Digital transformation requires a new kind of network: VMware

VMware NSX is a new form of network which doesn’t take away the need for physical fabric, but just like what server ESX and several virtualization products did for compute by creating virtual CPU and virtual memory, NSX allows to create virtual network capabilities like virtual switch, virtual router, virtual load balancer, virtual firewall on demand. In recent past, NSX has seen decent uptake: it has nearly 2,000 customers worldwide. In an interview with EC’s Mohd Ujaley, Raghu Raghuram, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Software-Defined Data Center Division, VMware, explains why digital transformation require a new kind of network. He says, “Digitisation is the reality. Not only do the government and enterprises have to digitise but digitisation also means that the pace at which organisations innovate has to go up dramatically.  In order to do that, businesses need a different kind of infrastructure model, that is where NSX comes in.

What are the differentiating proposition that NSX brings in government and enterprises journey of digitisation?

Digitisation is the reality. Not only do the government and enterprises have to digitise but digitisation also means that the pace at which organisations innovate has to go up dramatically.  In order to do that, businesses need a different kind of infrastructure model. Most companies who want to roll a new application out on website face security and load balancing problems. Isolating the external facing application from internal facing applications is important for businesses. All of these things become huge challenge in any enterprise journey towards digitisation.

Therefore, companies that do this digital transformation requires a new kind of network. That is where NSX comes in. It is a new form of network where it doesn’t take away the need for physical fabric, but just like what server ESX and several virtualization products did for compute where we created virtual CPU and virtual memory, NSX allows to create virtual network capabilities like virtual switch, virtual router, virtual load balancer, virtual firewall. And, most importantly, one can create them on demand – the application will be deployed with a firewall around each database and each application.  Those kinds of things are impossible to do in a physical world.

What are the verticals that are driving the demand for NSX?

The demand is coming from across the board – IT companies, the big Indian outsourcing companies, gaming companies are adopting it. Telcos like Bharti and banks like SBI are adopting it.  If you look at ITES companies like Wipro, TCS and the majority of the IT sector are adopting it. We are also seeing uptake in manufacturing organisations. Basically it is coming down to the same thing, if you are doing a private cloud and if you are doing all the automation why go 80% of the way and then be stuck for the last 20% where the network becomes a bottleneck.  Almost two things have not changed in the last couple of years – network architecture and security.  That’s what NSX dramatically changes.  So, now people have an opportunity to redo it . We have a very large FMCG and insurance companies who are building a private cloud and from the get-go they are using NSX.

Is security also a reason why organisations are considering NSX?

Yes, it is one of the big reason. As you know worldwide there has been a large number of data breaches.  All these data breaches are happening against user data or account data. In many cases things like credit cards and personal information are stored in these databases. These are databases that are not web-facing, these are inside the corporate network. It turns out that the traffic inside the corporate network is 80% of the total traffic.  Now, the traffic going in-and-out of the data center is only 20% of this traffic.  But if you look at the security spend, 80% of the spend is for in-and-out and only 20% on the east-west traffic. This happens because of technical reasons. The number of firewall ports and the amount of traffic that has to go through firewalls.  If one has to secure each and every database each and every VM, it will be prohibitive – very expensive.

So, what we have done, we have now built all this capability into the virtual network layer. The other thing that is driving issues is that these days every company has a wireless LAN and it’s very easy for anybody to get into the corporate network. It is a flat network. Once you are in – you are in. Using NSX, it’s possible to do what we call micro-segmentation and secure the network at different level. That’s the reason, why you see there is rapid adoption. The rise of security is driving more than 60% of the demand for NSX.

How has been the response to NSX in India?

NSX is virtually new. It has hit a stride in the last two years.  We introduced it into the market three years ago, but it took a lot of time to incubate.  So, everything that I’m talking about especially these new things are probably within the last 12 months. Since NSX offers compelling  proposition for digital transformation as a result it is seeing phenomenal growth. We have nearly 2,000 customers worldwide. Some of the largest banks and largest telcos are using it. The growth has been over a 100% year-on-year, every quarter.  In India we have seen a similar impact. So, organisation that’s building a cloud in order to service a digital transformation business problem is deploying NSX, because it is not possible to build an agile cloud without solving the networking problem. That is why organisations like National Informatics Center (NIC) uses NSX in India.

What kind of opportunity do you see in government projects?

We see a pretty massive opportunity in both the central government as well as the states.  Like enterprises, digital is not possible without cloud, and governments, obviously being large enough, for all sorts of good reasons want to run their own cloud.  Now, the only way to build the cloud is to use technologies like server virtualization and network virtualization. We happen to be the only supplier in the marketplace that supplies all of these components.  We not only supply them, but also integrate them together into a cloud offering that governments or private enterprises consume.  So, as a result we have seen a lot of adoption by government on their private cloud initiatives and this forms a sort of foundation on top of which the government roll out their applications or e-business citizen facing applications.

If you look at NIC’s MeghRaj cloud, more than a significant proportion of MeghRaj runs VMware’s cloud solution.  And they are opting NSX as well and they have been growing faster than any private cloud in India.  Today, any department, any Ministry in India that wants to host an application to Digital India initiative by default goes to MeghRaj.

Every time there is a new launch by PMO or anybody our boys are sitting in NIC making sure that everything runs, because you know, everybody is interested.  So, in that sense from a central ministry perspective, we’ve seen a lot of success with what NIC has done.  They have really built an enterprise grid cloud offering.

The interesting thing about government that we are seeing is the concept of the mobile cloud era is so true on government. Last time we met the Prime Minster, he said the only way that he is going to reach every citizen in this country is by making sure that access is through the mobile device on one front and then having a cloud at the backend.  So, if you look at states like Andhra Pradesh today, we have mobile devices that have been deployed all across the state.  In order to secure them, we are now integrating AirWatch with NSX as well.  So, you can get a secure connection all the way from the mobile device to a very specific app right at the heart of your data center.

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