VMware to offer converged compute and storage hardware

VMware looks like it is about to start selling hardware. The idea seems outrageous given the company has spent the last year talking up software-defined data centres, and the last decade suggesting that any application or physical appliance can and should be bundled up into a virtual machine running on an utterly anodyne …

[Anonymous Coward]

Hybrid Cloud

Look, they all see the writing on the wall. CriKit was one of the first truly Desktop Private Clouds, but now even Microsoft has a patent for a 4 node server appliance. THAT is where computing is going for the vast majority of businesses. Some amount of compute and storage on-prem with the rest in the public cloud(s). Software companies have been held back too long by the major hardware players for far too long. And now that all the major hardware guys are well into offering competitive software, there are no competitive DMZ's anymore. Canonical Orange Box, US Micro CriKit Desktop Private Cloud and now VMware MARVIN are just the beginning. Once people realize just how powerful the new class of mini-itx servers really are when running virtualized workloads, there could be a dramatic shift in spending and adoption. Servers the size of a book running multiple virtual machines and handling hundreds of users will be quite enough compute power for a wide swath of SMB and even enterprise computing.

[PowerMan@thinksis]

Great - "so-called" Expert Vendor Solution

Of course, makes complete sense that VMware offer a hardware solution as only they would know best how to exploit their products. Just like Oracle with their Exa* products - they know best how to optimize their software stack......and VCE with their vBlock as only they would know how to integrate the three tiers of the infrastructure to optimize the stack. Hopefully you picked up on the sarcasm. VMware should do what it does best which is software and from my perspective with the virtualization stack. If they have extra time they could tighten up their security. Oracle says they optimize the stack with Exa* only to be 75% marketing and 25% technology. White box x86 servers packed with software licenses (and lots of cost) and numerous gotcha's - extra storage and other features to address the solutions many inherent weaknesses. VCE, nothing more than a infrastructure integrator that upcharges V+C+E products where they tout flexibility but in reality are rigid - once implemented you make changes according to their schedule nor your business. Can't wait for yet another hardware player that has the answer to optimizing the stack!

[Locky]

Marvin

Brain the size of a planet and they ask me to virtualise servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Marvin the paranoid android

Competition is ahead of them! We went live w our hybrid cloud a month ago, using boxes from the US Startup Nutanix: they seem to provide pretty much exactly what VMWare is announcing (except that a lot of Nutanix are already humming in our DCs).

I am sure VMWare is getting paranoid on that, but their sense of humor is nothing short that gorgeous.

[zootle]

Just use SmartOS!

I see VMware are trying to catch up with those of us already using direct attached storage with an operating system optimised for the job...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Nutanix. Guess VMware are afraid of losing control over their customers. Imagine a customer going with Nutanix, and what if the customer could switch from VMware to Hyper-V, while still keeping the Nutanix hardware? Much better to launch Marvin and keep the customers on VMware.

[Just a geek]

Worst logo ever........

Seriously, it looks like VMWare are trying to give birth to something......

Oh maybe they are....