What's Up with Tech?
Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!
With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!
What's Up with Tech?
Driving IT Innovation: VMware and Broadcom's Vision for Private Cloud and AI Integration
Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com
Unlock the future of private cloud and AI with insights from Richard Munro of VMware by Broadcom. Discover how businesses are driving IT innovation, as they demand faster, more agile solutions than ever before. This episode promises an exploration of VMware's bold vision to mirror the flexibility of public cloud services within private environments, fueled by strategic investments from Broadcom. Richard unveils the evolving landscape of private AI solutions, highlighting their growing importance for cost efficiency and operational agility. Learn how cutting-edge infrastructure, including GPUs, empowers businesses to extract greater value from their data, marking a pivotal renaissance in the sector.
Navigate the complex journey of cloud migration and technology adoption with us, as we prioritize simplicity and efficiency. We tackle the challenges and pitfalls of transitioning systems, examining how simplifying processes can transform technology transitions into successful ventures. The conversation centers around a vision driven by simplicity, aiming to inspire listeners to embrace change with confidence and enthusiasm. Richard’s passion for innovation shines through, encouraging a renewed sense of purpose for those embarking on or continuing their cloud journey.
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And it's Evan here at VMware Explorer and I'm with Richard Munro of VMware by Broadcom. Richard, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm very good, very tired, but very, also energized, buzzed. I mean it's been another great conference, so great meeting customers and partners, and yeah, you know, I think we've been, I think it's been. It's really interesting with the change. I think people are resonating with the strategy, the shifts that we're making. I think they are starting to see that value, and that's really what my role is about as well making sure they can see that value.
Speaker 1:And the value is immense. There's a lot of energy and enthusiasm, excitement, a lot of people here, partners, customers and a lot of new announcements, so let's dive right in. It's all private AI and private cloud architecture is the name of the game. Maybe give us an update on the vision and strategic approach to the private cloud architecture here at Explore? What are some of the themes that you're seeing taken away?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's for all the complexity and all the noise, it's actually a relatively simple story. It's a story that we've had for a long, long time, or the industry and customers have had for a long, long time. It was too slow, couldn't deliver, because IT used to tell the business what to do. Right Now, business tells IT what to do and that was a shift. That happened, but private deployments were just too slow. So people suddenly realized that the world could be different when they looked at the public cloud services, wow, this operates really differently and they realized that you didn't have to do IT in that kind of slow way. But of course, public clouds are different. That's the point, they're different. What was really making that shift was that people were willing to invest in a platform and say I'm not going to fiddle with that platform, I'm going to accept that this brings me a ton of benefit and I'm going to do things with it. But, like I say, those public cloud services, they came with a whole bunch of challenges around everything that people want to do, tons of value for certain things, lots of challenges when you think about everything at scale. So the simple story side of it is wow, that's really good, can I have that, but can I have it privately, like I run everything else in a way that is compatible, in a way where I do have the customizations, I have the right level of security for me, the way where I have financial transparency and I can predict my costs and I can write. So it's a fairly simple request.
Speaker 2:And as an industry, we then saw a proliferation of services that you might call, or that did call themselves private cloud and, generally speaking, they either weren't private or they weren't a cloud. And what's happened is it's a bit like, you know, we're here in Barcelona, right. So imagine if you go to New York and you suddenly say, well, I want some really good patatas bravas, right. Then there's a bunch of shops selling patatas bravas and you go to them and go oh, that's awful, that's not what I wanted at all. I don't like that. You'll eventually stop asking for Patatas Bravas. And what happened is so many solutions have called themselves private cloud but not delivered in one way shape or another that people have kind of stopped asking for it. But the need, that request, that simplicity of that ask, has actually not gone away.
Speaker 2:What Technologies moved on? The ability to do really robust self-service backed by automation. That didn't exist in private clouds before, or private technology. Now it does the ability to have a core platform and access all these advanced services with it things like AI services. That wasn't possible before, it's now possible. And what we've really done with the Broadcom focus and investment, what that did because this was always our vision too it gave us the permission and the resources to make that really big strategic shift, to say we're going to stop incrementally tackling this problem. The time is right, customers need us. We're going to switch ourselves to a private cloud platform and we're going to make sure the technology is there to do that. And that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1:And you're doing it at scale. It's really amazing and there's quite a renaissance happening, not just here but out in the marketplace for private cloud leading private AI, which is, of course, the big buzzword these days. Talk about some of the tangible advantages in terms of cost efficiency, operational agility and everything that Hawk laid out at the keynote in terms of private AI and what that means for customers.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, look, private AI is a really interesting one because it almost matches that public cloud statement, right, which is well. I want all the greatness from this technology, but I want it in a way that I can control where I can be. You know where the value is easier to obtain. So when you start thinking about private AI, you look at well, how do I get this value for me? Because AI is getting value out of data, right. It's just that where we used to have a little pickaxe, right Now we've got a mining rig because it's so easy to access and extract that value. But it's important, it's our value. So we have to get that the AI technologies to the data, not the other way around.
Speaker 2:And once you do that, you know it's quite complicated and it can be really expensive to actually build these AI-enabled applications to tune AI models to your data. There's a lot that goes into it and when you break it down, the way to actually get stuff done and simplify, it is really good performance out of infrastructure, not just the GPUs, but across all the infrastructure. If you rent an AI service, you're paying kind of a benchmark for a GPU all the time Run an AI application. You don't need 100% all the time. Right Now, if you imagine I've got 10 AI applications, you really want to be able to distribute resources to those areas that need it. So you've got high performance. You've got optimized performance. You can drive to drive the cost down.
Speaker 2:You want it to be able to be kept protected because it's my data. I want it to be my value. I don't want to risk my data going anywhere, and so what you end up with is saying, if I want to do AI privately and these are all the things I need to do it well, those things you need is a private cloud, and we're seeing it. It's a wonderful use case because it really exemplifies the value of private cloud. We have this scoped idea of private AI with highly demonstrable benefits across every spectrum that you care to think of, including cost across every spectrum, that you care to think of, including cost. The things that are enabling that are exactly the same characteristics that enable our customers to benefit from a private cloud. So it's like, if you're gonna handle this AI wave that's coming, you better have your private cloud house in order, because otherwise it's gonna be overwhelming.
Speaker 1:Great point, great insights. We're all facing in the enterprise industry a modernization challenge, some industries more than others. I do a lot in healthcare and there's a real challenge around technical debt and how to prioritize investment and modernization. What are some of the obstacles you see clients facing when moving to a more modern architecture?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a great one. And actually I was just with the NHS earlier. They were on one of our sessions and they were in a difficult place. They had a lot of technical debt, a lot of very serious issues with obsolescence and things like that that ultimately impact patient care. These things trickle up. It's really important.
Speaker 2:So, yes, we build this big capability of the private cloud platform and we just had that great chat about AI, but the reality is that the first benefit comes just from sorting out some mess. So in their case, we don't like the word migrate, so they had all this infrastructure they need to do something with. You can just hoover that up because we have import capabilities right. That brings that brownfield kind of arena just in. It doesn't change anything. Nobody gets hurt. In fact, all that happens is you suddenly start getting all these benefits and it's really low-hanging fruit, but it's high volume, high volume.
Speaker 2:So that getting started is the key thing to say look, I'm actually I agree. This is a direction I want to go. Once you do that, there's an enormous return that comes very quickly just because you just move things to it and the natural benefits kind of come to the surface. Then it's actually carrying through. This is where the real challenge starts. It's then carrying through and saying I am going to change my operating model now that I understand what the potential of this platform is. That's when we start getting into people and process. It's why we've invested so heavily in that package of services and capabilities to help people go through that process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great to hear. I'm learning a lot about new compliance and data sovereignty issues here in Europe and beyond, and that's a hot topic here at Xplore. Maybe talk about how you help clients navigate the regulatory environment and new requirements that are always emerging, while trying to balance innovation and serving users and customers. That's quite a challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but again, it's another advantage of doing this thing as a consistent private cloud platform. By definition, you have customization and control over an environment that's a private cloud platform, like VMware Cloud Foundation. You have that control. So then it's really down to under what's the operating model I wish to deploy this with. So that's where you can.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting about sovereign services. So everyone knows you need sovereign services because we know we need compliance with whether it's regulations or tax rules or whatever we need that. So you need sovereignty of data. But there isn't actually a really clear definition of what a sovereign cloud is. So we work with customers, government bodies, industry bodies, our partners to come up with something that we think, look, this is kind of in the right direction and that's you know. Then we're able to stand up these sovereign cloud services with people who commit to what we said. Look, well, these are the non-negotiable elements anyway, so let's get that in place and it gives people that ability to know that this service, this service deployment, has been designed to give me, you know, compliance against things like sovereignty.
Speaker 2:Now the other interesting thing again we've just talked about how AI and private cloud are related. So it's interesting in Europe that the, you know, the EU and government bodies, etc. Are beginning to see data in the same way that you might consider steel manufacturing, which is you need to keep a level of capability and control that data because it's an asset the ability to you know, to have that data and to get the value out of it. It's actually a sovereign asset. That's the way line of thinking going. Now, again, there's no clear definition yet on what that is, but we've already done the work of providing sovereign cloud services and, as we discussed, private AI fits very well with a private cloud, so it's a natural extension to go into sovereign AI. So we're just, you know, we don't set these terms, but we're delighted and honored to be working with the people who are trying to work this out at a national, international level, and we're thrilled that that same private cloud concept and characteristics is what's helping us deliver in those more specialized ways as well.
Speaker 1:That's phenomenal. Yeah, it takes a global perspective these days to kind of understand things and clearly Broadcom's a big player on that stage. What are you most excited about as your vision for the future? The roadmap's extraordinary. You've doubled down on R&D. You've got so many features and so much functionality being rolled out and new products and services. I'm getting a huge tidal wave of info here at Xplore, but what are you excited about in this?
Speaker 2:fascinating journey you're on. I'm tempted to go into some of the most advanced things that we can do because they are just great. I love them. I get excited about them. You can probably tell when I was talking about AI, but if I'm honest, I think the thing I am most excited about is even further improving our ability just to bring workloads in really easily and just maintain that lifecycle with next to nothing effort Things just being patched, things just being controlled.
Speaker 2:Let's make the basics easy. If we make the basics easy, that's when we get to do fun stuff, and I couldn't choose between the fun stuff. So the bit I'm most excited about is the increased innovations in how we just make everything easier and easier to get to for our customers. You compare that to saying, oh, maybe this isn't the path for me. You're going to have to do how much migration work and what do you end up with? Something that's probably worse than you had before. What's the point? We want to move the needle here. So helping people get on board and adopt is the bit that drives me. I love that vision of simplicity.
Speaker 1:Well, that's kind of a mic drop moment. So thanks so much for sharing a busy few minutes away from the melee here at Explore and good luck on the mission. It's onwards and upwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. Thanks so much for having me. It was great to see you and catch up, albeit briefly. Thanks so much, richard, take care, thank you.