So EMC, Cisco and VMware finally confirm their partnership and the formation of Acadia (that really ought to have an R in it!!); much rumoured and trailled by many over the past few months. Actually anything to do with Cisco seems to really struggle at keeping secret; more leaky than Cardiff on St David's Day.
So what does this mean to me as a customer and where's the value? Already a customer of EMC, Cisco and VMware; does this have value to me? Well, not at the moment as my infrastructure has a server component which is not Cisco. In fact, I wonder if the VMware value proposition might be damaged long-term if this is not played very carefully.
When EMC bought VMware; a lot of people were concerned whether EMC would turn out to be a good custodian but they did a much better job than I or anyone really thought they would. They just left VMware alone and let them carry on building partnerships with who-ever they wanted and allowed VMware to grow and develop.
In fact, of the possible suitors for VMware, EMC turned out to be ideal as they didn't have a server platform to push and there no real reason to make VMware work better on one company's server as opposed to some-one elses. Good job EMC!
But now this partnership could throw all this good work and custodianship up in the air. Ever since VMware became an independant company again and since the departure of Diane Greene; EMC's influence has been noticably growing or at least, as a customer, I feel that EMC and VMware work a lot closer than they have in the past. Actually conversations I have had suggest that this closeness is only the start and now we have this JV with Cisco.
So there is now potential for VMware to be tuned to work better on one server platform as opposed to another and this is worrying. Yes I get the 'one throat to choke' argument and I remember EMC railling against this argument when IBM used it!
This 'Bod is going to be watching developments very carefully; it's worrying when Microsoft could hold up their hypervisor as an example of infrastructure neutrality and whisper ever so quietly but insistently, 'How neutral is VMware, think of the risk of being locked into their hardware and software…they are no more open than us!'
If VMware take the compelling route of adding value to the partnership by tuning their software to run better on EMC/Cisco kit; their value to me, even as an existing EMC/Cisco customer is a lot less. I look to the hypervisor to give me infrastructure neutrality and common capability; I hope VMware maintain this ethos.
I'd be very sad to see this change; I've been a customer of VMware and I mean *me* personally since VMware Workstation version 1 when they made the sensible decision to release a hobbyist/student license at a decent price.
Acadia has nothing to do with support or throat choking and more to do with someone putting up their hands and saying “Get me off this ancient crap I’m running in my DC and onto something modern. But don’t break anything.”
They build it, you test it and then it’s transfered to you or to someone you nominate to host it for you when you’re happy with it.
Not for everyone but when you see the amount of people who just outsource the IT dept instead of trying to manage the complexity there’s obviously a market for it.
I think what is being missed in this announcement is the Vendor Lock in of the Application Co’s (Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, etc.) They charge exorbinant maintenance fees as there right and the customer is getting little to know business value for that. VMW’s new features such as storage Vmotion for example will never force any customer into complex migrations of the HW or HW vendor lock in. However if customers begin to standardize on an infrastructure and say “This is what your application will run on and if not I am seemlessly moving to a different CRM tool” and will not incure huge Infrastucture investments to do so that is where the long term value of VMware will be. My take is this is an attempt by the largest infrastructure companies in the world putting their stake in the ground and saying standardize on the Infrastucuture and run any app you’d like. It doesn’t have to be VCE. Oracle just announced an intention to have Vendor lock in from the Application to the Tape that backs it up! I think customers forget just how locked into applications they are and the annuity costs associated with the difficulty to change. Imagine a day where switching from Oracle to SAP or Outlook to Notes is a seemless and costly as switching from Netscape to Internet Explorer. That is the value of the Data Center Operating System.
StorageBod – I think this is a very solid article.
DISCLOSURE for readers – I’m an EMC employee.
I will say that from where I sit (and I have a ring-side seat, and sometimes am even in the middle of the ring), EMC/VMware are still crystal clear that VMware needs to remain open, remain able to operate independently.
What has changed in the last 2 years is the amount of focus and resources that we’ve been applying on the EMC side.
I did a post on that here:
http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/11/virtual-compute-environment-is-vmware-still-independent.html
One quick note – VMware is not a material member of the JV in any way. The majority stakeholders are Cisco and EMC, and to a far lesser (but still material) extent, Intel. We felt that VMware being part of that crossed an important line that shouldn’t be crossed.
The weird thing is that this can have the appearance (and perhaps even the effect) of becoming “non-neutral”, not through collusion, but simply because of resource focus on joint vision, joint engineering projects, and field go-to-market.
There also is a willingness to share IP between EMC and VMware – but it is done in a way that is always open to others (and governed by structures that are just like we’re separate entities – which legally we are).
It’s very tricky, but I’m not complaining – it wouldn’t be fair to complain about focus, and resources. It is a balancing act that we’re working on continuously, however.
I hear you loud and clear – and keep the lines of communication open – I want to know the moment it freaks you out. You know how to reach me!!!