EMA: IT and Data Management Research, Industry Analysis and Consulting (12)

Prologue for EMA Research Project: Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Enterprise IT and DevOps

By Torsten Volk on Sep 18, 2017 2:29:07 PM

Why are there still so many repetitive tasks in data center and cloud management today? Why does application management still contain so many manual steps? Why do most organization still suffer from automation and monitoring silos that prevent them from avoiding preventable application outages and service degradations?

Topics: Artificial intelligence Megatrends DevOps Machine Learning Appranix Business Defined Data Center CloudFabrix

VMworld 2017 – vRealize 2017 Announcement

By Torsten Volk on Sep 12, 2017 8:14:29 AM

Accelerated Deployment and Lower OPEX

Faster time to value, lower OPEX and deeper multi cloud support are the key elements of VMware vRealize Suite 2017, as it was presented at VMworld 2017
in Barcelona. The new vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSCLM) provides
one central user interface tying together the formerly fragmented and complex deployment process for new vRealize environments. Additionally, vRSCLM enables health monitoring, product con guration, IAM integration, and simpli ed upgrades.

[embed width=500]https://youtu.be/Mk3b5UVaFIU [/embed]
Should You Care about the Release of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager?

VMware vRealize Suite has received much criticism in the past for its complicated and too brittle deployment, con guration, and integration process. Considering that vRSCLM addresses exactly this critical issue by offering a uni ed installation wizard and a centralized operations dashboard for one or multiple vRealize Suite environments, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) can only conclude that this new release is signi cant and deserves a close look.

New Deployment Wizard

The new vRS deployment process has been simplified and reduced to the following few steps:

Select whether to import an existing vRS environment or install a new one.

The “import” option lets enterprises manage and upgrade existing vRS environments. The installation process begins as follows:

Review the compatibility matrix
Select the target version for each component
Pick a deployment sizeSelect target data center for new deployment
Select the vRealize Suite license to apply directly from MyVMware.com Provide the required network details, certi cates and product parametersReview the summary and start the installation process. Due to the new pre-checks it is now less likely for the installation process to fail and in the event of failure, the installation can be resumed from the administration panel, once the root cause has been addressed.

New Operations Management Dashboard

The vRLCM admin panel provides provides a UI to manage, upgrade, and con gure all corporate vRS environments, even across data centers or clouds, through a single pane of glass. vRLCM leverages vRealize Operations (vROps) for health monitoring and root cause analysis and enables administrators to set alerts in case of con guration drift.

Upgrade preparation: Before an upgrade, admins can create a complete snapshot of the environment and view the compatibility matrix.

Upgrades through GUI or Con g File: While the rst upgrade will often be done through the UI, future upgrades could simply leverage the con guration le created through the UI-driven process.

Best practice con guration: vRLCM tracks con guration drift, enables admins to restore previous con gurations, and apply best practice architectural principles.

Leverage VMware Identity Manager: Admins can either leverage an existing installation of VMware Identity Manager or use vRLCM to install a new one.

Final Words

After the initial private cloud hype died down, the race for market leadership is on once again. EMA research shows that in 2017 private cloud is high up on the list of investment priorities for enterprises
of all verticals and sizes. Vendors who will succeed in capturing a signi cant market share have to check the following boxes:

Support any cloud, offer developer friendly APIs and provide customers with a near turn-key deployment experience. With its recent announcements –Vmware Cloud Services, VMware Cloud on AWS, and Pivotal Container Service- Vmware is doing all the right things to be successful.

And then there’s of course one thing that’s needed to juggle apps between clouds and data centers: software de ned networking, where VMware is strategically well positioned with its NSX solution.

Topics: VMware Systems Management 2017 Scale Out Architecture vRealize Lifecycle Manager Cloud Administration Monitoring VMworld VMworld Barcelona vRealize Suite

Network Operations and Analytics from CA Technologies has Won the EMA Innovator Award

By Shamus McGillicuddy on Sep 5, 2017 12:42:17 PM

Network Operations and Analytics from CA Technologies has been named a winner of Enterprise Management Associates’ Innovator Award, which recognizes products and services that demonstrate true innovation in the IT industry and address the most critical challenges IT organizations face today.

Topics: IT Management Network Management Shamus McGillicuddy

VMware Goes SaaS-Ops and Multi Cloud: Launch of VMware Cloud on AWS and Six VMware Cloud Services for Consistent Data Center and Cloud Management

By Torsten Volk on Aug 28, 2017 7:45:57 AM

At VMworld 2017, VMware announced the availability of VMware Cloud on AWS and of the six initial VMware Cloud Services. VMware Cloud on AWS offers customers the long expected capability of deploying VMware's Cloud Foundation Suite of SDDC products (vSphere, NSX and vSAN) to AWS. VMware Cloud Services enable operators, developers, security experts and compliance staff to consistently deploy and operate application infrastructure across today's most popular clouds: AWS, Google, Azure and vSphere. Today, both offerings, VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud Services are available from AWS U.S. West (Oregon Region), but can be used worldwide. VMware and Amazon are planning to roll out both offerings worldwide during 2018.

Topics: Google VMware SDDC Systems Management Storage Virtualization Scale Out Architecture AWS Azure Business Defined Data Center Cloud Administration Monitoring VMware Cloud Services VMware on AWS vSphere

VMworld 2017 – The Container Story Will be Key for VMware’s Future

By Torsten Volk on Aug 23, 2017 10:45:10 PM

VMware’s container management strategy should be seen as the key to success for this year’s VMworld. VMware needs to conclusively convince its customers that instead of doing their own thing the company is able to offer a strong value proposition based on the fact that Kubernetes and Amazon ECS are the key container technologies to embrace. DockerCon has shown that VMware admins have realized that it is time to “learn about containers,” but VMware’s challenge today is to convince customers that Kubernetes management will not happen entirely separately from virtualization management. Even worse, Kubernetes management may not even require virtualization at all.

Topics: Containers VMware Megatrends Swarm VMware Photon Platform vSphere Integrated Containers Business Defined Data Center Cloud Administration Docker Kubernetes Mesos

VMworld 2017 Prologue 2 – Where Are the APIs

By Torsten Volk on Aug 22, 2017 10:08:25 AM

“vRealize Automation really doesn’t have an API,” says a reputable partner of a VM-ware centric consulting firm, “they say that it does, but it still does not, so I won’t tell my customers that it does.” Then he goes on in a slightly agitated manner “,also, there is no easy-to-implement orchestrator and no central queueing system to tie together all the VMware components based on dynamically changing policy-defined app requirements.” “Then finally,” he continues, “I have yet another client who asked me to come back with ‘an alternative to vRA, as my developers just don’t want vRA."

Topics: VMware Systems Management APIs Serverless Computing VMware Cloud vRA AWS Azure Business Defined Data Center Cloud Administration VMworld

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Springpath for $320 Million

By Torsten Volk on Aug 21, 2017 10:12:51 AM

Cisco’s Springpath Acquisition Will further Boost Its EMA Top 3 Winning Hyperconverged Portfolio

Topics: VMware Systems Management Cisco Acquisition Scale Out Architecture Business Defined Data Center Cisco Hyperflex Cloud Foundation Hyperconverged Infrastructure Nutanix Springpath

VMworld 2017 – Prologue

By Torsten Volk on Aug 18, 2017 4:18:34 PM

“Oh, I’m not coming to VMworld this year, we are at Jenkins instead.” This is a sentence I’ve heard quite a few times now from vendors that I’m used to seeing at VMworld and it makes me wonder what’s going on.

Topics: Containers VMware IT service management Systems Management Artificial intelligence Megatrends DevOps Machine Learning Storage Virtualization Wavefront Business Defined Data Center Cloud Administration Jenkins VMworld

The Internet of Things will Drive Network Management Evolution

By Shamus McGillicuddy on Jul 26, 2017 3:34:24 PM

EMA research has determined that network managers will need to upgrade, expand, and adapt their network monitoring and management tools and practices if they are going to support the Internet of Things (IoT).

Topics: Internet of Things IT Management IoT Featured Network Management network management Shamus McGillicuddy

EMA Top 3 Product Selection Process

By Torsten Volk on Jun 16, 2017 5:14:24 PM

Topics: Containers Artificial intelligence Megatrends DevOps Machine Learning Scale Out Architecture Serverless Computing Business Defined Data Center Cloud Administration EMA Top 3 Full Stack Monitoring Hyperconverged Microservices Monitoring SecOps Serverless

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