VMware White Paper Sample

Internal cloud, on-premise cloud, utility computing, and autonomic computing all refer to the same idea: using compute resources more efficiently to support today's applications and the workloads of the future. The goal of cloud computing is to achieve a high level of flexibility that drives up resource utilization, controls cost, and enables easy integration between in-house and network-based IT infrastructure.

VMware's vision of how clouds should operate includes the concept of a "private cloud." This means a similar expectation of SLAs, security, etc., regardless of location. A private cloud can span both internal and external to meet the business needs. In delivering cloud messaging and positioning, the marketplace is heading in the same direction of virtualization, but unfortunately, the current outlook appears more like haze than a cloud. Businesses are excited about the promise of cloud computing and a select handful of providers are already seeing the benefits, but integration and management tools still need to evolve for any type of mass adoption. Cloud service providers such as Google, Amazon, and IBM are all seeing an uptick in interest around cloud computing, but businesses are hesitant to fully trust and rely on a third party vendor to host top tier business applications and critical data.

Additionally, companies don't want to, or don't have the luxury to, rewrite their applications to run in a different environment, but they do want a more efficient and cost effective way to deliver applications. VMware's strategic goal of transforming data centers with cloud computing entities is not going to happen overnight, but as a leader in the virtualization marketplace, VMware has the opportunity to guide customers on a journey that will change the way IT designs, delivers, and deploys applications.