VMware vSphere Key to Slicing Red Hat’s Kubernetes Head Start

VMware is betting that its Kubernetes plans will quickly surpass that of rival Red Hat thanks to its already established base of vSphere customers. VMware is betting that its Kubernetes plans will quickly surpass that of rival Red Hat thanks to its already established base of vSphere customers. Speaking at a Raymond James Technology Investor Conference this week, VMware COO Sanjay Poonen told attendees that the company is focused on getting its current base of “hundreds of thousands” of vSphere customers to bite on its Kubernetes efforts. According to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the session, Poonen said the company’s goal was to get “tens of thousands of customers over the next several years” to adopt its container technology running on top of its vSphere virtualization platform base. Those container technologies include VMware’s Kubernetes-focused Tanzu platform, its Project Pacific that embeds Kubernetes natively into vSphere, and its pending acquisition of Pivotal and its Pivotal Container Service (PKS). This combo will converge containers and virtual machines (VMs) and add a container runtime into the hypervisor. Poonen explained that those products – combined with VMware’s vSphere and NSX networking platform – are what differentiate it in the market. “That’s a weakness for some of the other players who don’t have the strongest software-defined networking,” Poonen said. “Our ability to integrate into vSphere provides the ability for us to take Kubernetes — integrate it in vSphere — harder for someone who doesn’t have a strong base of 70 million odd virtual machines.” VMware’s Kubernetes growth plans will then better position the company as it takes on rivals in the market. Poonen cited Red Hat as the most obvious target, acknowledging that the firm has had “a little bit of a head start” when it comes to offering its Kubernetes-based OpenShift commercial offering. Though Poonen did note that despite that head start, Red Hat had “only” around 1,000 customers on that platform. “Maybe the national anthem is still playing in this game of containers and it’s very early,” he said of the market. Despite Poonen’s pointed comment about OpenShift adoption, that platform played a significant part in IBM’s decision to acquire Red Hat for $34 billion. IBM’s most recent quarterly results showed just how important that deal could be for the vendor. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger earlier this year chided IBM for paying too much for Red Hat, stating that when it comes to Kubernetes, VMware has “better assets.” Those assets include recently acquired Kubernetes-focused companies Heptio and Bitnami, and its pending acquisition of Pivotal that combined cost VMware less than $3 billion.