VMware vRealize Air

I am excited about the future VMware vRealize Air offerings! What is VMware vRealize Air? It is VMware's SaaS based solutions for their management stack, which was announced at VMworld 2014. It is going to help companies work faster, be more flexible, and adopt new capabilities. You can register for the vRealize Air Automation Beta at the vRealize Air web page. 

There are many reasons for organizations to consider moving from traditional IT to cloud computing. One of the most cited benefits is the economics, some of the key factors that contributed to the cost savings, especially when you consider SaaS based solutions, are lowering the cost of running the technology, allowing for a shift from capital expenditure to operating expenditure, and giving organizations the ability to add business value by renewed focus on strategic activities.

This is where VMware vRealize Air is going to come into play in the future. VMware is planning on delivering a comprehensive cloud management platform for managing hybrid and heterogeneous clouds as a service. It is a new way of consuming VMware's cloud management solutions. Although this solution could be considered for large organizations, I believe this is a great opportunity for mid-market and commercial organizations to get the full benefit of the management component of the software-defined datacenter. VMware research shows that 20% of customers prefer SaaS based offerings.

Personally, I maintain a firm belief that if an application doesn't provide some type of business differentiator or holds a significant financial impact to the company, then a cloud strategy with SaaS based solutions should be considered.

Keep in mind the 80-20 rule; Gartner and other IT research firms estimate that IT maintenance accounts for 80% of total IT expenditure. Virtualization helped improve this number to 70%. Using SaaS based applications, like VMware vRealize Air, will help evenly distribute IT spending to 50% on IT maintenance and 50% on strategic initiatives for core business services. There is no installation, you will be able to get it up and running quickly, and there will be no maintenance or upgrades.

The first SaaS based application to be delivered by VMware is vRealize Air Automation. VMware vRealize Air Automation is going to help automate delivery of infrastructure service capabilities, and help organizations build their infrastructure service catalog. With vRealize Air Automation, you will be able to deploy virtual machines and multi-tiered applications in the public or private cloud, including Amazon Web Services. This will help drive agility of business needs by automating the delivery of infrastructure services.

Future applications include vRealize Air Operations for performance management, capacity management, and infrastructure optimization; and the full vRealize Air Suite which will include vRealize Air Automation, vRealize Air Operations, and IT costing and analysis.

So why consider vRealize Air?

• Reduced Required Resources
• No infrastructure
• No maintenance or upgrades

• Rapid Time to Value
• No installation
• Reduced configuration
• Best practice templates

• Flexible and Predicable Cost
• Pay for what you need
• Know what you will pay
• Leverage OPEX budget

• Hybrid Cloud
• Manage private and public clouds

Cloud computing provides a unique opportunity for organizations, it enables IT departments to minimize their involvement in the day-to-day maintenance of infrastructure and gives them the time to become strategic partners of the business. You no longer are viewed as a cost center of the organization, IT operations becomes a value adding department that is actively involved in delivering IT services and solutions that impact the overall business outcome.