VMware talks up multi-cloud and Kubernetes at VMworld 2020


Jane McCallion

1 Oct, 2020

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger last year said “multi-cloud is the new model for enterprise IT” while explaining the company’s acquisition of Pivotal just before the kickoff of its annual VMworld conference in California.

Since then, a lot has changed. Like many companies’ big annual conferences, VMworld has gone virtual in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and attendees are watching from the comfort of their own homes rather than the expansive Moscone Center.

But there are many things that haven’t and for VMware that includes its focus on multi-cloud – using services from multiple public cloud vendors – as a key strategic direction for enterprise IT.

“There’s a big shift in mindset among CIOs I talk to when it comes to multi-cloud,” Gelsinger told his audience. “Old view: Multi-cloud is a confusing mix of different services. It’s a mess I need to clean up. Today, they have a different view: Multi-cloud is the strategic platform to move my business forward, multi-cloud allows you to innovate by leveraging the strengths of different cloud services. But how do I make sure my multi-cloud strategy does not turn into a multi-silo story.”

The answer, at least according to VMware, is the company’s very own VMware Cloud product: “We are the unifying layer for today’s multi-cloud world,” Gelsinger said. “The cornerstone of VMware cloud is VMware Cloud Foundation, bringing together market leading compute, storage networking and the management, all in a single integrated stack.”

It’s not just about using multiple clouds and bridging them with VMware cloud, though. Gelsinger also took time to highlight Kubernetes, describing it as “the de facto API for today’s multi-cloud world”.

“Much like Java, two decades ago, Kubernetes is a rare technology that brings everyone together,” said Gelsinger. Indeed, like multicloud, Kubernetes was a highlight of last year’s VMworld with the launch of VMware’s management portfolio, Tanzu.

Touching on the updates announced for Tanzu this week, Gelsinger said “the best way for [VMware] to demonstrate [its] belief in the power of Kubernetes … [is to] re-architect vSphere to put Kubernetes at the core. And that’s exactly what we’ve done”.

“What we called Project Pacific is now fully available; vSphere today is the best platform to run your virtualized apps and the best platform to run your containerized apps,” he continued. “We’re putting enterprise grade Kubernetes directly into the hands of millions of mighty operators, no training required.”

Gelsinger concluded by alluding to the idea of the “new normal” that’s emerging in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and what that means for the IT community.

“If you are a technologist, this is your time. We have the will to drive change, plus the environment for change. And we have the platform we need – the digital foundation – for an unpredictable world.

“I think about all the students around the world, whose lives have been disrupted. We owe it to them to act with empathy and urgency right now. We owe it to them to chart a path forward by unlocking the power of software. Each of us must play our part, by building a better and more resilient future for all.”

Microsoft suffers second global outage in a week


Bobby Hellard

1 Oct, 2020

Microsoft has suffered a second global outage within a week, with users being unable to access their Outlook accounts, the tech giant has confirmed.

The reports come just days after the company said it had fixed a global outage that affected its Microsoft 365 platform. Microsoft services including Azure, Outlook, Office, Power Platform, Dynamics365, and Microsoft Teams were down for around five hours on Monday.

This latest outage began at around 2am ET, with Microsoft initially suggesting the issue was only affecting users based in India, according to a status update on Twitter. However, customers from around the world soon replied that they were also experiencing problems.

“We’ve collected additional data from the affected infrastructures to determine impact to our Exchange online protocols,” the tech giant tweeted. “Additionally, we’ve identified this issue to be affecting users worldwide. Further details can be found in your admin center under EX223208.”

Microsoft has said that a recent configuration update to components that route user requests was the cause of the outage. It has now “reverted” this update and will continue to monitor the service for signs of recovery.

The company’s outage on Monday was also blamed on unexpected errors relating to a recent update, although reverting this update did not immediately solve the problem.

“Rolling back the previously described change did not resolve the incident as expected,” Microsoft said on its Office status page. “We’re evaluating additional options to remediate the problem.”

For Wednesday’s outage, the rollback has “mitigated impact” for affected features in SharePoint and Teams, Microsoft tweeted. It also said that the majority of users were “seeing recovery”.