VMware to Customers: You can have Cloud without Trade-offs or Compromise

Article in partnership with VMware.

Throughout my 38-year career in information technology, I have grown accustomed to the trade-offs between security and flexibility, as well as speed and control. Like most of my colleagues, I have had to settle, make compromises, and come up with workarounds. But I have always remained on the lookout for the best of all possible worlds. As it turns out, I stumbled upon this during VMworld 2021.

If you’re a baby boomer, like me, then you likely remember one of the first virtualization attempts to run MS-DOS on Unix, the “SoftPC”. At the time, it was remarkable that one machine could run two different operating systems. With a single hardware, users were able to create independent virtual computers that shared the same physical resources (e.g., processors and memories), as if they were multiple real computers.

The reason I’m still talking about virtualization 20 years later is because this technology is at the heart of Cloud computing. After all, digitalization is tied to our ability to multiply physical resources and then convert them into virtual ones.

Think of it this way: It would be unimaginable to rent an entire physical computer to host a small application with a small database. A Cloud provider essentially buys the physical computer, and then, through specific software, slices it into many virtual machines to rent to companies that welcome digitization.

Recently, providers have gone so far as to enable companies to centralize or decentralize their data and applications. This has resulted in a kind of “digital diffusion”.

In the context of chemistry, physics, and biology, “diffusion” is what allows matter to spread from an area of high concentration to one of low concentration. By extension, digital diffusion has filled our work and personal lives with bits and bytes, and is now spreading from data centers to the periphery.

Rapid technological advances have fundamentally changed the way we work, interact, and spend our leisure time. Artificial intelligence, big data, and virtual and augmented reality have transformed the Western workplace and business landscape from labor-driven to capital-intensive. Without question, it is our skills, interests, and adaptability that will drive us into the age of opportunities, define success, and perhaps even allow us to ‘future proof’ our…