VMware Announces a New Datacenter Operating System in Las Vegas
 Last month saw nearly 14,000 virtualisation specialists from around the world heading for Las Vegas for VMware's annual VMWorld conference, joined by leading datacenter solutions vendors with new products and strategies to announce. This year's show was particularly important for VMware's new President and CEO Paul Maritz, appointed to replace Diane Greene and Medel Rosenblum, co-founders of VMware, in July this year. As Microsoft gathers speed with its Hyper-V solution, a key feature of Windows Server 2008, the new CEO will need to ensure that VMware remains tightly customer-focused to maintain its market leadership. Maritz knows Microsoft well, however - he spent 14 years working for the Redmond software giant before retiring in 2000. He then founded Pi Corporation, a cloud computing forerunner acquired by EMC, which holds 85% of VMware.
An Operating System for Cloud Computing
Maritz kicked off by announcing nothing less than a new operating system: VDC-OS, for Virtual Datacenter Operating System. VDC-OS manages all the resources of a virtualised datacenter, clearly differentiating it from classic hypervisor-based systems focused on managing individual hardware platforms. By managing distributed applications, VDC-OS targets interconnected multi-site datacenters. In other words, it's hoping to become the Cloud Computing OS. For Maritz, VDC-OS is a key element in boosting datacenter performance, an idea he illustrates using the example of Google's redundant datacenters supporting collaborative tools tightly linked to internet services. More and more enterprises are looking at web-based software delivery and SaaS, according to VMware, who's VDI (Virtual Desktop Interface) with Thinstall technology now supports laptop PCs and other web devices. Remote services and software distribution are clearly key focus areas for VMware.
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Microsoft Fights Back with Windows Cloud
With the announcement of a strategic cloud computing initiative by VMware - not to mention the Google Chrome browser, which looks very much like a prototype client OS - the pressure has been on Microsoft to respond. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, has taken up the challenge. According to Ballmer, Windows Cloud is the operating system of the future, and Windows 7 the best client. So what exactly is Windows Cloud? For the moment, it's little more than a project codename. A detailed presentation is expected at the end of October. In the meantime Ballmer talks about a "software plus services" model, distinct from the "software as a service" (SaaS) approach of competitors such as VMware, Google, or Salesforce.com. Rather than moving entire application suites - MS Office or Dynamic CRM, for example - into the cloud, Microsoft sees certain components being executed on line in a virtualised, replicated datacenter, so that the user has transparent, secure access to enterprise data no matter were they connect from. While it's true that Microsoft's approach offers a clearer model for the support of legacy client-server and web-based applications, the number of vendors investing in "true" cloud computing is enough to impress any CIO: Citrix, Novell, RedHat, Sun, Cisco and EMC, to name just a few. The Cloud Wars have barely started...
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