VMware’s vRealize products have been designed with flexible, extensible architectures that allow them to be easily adapted and extended to meet the unique needs of our customers. This includes support for new multi-vendor virtual, physical and public cloud infrastructures and management tools. In addition it also includes the ability to customize our automated process to meet the unique needs of our customers. The products have multiple types of content to extend the product into areas such as physical infrastructure, network, storage, security, data center infrastructure, or even other hypervisors and cloud frameworks. We work with many of our technology and solution partners to have a world class ecosystem of complementary solutions available to our customers. Partners work closely with VMware to ensure the content provides the best experience for our joint customers. Having one place to publish, consolidate and consume content helps customers and delivery partners to engage directly with the entire ecosystem. The Cloud Management Marketplace on the VMware Solution Exchange (VSX) connects the management and automation ecosystem creating a meeting place for customers, technology partners, solution partners, channel partners and VMware to contribute and consume content.
Building on the existing marketplace, VSX is now going to enable listing content from community developers. Customers, partners and individual developers will now have the ability to have their open community based content listed and referenced within the VSX. We will now be listing community content in the following vRealize product areas (based on those that have public SDK or in-product extensibility such as LogInsight (Content Packs), Orchestrator (Plug-ins & Workflow Packages), Automation 6.2 (Lifecycle Actions, Custom ASD Services & API Integrations and Cloudclient scripts) and the Operations 6.0 (Dashboards, View, Reports, Alerts Definitions, Symptoms, Recommendations, Super Metrics, OS Agent Plugins and Application Agent Plugins).
The process for a developer to request a listing will be simple
- Create a listing on VMware communities under the specific product and community content area. This listing can link back to a website of your choosing for posting your actual content where you want to (like your blog)
- Filling the worksheet describing your solution
- Sign the Developer Agreement
- Send worksheet and Developer Agreement to [email protected]
Since launching in 2013, VSX has been very successful with over 60 partners publishing more than 100 extensions to the VMware products. Building on the success and responding to the increased demand from VMware customers, partners, employees and developers, the VSX platform is now available for community developers to create listings for key VMware management products. The community content will be differentiated from our formal partner content through different content categories. We should all realize that VMware Technology Alliance Program partner content will in many cases be certified and will be handled through a facilitated support model between the partner and VMware. Community content on the other hand will be on a as is basis (VMware will not support the community content). The power of the community will curate the content (through social means – https://communities.vmware.com/welcome ) and of course the voting mechanisms on the VMware Solution Exchange.
The content itself can be hosted on the developer’s favorite sites such as their blog or through existing locations. The actual content files will not be on Solution Exchange, but will link back to the developer’s choice of location. The platform provides greater freedom for individual developers at partners or customers to publish content in a forum where the power of the crowd can help curate the solution and expedite the development of higher quality content without incurring additional costs.
In conclusion, the key to the success of a Solution Exchange is the community that provides the platform for developers and users to collaborate and create higher quality content faster. The value of the content increases many fold as the community grows and ultimately providing customers with productivity tools quicker.
Learn how to request a listing and additional resources
- Visit the VMware Solution Exchange website for evaluation and content
- If you have any questions about the VSX, send email to [email protected]
- Here is the link to learn how community content listing works. You will be requested to fill in a document with your listing metadata and agree to our Program for Developers
- Access the community content developer guide here
- Access the worksheet for documenting your listing here
