DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
  1. DZone
  2. Software Design and Architecture
  3. Cloud Architecture
  4. VMware Acquires Heptio: Have the Classic Giants Woken Up?

VMware Acquires Heptio: Have the Classic Giants Woken Up?

VMware's acquisition of Heptio sends a huge message about the acquisition of other cloud businesses. Find out what it means here.

Sacha Labourey user avatar by
Sacha Labourey
·
Nov. 09, 18 · News
Like (1)
Save
Tweet
Share
6.11K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

VMware just announced that they had acquired Heptio, a company started only a couple of years ago by some of the key minds behind the Kubernetes project: Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda, CEO and CTO of Heptio, respectively.

Kubernetes vs. Kubernetes vs. Kubernetes

What is Heptio doing? First of all, through their founding team, Heptio has immense Kubernetes credibility. But the way Heptio has put that credibility at work is very different from what most Kubernetes-centric startups have done. Instead of creating yet another sanctified Kubernetes distribution, Heptio decided to focus on the upstream Kubernetes distribution, the mother of them all. They built the expertise, credibility and, more specifically, the tools to validate (on-premises) customers' Kubernetes environments and make sure they'll perform as expected. And this is a big deal!

A Kubernetes deployment is the result of two things: the IT environment x the Kubernetes distribution. When using Kubernetes on AWS, Azure or Google, the environment is a very well-known quantity and so Kubernetes behaves in a well-understood fashion. However, every on-premises IT environment is different from compute to storage and networking. The reasons why things could go sideways are plenty. And when multiplying those environments by the sheer number of possible Kubernetes distributions, you are potentially facing a superb combinatorial explosion. (The current Kubernetes documentation lists no less than 44 distributions at this point!).

And so Heptio took a very disruptive approach to this problem. Instead of trying to lock and certify specific sets of environments on a given distribution, they are analyzing and validating a resulting Kubernetes environment in situ, giving clear guidance on what needs to be improved.

Onto Owning the Data Centers for The Next Decade

Consequently, it is not surprising that VMware, a vendor that is going all in on Kubernetes, wants to make sure their customer deployments are as rock-solid and standardized as possible. This buys them (and their customers) immense peace of mind, as well as great Kubernetes credibility.

VMware has owned the world's last-gen datacenters for more than a decade now, and this acquisition fits into VMware's desire to remain the king of on-premise data centers for another decade. This is a good move.

Furthermore, I really hope that VMware keeps the very open attitude that Heptio has shown (open as in both open source and as in open to any distribution), as this will only expand their opportunity funnel.

Stepping Back...

But if we step back, this acquisition is also interesting because of what it tells us about the market. In the last few months, Microsoft has spent $7.5 billion to acquire GitHub, IBM has spent $34 billion to acquire Red Hat and now VMware is acquiring Heptio (obviously, for a quite lower price, but still). The giants of the previous compute era, with plenty of cash and amazing installed bases, all seem to have woken up and are aggressively grabbing - at any cost - the assets that will give them a chance to thrive in the next era.

But where are Google and Amazon in that M&A frenzy? They've been absent to date. Granted, by virtue of being in the "public cloud oligopoly club" (peacock!), they probably feel less pressured to make bold moves (at least for AWS). But I would challenge this some. It is now clear that owning a clear on-premise strategy (if only as a gateway to building up public cloud revenues), is a must-have as part of this transition to the cloud. And both AWS and Google are barely starting on that front.

My bet is that the M&A dominos are going to keep falling at an increased rate.

Kubernetes

Published at DZone with permission of Sacha Labourey, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • Upgrade Guide To Spring Data Elasticsearch 5.0
  • Load Balancing Pattern
  • Key Considerations When Implementing Virtual Kubernetes Clusters
  • How to Create a Real-Time Scalable Streaming App Using Apache NiFi, Apache Pulsar, and Apache Flink SQL

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends: