the product implementation.
Now, here we are! Having incorporated our learnings from multiple customers, we are excited to launch VMware® EVO™ SDDC™ at VMworld 2015.
VMware® EVO™ SDDC™ enables customers to deploy and run a general purpose Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and/or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) private cloud based on a complete SDDC architecture. Our partners will build and deliver a fully integrated SDDC system based on pre-qualified hardware and software components. Such an integrated system is ideal for enterprises and service providers focused on greater simplicity, faster time-to-value, enhanced security and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). Initially, VMware EVO SDDC will be offered on pre-qualified hardware platforms by Dell, Quanta and VCE, or via system integrator partners.
If you’re at VMworld this week, you can learn more about our EVO SDDC at the VMware booth, or at the VMware® HCI Zone. Also, check EVO SDDC out at the following sessions:
- EVO SDDC: Building a Software-Defined Data Center Made Easy (SDDC5273)
- Transform Your Business with EVO:SDDC; Build Enterprise-Ready SDDC Private Cloud to Deploy Workloads and Manage (5234)
- Building a Successful Business Case for EVO SDDC (5249)
- Building a Hyper-Converged Infrastructure with EVO SDDC and NSX Integrations (5640)
- VMware IT: Putting EVO SDDC to Work Across the Company (5797)
- EVO SDDC Experiences: A Customer Panel Discussion (5895)
- EVO SDDC Technical Architecture Deep Dive (6100)
Be sure to check back here regularly for a series of technical posts on what is underneath the hood of VMware EVO SDDC.
