VMware Explore 2024 | Brendan Kinkade | IBM

Clips
News
More from VMware Explore 2024

Brendan Kinkade

VP, Technology Partners

IBM

IBM and VMware: Strengthening a 20-year partnership amid Broadcom’s acquisition

It’s been eight months since Broadcom Inc. acquired VMware, a move that has prompted plenty of analysis. Among many other subjects, this year’s VMware Explore has been a chance to unpack what’s going on with the cloud and cloud service providers around VMware, including when it comes to the IBM-VMware partnership.The partnership goes back 20 years. It has involved investment and joint innovation, according to Brendan Kinkade (pictured), vice president of strategic technology partnerships at IBM.Brendan Kinkade of IBM talks with theCUBE about the IBM/VMware partnership

play_circle_outline Long-standing partnership between IBM and VMware

play_circle_outline Different ways to consume VCF with IBM Cloud

play_circle_outline IBM's Hybrid Cloud & AI Strategy: Simplifying VCF Negotiations, Saving Costs, and Offering Support Services

play_circle_outline Positive feedback from customers at VMware Explore 2024

Info
Transcript

Brendan Kinkade | IBM

Brendan Kinkade

VP, Technology Partners IBM

Brendan Kinkade, Vice President of Strategic Technology Partnerships at IBM, discusses the long-standing partnership with VMware, focusing on VCF offerings and joint innovation projects. IBM offers multiple ways to consume VCF, including VCF Hosted, VCF as a Service, and VCF On-premises Managed. IBM's collaboration with VMware aims to provide flexibility, cost savings, and support to clients. The partnership with VMware has evolved, with a shift towards co-selling and joint planning. IBM's broad range of cloud services complement the VCF stack and provide add... Read more

explore Keep Exploring

What is the history of the partnership between IBM and VMware? add

What are the four different ways to consume VCF with IBM Cloud? add

What are the benefits of partnering with IBM as a Cloud Service Provider and utilizing VMware for private cloud services? add

What is the new model that IBM is implementing with VMware to work more closely with cloud service providers? add

bolt Powered by CUBE AI

Brendan Kinkade | IBM

search

>> Hello and welcome back to VMware Explorer Live from Las Vegas 2024. We're continuing to unpack what's been going on in the ecosystem are around VMware, and with the changes that have occurred since the Broadcom acquisition. And I think I'm really pleased to have this guest on because I think, again, long-standing VMware relationship. We've known each other in different circles for a number of years. I have Brendan Kinkade, who's the Vice President of Strategic Technology Partnerships at IBM, joining me to help me unpack what's been going on. We're going to continue down the path of what's going on with the cloud, and cloud service providers around VMWare. But Brendan, why don't you help us understand things, change things stay the same. What's going on with VMware, Broadcom and IBM?

>> Well, look, IBM and VMware have a long-standing partnership. We've been working together for over 20 years now. And IBM was the first partner to bring VMware to the public cloud back in 2016, I think it was. And since that time, we've grown that business and really come out with a set of robust offerings. So highly secure, highly resilient, compliant even. So we've invested, we've done joint innovation. We have a joint innovation lab where we've had probably 20 some odd projects come through, and those have resulted in some of the foundational components of the cloud environment that we run VCF in today.

>> Yeah, no, I can attest to that because in a prior life, I remember when you started adopting the whole VCF stack and one of the things you adopted was Secure Boot. And I know it threw the product that I had off into a rail, and we had to actually figure out how to actually support that. But you guys were early on with VCF. So how did the licensing changes that everybody's talking about this week really impact, or not impact what you guys are up to?

>> Well, look, we were very early adopters of VCF. We saw from customers that they wanted more than just naked vSphere. They wanted more of the stack. They wanted NSX, they wanted vSAN, they wanted vRealize. So we were already naturally doing that with clients. And VCF was just, I would say the natural evolution of that. Now it's the only option really, right?

>> It definitely is.

>> So for us, it wasn't a big shock. In fact, we knew that this would be a period of transition when Broadcom acquired VMware, but we were fully committed. We never wavered at all. We had full belief in the stack, and the value that we could bring to clients pretty uniquely around that stack.

>> Yeah, let's get into that because I think one of the things that we're seeing is that some other CSPs we've talked to, and MSPs, they're doing a lot around that with their ecosystem, but it's also how they're offering it. Of course. There's multi-tenancy and there's other pieces. How is IBM going to market with VCF from a cloud perspective?

>> So I think we've got a unique position there, and that is we have four different ways to consume VCF with IBM Cloud. We have VCF Hosted, which is a dedicated private cloud instance. We have VCF as a Service in a multi-tenant environment. We have bring your own subscription. So we are one of the few VMware by Broadcom Pinnacle partners, who are really enabled to allow clients to bring their own subscriptions from on-premises, from wherever they may be onto our cloud. And then we have what we call VCF On-premises Managed with Bridge to Cloud, so a hybrid environment.

>> So I think that to me is one of the big things, is that you are offering the Bring Your Own license. And I know that that's only available to the Pinnacle partner category of that. And I think one the things that it also offers you, is you're able to actually white label and bundle up as well and be an aggregator for other MSPs.

>> That's right. That's right.

>> And Hock has been very clear on how he wants to work with partners. I think anybody who didn't think Hock was going to execute, doesn't understand what Broadcom has done over the number of years now. And I think that he's been very clear that he wants to give the partners space to make money on top of the software and he wants to sell software. Are you seeing that in the relationship as it's transpired over the last few months?

>> Look, when Broadcom acquired VMware, I sat in the partner briefing, the executive briefing, and I heard what they were planning to do. And now I can say confidently, that they've really executed on that plan. So with partners, he said, "I'm going to segment my accounts and partners are going to work with us. We're going to co-sell with you." And that's actually come to fruition. We are actively co-selling with VMware today, where we're doing joint account planning, we're sharing leads, we have regular cadences around pipeline, and they're bringing opportunities to us. And we've closed business. So that to me, the proof's in the pudding and we're seeing the proof there. And I think it's only going to accelerate further, now that they've got their own systems in place and they've made the transition internally.

>> Yeah, and Hock, we had an analyst meeting with him at Q&A, and he went into that and talked about moving from SAP to Oracle, and getting their internal systems right. And that's not a small feat to put it mildly either. But again, when you start to look at it, he really seems to be, like you said, focused on really getting people to use the full stack. And it would seem that IBM, given that your experience with VCF is one of the longer-standing relationships with the VCF stack, would help him achieve that.

>> Look, for many years we were a VMware VCPP partner. We were the largest VMware VCPP partner. Now we're a CSP, right? A Cloud Service Provider. And as in that capacity, we're seeing a lot of opportunity. We're seeing that clients, Hock has talked about repatriation of workloads from public cloud to private cloud. And this is a private cloud, it's a managed environment, and we are very good at running data centers. We're very good at setting up resilient multi-zone regions that can support the most critical workloads. And sometimes when clients move to the public cloud, they evacuate their data centers. So there's really no home to move back to. So this is a great option, to be able to deploy very quickly and to get value from your VMware environment. So we're very excited.

>> And I think one of the things that I see for this as well, is that the fact that I think he may have pissed off a few of his cloud service is hyperscaler partners with his comments to others on repatriation. And we see it though, we see actually a lot of net new applications being built in the cloud service provider areas, a lot with what they're doing with private AI and some of the other things up the stack. But you also have your own ecosystem, and it would seem that you've brought that to bear as well, to give some optionality to your customers as well.

>> We have indeed. And look, for years, our mantra has been OpenShift, Red Hat OpenShift runs great on VMWare. A lot of OpenShift on-premises runs on VMware. We've enabled that in our cloud. We also are focused on, IBM's strategy is around hybrid cloud and AI. So we were one of the first out of the gate with VMware at Barcelona last year, where we talked about private AI and enabling IBM WatsonX to run on VMware private AI.

>> And it seems like that, again, a lot of it has to do around flexibility. But I also noticed in the blog that you did jointly with VMware, and it was also the cost savings aspect of it as well. And I think for the folks here who are getting the shock of renegotiating their VCF licenses and things like that, how do you look to the greater group that may not be in that top 3,000, 2,000 that is really the Broadcom commercial type aspect. But for the next 10,000 that Hock talks about, how do you see them looking to people like IBM to leverage your experience to get that cost savings?

>> So there are a couple of ways to do that. One is, look, by nature, when you move into a cloud environment, you can optimize your cores, you can optimize your workloads. You can streamline some of what you may have been doing on premises, and so there's savings in that. I think for some of those who are... There's probably a segment of partners who are still looking for options as to how to acquire their VMware licenses. We're a great option for that. We can help you. We can white label to you. So there's a lot of ways that we can work together with both clients and partners, to bring value and to also optimize those VMware environments to drive cost savings.

>> And it would look that Hock is also looking to utilize you from a support perspective in being able to support those customers.

>> That's right.

>> As they go through. Trust me, we read Reddit and people are still, there's been some bumps in the road on the support side come between the two companies coming together, on VMware and Broadcom that is, not IBM. But it would seem like that this is a good place where customers who want to optimize and want to really-

>> We take level one, level two support. We've been doing that for years, right? And we operate some of, I would say mission-critical workloads for some of the world's largest enterprises today.

>> And I think, again, like you said, with the combination of things like OpenShift, there's OpenShift AI, there's also, you have the WatsonX, there's a whole number of different, InstructLab, which Matt Hicks is a big fan of. And getting it out in 10 weeks was amazing that when they announced it back in March. You have to be seeing that again, IBM is not just the cloud, but they have so many parts and pieces from the Red Hat side, from the IBM side, from the storage side. And your partners, like the Veeam's and others that are out there as well.

>> We have over 120 cloud services that we can deploy on VMware.

>> Yeah, that's awesome. Because I think when we were talking to Hock, and to what they were talking about was picking off the top 20 or 30 and offering them. So help people understand how you go beyond what VMware is and help them get more out of VCF than that?

>> Well, I think it's having that, I'd say a rich catalog of cloud services and offerings on top of the VMware environment. It's a one-stop shop. You can get a variety of services and applications available to you, together with I would say world-class support, and an environment that is truly enterprise grade.

>> And I think that when you look at VCF, I think a lot of people are still trying to break down those silos. Because hey, I'm a Cisco, Arista, what have you, shop? And now I have to bring in NSX. And this is something you've already tackled, and can help by the fact that they don't have to break down those walls or what have you.

>> That's right.

>> And they can bring it to you, and in which way they want to bring and engage.

>> That's right. If you break it down, you have to stand it back up. And we've already stood it up for you.

>> It would seem that as people look at their infrastructure and are going through these negotiations, this could help them shortcut some of that negotiations on the VCF. Because we were sitting in there with several customers over the course of this week, and one of the things they were saying was that they're not of the size, that they have no negotiating power. And I think, funny enough, it's I think not just about that. And so they're looking for potential alternatives to the VCF stack. But if they come to you, you have all of that nailed down, the VCF plus you have your other stacks as well in there as well.

>> That's right. I think we have the broadest range of options from a pure VCF perspective. We have a wide range of, I would say, catalog options of cloud services that can drive additional value, and help consolidate and reduce costs. And look, we're excited about where this partnership's going. It has been, I think everyone had trepidation, everyone had questions and concerns. I think we're now seeing it turn the corner to the point where there are clients who are tried and true VMware clients. You can see them right all around us here, and that they're going to stick with VMware. And we are sticking with VMware. We believe that from the IBM cloud perspective, there's a great path forward here. It's simple, it's useful. You get value from it. So yeah, I'm really bullish on where we're going from here.

>> And you guys have the largest booth over in the hall there as well, which is something to talk about. But I think, again, it's an interesting thing. But last word, how have the conversations with the customers that are here been going this week?

>> Look, they've been going well. I think that, as I said, there's some unique value that we bring. This new model where the VMware sellers are actually motivated to work with cloud service providers. This is a brave new world for us, to be able to go hand-in-hand with VMware into clients and say, "Hey, we're working together. Here are your options. Here's what we can do for you." It's really different from the way we've operated in the past, right? In the past, IBM was highly independent. We're IBM, we're highly independent. We have great enterprise sellers. We were out there selling this, and we rarely interacted with the actual VMware account teams. And that's just flipped around now. It's changed the dynamics of the partnership.

>> Well, I think that's a great place for us to end this on. I think really it's one of these that we want to get out there, that there shouldn't be so much fear with the change. Change is always hard, but I think it's understanding others have gone before you and that there is a path there.

>> And if you're committed to a VMware path, and VMware is part of your strategic plans for the future, IBM Cloud is one of the very best options you have.

>> Well, there you go. Well, I appreciate you coming on board here. So thanks for coming on and look forward to talking to you again soon.

>> Yeah, I look forward to seeing you. Yeah, thanks.

>> Absolutely. And thank you for sticking with us here at VMware Explore 2024 live from Las Vegas. We'll be back to you in just a minute with some more breaking content. Stay tuned.