VMware-VeloCloud acquisition pushes VMware into SD-WAN territory

#Virtualization has moved from the server throughout the #datacenter to the #cloud. @VMware is trying to keep pace by breaking into the #SDWAN market, but it has run into a few challenges along the way. The acceptance of public cloud has sparked interest in SD-WAN offerings. In November, VMware acquired @VeloCloud Networks, an SD-WAN service provider. The VMware-VeloCloud acquisition provided VMware with a new offering to address users' pressing network needs, and has also pushed the vendor a bit out of its comfort zone. SD-WANs have rapidly gained traction. "The enterprise WAN edge has become the focus of new architectural approaches," said Joe Skorupa, vice president at Gartner. By the end of 2018, SD-WAN appliances and x86-based virtual customer premises equipment will be the basis of more than 40% of WAN edge infrastructures -- compared to traditional routers -- up from less than 2% two years ago, according to Gartner.

http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/feature/VMware-VeloCloud-acquisition-pushes-VMware-into-SD-WAN-territory

VMware Confirms Layoffs Post VeloCloud Buy

@VMware, which recently completed its purchase of @VeloCloud Networks, is laying off what it says is a small percentage of its workforce. The #virtualization company confirmed that it made the cuts this week. It wouldn’t say how many employees were cut, or the types of positions impacted. “We can confirm that there has been a small reduction in force at VMware this week,” said @MichaelThacker, VMware spokesman. “Workforce rebalancing is a continual activity across VMware’s businesses and geographies to ensure that resources are aligned with business objectives and customer needs. We continue to recruit in areas of strategic importance for the company.”

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2018/01/11/vmware-confirms-layoffs-post-velocloud-buy/

VMware Fires On All Cylinders: NSX, vSAN, Compute Add To Growth While AWS, VeloCloud Opportunities Take Shape

#VMware 's business is growing thanks to innovation in its cloud and software-defined product strategies, but the company is only getting started, CEO @Pat Gelsinger told investors on Thursday. The company in its third fiscal quarter 2018 saw growth across the board in its #NSX #softwaredefinednetworking and #vSAN #softwaredefinedstorage businesses, and even in its flagship #vSphere compute business as clients look to merge on-premises and cloud environments, Gelsinger told investors on the @VMware earnings conference call. The expansion will continue as businesses adopt new technologies, including the company's #VMwareCloud on #AWS strategic relationship with @Amazon Web Services and capitalizes on its planned acquisition of @VeloCloud Networks, he said. "Our strategy to transition from a compute virtualization company to providing a broad portfolio of products and services across cloud, mobile, networking, and security, is proving successful as we continue to drive forward with our plans," Gelsinger said. The CEO said VMware had moved quickly to expand its VMware Cloud on AWS with new hybrid cloud capabilities, disaster recovery services, and an expansion to its second AWS availability zone, all of which will make it more suitable for enterprise production environments. [Sponsored Suggested Post: IoTConnex Virtual Conference On Demand Discover new IoT research and insights. Hear solution provider success stories. Find your IoT opportunity.] "We expect production use cases to ramp quickly as we move forward," he said. Gelsinger said that revenue stemming from its new AWS relationship would not be material for fiscal 2018 or fiscal 2019. However, he said, the cloud, in general, will help drive the company's revenue going forward. That relationship will also drive VMware's on-premises revenue as well, Gelsinger said. He said it is rare today to find an enterprise customer without at least some AWS experimentation. At the same time, VMware is used by nearly 100 percent of enterprises. As a result, VMware Cloud on AWS would allow customers flexibility in investing n both on-premises and cloud environments, he said. Even as cloud opportunities are on the horizon, newer technologies like IoT and edge computing are likely to bring many compute applications back from the cloud to on-premises infrastructures where they can be handled more quickly than moving the data to the cloud for processing, Gelsinger said.

http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300096216/vmware-fires-on-all-cylinders-nsx-vsan-compute-add-to-growth-while-aws-velocloud-opportunities-take-shape.htm

VMware's VeloCloud Acquisition Rekindles SDN Battle With Cisco

Virtualization and #cloudcomputing provider #VMware made its interest in thenetworking space known in recent years by venturing into the #softwaredefined networking market a few years ago. The company launched the @VMware #NSX in late 2013, which merged its existing #vCloud networking product line with the network virtualization platform of @Nicira (which it acquired in 2012) into a single product family. In the years since, VMware has witnessed strong demand for NSX, with the number of customers growing from just under 100 in 2013 to over 2,600 this year. Earlier this month, VMware announced that it will acquire #SDWAN startup @VeloCloud to further its presence in the #SDN space. This is obviously a concern for networking hardware vendors, since the software-centric approach has the potential to make branded high-end networking equipment redundant in the long term. Consequently, this has given a huge opportunity to white-box hardware manufacturers to sell cheaper hardware. As a result, established hardware vendors must compete with software companies (VMware in this case) to build high-end software to match evolving industry requirements and simultaneously match falling hardware prices. Back in 2014, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger mentioned that Cisco branded VMware to be its “public enemy number one” following the NSX launch. At the time, VMware also reached an agreement with and @Cisco’s rival @Juniper Networks which leveraged VMware’s NSX to virtualize Juniper’s networking equipment. ADVERTISEMENT FedEx. We deliver to over 220 countries and territories. From where it’s sourced to where it’s used, FedEx helps deliver global e-commerce. Promoted by FedEx A key market space within SDN is the software-defined WAN (or SD-WAN) market. WAN (wide area networks) is the branch of networking that deals with connecting remote offices and computing devices to a central server or data center typically over a large geographical region. This is different from local area networks, which connect devices limited to distances within a building or a campus with locally managed network interconnects. SD-WAN, or software-defined WAN, uses cloud computing and virtualization technology by separating the hardware involved from its control mechanism. The SD-WAN market can potentially disrupt the traditional enterprise router market

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/11/27/vmwares-velocloud-acquisition-rekindles-sdn-battle-with-cisco/#71c4664f17bd

Dell EMC's Cook On New Tier Thresholds, Potential VMware Program Integration, VeloCloud, And Pushing Partners To Go 'All In'

'Let's Just Keep Our Foot On The Gas' As the joint #DellEMC #PartnerProgram approaches its one-year anniversary, the company is pushing new incentives into the channel to meet new revenue thresholds with a "call to action" to drive storage sales. Leading the channel charge for bringing together Dell and EMC's partner marketing efforts is Cheryl Cook. "We are focused on share gain. We know that comes at the expense of our competitors," said Cook, senior vice president of global channel marketing, in an interview with CRN. Cook speaks with CRN about a variety of topics from channel strategy and new tier revenue thresholds, to pushing partners to strictly sell @DellEMC offerings and what @VMware's acquisition of @VeloCloud means to partners.

https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/cloud/300095641/dell-emcs-cook-on-new-tier-thresholds-potential-vmware-program-integration-velocloud-and-pushing-partners-to-go-all-in.htm

IHS: Cisco, VMware in SD-WAN Market ‘Two-Horse Race’

#Cisco and #VMware are in a “two-horse race” for the No. 1 software-defined wide-area network ( #SDWAN) vendor spot, an IHS Markit report says. The SD-WAN market totaled $137 million worldwide in the first half of 2017, according to the IHS Markit Data Center and Enterprise SDN Hardware and Software Biannual Market Tracker. But the market is forecasted to reach $3.3 billion by 2021.

Recent deals by @Cisco and @VMware set up these two vendors to compete for the top spot.

In August, Cisco completed its $610 million acquisition of @Viptela, which was ranked as the No. 2 SD-WAN company in the first half of 2017. Earlier this month, VMware bought SD-WAN revenue leader, @VeloCloud, for an undisclosed amount.

VeloCloud’s revenue reached $42 million, or 31 percent market share, in the first half of the year, according to IHS.  Viptela’s totaled $16.9 million, or 12 percent.

“VMware and Cisco have acquired the two SD-WAN market share leader positions, making the SD-WAN market a two-horse race for the number-one spot,” said IHS Markit Analyst Cliff Grossner in a statement. “And we could see even more consolidation as vendors set out to add SD‑WAN to their capability sets, especially since the technology is key to supporting connectivity in the multi-clouds that enterprises are building.”

Both service providers partnering with SD-WAN vendors to deploy overlay solutions, and virtual network function (VNF)-based solutions becoming more closely integrated with carrier operations and business support systems, are driving market growth.

The report also found that data center and enterprise software-defined networking (SDN)revenue for in-use SDN-capable Ethernet switches, SDN controllers, and SD-WAN increased 5.4 percent in the first half of 2017 compared to the same period last year.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/ihs-cisco-vmware-in-sd-wan-market-two-horse-race/2017/11/amp/#ampshare=https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/ihs-cisco-vmware-in-sd-wan-market-two-horse-race/2017/11/

VMware to Enter SD-WAN Market With VeloCloud Buy

@VMware, building on the strength of its #NSX network virtualization technology, is buying @VeloCloud Networks as it extends its ongoing networking competition with @Cisco Systems into the fast-growing #softwaredefined #SDWAN market. VMware officials announced the deal Nov. 2, saying it will enable the company to build out its network virtualization portfolio and add branch networking to give it a more complete presence from core data centers to the network edge and out to the cloud. No financial details were released. The deal is expected to close within the next few months. Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) is the fastest growing segment of the larger network virtualization space, which also includes such technologies as software-defined networking (SDN) and network-functions virtualization (NFV)

http://www.eweek.com/networking/vmware-to-enter-sd-wan-market-with-velocloud-buy

Cisco Invests in SD-WAN Provider VeloCloud

#VeloCloud announced this week $27 million in new Series C financing, bringing its total to $49 million. This latest round includes funding from #Cisco Investments and is good news for VeloCloud’s partners, says Michael Wood, the company’s VP of marketing. “VeloCloud relies on dozens of channel partners worldwide to drive a majority of our rapidly expanding business," Wood told Channel Partners. “This recent investment round enables VeloCloud to accelerate new product development and customer rollouts and ramp up channel sales and marketing in expanded theaters to meet growing global demand." VeloCloud takes a cloud-based overlay approach to software-defined WAN, enabling IT or partners to connect offices, data centers and cloud services using a mix of private lines, broadband Internet and LTE links. The driver for #SD-WAN is flexibility — sites may be added much more quickly and flexibly versus nailing up static tunnels. Partners using VeloCloud’s SD-WAN may select public, private or hybrid cloud versions of the software. The company also offers appliances for branch offices and data centers.

Jeff Reed, VP and GM of Cisco’s enterprise infrastructure and solutions group, said Cisco is committed to open networking, and interoperability with VeloCloud’s solution will provide an attractive option for Cisco Intelligent WAN customers looking to transition to SD-WANs.{ad}

Mike Fratto, a principal analyst on Current Analysis’ business technology and software team covering the enterprise networking and data-center technology markets, expects SD-WANs overall to grow in popularity this year as contracts for private lines expire and IPsec VPN and other WAN technology products are replaced.

Expect jockeying for position.

“Competition among SD-WAN vendors will be fierce," says Fratto, and he sees service providers, which don’t want to be marginalized to mere pipes, entering the fray with offerings of their own. Fratto says Cisco will also gain from this deal.

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/news/2016/01/cisco-invests-in-sd-wan-provider-velocloud.aspx