VMware's Duty to Care for the Believers Amidst the CIO Crowd

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, goes the proverb. And it’s a phrase that strikes a chord with me as I think about some of the major moves VMware is making. It’s not hyperbole to suggest that VMware is betting the farm on NSX. The strategic importance is clear given the price paid in purchasing Nicira in order to make NSX possible. But, as firm believers in SDDC ourselves, we at Tufin back that bet. We’re pretty confident that NSX is a watershed moment for the industry and that enthusiasm for the future dominates conversations about the next frontier of virtualization in the boardrooms at 3401 Hillview Avenue.

The ability to offer greater speed and agility, lower operational overhead and lower capital expenditure, is a major draw for all VMware customers to move to NSX, as is the ability to create secure, micro-segmented networks, thus ensuring that access to one server on the virtual network is not carte blanche for accessing all applications and data in the same segment. As a result NSX is being adopted widely and is growing at a faster rate than ESXi!

Early Success Counts

All that said, the stakes are still exceptionally high for VMware given that SDDC is a cornerstone of its vision. And the one hard hitting truth for the VMware team is they have to make a success of the early NSX adoptions by their customers in order to achieve the industry transformation that NSX can deliver.

But VMware is not the only one with skin in the game here. CIOs with the foresight to be early adopters are putting something on the line themselves. They depend on VMware to facilitate speedy migration and to see the ROI, so clear on paper, manifest itself in cold hard cash through implementation.

What’s at Stake for CIOs

CIOs need to see mission critical business applications transferred to a SDDC environment with minimal disruption. Given that business applications are built specifically for the current environment the transition to SDDC must be carefully managed.

But it’s not just a question of migration. IT teams are starting to operate part of their network via SDDC while the rest is still running on a physical infrastructure of perhaps on a public cloud. With partial SDDC in play, the already complex network topology has been further complicated. But good compliance, security and connectivity practices necessitate a single point of control and ability to manage the entire network holistically. This single pane of glass is essential in order to achieve end-to-end automation of network connectivity and security across the entire corporate infrastructure.

Will Fortune Favor the Brave?

So VMware and their associated partner ecosystem that includes Tufin, need to help the brave SDDC pioneers within the C-suite make a huge success of the decision and plant it as a game changing career highlight. It’s not only the right thing to do to repay the faith, but it’s also crucial in driving success for the Software Defined Data Center.