Posted by Kyle Sexton, Sales Engineer on July 31, 2009 5:59 PM
vSphere 4 New Features and Capabilities
The recent release of vSphere 4 has introduced a large number of new features and concepts. In this post, I'm going to highlight some of the cool new features and concepts that really set VMware ahead in the landscape of server virtualization.
Cloud Computing vs. VMware vCloud
One of my favorite quotes about cloud computing came from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison when he said, "Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?" Anyone who has followed the hype behind cloud computing can understand his confusion. Cloud computing has come to encompass SAAS, DAAS, utility computing, Web 2.0, grid computing, and a myriad of other buzzwords people have lumped into the cloud.
To many, clouds have been made into the panacea of where computing and administration are going. If you are an IT administrator, those promises start to fall flat when hard questions about security, manageability, and responsibility are asked:
- If I'm using a cloud, where is my data?
- I have all these auditors (SAS-70, PCI, etc.) asking to see my data center. Where do I send them?
- Billing per CPU cycle sounds great, but how much is my bill actually going to be?
Enter VMware with the vCloud product offering. vCloud allows you to maintain control of the infrastructure and still get the cloudy benefits of fast deployment, scalability and flexibility. Because the infrastructure is controlled by your organization, the data is as secure as you would like it to be. Auditors can complete on-site checks to ensure your compliance, because it is your infrastructure. True utilization of physical resources can easily be determined so you can forecast hardware purchases. More...