In the fast-growing edge compute landscape, SD-WAN, SASE, and multi-cloud technologies continue to play significantly transformative roles. At VMware Explore Las Vegas, analyst Zeus Kerravala sat down for a video interview with Abe Ankumah, VP and GM of the VMware SD-WAN and SASE business, and Saadat Malik, VP and GM of the VMware Edge business. The three experts discussed the technological advancements, challenges, and future prospects within this space. Their conversation centered on edge computing, what the software-defined edge and data centers have in common (and don’t), the role of VMware SD-WAN™ and VMware SASE™ in enhancing connectivity and security in distributed edge environments, and the significance AI and machine learning hold in the landscape of edge computing.
The trio also discuss the announcement of VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator™, a groundbreaking platform that enables customers to deploy applications at the edge efficiently, leading to more effective business outcomes.
Watch the full video to gain insights straight from these industry leaders.
Here are edited and condensed highlights from the conversation.
What is the edge?
Zeus: We’ve been talking about “the edge” for a long time. Saadat, define the edge for us and tell us about some of the recent trends that you’ve been hearing about from customers.
Saadat: Edge computing is anything outside of the cloud or data center environment. It is defined by the unique constraints and challenges of deploying solutions and generating business outcomes. Customers are now seeking a frictionless way to deliver outcomes at the edge with top line/bottom line goals in mind. Manufacturing has undergone a massive transformation, with factory floors becoming virtualized and software-defined edge becoming more commonplace. Retailers are seeking ways to deploy solutions in stores without setting up full data centers. The edge is experiencing massive transformation as more use cases emerge.
Zeus: Abe, the same question to you, but around SD-WAN and SASE. These are interesting because they’re both mature and emerging markets, and there are a lot of changes happening. VMware is one of the pioneers in the space through the acquisition of VeloCloud. What happening in that space now?
Abe: The access networking and security market is undergoing a significant transition due to the adoption of multi-cloud and real-time applications, and hyper-distributed organizations. A new class of applications is being consumed at the edge, requiring secure connections and software-defined edges for deployment. These changes bring ease of use to highly distributed environments.
How are SD-WAN and SASE important to edge deployments?
Zeus: From an edge perspective, what are the importance of SD-WAN and SASE?
Saadat: Edge compute is at the center of our edge capabilities, enabling customers to run their applications effectively. VMware provides four additional services to support this capability: management, security, storage, and communications. These services form a continuum which comes together in one place for our customers, creating a comprehensive offering.
Zeus: Tell us more about the big announcement of VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator.
Saadat: VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator is a game-changing platform that gives customers friction-free access to applications at the edge. Rather than just providing orchestration and configuration, this platform ensures security, enabling customers to benefit from artificial intelligence at the edge. With VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator, software-defined edge is now a reality – transforming customer experience and business outcomes.
Zeus: Abe, SD-WAN and SASE fall under the broader definition of software-defined edge. VMware was the first to software-define the data center. Talk about the similarities and differences between software-defined data center and the software-defined edge.
Abe: Data centers and the software-defined edge have one commonality: they both need to be software-defined for agility, removing the need for forklift upgrades. The edge is highly distributed which requires a pull-based orchestration approach, different from the data center. We talked about the analogy of painting a bridge: by the time you’re done, you have to start over. In push-based orchestrations you have to wait for everything to be finished before you can start again, which doesn’t really represent the nature of how the edge operates. Zero-touch provisioning capabilities found in VMware SD-WAN are being applied to compute and security at the edge.
The role of edge, SD-WAN and SASE in multi-cloud
Zeus: One of the big themes at VMware Explore is multi-cloud. Multi-cloud is a funny term because most customers historically have used multiple clouds, but not true multi-cloud where they use multiple cloud providers. How do SD-WAN and SASE fit in that overall multi-cloud vision?
Abe: Multi-cloud is an integral part of the highly distributed enterprise. It includes SaaS, public infrastructure and private data centers powered by VMware technologies. SD-WAN enables seamless access to applications, data and workloads across clouds. VMware has very deep integrations with the hyperscalers, including our global PoP network that has close co-locations within the hyperscalers. The same definition of multi-cloud is applicable to edge environments where workloads are distributed.
Zeus: Same question to you, Saadat: how does edge computing fit into multi-cloud? Is it a part of multi-cloud, or adjacent to it?
Saadat: Edge is one of the environments that benefit from the multi-cloud experience that our customers want. It’s not separate from that environment, it’s part of that overall environment that our customers operate within. We have challenges at the edge that cannot be solved just by being on-premises. AI and machine learning is one great example of challenges that require cloud functionality.
Future plans for VMware at the edge
Zeus: Can you share some future plans for VMware around edge, SD-WAN and SASE?
Saadat: We are seeing massive transformation on the manufacturing plant floor. VMware is going to bring customers real-time fully redundant capabilities that allow them to replace the hardware-centric environments that they have been using in their factories and convert them into software defined environments which are more flexible, easy to upgrade, more secure, safer for workers, and can improve their bottom and top lines. On the retail side, we announced Retail Edge. A retail store can run around 20 separate applications. Each application often requires a separate hardware and software stack. We’re helping retailers combine all of that in one integrated efficient model. The combination of artificial intelligence and Edge compute will also be a game changer for our customers. VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator is going to make that happen.
Abe: You will continue seeing innovation from us around the distributed enterprise and remote access. SD-WAN supports more than branch enterprise and branch connectivity, it supports remote access with zero trust principles using VMware SD-Access. SODA stands for software-defined access – and it connects to a PoP, so you’ve got SODA POP. To Saadat’s point about AI and ML and generative AI, you’re going to start seeing some intelligent assist capabilities from VMware around the edge as well. we’re super excited about these innovations and we can’t wait to tell the world more about it soon.
