Ever since VMware introduced its ESX 3i edition, ESX has been a good option for building OEM appliances. ESX 3i is reportedly the world’s smallest hypervisor, at 32MB. It also is the version that eliminated the need for a Linux management console, providing a command-line interface. These changes were critical for OEM appliance building, and encouraged HP and others to embed ESX 3i into select servers.
Some vendors in the technology community responded to this introduction – including Riverbed, Teneros and StorServer to name a few – by building a new generation of appliances based on VMware that deliver exceptional value and flexibility. The added value and flexibility includes:
- Delivering a solution that contributes towards consolidation, reduction in footprint, and reduction in power/cooling goals already widely popular in most customer environments
- Enabling customers to add more workload to the appliance, such as by running Windows, VMDKs, and other supported OS environments alongside the purchased appliance solution
- Providing a platform upon which the appliance vendor can deliver additional solution modules, without requiring the customer to change the hardware
- Ensuring easier integration within the customer environment and management procedures, which most likely has VMware servers already deployed or planned for deployment
Not only do VMware appliances work better for customers, they also work better for organizations offering Software as a Service or cloud-based application hosting. This is true because VMware appliance platforms lower costs for hosting organizations, by lowering the burden of application management, maintenance, and technology upgrades. With lower costs and burdens, hosted services offer better profit margins to hosting providers – along with the ability to pass along cost-savings advantages to their customers.
VMware has also worked with a long list of vendors – some 700 according to its web site – to ensure support of a wide variety of technology components. VMware also maintains an open Certification Program, when new components must be added.
So why, then, has adoption of VMware platforms not been more universally embraced for OEM appliance building? Why hasn’t literally every OEM team decided to build on VMware?
One reason may be that VMware itself has made their technology options and components harder to understand. With over 50 different components, add-ons, and editions offered at last count, wading through the various VMware options has become time-consuming and difficult. For example, the latest version of ESX is vSphere – which comes in 2 small business editions and 4 mid-size and enterprise editions. vSphere replaces ESX 3i. So, if you’re planning to upgrade your appliance, you have to determine which edition is required. You also have to figure out how to deploy the vCenter Server component, now a requirement.
Notwithstanding VMware’s excellent Purchase Advisor, determining exactly how to upgrade can be a daunting task. VMware also hasn’t really done much to address the OEM vendor community, per se.
This is where HP and Bell Micro have a key role to play: OEM vendors, like Teneros, have selected to work with HP and Bell Micro in part because of the ease with which HP and Bell Micro can help them in selecting, maintaining, and upgrading their technology platform. This includes the VMware components. HP makes it easier by selecting and qualifying the versions of VMware technology which are most beneficial to offer to OEM. Bell Micro makes it easier to obtain, as well, by understanding and managing the manufacturing process for its OEMs. This intimate, custom approach makes it easy for OEMs to take advantage of all of the value and flexibility that VMware platforms can deliver for OEM business teams.
Introduction: Server virtualization, for which VMware is the dominant vendor, has gained ground among OEM appliance manufacturers as a more flexible, higher-value delivery platform. This blog entry begins a series of three in which we will explore the factors contributing to and inhibiting OEM success with server virtualization, HP and Bell Micro roles in that success, and the future of where virtualization can take the OEM community.