VMware: The private cloud's main purpose is now keeping developers happy
(2025/08/27)
- Reference: 1756292350
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/08/27/vmware_private_clouds/
- Source link:
Private clouds are all about keeping developers happy and productive, according to Krish Prasad, senior veep and general manager of Broadcom's VMware Cloud Foundation division.
Cloud Foundation (VCF) is VMware's suite of compute, storage, and networking virtualization tools. Broadcom promotes it as more secure, manageable, and cost-effective than public clouds.
In a session at VMware's Explore conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Prasad said VCF has supplanted vSphere – the server virtualization bundle that built Virtzilla's business – as the baseline for enterprise infrastructure.
[1]
His rationale was that unless organizations provide developers with self-service tools to spawn infrastructure in a form that expresses all necessary security and compliance policies, organizations just won't be able to build and deploy software fast enough to remain competitive.
[2]
[3]
VMware used to say similar things about application teams. In the boom years for server virtualization, the company touted the ability to quickly provision more virtual servers to scale key enterprise software. Organizations were told that unless they could quickly create VMs to scale databases, their e-commerce dreams would die, and nimble upstarts would steal their customers.
Databases, of course, remain critical, but containers are now the abstraction that developers expect, along with infrastructure as code tools.
[4]VMware finally porting Cloud Foundation to Arm – in baby steps
[5]VMware before Broadcom was 'a unicorn in fluffy cloudland'
[6]VMware prevents some perpetual license holders from downloading patches
[7]Defiant Broadcom calls for tech to go back where it belongs: On-premises
Which is not to say that VMware has forgotten VMs or operations teams. Prasad said the [8]recently released VCF 9.0 includes tools IT departments need to build a platform that can satisfy developers. He pointed to newly unified management of compute and storage, an improvement on past VMware efforts that forced members of ops teams to work in silos. VMware has also improved VCF's ability to manage both containers and VMs from the same screens. IT teams can work together, Virtzilla asserts, which makes it easier to build self-service infrastructure because compute, networking, and storage teams don't have a patch of turf to defend, or integrations to initiate.
Prasad also pointed to VMware's introduction of advanced memory tiering as significant, as it allows use of NVMe devices as a second tier of memory. Those devices are a little slow compared to RAM, but cost a lot less.
[9]
VMware thinks clever use of tiering will mean that users can shrink their server fleets, while also ensuring that applications can access fast memory at the moments they need it most. Developers will get the resources they need, while ops teams can monitor demand for memory to make sure all applications can operate as intended.
It's a fine vision, and not vastly different from the one VMware advanced before being acquired by Broadcom. It struggled to succeed at the time because VMware expected its customers – who are firmly on the ops side – to bring developers along for the ride. Coders, however, didn't always buy in. VMware thinks VCF 9 will mean ops teams can offer such pleasant self-service that it will win developers' hearts and minds this time around. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aK8rmNEybkErEIMKXX5LSQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aK8rmNEybkErEIMKXX5LSQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aK8rmNEybkErEIMKXX5LSQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/vmware_cloud_foundation_arm_port/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/25/yves_sandfort_comdivision_vmware_interview/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/23/vmware_patch_download_problems/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/vmware_explore_vcf_evolution/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/17/vmware_cloud_foundation_9_released/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aK8rmNEybkErEIMKXX5LSQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Cloud Foundation (VCF) is VMware's suite of compute, storage, and networking virtualization tools. Broadcom promotes it as more secure, manageable, and cost-effective than public clouds.
In a session at VMware's Explore conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Prasad said VCF has supplanted vSphere – the server virtualization bundle that built Virtzilla's business – as the baseline for enterprise infrastructure.
[1]
His rationale was that unless organizations provide developers with self-service tools to spawn infrastructure in a form that expresses all necessary security and compliance policies, organizations just won't be able to build and deploy software fast enough to remain competitive.
[2]
[3]
VMware used to say similar things about application teams. In the boom years for server virtualization, the company touted the ability to quickly provision more virtual servers to scale key enterprise software. Organizations were told that unless they could quickly create VMs to scale databases, their e-commerce dreams would die, and nimble upstarts would steal their customers.
Databases, of course, remain critical, but containers are now the abstraction that developers expect, along with infrastructure as code tools.
[4]VMware finally porting Cloud Foundation to Arm – in baby steps
[5]VMware before Broadcom was 'a unicorn in fluffy cloudland'
[6]VMware prevents some perpetual license holders from downloading patches
[7]Defiant Broadcom calls for tech to go back where it belongs: On-premises
Which is not to say that VMware has forgotten VMs or operations teams. Prasad said the [8]recently released VCF 9.0 includes tools IT departments need to build a platform that can satisfy developers. He pointed to newly unified management of compute and storage, an improvement on past VMware efforts that forced members of ops teams to work in silos. VMware has also improved VCF's ability to manage both containers and VMs from the same screens. IT teams can work together, Virtzilla asserts, which makes it easier to build self-service infrastructure because compute, networking, and storage teams don't have a patch of turf to defend, or integrations to initiate.
Prasad also pointed to VMware's introduction of advanced memory tiering as significant, as it allows use of NVMe devices as a second tier of memory. Those devices are a little slow compared to RAM, but cost a lot less.
[9]
VMware thinks clever use of tiering will mean that users can shrink their server fleets, while also ensuring that applications can access fast memory at the moments they need it most. Developers will get the resources they need, while ops teams can monitor demand for memory to make sure all applications can operate as intended.
It's a fine vision, and not vastly different from the one VMware advanced before being acquired by Broadcom. It struggled to succeed at the time because VMware expected its customers – who are firmly on the ops side – to bring developers along for the ride. Coders, however, didn't always buy in. VMware thinks VCF 9 will mean ops teams can offer such pleasant self-service that it will win developers' hearts and minds this time around. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aK8rmNEybkErEIMKXX5LSQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aK8rmNEybkErEIMKXX5LSQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aK8rmNEybkErEIMKXX5LSQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/vmware_cloud_foundation_arm_port/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/25/yves_sandfort_comdivision_vmware_interview/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/23/vmware_patch_download_problems/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/vmware_explore_vcf_evolution/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/17/vmware_cloud_foundation_9_released/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aK8rmNEybkErEIMKXX5LSQAAARM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/