One major theme at this year’s VMworld is the continuing rise of the software-defined data center. No longer merely a buzzword, the concept is quickly becoming a reality. Ideas like software-defined networking are moving out of the lab and into the production data center.
Also, the rise of DevOps is showing that we’re using software to program every interaction we have with our infrastructure. And we're not just talking about simple scripting. We are rapidly moving to a programmatic model in order to build, run, and better manage all of our infrastructure.
As a result, a number of DevOps frameworks have been in the spotlight at VMworld. Open source projects like Puppet Labs, Chef, Ansible, and others are really showing how you can more efficiently deploy and manage infrastructure.
Another significant theme has been hybrid cloud. Obviously "hybrid" is not a new term or a new technology, but it is something that is definitely getting its moment in the sun at this year’s VMworld.
It seems like every booth on the exhibit floor has a hybrid theme, and everyone is talking about how we go from running workloads locally on premise, into a hybrid environment, and then fully into the cloud. They're also discussing how to move in the other direction as workloads change over time or as the demands of the application are redefined to help with customers' business problems.
These are truly exciting times for data center technology.
Jason Anderson
Chief Architect at Datalink