We do things differently so you can do things differently.
What’s the biggest mistake communication service providers (CSPs) make when embarking on digital transformation? Focusing too much on the digital, not enough on transformation. If you’re evaluating new approaches to your network and operations, it’s tempting to zero in on technology capabilities. Capabilities do matter, of course, in your ability to execute on a given project. But if your goal is to truly transform your network and operations, the motivating philosophy of your partners matters even more.
Just like people, companies have their own natures. There are certain perspectives, certain ways of operating baked into a company’s DNA. A partner may offer the right capabilities, but if their long-term vision doesn’t align with yours, that choice could come back to bite you. Because your transformation project may end up guided by their motivating philosophy, not yours.
A traditional network equipment provider (NEP), for example, may make an earnest effort to help you adopt a virtualized cloud environment. But at the end of the day, they exist to sell you hardware, and that’s going to inform the guidance they provide. At the other end of the spectrum, a hyperscaler may offer impressive cloud capabilities. But their entire reason for being is to get you to use their cloud. These motivations aren’t malicious; they’re just who these companies are. But if you’re trying to transform your network into a multivendor, multi-cloud platform for software-driven services—and you should be—can you really count on them to get you there?
At VMware, we provide some of the best digital capabilities in the industry. But that’s not why our CSP customers love working with us. Rather, it’s because our DNA—our reason for being—aligns more closely with their transformation vision than anyone else. Let’s take a closer look at why.
Click to view full size infographic
Cloud software and virtualization is in our DNA.
Wherever you are in your transformation journey, virtualization and cloud-native infrastructure are likely part of your plans. We bring state-of-the-art capabilities in these areas to help our customers acclimate to cloud-native, software-driven environments. But we also bring a different approach than others in this space because we’re coming from a different place.
We’ve been rooted in the world of hardware disaggregation and cloud-based operations since our inception. Traditional NEPs are still getting their feet wet in modern software. But we grew up in the world of Agile methodologies and DevOps. That informs every aspect of how we approach our customers’ problems.
At the same time, we combine that cloud software DNA with extensive telco experience that no hyperscale provider can bring. That’s a magic combination. And it means that we understand, in a way no other vendor can, what’s actually needed to build agility in multi-cloud, multi-vendor CSP environments. Our experience not only helps us create the most effective technologies but also helps our customers adapt to a new way of doing business. Through knowledge transfer, our service provider partners reduce transformation resistance by learning about software-centric approaches with platforms built to reduce transformation risks.
We put our customers—and our customers’ customers—first.
Every vendor claims to be customer-centric, but that’s often not how things play out. When bidding for a project, most vendors start with the technology they want to sell and then back their way into adapting it for the customer’s problem. We take the opposite approach. We start with your customers and end-users and then build the right solution to meet their needs.
This shouldn’t be surprising. When you grow up in Agile software development, you just get used to looking at problems from the end-user’s perspective. Like any Agile “story,” you start by expressing what users want to do, and that dictates every choice you make. If it sounds like we think of ourselves as part of our customers’ software teams, we do. We view our engagements as partnerships, not transactions.
We enable open, multi-cloud ecosystems by default.
In the last few years, it seems like a dam has finally broken, with CSPs now demanding open, multivendor-capable solutions. This is great news. You can be more innovative, more secure, more in control of the prices you pay when you can work with any vendor. But just as that’s the case for virtualized and containerized network functions (VNFs/CNFs), it also holds true for clouds.
Too many parts of the network still function in silos, operating within one vendor’s self-contained cloud. The problem is even worse when it comes to public cloud resources. Among the biggest advantages we offer CSPs is that we are truly cloud-agnostic. We’re Switzerland when it comes to the public cloud and edge resources you use—for good reason. Google is a great company. Microsoft and Amazon are great companies. Each can do amazing things. So… wouldn’t you want to be able to work with all of them?
We’ve been bringing multi-cloud environments to enterprises for years. And here again, we combine this multi-cloud approach with deep telco network expertise. We’re the only vendor who can enable carrier-grade service delivery from core to edge to RAN to public cloud, working with whichever vendors you choose. In fact, we’ve already certified more than 200 multivendor VNFs and CNFs to run on our Telco Cloud Platform.
We protect your business with intrinsic security.
Every vendor makes security part of their core messaging these days. But in practice, security is still too often bolted on after the fact. Here again, VMware takes a different approach, because we’re coming from a different place.
From our earliest days, our primary focus has been on abstracting away the complexities of underlying hardware, so that our customers can run their environments at a higher level, in a more streamlined way. We bring that same approach to security. When we connect multivendor networks from core to edge to RAN to cloud, we streamline security too. Because now, you can secure all your infrastructure, across every part of your network, through the software layer. And you can use the same consistent policies everywhere.
We fully support our customers through day-2 operations and extended management.
No matter what solutions you use to transform your network and operations, they need to be supported. After all, you can’t become an agile business if your people are constantly poring over open-source forums when something goes wrong. When you work with VMware, you can draw on a global team of virtualization and telco network experts standing by to support you.
We’re leaders in this space.
For years, VMware has looked beyond our specific customers to the broader telecom industry. We believe we offer important perspective, as well as unparalleled virtualization and software expertise, that no one else in the CSP ecosystem can. That’s why we’ve been key participants in the world’s most important telecom industry organizations for years.
We work with groups like the Open Infrastructure Foundation, O-RAN Alliance, TMForum, GSMA, 5G Open Innovation Lab, Next G Alliance, and many others. Through these efforts, we help ensure that emerging standards reflect the open ecosystems and multivendor approaches that will empower our customers’ software-based networks.
We care about our impact on the world.
In the last decade, major technology companies have made a concerted effort to become responsible corporate citizens—to take seriously the impact they can have on the environment and the world. At VMware, this has been among our top priorities from the beginning. Arguably, our entire company exists to help businesses reduce energy consumption and waste. That is, after all, one of the main drivers of virtualization: the ability to grow your business while using less IT hardware.
Today, we spearhead a wide range of programs to reduce greenhouse emissions and shift to renewable energy. We achieved carbon neutrality in 2018. We source 100% of the electricity for our global operations from renewable sources. And we’re on track to radically decarbonize our supply chain, operations, and customers by 2030.
Sustainability is just one facet of our efforts. We also invest significant resources into our people and the communities where they work. We’ve built a company where men and women of all races and ethnicities, in every country where we operate, are compensated with 99-100% parity. We sponsor nearly 8,500 nonprofits in 96 countries through the VMware Foundation. And 84% of our employees participate in these programs in their communities.
A different kind of partner
If it seems like VMware is just different than other companies in this space, that’s because we are. Our unique perspective is baked into our DNA. We came from a different place than others in the CSP ecosystem, and we take a different approach. Invariably, that translates to major benefits for our customers.
To understand how we’re helping service providers transform, please read this ebook of customer stories and visit our website.
