Sheryl Sage VMware Explore
Transcript
>> Welcome to VMware Explore 2022 with the CTO Advisor Studio. Come on in and consume some content. >> Welcome back to coverage of VMware Explore 2022. I'm your host, Keith Townsend. I got to say, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the number of people that have stopped by the CTO Advisor Flying Cloud that just have a conversation around what they've done for the past two years. Sheryl Sage, senior, I'm sorry, principal product manager >> Mm-hmm. >> for Oracle Cloud VMware solution.
How's the show been for you? You're a local to San Francisco, but the Bay Area in general, how's the show been for you? >> It's just been fantastic to be together with our partners face-to-face, meeting with customers. This is a really unique show, isn't it? >> It is a unique show. There's no show like it. (Sheryl chuckles) You have people have deemed the legacy, IT infrastructure. You have people talking about Kubernetes. You have people talking about native cloud services.
And we're all in one place trying to figure it out. The world has gone topsy-turvey. We're able to do things that we couldn't do before, because of the need to support work from anywhere. It's a crazy world. >> It is. And VMware is really unique, and that they're really meeting customers where they are. And at Oracle Cloud, we're also trying to do exactly the same thing, which is that if you are an on-premises customer and you've got data locality issues, we're trying to meet you where you are with that as well.
So, we introduce things like Cloud@Customer, so that you can continue to run on-premises and access all those OCI services that you would've in the cloud itself. Oracle Cloud VMware solution, our customers today are really enjoying all the different use cases that we're offering. So, it's just been really great to meet up with them and understand what they're doing, and what they are looking for going forward between VMware and Oracle. >> So, let's talk about some of that improvements on OCVS. It's really ironic.
We did a pretty interesting report a little over two years ago, comparing the major VMware cloud solutions, whether it's VMC on AWS, Oracle Cloud solution or Google's VMware Engine. And just talking about which use case is best for each customer. What have you found as you're talking to customers, what's been the typical use case for OCVS? >> There isn't just one use case for OCVS, but certainly, there is a standard migration path that most of our customers are following. So, the majority are really looking to reduce cost.
It's no surprise, the Flexera report for the six-year in a row states that reducing their cost is really a top priority for organizations. So, they do come to Oracle for moving their VMware workloads to the cloud, but also at the same time, leveraging Oracle's cloud data services at the data tier. So, most of our customers start there. They're moving workloads that can run very efficiently on flexible compute that OCI offers. And then, they continue to expand to other workloads. You just met with Cyberreason.
They've experienced a really great migration. They had to because of COVID. They needed to migrate all of their DevOps environment to the cloud, and they chose Oracle Cloud VMware solution for that. And as Itzik probably mentioned, having full control is super important for customers that are choosing OCVS. And we are unique in that you have the complete control of your VCF stack in the cloud. That means your L2 networking. That means that you get to decide when you want to upgrade.
0, we're there to support them where they are. And that is really a value prop that most of the customers that I talk to say it was a real decision point for them that they... Managed services sounds great, but then when you're forced into a position where your applications and your DevOps platform no longer works, because you relied on older versions. You really can't break your operating environments. >> Yeah, Itzik talked about even the driver to migrate from VMC on AWS to Oracle Cloud, the difference between that SaaS managed service delivery versus this hosted delivery method.
Some of the pros, cons, and risk associated with that, >> Mm-hmm. >> and the growth. If you haven't watched that video, we'll link it below to watch it. Amazing customer story. You even got in at the end, a plug for VMware vRealize, (Sheryl laughing) which shocked me. I had't heard of vRealize >> Right. >> testimony for a multi-cloud customer before. So, I want to >> Absolutely. >> talk about the past two years. You've been at Oracle Cloud >> Mm-hmm.
>> for about a year. When we first looked at Oracle Cloud infrastructure, specifically the VMware solution, it was a limiting range of options from CPU fit and finish. Talk to me about that journey and a product and expanding the offering. >> Absolutely. So, you're absolutely right. When we first came out, we had a 52-core per host configuration. >> Keith: Lot of course. >> And that's a lot of cores, 156 working in these three host environment. So, over the last nine months, we have really worked to bring in more compute shapes.
We partnered with AMD and we now have a 32, a 64, and 128-core configuration >> Mm. >> for our customers. And what is included in that is two terabytes of memory and 54 terabytes of storage. So, this is great for memory intensive workloads, because you can really get a 20 to 25% performance boost from running. And this is from, and I'll quote Tim Brazil with this, is that, they took a customer billing application that was running, and they had a 25% boost by just moving that to the AMD shape, the 64-core configuration.
So, we are hearing really good things from our customers about that flexibility. There's some customers that are looking for a lower core count, like a 32-core configuration and maybe they're doing DR, and other things that don't really require that compute processing power. Or they want to start out smaller and then upgrade over time. So, that's what this really is offering is more processing power, obviously, at scale, but you can start lower and then move up. Yeah. So, that's been great.
And then, also, storage has been another area that we've really focused on. So, OCI services are there for our customers. I mentioned the data tier and how important that is, but also file storage and block storage. So, we have recently announced our OCI file storage. You can scale up to eight exabytes. We have block storage support that we just announced this week. And that uses the OCI block storage which is a better price point for a lot of customers.
>> So, there's a couple interesting points that you just made within that very short description (attendee laughing) of the product improvements in OCVS. >> Just have an office there. >> One, the denser compute allows not just for better performance, but denser VM allocation. So, even if you don't have memory intensive workloads, every VMware admin or architect knows the more memory, the more CPU course you can put in a denser spot the more VMs you can host, which drives efficiency, which drives cost savings.
But you said something that piqued my interest around the Oracle block service being supporting OCVS. Because when we did our study, one of the first things we noticed was that, well, you guys gave us route access. Oracle has this pretty decent network that gives me L2 access to my Oracle compartment, my Oracle Cloud, the rest of my services. Why can't I just create block services on there and attach it directly to vSphere? You gave me the keys. And a lot of the product team was like, shh, shh, shh.
(Sheryl laughing) >> Sheryl: Right. >> We're not saying you can't do that. So, talk to me about that service and how customers are taking advantage of it, because one of the main complaints or challenges with some of the other VMware cloud solutions is storage and going deep, and having a lot of attached storage to those solutions. >> Absolutely. And so, local NVMe storage is great. And OCVS certainly includes vSAN and our stack, but our customers want to scale for... I'm sorry.
They want to scale horizontally. They don't want to scale vertically. >> Right. >> And so, with vSAN, our customers have said, hey, I don't want to be adding hosts to that. I want to scale out horizontally. So, block storage and file storage together is really providing that along with object storage, which will be something that we'll start to move forward with our backup partners. In the next few months, you'll see some additional announcements there. >> So, that's pretty exciting.
This, again, is there another reason to come to VMware Explorer, so that customers can go directly through those backup partners, have those conversations push those vendors along or partners along, so that they can deliver these solutions faster? I'm a big proponent of just putting pressure on our IT partners. Talk to me about that land and expand opportunity. So, I have my vSphere landscape in OCVS. Oracle has this extremely fast connectivity to not just Oracle's network, but also to Azure. Can you talk a little bit about that partnership, and how customers are leveraging OCVS, other Oracle Cloud services, or even multi-cloud services?
>> Absolutely. I think, you heard from Itzik that he's got his production on GCP. He's got his AI/ML workloads on Azure for his developers to take advantage of that. And he's got his development platform that's on OCWS. So, we have a lot of customers that are also using Azure. They have different workloads that just are much more ideal for that platform. In which case, they can now take advantage of OCI and our Fast Connect. And that's available in 11 regions today.
So, uniquely, OCVS is available in 39 regions. I didn't mention this before, but 10 of those regions have dual data centers, so that DR can actually take place in-country. So, there's a large number of customers that are looking at that saying, wow, in our country, we need to keep our data there. So, we have a lot more banks now that are really coming to OCVS and they're taking advantage of multi-sites in their own country. And we recently expanded also to Mexico.
So, we have a few really strategic partners and customers in Mexico, and they are really using OCVS for VDI workloads and for DR, and other VMware use cases. >> Yeah, I think, that key in 39, you beat me to a question which is where is OCVS available? Because one of the challenges that we've seen with other solutions is the availability of the VMware compartment in every region. Talk to me about the importance of Oracle having every service that they offer available in every region in the world.
>> That's what our customers are expecting. Oracle's customers are very large enterprises in some cases or smaller startups. And having all services available in all regions, it just gives them the confidence that as something is added that they need, that they don't have to wait. They don't have to ask their product manager for roadmap of when this new shape or new storage service is going to be available. They can count on Oracle to be there on day one. And we've seen that that is one of the reasons why people are turning to the OCI platform.
>> So, last question is around movement aversion. 0 available when it's available to the cloud providers to implement. But one of the challenges, or maybe, I don't know if it's an advantage or disadvantage. What happens when there's a new version of the product? And either the customer isn't ready to go to it or the customer doesn't have the bandwidth to test the next version of vSphere. >> Absolutely. 7. But OCVS will continue to help our customers migrate, 'cause they want to take advantage of the new features.
x as it comes out. So, we will continue to support all of these versions for the foreseeable future, while we're working with in place upgrades to improve the migration experience, so that it's much more seamless. So, most recently in our summer release, we've announced in place upgrade support, to improve the experience as they migrate. We've also been working on a lot more management and monitoring and notification services. So, we're tied into the OCI monitoring or notification engine, so that as there is an outage, they'll get an automatic notification through Slack and PagerDuty, and continue to be able to add hosts in a more seamless way and tie in.
So, as we go forward, I expect more in terms of manageability, with the same flexibility that you already have. So, we're not going to take away the right to stay on the version that you are on, but we're going to make it a lot more seamless for the patching and the upgrade experience. >> And I'm sure there's a little carrot-and-stick. If you want those sweet, sweet 64-core systems, move to newer version of vSphere and you get the advantage of better performance and more features.
Sheryl, thank you for joining the CTO Advisor coverage of VMware Explorer 2022, here on the CTO Advisor Studio. Stay tuned for more coverage as we talk to builders, maintainers, operators of hybrid infrastructure environments in the premier conference for the conversation.
