Good for the goose? Apparently not the gander.

I think the following is true; although I hope it is not true long run.

If I am using VMware vSphere I use a programmatic API for integration; the vSphere SDK.

If I am a vCloud customer, I use a programmatic API for integration; the vCloud API.*

Why so different? One thing that has been posted on the API forum at VMware Communities says, "we have built them for different uses and contracts."

As a user of cloud infrastructure - whether public or private - why would that matter to the provider of the virtual infra software? Why does VMware think I am so different when I am a customer of my internal IT department than if a customer of a vCloud provider?

One simple answer would be, "we created vCloud concepts after the core ESX stuff - and haven't integrated the code or the concepts yet, but yeah, kind of 'blech' that we haven't yet". I would be good with that, software is hard, and time and constraints are always a killer.

But the answer above doesn't say that, it says as an enterprise IT user of private cloud I have dramatically different needs than an enterprise user of a public cloud.

Maybe the confusion is "who is the customer"? I think it could be that VMware doesn't recognize enterprises as "multi-tenant" environments, basically the same as if it was a vCloud provider. Their customer is the virtual infra provider, whether the enterprise IT Operations Manager or the MSP/Co-lo/Hosting provider Operations Manager. In the former case, users of virtual infra are invisible to VMware, with an orientation that internal, centralized IT still gets to be in charge of everything. In the latter, they have to provide capabilities to me the vCloud provider's customer, otherwise the vCloud won't get used.

I wrote about this in "Welcome to the User-Cloud" - where I raised the issue of the need for separation of concerns between the needs of the virtual infra provider and the virtual infra user.

So, in short summary, I am not being critical. I really am wondering why such a difference is perceived and expressed in the VMware product lines? Would love to hear what others think.





(* The fact that there may not be a vCloud provider that has fully implemented the vCloud 1.0 API yet is a different issue, and one for another day. If anyone knows of a vCloud provider with full 1.0 API support please give me a tweet @pjktech and I will correct/update here.)

- Pat K