Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/26/vmware_cloud_foundry/

CYBORG CLOUD comes to VMware

Pivotal's Cloud Foundry PaaS docks with the mothership

By Jack Clark in San Francisco

Posted in SaaS, 26th August 2013 21:58 GMT

VMworld 2013 VMware just can't seem to make its mind up about Cloud Foundry.

After tossing the open source platform-as-a-service cloud initiative out into a spin-off named Pivotal along with a grab bag of tech products like GemFire, Greenplum Database, Spring, and others, the virtualization company announced on Monday it was tapping Cloud Foundry as a key component of its upcoming cloud.

The platform-as-a-service will be wired atop VMware's upcoming vCloud Hybrid Service cloud, the company announced at VMworld in San Francisco. This means VMware customers can create their own cyborg clouds consisting of a VMware vCloud Hybrid Service (vCHS) underlay, and a Pivotal CF overlay.

Pivotal CF will work with both vSphere and vCHS, and will offer customers access to an enterprise support contract. VMware has stumped up about 20 engineers to work on the project, we understand, along with Pivotal's own large development team.

"Nobody can create a PaaS at scale this fast and update it while it runs without downtime! This is huge," Pivotal's head of product, marketing, and ecosystem James Watters told The Register by email.

Integration into the vCloud Hybrid Service shouldn't be difficult, Watters said. "Much like vSphere and Openstack, CF consumes [vCHS's] APIs to automatically control the platform install, update and scaling."

The addition of Cloud Foundry to VMware's vCHS, follows IBM pouring WebSphere tech into the platform as Big Blue tries to bulk up its cloud. It also comes after Piston partnered with Pivotal on doing Cloud Foundry on OpenStack – a rival open source IaaS cloud platform to vCHS.

Support for Cloud Foundry will be available in the fourth quarter of 2013. ®