CenturyLink Deepens Ties to VMWare

CenturyLink, Inc. today announced that it has expanded its global strategic collaboration with VMware to deepen the level of software-defined data center technologies (SDDCs) available to enterprise customers. This collaboration will preserve and enhance customer investments in local data centers and extend critical workloads and applications to the cloud. Guests can also use VMware technology with CenturyLink's portfolio of network solutions, hosting management and cloud.

"More and more companies are looking for service providers' expertise in managing public and private cloud solutions across diverse hybrid computing models," said Bill Corbin, vice president of strategic partnering and channel partnerships, CenturyLink. "The expansion of our long-standing relationship with VMware is beneficial to our customers through further enhancements to our cloud portfolio with greater integration of VMware technology."

CenturyLink and VMware have brought innovative solutions to the market to benefit business customers:

•     Cloud CenturyLink is one of the largest multi-user cloud environments in VMware vSphere in the world, offering performance, usage, connectivity and management organizations benefits.
•     Dedicated cloud computing service CenturyLink is one of the largest vSphere-based private cloud services in the world, enabling modular scalability and architectural flexibility for customers seeking a secure and auditable infrastructure that can be tailored to the Loads working as SAP. This service will soon include Data Center Software Defined-based Technology (SDDC) NSX VMware, VMware VSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation.
•     CenturyLink includes VMware vCloud Air as part of its multi-cloud offering since its launch in 2013.
•     CenturyLink's ElasticBox application management framework includes adapters for VMware vCenter ™, vCloud Director vCloud and air, enabling customers to receive CenturyLink services wherever they need them.
•     CenturyLink public and private cloud service offerings will provide a demonstration platform in the cloud ecosystem VMware vCloud Air Network.

"As business leaders chart a path to the cloud, they want simplicity, security, and choice of how they consume and leverage IT services," said Geoff Waters, vice president, Global Service Provider for VMware Channel. "With a strong set of organizations using VMware technologies, customers can further benefit from CenturyLink's experience in building, managing and securing cloud environments through critical workloads, hybrid infrastructure critical network links .

VMware: A Rare Bargain In The Cloud Investment World

Dell's crown jewel blinks a little brighter

VMware (NYSE: VMW) released its results about 10 days ago. It was a good pace, basically in all the measures that operate. In particular, reserves growth has accelerated to 13% for the second consecutive quarter. Licensing reserves experienced a significant acceleration in the quarter, reaching a growth of 14%, compared with a 9% growth in the previous quarter. BPA of $ 1.43 $ 0.04 A was beaten. Operating margins showed a marked improvement. The company provided what appears to be a conservative orientation, especially for some of its older products.

Many investors want to invest in the cloud, but most find alternative space to be expensive and risky. In a way, VMW is a rare animal that has a significant set of solutions that are in the cloud, a relationship with AWS (NASDAQ: AMZN) that will start contributing to revenue this fiscal year as well as some offers in Hyper- convergence.

The first time I wrote about VMware before the transaction with Dell in it would be EMC swallowing in April. The shares have appreciated more than 50% since then, while the IGV is about 16%. An obvious question is if it is too late to get on this train? I will explore this issue in this article.

The other issue to consider is the competitive position of the company in its different markets. This is a complex task and requires a little study to be properly valued and appreciated.

Although VMW shares have increased substantially, there is still a clue because visible growth has also increased significantly. In April, the main measure of growth in license stocks increased by 2%. It is currently growing at 14%. In April, the company raised its revenue growth rate from 3% to 5%, and slightly increased its earnings per share. Revenue growth has reached nearly 10%, gaining faster profits.

Somehow, as I explain below, VMW shares are now more of a case than they were in April because the growth rate is much higher in terms of revenues and margins. The CEO of the company, Pat Gelsinger proclaimed that "our strategy is the hybrid cloud." Of course, the company does not get all or even a preponderance of revenue from the hybrid cloud, but the momentum in this business is undeniable and can show an acceleration of the step function that partnerships with AWS and IBM (NYSE: IBM) Start generating income. VMware is far from being evaluated as a cloud name despite the progress made by the company in that direction. Lots of time to get on the train.

The reason why behind the

One of the things I like about the convenience of VMware is that while stocks went up, it has not yet become a favorite non-ally analysts. The average first call rating is 2.4, blocked from buy and hold, and has not changed substantially in some time, although Wells Fargo increased its rating shortly before the release of results last month.

A few days ago, a writer for Street.com, has produced an article with the sensational title "pay more for the virtual madness of VMware." Editors of the SA could not afford this type of title. While the title was sensational, notes the author had a glow of reality. The company's revenue growth has not reached double digits and less than 10% of its business is in the cloud. Those are the facts.

If I believed that the company's sales growth would be less than 6 percent. 100 - the current consensus estimate for the first call - or that its EPS would not exceed current forecasts of $ 4.87 for what will be fiscal year 2018 (ending 1/31/18), then it would be much more difficult to Recommend actions. But I have many reasons to believe that the consensus will be overcome, as it is the case since I first published this name. (Investors should note that VMware now report their results on Dell's earnings time, which means that the first quarter will be held from 02.01 to 04.30. The month of January will be considered a chunk period and will be reported by Separate but since it does not include the closing period, it is unlikely that the results are not representative of the pace of the company's operations.)

Therefore, it is not surprising that the average price target of the action is only one

If revenues have not crossed a two-digit growth threshold, the company was able to increase its operating cash flow by more than 20% and increase free cash flow by 43%. Much of this increase in cash flow is a product of higher deferred revenue balances that suggest that demand for VMW solutions is increasing faster than total revenues. The company expects earnings per share growth to be around 11% next year, with a free cash flow growth of about 9%, it seems likely that the company has a significant opportunity due to strong momentum Deferred revenues to its new solutions to overcome this projection.

It would be much easier for analysts if VMware chose to leave all its many solutions and offer its contribution to revenue and growth rates. It would be easier, but it would also be a fairy tale. At this point, I think it's fair to see that much of the company's reserves come from fast-growing business segments. Unless this trend changes significantly, reserves growth will again be in double digits and that strength should lead to revenue growth at least equal to that observed in 2016. The CFO said: 2018. Our Portfolio expanded products, as well as our private, hybrid and public cloud strategy, resonate well with our customers ... "On a qualitative basis, continued dynamic growth should mean reserves in the mid-to-late teenage years or more I create growth reserves at this level, it sets a stage in which the company will be able to exceed expectations during the year, and do so in a way that will potentially change company valuation parameters.

Anchor Compute-boat or simply a source of income

In recent years, the business component, which VMware calls the calculation has declined steadily. The calculation is the main factor of compression of evaluation metrics for VMware. It is interesting to note, for example, that Nutanix with global revenues are approximately 10% of VMW has a company value of $ 4.1 million, while VMW has a company value of about $ 30 billion. The reason is that the hyper-VMW growth areas are offset against the equity company that is flat to decline and is likely to continue to squeeze in the foreseeable future. The happiest part of this is that the narrowing of VMW starts ... continue to decline as a percentage of total revenues and reserves and less than half of reserves, allows the new strength of company solutions to show through.

It's part of VMW has its foundation in that the company emerged in the world again at the turn of the century. It is all the virtualized classic products that run on Windows, Linux and Mac, which is called hypervisors for different servers. During the last conference call, management said it hoped that the calculation would lead to a decrease in license reserves mid-individual digits, but would be able to maintain total revenues.

While it is always a lot more fun to talk about new products such as sexy and VxRail NSX, the fact is that much of the company's good results last year due to an excess of achievement in its segment that was reduced At a slower rate than originally planned summer. Even if the calculation seems to be a product near the sunset, it turned out to be a foundation or a springboard for the rest of the VMW product range.

The periodic triggering factors for this company will be how to calculate declines; Full double-digit growth will be difficult to achieve if the calculation of reserves indicates a decrease of more than half a digit. CEO Gelsinger thoughts on the topic as expressed in a response when the call has been as follows:

In other words, we believe that we have taken these challenges in the fourth quarter. And with the overall good results in the quarter, which is generally seen in mid-teen licensing ... also for the office and the end user have a very robust pipeline ... We are very excited, however, about the vision of the UNO work area, where there is no office or mobility or identity. This is the complete solution and is a very different strategy to everyone in the industry. And we really started to see the adoption of this in the fourth quarter and those that are great deals, more strategic.


Many investors are probably tired to exhaustion upon learning of the revolution of the clouds. They do not want to hear about transitions and changes in income recognition and another. For these investors, VMware will not be the easiest name to keep in mind. As I have tried to point out, while a part of your future regarding solutions for use in place in different ways or as part of a storage device, it has also developed specific solutions and celles- cloud these are also worthy Of being discussed in some level detail of, at least, by identifying what they are.

VMW offers some AWS solutions are expected to have a significant impact on growth, but not particularly in the coming year. The products will generally be available by the middle of next year and the sales cycles are such that it is likely to be prudent not to overestimate the adoption of a new product. The AWS bid is expected to lead to sustained revenue growth, as it means users are buying the full range of VMW offerings, while most existing customers are still the users of vSphere, the desktop solutions company.

A crucial component of the VMW cloud strategy is what it calls Cross-Cloud. Cruz Cloud is an architecture that allows users to manage AWS, Microsoft Azure (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) using VMware tools. It is much more complicated than that, but the details are not very important in evaluating the prospects of VMW. This is a new offer of the company that is being introduced. The above link is one of the most enthusiastic reviews of a product I've seen lately, and some readers may find it interesting to see how the industry experts rate some of the company's new products is the introduction.

Of course, like any new offer that is in a space that did not exist until now, the growth trajectory is difficult to determine, but the initial signals, such as the address described during the conference call, were favorable. There are several competitive strategies that are designed to achieve cross-connect functionality.

The AWS service is likely to use initial VMW clients defined data center. Given the potential contribution of SDDC revenues, it appears that this strategy has the potential to revive the business sector.

Management has suggested that the strong quarter reached in the fourth quarter was a product of its customers to understand and appreciate the hybrid cloud strategy and to buy more VMW applications because of this strategy. I have no way to measure this claim, of course, but this seems plausible, and if true, then it creates a better year in 2018 than the company was careful to predict.

There is much controversy over the utility of hybrid cloud solutions versus the public cloud. I'm sure the answer depends on many factors, but in general, that's probably enough to tie the two in the firmament. Not all companies can issue their data centers for some time in the near future, but all companies looking to make reality part of the cloud economy.

evaluation

There is always something more that could be written in relation to a company as complex as VMW. Of course, some readers have wanted to see less. I hope the article is a balance between more than one player has to determine buy / sell / retention in their mind and something more detailed than necessary.

When I started writing about VMW values on this site, they were not cheaper. They are now cheap because estimates of growth rates are much higher. VMW shares closed at $ 89.50 yesterday, and the company has a series of fully diluted shares of 416.5 million, as shown in the last quarter's release. The number of shares planned for the current year is 409 million, based on the repurchase of shares, and I have used it in the calculation of the value of the company.

The share repurchase has reduced outstanding shares by approximately 2% per year during the most recent period. At 409 million, the company has a market capitalization of $ 36.6 billion. The company has a net cash of $ 6.5 billion, so the value of the company now stands at $ 30.1 million. The company's revenue forecast is $ 7.6 billion, giving an EV / S of approximately 3.95X. Me appell

VMware Joins OPEN-O Project

VMware Inc. (VMW), based in Palo Alto, Calif., Today announced that it has joined the Open-O project, an open source project organized by the Linux Foundation.

OPEN-O, focused on network virtualization (SDN) and network virtualization functions (NFV), is part of a larger initiative represents a global and technological effort to advance network operations. (See also: Facebook Open Compute supports Cisco).

Strengthening the position with service providers

OPEN-O is intended to provide telecom operators, cable and end-to-end cloud orchestration in the NFV, SDN and legacy networks. As a new "platinum" member, VMware will assist the Board and technical management and marketing committees to stimulate the wave of innovation in orchestration and open standards-based.

VMware hopes that by joining OPEN-O, it will remain at the forefront of technology to provide support for the transformation of 400 communications service providers (CSPs) and telecommunication companies around the world for accelerated innovation and service Starts faster, easier and cheaper than before.

These CSP telecommunications operators and are able to benefit from a converged network and application services platform that combine network architectures, cloud, mobility and IT. VMware joins many other network providers as well as some of the largest operators in the world, including China Mobile, Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) and China Telecom in the OPEN-O project.

"The implementation of NFV NFV requires a robust infrastructure and agility that offers the kind of complete NFV orchestration and multi-cloud project that Open-O is committed to deliver," said Gabriele Di Piazza, vice president of telecommunications solutions NFV VMware Group. "Customers will ultimately choose the path that will help them achieve their goals of the best digital transformation."

By joining OPEN-O, VMware is expanding its position as a major player in defining the evolution and adoption of NFV by Telecommunications operators.

VMware removes hard-coded root access key from vSphere Data Protection

VMware has released a patch for vSphere Data Protection (VDP) to modify a hardcode SSH key that could allow remote attackers to gain root access to the virtual device.

VDP is a backup product and restore disk that works as an open virtual device (OVA). It integrates with VMware vCenter Server and provides centralized management of backup tasks for up to 100 virtual machines.

According to the VMware support article, the vSphere Data Protection Device (VDP) contains a static SSH private key with a known password. This key enables interoperability with EMC Avamar deduplication solution backup and recovery software, and is preconfigured in the VDP as AuthorizedKey.

"An attacker with access to the internal network can take advantage of this to access the device with root privileges and more to complete a complete transaction," VMware said.

The Company believes that this is critical and the development of a solution that can be copied and executed on the device to change the default SSH key and set a new password.

Developing devices with access to encrypted information that users can not change is a serious security weakness. Unfortunately, it was a common practice in the past and vendors have tried cleaning up such errors from their devices for years.

Tuesday, VMware has also fixed a cross-site scripting vulnerability stored in its vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) product. The fault is considered important.

"The problem can be introduced by an attacker who has permission to manage virtual machines through ESX host or client to trick the vSphere administrator to import a designed virtual machine," the company said in a statement. "The problem can be activated on the system from which ESXi client host is used to manage the designed virtual machine."

VMware has released security patches for ESXi 5.5 and 6.0 to address this issue and advises users not to import virtual machines from untrusted sources.

How Amadeus Leveraged The Cloud And VMware To Help The Travel Industry

Travelers want to spend less money when they make arrangements, and they rely more and more on apps and websites to keep costs low.

It's high-pressure work to keep these digital services running at optimum performance at a reasonable cost, said Wolfgang Krips, executive vice president, Global Operations and General Manager, Amadeus IT.

"And on top of that, you have to build your innovation, which means new business services," he said.

Amadeus, a multinational IT service provider, fire 3 billion a year to provide the global travel industry with what it needs. But more.

For two years, Amadeus has decided to modernize its infrastructure. Amadeus leaders have considered a variety of options, including cloud service providers and utilities.

He chose to build a private cloud business in partnership with Red Hat, VMware and other service companies and software needed for the private cloud he wanted.

Amadeus has been operated by VMware's integrated OpenStack, which manages cloud resources through interconnected components that control the processing, storage, and network equipment. NSX VMware has provided Amadeo with virtual networking and security software.

Watch this video to learn more about how VMware NSX network virtualization solutions had a positive impact on Amadeus.

Krips said the upgrade of its base aligns with the fundamental objectives of Amadeus customers.

"What I can implement virtualisation of container applications (simple), VM (virtual machines) or bare metal, or if I use OpenStack, everything is a means to an end," said Krips. "Ultimately, what the customer expects is capacity, agility, and ongoing cost reductions, and that's what we have to offer."

Dynamism and automation were - and still are - essential, according to Dietmar Fauser, Amadeus vice president of Research and Development.

"That's why we use this technology, and why we use quality industrial partners," said Fauser.

OpenStack is not at the same time public, has said that, although it believes that will be the case.

The choice of an OpenStack Amadeus approach made by VMware, which according to Fauser, has a solid understanding of virtualization.

VMware aims to simplify cross-cloud challenges

Customers face enormous challenges when moving to the cloud; According to Guido Appenzeller, Head of Technology Strategy, Network / Business Security Unit, at VMware, AWS, Azure, Google and IBM Public Clouds, as well as a data center in the field. The question is how to connect them all together?

Appenzeller stated that VMware's Cross-Cloud services, currently under development, are intended to provide consistent deployment models, security policies, visibility and governance for all applications, whether they are executed on-site or off and independent of the underlying cloud or hypervisor.

Appenzeller, VMware's Cloud Services Services leader, recently joined John Furrier (@furrier), co-host of theCUBE (* disclosure below) of the SiliconANGLE Media team. VMware is a leading provider of VMware, VMware, and VMware.

Why customers want multiple clouds

"I think what we are seeing is that customers use different clouds for their specificities, or the best properties of the breed," Appenzeller said. For example, AWS has by far the largest catalog; Google has cheap storage; And Microsoft is very aggressive about licensing its own products over Azure, "he explained. A client can choose one of them - or all - to get their individual benefits.

In the cloud, the network is the hardest problem, including the configuration of a firewall, said Appenzeller. This is where VMware has found an opportunity because its NSX network virtualization platform already allows a user to extend a network through heterogeneous hardware in the data center. It can take a Cisco or Arista switch and create a virtual network, so why can not it do the same in the cloud, Appenzeller asked?

Appenzeller explained that NSX really shines by not moving around workloads, but rather by giving IT teams powerful tools so they can handle these workloads across the clouds in the same way.

The future of managing inter-cloud architectures

Over the next five years, Appenzeller predicted that the majority of workloads will still be on-site, but will increase the shift to the cloud. When companies move in the cloud, they have to decide how to scale it in the future, "he explained. Thus, companies will begin to understand the complexity of managing the cloud or clouds.

"This entire transition from VMware to the provision of SaaS services for the public cloud; this, for me, is the future, and I am very excited about it," said Appenzeller.

Watch the full video interview with VMware 2016 by SiliconANGLE and the CUBE. (* Disclosure: VMware Inc. and other companies are sponsoring certain segments of VMware 2016 on theCUBE of SiliconANGLE Media

VMware aims to deliver quality and value in vSphere 6.5

A few months before VMworld 2016, we produced a wish list for the features of vSphere 6.5. Now that VMware has officially announced vSphere 6.5, does it meet expectations?

In June I wrote about the features I wanted to see in vSphere 6.5 in the hope that a new version of the flagship VMware software would be announced at VMworld 2016 US Unfortunately, Of vSphere to VMworld 2016 Europe, and with it, a number of new features. So, did VMware deliver the things asked for?

In my original article, I asked for the scale-out vCenter; VMware gave us a vCenter failover function. I also requested a cluster of vCenter servers that would distribute the servers between the servers, and I wanted the cluster to provide instant failover if a node encountered a problem. It was a fairly large request, so I'm not entirely surprised that I did not get what I wanted. What we got is a two-node failover cluster for vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) in which one node is active while the other node is in standby. If the active node has an abnormality, the queued node takes its identity and starts the vCenter Services. According to VMware, the failover will take a few minutes, approximately the same amount of time as the cluster vSphere High Availability (HA) would take to recover the failing VM. This two-node failover cluster is essentially the replacement for the old vCenter Server Heartbeat product, as far as I know, nothing more. This is a beginning, but not exactly what I wanted in the new version.

I wanted to integrate VMware Update Manager (VUM) into vCSA and, in this case, VMware delivered. This means that you do not need an additional Windows server and database; Everything is built into one device. This feature is long been late, one that we have been expecting since it was released for the first time. The delay only made it more welcome in vSphere 6.5. The new integrated vCSA HA and VUM are signs that VMware is committed to vCSA and that company is very serious about moving clients out of vCSA from Windows to vCSA.

When writing my vSphere 6.5 wish list, I asked for a better product. Of course we will not be able to judge the quality of vSphere 6.5 until it has been in the hands of users for a few months. At present, there is no commitment to a ship date for any of the products advertised to VMworld in the US or Europe. VMware will likely deliver the new version of vSphere in the coming months.