
The three main priorities of VMware for 2019 are NSX, the cloud and the containers, and in that order, according to CEO Pat Gelsinger.
"If we go out next year and let people really see us lead in those domains, let's rate," he said, during his presentation at the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference of Barclays Global.
"Obviously I love my son vSAN, it's not as important as my son NSX," he added, referring to VMware's software-defined storage and networking and security platform, respectively.
The company has taken steps over the last year to extend the virtualization of its network from the data center to the edge and the cloud, adding SD-WAN from its acquisition of VeloCloud and support for vSphere private clouds, native Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). ) workloads and VMware Cloud in AWS.
Last month, at VMworld Europe, the company overfed its container game. Upgraded Cloud Foundation, its hybrid cloud stack, with the new Kubernetes support. VMware also announced a new integration with the Kubernetes managed service of IBM Cloud. And he's buying Heptio, a startup whose founders created Kubernetes while they worked at Google.
With that acquisition "VMware has jumped to the front of the container technology line," Gelsinger said at the Barclays event.
He also said that the relationship with Amazon Web Services, announced for the first time in 2016, was a turning point for VMware. At that time, stock prices fell and investors were not convinced that the infrastructure defined by VMware software was relevant in a cloudy world. Gelsinger, however, continued to preach the hybrid cloud.
"The relationship with Amazon was the only thing that caused that spark that people said: 'oh, you are part of the cloud, the multiple cloud, the future of the hybrid cloud,' said Gelsinger. "That was the only thing that caused people to change."
We went to today and partners launched VMware Cloud in AWS, allowing VMware customers to run their workloads in the public cloud using their existing VMware software stack. This summer they launched the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) in VMware. This new service allows customers to implement the native public database in the cloud at their local data centers based on VMware.
And in the recent edition of AWS re: Invent, companies announced AWS Outposts: AWS brand servers running in customers' local data centers. This could hurt legacy hardware vendors such as Dell Technologies, which owns 81 percent of VMware, and next week is about to make its relationship with VMware even closer by buying VMware tracking shares.
So, what does Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell (also known as Gelsinger's boss) think of VMware being comfortable with AWS in the data center?
"Michael sees it publicly if it's good for VMware, it's good for Dell Tech," Gelsinger said. "Because how much profit does Michael get from Amazon's relationship? Approximately zero. How much value does Michael get from the announcement of the outpost? Negative. Get a new hardware competitor. "