I recently published a post on the official VMware vSphere blog that describes the architecture of the product (Project Pacific) my team has been working on for several years now, much before I even joined the company. I shared the link to the article on Twitter, Linkedin and other social media, and surprisingly enough, my friends actually read it! The biggest piece of feedback I got was: “What the hell are you talking about, I don’t understand a word of what you do!” I guess it’s a fair observation, considering the world of B2B infrastructure software isn’t exactly a topic of conversation at dinner parties. What I work on is deep into the weeds of tech, even for folks that work in the industry.
But I’ve been getting this question more often recently with people asking me why exactly I’m excited about the product we’re building. Truth be told, it’s hard to explain why putting Kubernetes into vSphere and vSphere into Kubernetes is so cool if you have no idea what Kubernetes or vSphere is… It’s like one of those interview questions that asks you to explain a technology like you would to your 80-year old grandmother. Having to start from scratch explaining containerization and virtualization makes this even more challenging. Hence, this blog post is my attempt to record for myself and for my well-meaning friends and acquaintances why my product matters. If you know anything about Kubernetes or vSphere, please stop reading now because I’m sure my analogies will bug you with their inaccuracies. With that disclaimer, let me get to it.
Let’s say there’s an apartment building with a bunch of apartment units on each floor of the building. The owner of the apartment building hires a rental management company to take care of day-to-day operations. This company is responsible for renting out each individual unit to tenants, providing additional services like plumbing water and electricity, housekeeping of the common spaces, waste disposal etc.
So in this situation,
- The apartment building = actual hardware sitting in a datacenter
- The owner of the apartment building = company that is a VMware customer
- Rental management company hired by owner = VMware product vSphere
- Tenants = actual users of the product (typically employees that work at VMware customers’ companies)
Tenants get access to individual units (or VMs) and can do whatever they would like with them within the limits set by the rental management company. This is what VMware’s core product has been forever and we’re a great rental management company. But with this new product we’re launching soon (aka Project Pacific), we’re taking things a step further.
We’re now offering tenants the ability to access their units like they could before, but we also now offer units that are like Airbnbs (containers)! These new types of units are fully-furnished, easier to manage, and ready to go. For tenants that don’t want to deal with the hassle of acquiring an apartment unit or signing a long-term lease, an Airbnb-style option is a faster, easier way to go. This makes life so much simpler for tenants as well as for folks that own the apartment building. No longer do they have to worry about units going empty and tenants have a wealth of choice in terms of picking a unit that suits their lifestyle.
What’s more, you don’t need another management company to deal with these Airbnbs, it’s all VMware. Win-win all around. This is a first in a very entrenched industry and that’s what makes Project Pacific so special. I’ve barely touched the surface here, but if I went any deeper into this analogy, I would have confused myself! I hope this gives the non-technical folks out there some insight into what we’re building.
Image credit: https://philly.curbed.com/2019/3/21/18275727/developers-plan-7-story-apartment-building-in-italian-market