VMware adopts cloud-first-for-new-features vSphere update plan

Future releases of vSphere will include features that have previously debuted in VMware's cloud, vCloud Air.

So says Joe Baguley, a Virtzilla veep from the office of the Chief Technology Officer, who spoke to The Reg in Sydney today.

VMware's thinking is that there's no bigger and uglier vSphere use case than its own cloud, as users have extremely low tolerance for downtime at their cloud providers. Building vSphere for vCloud Air first, then trickling features down into on-premises vSphere, is therefore seen as an efficient way to develop the product's future versions.

Baguley said VMware believes it has a reputation for extraordinary reliability that it simply can't afford to lose, so won't change anything in ways that could threaten that important part of its value proposition.

Typical VMware users, for example folks doing server virtualisation without quite stepping all the way to private or hybrid cloud, won't notice anything different other than perhaps more mature products.

VMware's not alone in this approach. Microsoft's now adding features to the cloudy versions of SharePoint and Exchange and distilling them for on-premises use months after taking the new bits live in Azure. The company even ran Azure on its new Nano Server since 2013, many months in advance of it being revealed to the public.

Baguley added that the next version of vSphere was last week used at decent scale during VMworld Europe, where three or four per cent of the hands-on labs rested on in-development code. Those workloads, Baguley said, gave “vSphere Next” no trouble whatsoever, with even a RAM failure in one server failing to disrupt operations.

What can we expect from that future release? Baguley said the EVO:RAIL experience of a very simple UI is something the average vAdmin can expect more of in the future. ®