VMware Denies Cloud Spin-Off Rumors – Keeps Focus on Platform-as-a-Service

Rumors of a VMware/EMC spin-off are “completely unfounded,” according to a company executive, who sees little chance that VMware will change its approach to cloud computing during its current transition in leadership.

Earlier this week, the company announced that VMware CEO Paul Maritz is being replaced by EMC COO Pat Gelsinger. But the rumors didn’t stop there. Reports circulated that Maritz would head up a VMware spinoff combining cloud assets from VMware and parent company EMC.

“None of that is founded,” VMware’s VP of Cloud Services Matthew Lodge emphasized in an interview Thursday.

Lodge’s denial addressed not only the possibility of a spin-off, but also the existence of Project Rubicon, allegedly a joint EMC/VMware Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) project mentioned by various media outlets (including this one) earlier in the week. Lodge also described such a project’s existence as “unfounded.”

Paas, Not IaaS

In fact, IaaS is not really where VMware wants to be. According to Lodge, VMware’s strategy is strictly centered on Platform-as-a-service (PaaS), represented by its flagship open source PaaS project Cloud Foundry.

IaaS is used when cloud clients outsource all of their operational hardware elements, such as storage, networking and servers. The virtualization and operating system layers are also included. The Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider actually owns and maintains the physical hardware, but the client has to provide additional tools, such as middleware software to manage their servers. PaaS, on the other hand, provides all of those features and the middleware and database software… so all PaaS clients have to do is bring their applications and data.

Perhaps the best-known example of IaaS in action is Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides customers virtual machine images with a preloaded operating system. The customer has to manage each virtual image, maintaining and upgrading it as needed. Third-party middleware like Eucalyptus is used to provision the virtual machines.

Rather than go head-to-head with IaaS providers like AWS, Google Compute Engine and Microsoft’s Windows Azure, VMware is taking the PaaS role in the cloud sector.

Cloud Foundry is the center of VMware’s two-fold strategy:

First, VMware capitalizes on its huge vSphere virtualization market share (estimated to be in the 80% range), encouraging that existing customer base to migrate their existing virtual infrastructure to the cloud. Because it’s a PaaS solution, an app that works on a “local” vSphere virtual machine will easily move to a cloud-based vSphere VM.

The other side of the strategy is targeting new app developers and demonstrating the advantages of PaaS over IaaS for developers keen on the cloud.

“AWS and Google are not good for moving existing apps to the cloud,” Lodge claimed. “They are better for developers writing new apps from scratch.”

Help Moving Apps to the Cloud

Rewriting existing apps to be cloud friendly can be a massive undertaking. It can be done, certainly: Lodge related how Netflix’s development team essentially rewrote all of its code to take advantage of cloud computing. “They basically wrote their own PaaS, which shows how talented they are.”

Mere mortals may not have that kind of time or energy, Lodge said, which is where Cloud Foundry comes in. It handles all of the virtual machines and infrastructure issues for the developer, so the app they’re coding doesn’t have to.

Thus far, VMware’s PaaS-centric strategy seems to be working. By focusing its attention on working with partners in the PaaS space, the company is not grabbing cloud headlines to rival Amazon, Google and Microsoft, but it has a fast-growing presence.

“We’re on over 130 clouds in 26 countries,” Lodge boasted. “Not even AWS has that kind of footprint.”

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, seems to be the current feeling in the halls of VMware. If Gelsinger sticks to this course under his tenure, don’t look for an IaaS play from VMware anytime soon.