It seems that all with all the announcements of late around VMware’s (re)shifting Hybrid Cloud strategy with Cross Cloud Foundation and VMware’s partnership with AWS people where again asking what is happening with vCloud Director. While vCD is still not available for VMware’s enterprise customers, the vCloud Director platform has officially never been in a stronger position. Those who where lucky to attend the various product team NDA and SIG sessions at VMworld US and Europe have an idea of not only whats coming…but also that there has been a serious ramp up in focus and development.

Those outside the vCAN inner circles probably didn’t know this and I still personally field a lot of questions about vCD and where it sits in regards to VMware’s plans. Apparently the vCloud Team has sought to clear the air about vCloud Director’s future and posted this fairly emotive blog post overnight. I’ve reposted the article below:

MythBusters: Debunking Three Common Myths Around vCloud Director

For while now, there’s been some speculation that VMware vCloud Director was no longer a priority for VMware – but that couldn’t be further from the truth. With the release of vCloud Director 8.10 this spring, VMware has doubled down on its dedication to enhancing the product, and we’ve even expanded our training program to keep pace with the evolving needs of its users.

Make no mistake, vCloud Director fits into VMware’s larger vision for the software defined data center (SDDC) now more than ever before. So let’s take the time to clear up a few of the biggest misconceptions out there today.

MYTH #1 – vCloud Director is End-of-Life or End-of-Support : Not at all! In May 2016, VMware released vCloud Director 8.10, the latest version of the product, in response to customer feedback and an industry-wide move to the hybrid cloud. New features in this release includes distributed resource scheduler affinity and anti-affinity for VMs and UI integration of NSX for heightened security. To get customers up to speed with the new release, our team has launched a free vCloud Director 8.10 Fundamentals eLearning course, and after VMworld Europe, we plan to expand these offerings through new vCloud Director Hands-on Labs via the VMware HOL Online portal. Later this month, we are also offering an extensive 5-day lab from October 31 – November 4, titled “vCloud Director 8.10: Install, Configure, Manage” that walks participants through the process of building a data center environment that leverages not only vCloud Director but also Virtual SAN and NSX.

: Not at all! In May 2016, VMware released vCloud Director 8.10, the latest version of the product, in response to customer feedback and an industry-wide move to the hybrid cloud. New features in this release includes distributed resource scheduler affinity and anti-affinity for VMs and UI integration of NSX for heightened security. To get customers up to speed with the new release, our team has launched a free vCloud Director 8.10 Fundamentals eLearning course, and after VMworld Europe, we plan to expand these offerings through new vCloud Director Hands-on Labs via the VMware HOL Online portal. Later this month, we are also offering an extensive 5-day lab from October 31 – November 4, titled “vCloud Director 8.10: Install, Configure, Manage” that walks participants through the process of building a data center environment that leverages not only vCloud Director but also Virtual SAN and NSX. MYTH #2 – Usage is Lagging: False! In fact, the opposite is true. Not only is usage of vCloud Director increasing, but it’s reaching new levels of growth.Look no further than Zettagrid, a cloud computing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider, which deployed vCloud Director to simplify data center provisioning. Or iland, an award-winning enterprise cloud infrastructure provider that uses vCloud Director to supply greater flexibility and customization to its clients. Furthermore, VMware continues to partner with members of its independent software vendor program group to catalogue and support the most recent products built by ISVs that are compatible with VCD through it through the VMware solution exchange. vCloud Director has proven itself a valued partner for customers across industries and hybrid cloud ecosystems, and version 8.10 only solidifies VMware’s continued commitment to the product and its users.

In fact, the opposite is true. Not only is usage of vCloud Director increasing, but it’s reaching new levels of growth.Look no further than Zettagrid, a cloud computing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider, which deployed vCloud Director to simplify data center provisioning. Or iland, an award-winning enterprise cloud infrastructure provider that uses vCloud Director to supply greater flexibility and customization to its clients. Furthermore, VMware continues to partner with members of its independent software vendor program group to catalogue and support the most recent products built by ISVs that are compatible with VCD through it through the VMware solution exchange. vCloud Director has proven itself a valued partner for customers across industries and hybrid cloud ecosystems, and version 8.10 only solidifies VMware’s continued commitment to the product and its users. MYTH #3 – User Interface (UI) is Static: Wrong again. You spoke, and we listened. A change in direction from previous versions, the release of vCloud Director 8.10 demonstrated a commitment to the UI by exposing all features directly through the UI and achieving feature parity with the API. Features now available on the UI include storage profiling, tenant throttling, and self-service VDC templates that give vCloud Director a more robust and flexible platform for delivering IaaS solutions.

Through a combination feature updates that increase agility, new training opportunities, and an enhanced UI with heightened functionality, VMware continues to actively invest in the vCloud Director user experience. Rest assured, there’s more to come.

So overall, that’s a pretty blunt message from the vCloud Director SP Product team that..for the foreseeable future vCloud Director is here to stay and continue to be improved upon. Again, I’ll state with absolute fact that there is no more stable and mature multi-tenant cloud management platform in the market today for IaaS. Look out for the next BETA release and also for Alliance partners like Veeam building even stronger offerings on top of vCloud Director.

Rest assured, there’s more to come.

References:

https://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/2016/10/mythbusters-debunking-three-common-myths-around-vcloud-director.html

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