The Rebirth of VMWare?

The Rebirth of VMWare?

Over the past decade (and more), we build our cloud-based cybersecurity platform using VMWare ESXi. We leant how to script the creation of classes, and how we could effectively use VLANs to isolate networks. It has all worked so well, and it’s the basis of a good deal of our advanced cybersecurity education. But, VMWare has a problem … the public cloud. For us, we do things in cybersecurity that requires a private cloud, along with requiring us to focus on CapEx, rather than the pay-as-you-go method of the public cloud.

But, the rise and rise of the public cloud will see the market for on-premise cloud-based systems reduce massively. The solution seems to be to run ESXi within a public cloud environment, and which perhaps defeats the whole point of using a public cloud. One advantage is that there is a single and dependable cost in running your cloud, and where you can tightly define your resources. But the cloud is so much more about all the other services that it brings, and just to throw all your systems into a big cloud blob is not the way to architect for the public cloud. In fact, a well-engineered cloud architecture will likely save money and resources over the blob-approach

So, what to VMWare do? Well, their collaboration continues with Amazon AWS on hybrid clouds, but their main focus must be to diversify some of the business away from the on-premise cloud towards … you guessed it … cybersecurity!

Meet Carbon Black

So, for any start-up, the big company coming along with a great offer is often attractive. For Carbon Black, VMWare came calling with 2019 with a $2 billion acquisition. And while most other cloud providers focused on protecting servers in the cloud, Carbon Black found a core market niche within cloud-based end-point protection. It was a natural fit for VMWare and is perhaps part of their long-term goal to become a cybersecurity company, and where the cloud infrastructure is all part of running it:

This is perhaps part of a lack of innovation within large companies, and where they fail to spot emerging markets, and where smaller and more agile companies come along and take advantage of the changes. Cisco, for example, missed cybersecurity initially, and it was up to Splunk to show a new vision for log analysis. Now, Cisco are looking to aquire Splunk.

To me … if you are a start-up or spin-out … stay small and agile, and move fast for any opportunity that comes along … but have a vision and belief that what you do is so much better that the market leaders, even though you a small fraction of their resources … because you have what they lack … passion, drive and belief.

For the cloud? AWS, Azure and Google, mainly, for the public cloud, and VMWare for the end-points, and then they will meet in the middle. So, meet the new Cybersecurity company … VMWare!