As cloud computing and rapid software application development sweep across the information technology landscape, developers are jostling to take advantage of them while simultaneously modernizing existing, monolithic apps. Then there’s the complexity of application management in a multicloud environment.

The result, according to Paul Fazzone (pictured), senior vice president and general manager of cloud-native apps at VMware Inc.: “App development methodologies are changing more today than they have in the last 20 years. At the end of the day, those apps are going to power the next decade of those organizations’ successes or failures with their customers.”

Fazzone spoke with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the VMworld event in San Francisco. They discussed VMware’s cloud strategy, including how a focus on Kubernetes in the new Tanzu portfolio influenced the company’s recent acquisition of Pivotal Software Inc. (see the full interview with transcript here).

Kubernetes is the layer that links developers and infrastructure

The strong partnership with Pivotal within the Dell Technologies Inc. umbrella was the spark for the idea of VMware Enterprise Pivotal Container Service, according to Fazzone. “The combination of VMware R&D with Pivotal R&D focused on delivering our first Kubernetes service to our enterprise customers,” he explained.

Pivotal’s app transformation services are front and center for customers, according to Fazzone. “You’ve got different groups inside of customers. Some are looking to build the newest applications. Some of them are just trying to get more operational efficiency out of what they have today. Some of these customers have 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 applications in their environments.”

Pivotal’s services help organizations modernize key components of their existing monolithic applications, Fazzone explained. This allows them to operate more efficiently and reclaim resources for other tasks.

“That, I think, is probably the lowest-hanging fruit for enterprise organizations today, and I’m very excited about the services Pivotal has to make available to customers on that front,” Fazzone said.

Furthering a commitment to Kubernetes was VMware’s acquisition of Heptio Inc. This led to the question: “What would happen if we actually took some of the concepts of Kubernetes and PKS and embedded them into vSphere?” Fazzone asked. “That was the real ‘ah-ha’ moment for us and the Heptio team coming together and the power of what that could enable.”

The result is VMware’s Tanzu portfolio.

Pivotal’s commitment to Kubernetes “was a big part about getting all the pieces lined up so that VMware could deliver … the Tanzu portfolio with the componentry for building, running and managing modern applications on any cloud,” Fazzone stated.

VMware sees Kubernetes as the key to reducing the complexity of multicloud. Although some see VMware’s focus on Kubernetes as hedging the company’s bets against possible negative effects of containerization on its customer base, both VMware Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger and Fazzone are enthusiastic about the technology.

“We believe that Kubernetes sits at that perfect layer between the two domains [of developers and infrastructure],” Fazzone said.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s extensive coverage of VMworld 2019:

Photo: SiliconANGLE