Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Thursday, March 28, 2024

VMware Boosts Multi-Cloud Push with Bitnami Deal 

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VMware continues its push into micro-services for multi-cloud deployments with its acquisition of Bitnami, a provider of server applications and development tools running virtually or hosted in the cloud.

The deal for Bitnami announced Wednesday (May 15) follows VMware’s acquisition of Kubernetes startup Heptio last November. Heptio was founded by the creators of the Kubernetes cluster orchestrator that has emerged as a de facto standard for managing application containers.

San Francisco-based Bitnami specializes in application packaging that allows users to deploy applications and development tools in the cloud or via Kubernetes.

“Bitnami will enable our customers to easily deploy application packages on any cloud— public or hybrid—and in the most optimal format—virtual machine, containers and Kubernetes helm charts,” Milin Desai, general manager of VMware’s cloud services unit, noted in a blog post announcing the acquisition.

Terms were not disclosed.

Desai added that Bitnami would augment VMware’s push to deliver a “curated marketplace” that includes applications and development environments along with infrastructure software.

VMware’s (NYSE: VMW) multi-cloud strategy includes delivery of its Cloud Foundry service, helping customers adopt cloud-native services at scale via its CloudHealth Technologies unit and developing new cloud-native applications while upgrading legacy apps via Kubernetes.

Bitnami has been expanding its services to help enterprises move workloads to production as they migrate applications to the cloud or adopt Kubernetes. It has steadily expanded its services to include VMs, cloud images and application containers.

“Joining forces with VMware means that we will be able to both double-down on the breadth and depth of our current offering and bring Bitnami to even more clouds as well as accelerating our push into the enterprise,” Bitnami said in a separate blog post.

Market watchers said the Bitnami deal is a logical extension of VMware’s earlier acquisition of Heptio. “This is VMware doubling down on software for microservices and container clusters,” said Tom Petrocelli, a research fellow with Amalgam Insights. “Prima facie, it looks like a good move.”

About the author: George Leopold

George Leopold has written about science and technology for more than 30 years, focusing on electronics and aerospace technology. He previously served as executive editor of Electronic Engineering Times. Leopold is the author of "Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom" (Purdue University Press, 2016).

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