VMware is pushing beyond familiar virtualization ground in a bid to gain a head start in the software-defined data center, an emerging paradigm that requires a fundamental re-imagining of IT from the underlying infrastructure all the way up to the services that run on top and the growing amounts of corporate data that live in the cloud. The firm is repositioning accordingly.

“We have a very ambitious and aggressive vision around the software-defined data center,” noted Ramin Sayar, the head of VMware’s cloud management group. The executive told SiliconANGLE that his company is pursuing a design-centered plan that focuses on two primary strategic objectives.

“One is just to keep innovating at the pace we are, the second is make it simple, management automation needs to be much simpler in this new world. We’re rapidly prototyping new stuff, some of it comes to market some of it doesn’t, and so we’re looking at continued integrations with our partners and customers to help influence that,” Sayar said.

Extending this vision, VMware today announced an expanded partnership with Palo Alto Networks to move software-defined networking (SDN) a step closer to production.

As part of the agreement, the pair are releasing a reference architecture that combines the Nicira-based NSX software with the network security’s firm new VM-1000-HV firewall, its Panorama centralized policy management platform and a set of subscription-based threat detection and mitigation services. Customers can buy each component individually or wait until the complete bundle becomes available through VMware’s channel beginning next quarter.

The firm’s ecosystem received another software-defined boost after HotLink announced the addition of SDN functionality to its DR Express hybrid data protection offering. The tool allows admins to back up files to AWS from within the vCenter interface and manage EC2 workloads side-by-side with their on-premise VMs.

The update introduces the ability to automatically mirror local network topographies in the cloud, a feature that HotLink says makes it easier for users to maintain consistency across application tiers in a recovery. Dubbed CIMple, the technology enables organizations to test their disaster recovery plans without disrupting normal operations while also reducing the time it takes to bring a node back online after a failure, the firm said.

The hybrid cloud capabilities HotLink offers with its latest solution are aligned with VMware’s efforts to blur the line between on-premise IT and the public cloud. The EMC subsidiary is going all-in with vCloud Hybrid, an IaaS platform that is fully interoperable with existing deployments of its hypervisor. As of this week, the service is generally available in Europe from a data center in the London suburb of Slough.

photo credit: Martin Gommel via photopin cc