A: The recession slowed down a lot of projects including desktop virtualisation. In the later half of 2009 we saw the launch of Windows 7. Many companies who had been using Windows XP for the last several years were looking to refresh heir desktops. So you heard many CIOs saying that if they are doing a refresh for he software, why not change the way it was managed.

This was also the time when the economy started improving. This has pushed many desktop virtualisation projects back on the front-burner.

We see desktop virtualisation as a global phenomenon. However, there are certain ndustries like fnancial services and healthcare that need it more. Managing desktop at a centralised data centre level and letting all the users access it remotely makes much more sense for this segment.

A: We have built upon our data centre virtualisation product VMware vSphere. We launched it in May last year and then came out with a major refresh on our desktop product in December 2009.

The thing that we focused on was to fit as many desktops on to a given amount of server and storage. We wanted it to be cost effective and also secure with high levels of availability. We want to ensure that the platform that enterprises are using in the data centre is as good as possible.

Many customers are looking at a shared private cloud that can be deployed either for desktops or servers. This means they will use a common platform and place different workloads on top of it.

There are still a lot of apprehensions surrounding the cloud computing model. What would be your advice to enterprises who want to evolve from virtualisation and move into the private cloud? The basis for cloud computing is virtualisation. We have been working with various analyst groups and trying to find issues around cloud computing and make it more digestible for the CIOs.

We think private cloud is a different model for running the IT department. So it is more of a ‘service provider approach’ rather than a cost centre for the business. That means there is a customer-centric notion of what one does.For example take the case of IT providing a portal for employees to log in for services that are approved by IT. This is an important part of it.

The other thing that enterprises associate with cloud computing is ‘pay as you use’ model instead of locking huge upfront capital. For the private cloud it means more visibility and also tapping the shared resources that different group are using.

A: I strongly feel it is more than that. It is a business model as well as a heavily virtualised architecture that will help CIOs turn IT into service for the internal consumers. The infrastructure needs to be automated.

A: It depends on the profles of customers and industries. The approach that VMware is taking is to use the existing software stacks of its users in their data centre and sell it to public cloud providers. So we are selling them a compatible stack of software that also has built-in features of disaster recovery, security and performance tracking.

The service providers are interested in this offer because they can then have an enterprise offering that is not merely commodity computing but actually has added value.

Enterprises today have the assurance that when they are ready for the cloud there will be a set of places where they could run their applications on their own terms. Till then they are doing the right thing by virtualising their infrastructure.

A: It is always better to rise by an evolutionary step. I think that such enterprises would leverage their existing infrastructure and make it more effcient by using some private cloud techniques. As some of them reach end of life cycle or there is a need for a new application, they could look at the cloud model.

There is good opportunity to have a shared model for infrastructure, team, training and tools across server and desktop applications.

Lock-in from a vendor is another major concern that we hear a lot. The  approach taken by Google and Amazon.com is development of products that are proprietary and so is Microsoft’s Azure.

A: We are on the board of Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) which is an industry group involved in the development, adoption, and interoperability of management standards and initiatives for enterprise and Internet environments.

We have been working closely with the group to create standards for cloud computing and there are two that really matter.

The frst one involves creating a virtual machine that can run on any cloud solution and this has taken off pretty well by the use of an Open Virtualisation Format (OVF). I think of it as an MP3 music that can be played on any player.

The tougher one is to manage and track and be assured of the service levels from different cloud providers. We are trying to do this by having a top level management interface called as vCloud. We are not there yet. The day we have this, we will surely be the best software that runs on the cloud. This should be made available by end of this year.

ashwani.mishra@9dot9.in