Decoding VMware's Mysterious Containerization Strategy

In a report titled "Forecast Analysis: Enterprise Application Software, Worldwide, 2Q15 Update," Gartner analysts highlighted the increasing trend of application modernization among enterprises. According to a recent survey, 45% of respondents stated that modernization of installed on-premises core enterprise applications is one of the top five priorities.

Gartner also predicted that by 2020, 75% of enterprise applications will follow the model of build instead of buy. This is an indication of organizations moving towards developing cloud-native, Software as a Service (SaaS) applications instead of buying shrink-wrapped or packaged applications.

The road to cloud-native computing

Going forward, enterprise customers will heavily invest in cloud-native platforms that will support them in developing and deploying modern, multi-tenant, elastic, and composite applications. Sensing this opportunity, traditional infrastructure vendors such as HP, Microsoft, VMware, and Red Hat started to invest in cloud-native platforms.

The recently formed Cloud Native Computing Foundation has almost every platform company except Microsoft. VMware and Pivotal are trying to stay relevant in the era of post-virtualization. Both VMware and Microsoft have significant investments in hypervisors and virtualization technology; interestingly, both have a similar approach to embrace and extend containerization.

At the recently held VMworld 2015 conference, VMware unveiled a set of new technologies that will enable customers to adopt the cloud-native paradigm while easily extending the legacy applications to containers. While Microsoft is pushing Windows Containers and Hyper-V Containers, VMware is betting on vSphere Integrated Containers and Photon Platform.

Read the entire article at TechRepublic.

Janakiram MSV is an analyst, advisor, and architect. Follow him on Twitter,  Facebook and LinkedIn.