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Automating the Enterprise Cloud

• Evan Kirstel

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Automation is fundamentally transforming how enterprises build, deploy, and manage applications in the cloud. Dive deep into this evolution as we speak with Bert Toma, the product management leader for Broadcom's Tanzu division, fresh from the groundbreaking announcements at VMware Explore.

The conversation reveals how Tanzu is revolutionizing enterprise cloud environments with an automation-first approach that dramatically simplifies the developer experience. "What they want to do is say I have my code, I'd like this to be in production," Bert explains, highlighting how Tanzu eliminates infrastructure complexity without sacrificing control or visibility. This shift enables development teams to focus purely on innovation while the platform handles deployment, availability, security, and scaling.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 represents a significant leap forward, consolidating management tools with compute, networking, and storage capabilities. Tanzu integrates seamlessly as a "push-button accessory," providing both platform-as-a-service for applications and comprehensive data intelligence solutions. But perhaps most exciting is Tanzu's answer to persistent organizational silos. The new Tanzu Platform 10.3 introduces services management that allows teams to self-publish microservices for organization-wide discovery and use, finally delivering on the collaboration promise of cloud-native architecture.

Looking ahead, Bert shares his vision of the rapid transition from cloud-native to AI-native applications – where AI-driven workloads connect securely to enterprise data. This evolution promises to accelerate innovation while maintaining governance and security. Want to stay ahead of this transformative curve? Listen now to understand how automation is reshaping enterprise cloud capabilities and what it means for your organization's future.

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Speaker 1:

Hey everybody On the heels of Broadcom's VMware Explore, checking in on some of the amazing innovations and news insights from the big week, an incredible few days, including with Bert from the Tansu division of Broadcom. Bert, how are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm well, Evan.

Speaker 1:

Thanks very much for having me having me Well, thanks for being here. Maybe introduce yourself, and how does the Tanzu division fit within Broadcom's broader vision for cloud automation and VMware Cloud Foundation?

Speaker 2:

Great, yeah, thanks, I'm happy to do that. So I lead Tanzu's product management area, and Tanzu is, within Broadcom, part of the VMware software organization, and for us we provide platform as a service that sits right on top of VMware virtual infrastructure, as well as Tanzu Data, which is our data intelligence platform that provides the data intelligence suite, again sitting on top of VMware's private cloud infrastructure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, when you talk about this vision of automation-first infrastructure. It's an amazing journey you're on. What does that mean for enterprises, kind of day-to-day trying to simplify their operations on the ground?

Speaker 2:

You know, when we talk with customers and I've talked to dozens, including those at Explore one of the main imperatives for all organizations now, especially with AI, is accelerating business velocity and therefore software velocity. That really helps your business, and the need to automate the mechanism of getting ideas into code and that code into production is really paramount, and that really is the mission of Tanzu, both for applications, with our PaaS solution, as well as for data, with our data intelligence platform.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. And there's so much demand for automation right now, from app development, cost control, you know, provisioning, lifecycle management, on and on, but more. Where do you see the most demand and requirements coming from?

Speaker 2:

The biggest and, you know, strongest driver for all of this. Like you know, as we talk with the lines of business and app development teams, what they want is a very simple way of getting their code into production Right. So they don't want to deal with the infrastructure and the clusters and the management of pods. What they want to do is say I have my code, I'd like this to be in production, I'd like this to be deployed in highly available configuration, like there to be at least three replica instances. I want it all to be encrypted, all the communication to be encrypted. You take care of it, and so the goal that we have is to make that interface to the development teams as simple as that. You just go and you say this is what I need, here's my code, make it happen, and we take care of all of the machinery. There's no Terraform templates to configure. There's no tinkering with clusters. It's just. Here's my intent, here's my code. Please make it happen. That's what we do.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. It's just. Here's my intent, here's my code. Please make it happen. That's what we do. Amazing, and vcf 9.0 is now out and um. So much there. What are some of the highlights? As far as pansu driven automation updates capabilities that you think customers are most intrigued by- so.

Speaker 2:

So vcf 9 represents a really big step forward for VMware. It's the consolidation of the management tools as well as compute networking and storage, and what we have done is really work to be a push button accessory option for VCF customers. Where you know I am working with VCF, I have a private cloud and I need a really simple interface for my app teams and I'd like to enable platform as a service, and so that's where Tanzu platform comes in. I really would like to have a data solution that allows me to put all of my enterprise data, whether structured or unstructured, on my private cloud, and that's where Tanzu Data Intelligence comes in. So that's what we did. We've established these solutions that lock fit right on top of VCF9. And it takes advantage of a lot of the new innovations that are there in VCF9.

Speaker 1:

Amazing and IT leaders and practitioners are kind of worried about automation, meaning losing control or visibility, the granularity. What's your best advice for getting that balance right?

Speaker 2:

the control, but also with visibility. So, with both our Tanzu platform, our PaaS solution, and Tanzu Data Intelligence, we provide a full set of dashboards that gives you full understanding of what's happening inside the solution and it gives you also control, with leverage, so I'm able to set guidelines and policies that establish guardrails for the development teams and the data scientists, so that I can maximize the usage of my scarce resources and skills right. So we provide the ability for you to have both visibility and control and provide those, you know, advanced, automated services to all of your constituents, all of the application teams out there.

Speaker 1:

Automated services to all of your constituents, all of the application teams out there Amazing, and the global enterprise landscape is still very siloed. Companies are very siloed internally and breaking those down is often harder done than said. What's one of the toughest barriers to kind of end-to-end automation when it comes to those silos, and how can you help maybe?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, actually I take that into two parts, right. So, on the application side, one of the chief aspects of these silos is the ability to know what microservices are available, that across my organization, such that I can leverage the ones that are there. One of the things we're very proud about that we announced at Explorer is Tanzu Platform 10.3. In 10.3, one of the highlight capabilities is services management, where application teams can self-publish into the platform and now make it visible by all other app teams such that they app teams can easily bind and leverage these microservices. And that's kind of the promise right of cloud native microservices. Application design is where you build a microservice that can be leveraged and collaborated with by all other application teams, and so that's what 10.3 Tanzu Platform provides Fantastic.

Speaker 2:

The other aspect, if I could just mention very quickly, is on the data side, and so there's a big problem of data being fragmented and siloed, and it was interesting I was talking with a bunch of customers. One of the terms that I heard for the first time was data modernization, and it's the idea of being able to take that fragments, those silos and cohesively bring them in, whether they're structured and they fit within a data warehouse, whether they're unstructured and they fit within a data lake, being able to pull them together into a logical hole such that I can access them. And this becomes really important, especially when you get into AI, because AI, the promise of AI, is that I'm able to establish these agents that have access to my enterprise data wherever they might live.

Speaker 1:

That's fantastic. Clearly, containers and Kubernetes are sort of table stakes. Now what is your approach to managing these at this very large enterprise scale?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great question. Tanzu Platform is one of the pioneers in container-based application development. So this idea of microservices we were really at the forefront of this when we established our platform over 10 years ago and we're really committed to this as well. We think that, you know, container-based cloud-native applications is really table stakes for application development going forward, and so our aim here is to make that as simple as possible and, as I mentioned, you know, want to make sure that as a group, as your application teams as a whole, they can work together, so it's not just you working and building your microservice in an island, but collaborating with the teams around you.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic, Love the vision and you've delivered so much capability today. But if you were to look out a year or two, three, you know what is a fully automated Hounsou powered enterprise cloud look like. How close are we to your vision.

Speaker 2:

You know, for us, and I'm sure everyone else right, ai is changing the nature of the game for all of us, is changing the nature of the game for all of us, and what we've been seeing is a very fast transition from what we've been calling cloud native to AI native. And what does AI native mean? It means the connection of AI-driven workloads, applications and agents and it's governed and safe connection to enterprise data, and that is kind of the name of the game. So the things that we are working on in Tanzu are the use cases and the capabilities that allow you, as an application team, to really build your applications with the ability to safely access your enterprise data, and that's with data intelligence. So bringing these worlds together to accelerate the development of AI-based applications.

Speaker 1:

Oh, so exciting. So, now that you have your feedback on firm ground after VMware Explorer, what are you excited about over the next weeks and months?

Speaker 2:

You know it's always so energizing to talk with customers face-to-face. We got a lot of great feedback and excitement around 10.3 of Tanzu and Tanzu Data Intelligence, and so what I'm really thrilled about is providing that access to our customers and getting their feedback once they have their hands on the product themselves, and we're going to really build on that success going forward into next year.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. Well, good seeing you there, good seeing you today, and thanks so much for sharing an update on the vision and the big idea you bet.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me, Evan.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, thanks everyone for listening, watching and sharing the episode, as always.

Speaker 2:

Take care.