The addition of VMware’s Tanzu application modernisation suite to VMware Cloud on AWS would see more organisations adopting cloud-native apps and provide flexibility, according to CMD Solutions boss Andre Morgan.

Sydney-based CMD is an AWS partner and cloud consultancy that also specialises in application modernisation through containers like Kubernetes. The company is also an accredited VMware Cloud on AWS partner.

Following the recently concluded VMworld 2020, CMD was receptive to the announcement around Tanzu, VMware’s suite of software and services that allow customers to build, run and manage a kubernetes environment from a single control point.

We’ve been really excited about the VMware Cloud on AWS offering and everything around it so we can service more clients using a combination of VMware and AWS,” Morgan told CRN.

“A lot of our clients are trying to modernise their fleets, and they’re using Kubernetes as part of that strategy, so for me the announcements around Tanzu were the most exciting announcement from VMworld.

VMware recently announced at VMworld 2020 it expanded Tanzu support across VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solutions and Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, as well as a partnership with GitLab.

VMware said the updates provide customers with “fast and more secure ways” to extend workloads to the cloud, while also offering customers a ubiquitous platform for running applications on the infrastructure of their choice.

“Application modernisation is hard work for everyone that’s doing it and it takes a lot of effort, and some clients are going full steam ahead and doing it in a cloud-native way,” Morgan added.

“However not all of them want to embrace it heavily and it makes more sense for them to continue with their familiar skills and experience around the VMware suite of products around VSphere, and actually leverage that but still get the benefits of modernising.”

“And that’s why I’m really excited about the addition of Tanzu to VMware Cloud to AWS, because if that wasn’t around, then many wouldn’t make the jump to could-native.”

The addition of VMware’s Tanzu application modernisation suite to VMware Cloud on AWS would see more organisations adopting cloud-native apps and provide flexibility, according to CMD Solutions boss Andre Morgan.

Sydney-based CMD is an AWS partner and cloud consultancy that also specialises in application modernisation through containers like Kubernetes. The company is also an accredited VMware Cloud on AWS partner.

Following the recently concluded VMworld 2020, CMD was receptive to the announcement around Tanzu, VMware’s suite of software and services that allow customers to build, run and manage a kubernetes environment from a single control point.

“We’ve been really excited about the VMware Cloud on AWS offering and everything around it so we can service more clients using a combination of VMware and AWS,” Morgan told CRN.

“A lot of our clients are trying to modernise their fleets, and they’re using Kubernetes as part of that strategy, so for me the announcements around Tanzu were the most exciting announcement from VMworld.

VMware recently announced at VMworld 2020 it expanded Tanzu support across VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solutions and Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, as well as a partnership with GitLab.

VMware said the updates provide customers with “fast and more secure ways” to extend workloads to the cloud, while also offering customers a ubiquitous platform for running applications on the infrastructure of their choice.

“Application modernisation is hard work for everyone that’s doing it and it takes a lot of effort, and some clients are going full steam ahead and doing it in a cloud-native way,” Morgan added.

“However not all of them want to embrace it heavily and it makes more sense for them to continue with their familiar skills and experience around the VMware suite of products around VSphere, and actually leverage that but still get the benefits of modernising.”

“And that’s why I’m really excited about the addition of Tanzu to VMware Cloud to AWS, because if that wasn’t around, then many wouldn’t make the jump to could-native.”

VMware has appointed former Microsoft technical director Sean Kopelke as its new senior director of technology for Australia and New Zealand.

Kopelke has amassed more than 20 years experience in the technology industry, previously maintaining similar technical director roles with Microsoft Australia, Riverbed, Zscaler, FireEye and Symantec.

As part of a newly created role, Kopelke will be responsible for leading VMware’s team of systems engineers and managers in their customer engagement.

He will also partner closely with senior sales leaders to develop and execute the right technology strategies for VMware’s customers.

“Sean brings deep experience in leading technical teams and helping a broad range of customers ensure they gain the best outcomes from their transformation strategies,” VMware A/NZ vice president and managing director Brad Anderson said.

As businesses adapt to changing times, Sean’s expertise in cloud, security and emerging technologies will provide VMware’s customers with significant value as they make decisions on digital strategies to be ready for the future.”

During its recent virtual VMworld 2020 event, VMware revealed how it was continuing its effort to remake the data centre, cloud and edge to handle the distributed workloads and applications of the future.

Previewing a new architecture called Project Monterey, it goes a long way toward melding bare-metal servers, graphics processing units (GPUs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), network interface cards (NICs) and security into a large-scale sevirtualid environment.

In an announcement made by VMware, the company has unveiled its latest innovations to provide intrinsic security for the World’s digital infrastructure. As organisations strive to build resilient, future ready infrastructures via the accelerated cloud adoption, VMware has designed its latest solutions to advance public and private clouds, security operations and distributed workforces.

“Amid global disruption, the key to survival for many companies has meant an accelerated shift to the cloud and ultimately, bolting on security products in their data centers,” commented Sanjay Poonen, chief operating officer, Customer Operations, VMware.

“But legacy security systems are no longer sufficient for organizations that are using the cloud as part of their computing infrastructure. It’s time to rethink security for the cloud, organizations need protection at the workload level, not just at the endpoint. The future of cloud must be met with a better way to secure data and applications.”

With COVID-19 accelerating migrations to the cloud quickly and at a large scale, VMware highlights that the vulnerabilities have too. In today’s digital world, the potential threats are more prevalent than ever. It is important for companies to develop security strategies that are suitable for the modern cloud workloads.

At VMworld 2020, the company unveiled its range of solutions and services to help its customers survive and thrive. VMware offers its customers, cloud, app modernisation, networking, security and digital workspace platforms, to provide a flexible and consistent digital foundation.

“As we quickly transitioned to a fully distributed workforce, it was critical for our security posture to align with the prominence of this moment and the critical role Zoom played in business continuity for our customers,” added Aparna Bawa, chief operating officer, Zoom.

“The collaboration with VMware delivers a more secure digital workspace and enables endpoints in our organization to be better safeguarded and compliant with IT security policies.”

Solutions and strategies unveiled:

VMware Carbon Black Cloud WorkloadTM, to provide advanced protection that is purpose-built to better secure modern workloads
A multi-year strategy to build the most advanced and comprehensive security incident detection and response solutions, its efforts will include cross-platform integrations from various solutions
Expanded capabilities for VMware SASE Platform, Workspace Security VDI and Workspace Security Remote to support distributed workforces by providing end-to-end zero trust security controls and simplified management
VMware NSX Advanced Threat Prevention that harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) network traffic analysis to analyse network traffic and uncover anomalous activity
Partnering with Zscaler, the two companies aim to provide end-to-end visibility and protection for distributed workforces with a one click integration solution

With IBM Watson integration, Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub Assistant provides more intelligence than just a normal chatbot.

VMware announced a week before the holidays that the Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub Assistant was live and published documentation on how to get started with it. The digital assistant was put forth as part of their employee experience focus, something Citrix is also focusing on.

The digital assistant was originally announced at VMworld U.S. 2019. Let’s see what’s needed to get it setup.

What was announced at VMworld 2019

First, let’s review what we originally knew about the virtual assistant.

As part of their focus toward what VMware is calling Workspace ONE concierge services, they announced that they would be adding a virtual assistant to the Intelligent Hub. Once incorporated into the workspace app, it would be appear to users as a floating button, which when clicked expands into a chatbot messaging screen.

VMware Hub AssistantSCREENSHOT OF VMWARE VIDEO

The virtual assistant, now officially known as the Hub Assistant, uses the well-known, pre-existing digital assistant, IBM Watson, and features natural language processing. VMware product manager Tony Kueh explained to me at VMworld that Watson was chosen because IBM specifically designed it for enterprise use, allowing it to better understand acronyms and technical terms.

While Hub Assistant will likely be used by all employees, VMware’s presentation video showed off how it can make the onboarding process, both before and after an employee joins a company, simpler. It can help answer common new questions employees may have as well help you order the devices you would like to use.

What’s new that we know and how do we get it working?
With the Hub Assistant live, we wanted to see what new information there was about it and also look at how easy it is to actually get it off the ground and ready for employees.

Hub Assistant demo:

How the Hub Assistant works is that the user provides their input (e.g., company info, etc.), either by typing it or speaking and the Watson “dialog” skill interprets the query. The dialog skill gathers the necessary relevant information to provide either an answer or an action. Should the dialog skill be unable to decipher the employee request, it will get routed to the Watson “search” skill.

One new wrinkle we didn’t know at VMworld is that Watson isn’t naturally included as part of Hub Assistant—as in that you just get it as part of enabling the virtual assistant. Rather, organizations must sign up for IBM Cloud to use Watson—luckily, there’s a free Lite account that includes Watson access. (Lite does limit the amount of internal documents that can be accessed.) Organizations also need Workspace ONE Enterprise licenses.

Hub Assistant connects with Workspace ONE Mobile Flows to handle microapp actions, with the digital assistant able to then send user requests to the apps, like ServiceNow for example, and then sends the result back to the user. Mobile Flows is there to help kick off the workflows.

Organizations interested in deploying Hub Assistant will need to enable it through the Hub Services console. Once set up, employees can access the digital assistant from either the Intelligent Hub app itself or a browser. VMware’s documentation around Hub Assistant make it look reasonably simple to get it up and running. It does take a few steps to make it as useful as designed, though.

To start off, in order for the Hub Assistant to effectively answer employee questions, admins will have to configure the Watson search and dialog skills. The search skill allows Hub Assistant to access internal company documents, while the dialog skill determines what the user wants.

To build a search skill, admins will have to go into Watson and go through a brief process (shown here in a four-minute YouTube video) where you connect your internal knowledge library (e.g., a data source can be Salesforce, SharePoint, Box, etc.) to the IBM Watson Discovery service. After, you configure the search skill by telling it how often you want it to sync to your data and other features.

Creating a dialog skill looks a little more involved than the search skill, but IBM has all the steps laid out here. Once built, admins will import the skill into Workspace ONE. VMware documentation does mention that admins can import a pre-configured Workspace ONE dialog skill, so admins don’t necessarily have to build their own, but know that you can. I asked VMware about the pre-configured skill and they said they had trained Watson already and provide the training file to import into the Watson admin file.

Final thoughts
Vendors continue to see the dollar signs around providing improved employee experiences and are working to release products with EX as its focus. The Workspace ONE Hub Assistant is one such example and just one part of what VMware dubbed “concierge services” back at VMworld, alongside other services as Hub Self-Service, Workspace ONE Assist, and the more IT-facing Digital Employee Experience Management.

One aspect of the Hub Assistant release has been how fairly clear VMware has been in what’s needed to get it going. Sometimes, we see interesting new features to products, but it’s a lot of work on the backend by admins to make it functional. Sure, it’ll still take time before you can deploy the Hub Assistant, but the time appears to be measurable in days than compared to weeks or months. Tony spoke about how it would take someone maybe two to three days to get it up and running—and they don’t need to be a developer.

I’d definitely be interested in hearing from anyone who’s helped set up Hub Assistant to learn whether it’s really as easy as it looks!

VMware’s Strategic Pivot: Kubernetes Meets vSphere

VMware used VMworld 2019 in San Francisco to make a sweeping set of announcements aimed at strengthening its position in multicloud computing. At the centre of those announcements was a move that analysts have characterised as a classic “bet the business” gambit: Project Pacific, the architectural core of the forthcoming VMware Tanzu Portfolio.

Announced during the Day One keynote, Project Pacific will embed Kubernetes directly into the control plane of a future release of vSphere, VMware’s flagship server virtualisation platform. Beyond a simple integration, the project adds a container runtime into the vSphere hypervisor itself. A new construct called ESXi native pods combines the properties of Kubernetes pods and traditional virtual machines (VMs), with the stated goal of improving security and performance for mission-critical workloads — without forcing teams to choose between one runtime model and the other.

What Is the VMware Tanzu Portfolio?

At the time of VMworld 2019, the Tanzu Portfolio was available only in limited preview. Its core promise is a single control plane from which platform and DevOps teams can monitor, manage, and enforce policies across all Kubernetes clusters — regardless of which cloud or on-premises environment those clusters run in.

Key capabilities described at launch include:

• Tanzu Mission Control: A centralised console allowing developers to use familiar vSphere tooling to deliver applications to Kubernetes clusters, while also exposing Kubernetes API constructs inside vSphere.
• Kubernetes API access to VMware SDDC infrastructure: The tooling exposes VMware’s software-defined data centre (SDDC) virtualisation infrastructure via standard Kubernetes APIs, enabling consistent operations across hybrid and multicloud environments.
• Unified DevOps view: Operators see Kubernetes constructs rendered consistently within vSphere’s interface, reducing the cognitive overhead of managing two distinct runtime environments.

VMware did not announce a general availability date for Tanzu at VMworld 2019, leaving customers reliant on the limited preview to assess real-world readiness.

The Business Logic: Why Kubernetes Migration Is Central to VMware’s Growth

Kubernetes alone is not a differentiator for any vendor — it is open-source infrastructure available to everyone. VMware’s wager is more nuanced: if it can make migration from VM-based workloads to Kubernetes-backed, multicloud-ready architectures fast and low-risk for its enormous enterprise customer base, it creates significant cross-sell opportunities for premium services built on top of that Kubernetes backplane.

At the time of the announcements, VMware reported that more than 70 million workloads ran on VMware infrastructure, with approximately 10 million already in the cloud. VMware Cloud provided a consistent hybrid cloud platform spanning AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud, along with more than 60 VMware Cloud Verified partners worldwide.

The competitive urgency is real. Rival VM/container convergence approaches were already emerging, including:

• AWS Firecracker and Fargate: Lightweight micro-VM runtimes from Amazon Web Services.
• CNCF KubeVirt: An open-source project enabling traditional VM workloads to run alongside container workloads on Kubernetes.
• Google gVisor: A user-space kernel providing container isolation with VM-like security boundaries.
• Intel Kata Containers: Containers that run inside lightweight VMs to provide stronger isolation.

Each of these approaches addresses the same fundamental tension: containers offer density and speed, while VMs offer stronger isolation. VMware’s answer with Project Pacific is to converge the two at the hypervisor level rather than at the orchestration layer.

Key Kubernetes-Related Announcements at VMworld 2019

Project Pacific and Tanzu were not VMware’s only Kubernetes moves at VMworld 2019. The following announcements collectively show a strategy to make every layer of the VMware stack Kubernetes-aware:

• Pivotal Acquisition: VMware’s agreement to acquire Pivotal deepened its stake in VMware Enterprise PKS (now VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid), the Kubernetes platform the two companies co-developed. The acquisition gave VMware direct control over a commercially supported Kubernetes distribution with an existing enterprise customer base.
• Cloud Migration Services: A new console experience designed to simplify migration of VM workloads to hybrid clouds, initially focusing on VMware Cloud on AWS. Future support for VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC was indicated. The new VMware CloudHealth Hybrid tool added per-workload optimisation for Kubernetes migrations, factoring in cost, performance, and security requirements.
• Bitnami Acquisition and Project Galleon: VMware’s acquisition of Bitnami brought a large catalog of pre-built, scanned, and maintained application content for Kubernetes clusters, serving a developer community reported at 2.5 million users. Building on that, VMware launched Project Galleon (in beta), enabling enterprise IT departments to deliver pre-validated, multicloud-ready Kubernetes application stacks to their developers. ISV partners building on the Bitnami Community Catalog were also highlighted.
• vSphere 6.7 Update 3: This release added support for high-performance containerised AI workloads powered by multiple NVIDIA GRID virtual GPUs per VM, acknowledging that a significant share of new containerised workloads are AI and machine learning applications.
• vSAN 6.7 Update 3: Updated to provide container-ready storage infrastructure, enabling AI and next-generation containerised applications to operate consistently across multiclouds.
• VMware Hybrid Cloud Operations Enhancements (AIOps): New AI-driven capabilities for deploying and managing containerised Kubernetes applications across multiclouds, covering cost management, resource governance, security, performance monitoring, and closed-loop remediation.
• Wavefront Enhancements: Updates to Wavefront by VMware added automatic service discovery and monitoring for Kubernetes environments, including the ability to track health and performance of workloads running across more than 200,000 concurrent containers.

The Strategic Risk: VMs May Have a Longer Shelf Life Than Expected

VMware’s Tanzu strategy contains a structural tension worth understanding. By enabling VMs and containers to coexist indefinitely through ESXi native pods and Project Pacific, VMware may inadvertently reduce its customers’ urgency to migrate fully to a Kubernetes-native application backplane — which is the very outcome its cross-sell strategy depends on.

Evidence from VMworld suggested this tension is already playing out. Mark Lohmeyer, then Senior Vice President of VMware’s Cloud Platform Business Unit, noted in a theCUBE interview that customer adoption of VMware Cloud on AWS had grown sharply: a 4x increase in customers on the service and a 9x increase in VM count. That growth was being driven by lift-and-shift migrations — moving existing VMs to the cloud without re-architecting them — rather than by Kubernetes-native deployments.

Lohmeyer framed this as a feature, not a bug: “We could help them migrate to the public cloud very quickly without requiring any changes if they don’t want to. And then when they’re there, they can modernise at their own pace based on the needs of the business.”

For DevOps teams, this is a practical operating reality. Organisations with large VM footprints are unlikely to perform a “big bang” migration to containers. A platform that supports both — and allows phased modernisation — is more likely to see adoption than one that demands immediate re-architecture.

The risk for VMware is the inverse: if VM workloads remain economically and operationally viable for years, the incentive to purchase Kubernetes-native premium services from VMware is reduced. KubeVirt and similar projects further complicate the picture by offering open-source paths to VM/container coexistence that do not require VMware’s commercial stack.

What This Means for Enterprise DevOps and Platform Teams

The Wikibon analyst team offered the following guidance for VMware customers at the time of the VMworld 2019 announcements:

• Evaluate Project Pacific through the limited preview: The primary criterion should be whether ESXi native pods genuinely improve security and performance for workloads that mix containers and VMs — not just whether the integration is technically functional.
• Assess the broader Tanzu announcement set together: The individual announcements — Pivotal, Bitnami, Wavefront, vSAN, CloudHealth Hybrid — are designed to work as a suite. Evaluating them in isolation misses the strategic intent.
• Do not assume full Kubernetes migration is imminent: VMware’s own data suggests that VM lift-and-shift remains the dominant motion for most enterprise customers. Plan for a multi-year coexistence phase rather than a near-term cutover.
• Track competing convergence approaches: KubeVirt, Firecracker, Kata Containers, and gVisor are all maturing rapidly. Organisations with the engineering capacity to evaluate open-source alternatives should do so before committing to a proprietary convergence platform.

Summary

VMworld 2019 marked a clear inflection point in VMware’s positioning. By embedding Kubernetes into vSphere’s hypervisor through Project Pacific, acquiring Pivotal and Bitnami, and extending Kubernetes-awareness across its storage, monitoring, and cloud management portfolio, VMware made a co-ordinated bet that the enterprise path to Kubernetes would run through its existing infrastructure — not around it.

Whether that bet pays off depends on two variables: how quickly VMware can demonstrate that the Tanzu platform genuinely simplifies VM-to-Kubernetes migration at scale, and how long enterprise customers continue to invest in their existing VM-based workloads. As of VMworld 2019, both variables were moving in VMware’s favour — but the competitive landscape, from AWS to the CNCF ecosystem, was narrowing the window.

VMworld 2019 US: What to Expect

VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) announced the General Session keynote speakers and sponsorship lineup for VMworld 2019 US, scheduled to begin August 25, 2019 in San Francisco, California. The conference theme — “Make Your Mark” — centered on helping IT and business professionals accelerate technology-driven transformation without disruption.

VMworld 2019 US featured more than 700 unique breakout sessions from VMware, its partners, and customers, covering topics ranging from cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes to networking, security, and digital workspaces.

Monday General Session: Business Strategy and Portfolio Innovations

The opening General Session took place on Monday, August 26, 2019 at 9:00 a.m. PDT. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger led the session with an industry-wide perspective, joined by COO of Customer Operations Sanjay Poonen. Together they outlined VMware’s business strategy and spotlighted new innovations across the company’s portfolio, including:

• Cloud infrastructure and hybrid cloud strategy
• Kubernetes and container workload management
• Networking and security advances
• Digital workspace solutions

Customer stories were also featured to illustrate real-world examples of technology-driven transformation at scale.

Tuesday General Session: Tech Demos and Fireside Chat

On Tuesday, August 27, 2019 at 9:00 a.m. PDT, VMware CTO Ray O’Farrell led a team of technologists through live technology demonstrations showcasing how VMware and its ecosystem partners are pushing innovation in unexpected directions.

Following the technical demos, Sanjay Poonen hosted a fireside chat with two world-renowned athletes:

• Lindsey Vonn — Olympic gold and bronze medal-winning alpine ski racer for the U.S. Ski Team, New York Times best-selling author, and founder of the Lindsey Vonn Foundation, which works to empower young girls.
• Steve Young — Record-setting NFL quarterback, acclaimed motivational speaker, and Founder and Chairman of the Forever Young Foundation (FYF), which supports children’s charities nationwide.

The conversation focused on the athletes’ work ethic, how they overcame significant obstacles throughout their careers, and how they now channel that drive into empowering others.

Sponsors and Exhibitors

VMworld 2019 US was supported by more than 220 sponsors and exhibitors. Global Diamond Sponsors included:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• CenturyLink
• Dell Technologies
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
• IBM
• Intel

Livestream Availability

Both General Sessions were made available via live webcast through the VMworld homepage — Monday, August 26 and Tuesday, August 27, each starting at 9:00 a.m. PDT — allowing attendees and those unable to travel to San Francisco to follow along in real time.