
‘VMware Is Resilient’
Ray O’Farrell believes VMware can be the dominant market leader in Kubernetes through a differentiated security strategy, innovation roadmap and unique integrations with the Dell Technologies product portfolio.
“We are going to focus on Kubernetes and we’re going to do it in a multi-cloud fashion,” said O’Farrell (pictured above), VMware’s executive vice president and general manager who is responsible for the company’s strategy and operating model for delivering the Kubernetes platform of the future. “What we’re now trying to do is make sure that if people are using containerized Kubernetes applications, whether it’s private or public clouds, that we’re able to offer them the build, manage and run technologies coming from our application [business unit] as well as the security technology coming from our security [business unit]. We want to expand how containers and Kubernetes are secured.”
O’Farrell leads VMware’s Modern Apps business unit which includes VMware Tanzu, as well as the teams of Pivotal Software and Heptio, the startup launched by Kubernetes creators Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda that was acquired by VMware for $550 million.
In an interview with CRN, O’Farrell breaks down VMware’s Kubernetes roadmap, opportunities ahead around the “wide edge,” and application innovation currently being leveraged by the U.K.’s National Health Service to track COVID-19.