Everybody has been talking about VMware. But the firm has become so very able it is easy to underestimate the firm. Their sources are in virtualizing operating systems on servers. But through discovery and acquisition and a focused strategy of improvement, they have gone far beyond that. VMware gives companies with a way to properly manage internal IT resources, better manage internal clouds, better manage public clouds, and orchestrate workloads over all those systems. They give ways to store and secure data more smartly.
Notwithstanding competition from Microsoft, Red Hat, and Citrix, VMware is still a virtual giant for server union. It helps that both Linux and Windows support it, ensuring the ability for right complex environments. Even with growing competition, we do not see VMware losing their hold on the market any time soon.
Trusted Tech of vSphere
Think about it like this, Microsoft launched Hyper-V in 2008. VMware began ESX 1.0 server in 2001. A seven-year headstart made VMware a formidable market leader.
And one of the several essential technologies VMware has on its side is its software suite, vSphere. Most hypervisor software, like Microsoft’s Hyper-V or Citrix’s XenServer, requires an operating system to control virtualization components. But vSphere is highly configurable and doesn’t need an operating system. This gives you the capability to manage the pieces of your hypervisor from just about anywhere.
vSphere has an extensive built-in security system, that does not need any patches for the Controlling Layer elements. Out of the box, vSphere offers many governance capabilities and organization can leverage transparent page sharing.
Security Will Always Be King
Other vendors, like Citrix and Microsoft, use artificial intelligence and machine learning in some of their products. But only VMware is making tremendous strides toward automating multiple product offerings to help organizations fortify their infrastructure. This way, a team can focus solely on the applications that serve the need of their business.
Cyber warnings have become the norm - and VMware takes security seriously. VMware introduces a security feature called AppDefense within its VSAN storage products and NSX networking products. Given that many Fortune 500 companies use VMware for server consolidation, this added layer of security makes sense.
VMware served with organizations such as RSA, SecureWorks, IBM, and CarbonBlack to secure AppDefense works with their products. You can set AppDefense in monitoring method continuously it learns standard software models. Then you can put it into production.
AppDefense centers on three areas of security:
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The application
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Infrastructure
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Security ecosystem
Cyber-attacks continue to develop in complexity and severity. Many companies are racing to offer more secure products. VMware is using their machine learning (ML) strength to take the lead. They are already using ML in vSAN to optimize record review and predict failure rates, in AppDefense to automatically flag different VM behavior, and in VMware Skyline.
VMware understands that their product is not an island. To call VMware security-minded would be an understatement. And having this focus on securing and machine learning will keep VMware on the cutting edge of virtualization technology.
The Largest of Availabilities
If you are using VMware, Microsoft, or Citrix virtualization technology, one particular VMware product is widely regarded as the best failsafe to keep your systems running, no matter the OS you are working with.
VMware offers High Availability for applications connected on virtual machines. HA immediately finds failures in hardware and guest operating systems. Then it restarts affected virtual machines on other production servers with spare capacity. With HA, you do not need to reset virtual machines on other owners in the group manually. Plus, it automatically does its thing after detection of OS failure.
All VMware’s competitors give some variety of live migration technology to avoid collisions due to delaying physical host resources. But VMware’s platform provides options with the vSphere hypervisor, in the enterprise editions of the product, and as a separate purchasable component for all vSphere editions. This added layer of protection gives VMware an advantage over other leaders in the virtualization space, like Microsoft and Citrix.
Market Share Does Not Lie
If you are going to ask an IT pro to name a vendor that specializes in virtualization, VMware usually is the first mentioned. Depending on which analyst report you read, VMware owns anywhere from 55-85% of the virtualization market. The size of the market itself is in dispute, but server virtualization has a strong foothold in the enterprise and is not slowing down anytime soon.
VMware also wins concerning the scalability of individual hosts. Many companies have a diverse IT environment, and VMware’s flexibility allows it to fit most dogs’ needs. It supports the most significant number of guest operating systems from Solaris to Ubuntu to Oracle to Mac OS and more.
There are also few virtualization options which can deliver good solutions for PaaS, IaaS, and AaaS. This is why Fortune 500 companies consistently turn to VMware to meet their virtualization needs.
The next three largest cloud players are Microsoft with Azure, IBM with SoftLayer, and Google, with 22% of the market. Not 22% each, mind you, but 22% between the three of them. That is right; Amazon is bigger than the next three biggest competitors combined. So what about VMware? Well, it sets out that VMware is in the third batch of companies, which goes up 27% of the market.
But here's the thing. That next batch covers VMware, but it also includes 19 other companies such as family names like Fujitsu, Oracle, Salesforce, and Rackspace, as well as more complex ones like CenturyLink and Orange. The remaining 20% is considered for by others. And if that is not surprising enough, it is worth taking a look at the rate of growth of these companies' cloud businesses. Amazon's is growing at a solid 57% year on year, while the VMware group is growing at a more moderate 41% year on year. 41% may be more modest, but it nonetheless sounds impressive until you realize that the market is growing at a rate of about 50% year on year.
The King of the Hypervisor Cloud
When it comes to hypervisors, it sets out then that Xen is the king of the cloud. That is because both Amazon and SoftLayer use Xen (as does Rackspace). Google uses KVM, while Azure uses a Hyper-V derivative known as the Microsoft Azure Hypervisor. VMware's hypervisor doesn't figure until you get right down to VMware's own cloud efforts like vCloud Air.
Final Views
VMware is regularly working to enhance their tech. Their stronghold is not going to extricate. Every virtualization vendor provides some tech that might be beneficial for your team, so you should carefully consider all your options. But if you want something reliable, trusted, and steady, VMware technology likely is your best chance.