VMware Accelerates the Shift to Digitalization and Cloud in Sri Lanka

August, 24, 2017

Enables digital transformation with the industry’s most comprehensive solutions portfolio that offers greater agility, cost efficiencies and faster innovation

VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW), a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, today reinforced its commitment toward enabling digital transformation in Sri Lanka by helping local companies modernize data centers, empower the digital workspace, integrate public clouds and transform security. Through VMware technology, businesses in Sri Lanka can gain a competitive edge, allowing them to diversify into new markets, develop new solutions and applications, and deliver better customer experiences.

Sri Lanka’s technology sector has matured over the past few years, with the information and communications technology (ICT) sector now the country’s fifth largest revenue driver. Expected to be worth US$4 billion in revenue by 2022, the local industry is focusing on intellectual property development and software engineering, which are expected to create 20,000 jobs and 1,000 new businesses . 1 “Businesses in Sri Lanka are undergoing digital transformation to differentiate themselves through new products and value-added services. By strategically applying IT solutions that are consumer simple and enterprise secure, these businesses can become more agile, efficient and scalable,” said Adrian Hia, General Manager, Nascent Markets and Vietnam, VMware. “VMware is committed to collaborating with organizations in Sri Lanka to equip them with the capabilities to accelerate innovation and growth in today’s digital era.”

Modernizing Data Centers
Through virtualization technologies, VMware helps organizations modernize their data centers for greater flexibility, security and scalability, which in turn drives tangible business outcomes like faster expansion into new markets. Companies looking to develop and deploy modern applications and services for customers can then easily extend their IT infrastructure to public clouds and mange hybrid cloud environments through VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture™.

As Lanka ORIX Leasing Company (LOLC) Technology’s business expanded rapidly in recent years to serve both domestic and foreign customers, the company said it needed the ability to quickly deploy new IT services and solutions to meet evolving customer needs, but at optimal costs. The company turned to VMware’s virtualization technology to boost its server resource utilization, allowing it to meet the IT demands of its fast-growing user base. The company adopted hybrid cloud and cloud bursting application deployment models to complement its private cloud, thereby providing customers with new service options and flexible IT resource allocation during peak demand cycles.

Bharti Airtel is another example of how a modern IT infrastructure and an integrated DevOps environment can allow a company to quickly bring new services to market. When the company realized that its legacy infrastructure was limiting network utilization by 25 percent, it said it decided to adopt VMware’s virtualization, automation and unified management solutions to build an agile, flexible and secure IT infrastructure. These changes addressed the company’s legacy IT challenges and supported DevOps practices for modern applications development.

VMware solutions like VMware vSAN™ and VMware vSphere ® allow rapid deployment, simplified management and the ability to scale horizontally and vertically. Meanwhile, vRealize ® Automation™ and VMware NSX ® help organizations automate their IT processes so that they can rapidly configure, provision, deploy, test, update and decommission infrastructure and applications. For organizations to run modern applications and services, VMware Photon™ Platform provides an agile, flexible infrastructure that enables IT to deliver the best experience for applications and services.

Empowering the Digital Workspace
As the first South Asian nation to adopt 4G in 2013 and with mobile subscriber growth at 123 percent in 2016 , Sri Lanka is ranked first in South Asia in the Network Readiness Index . 2 3 As a mobile-first country, businesses in Sri Lanka require an end-to-end approach to provide a secure enterprise work environment -- from data center to desktop and device. To meet this requirement, VMware’s digital workspace innovations deliver the applications and critical business information that employees need any time and on any device.

Having to adhere to security requirements in a highly-regulated sector, and in addition to having legacy infrastructure, Sri Lankan Airlines adopted VMware Horizon ® to virtualize its desktop environment, allowing the national carrier to centrally manage software and asset configurations, and provision security from data center to desktop to mobile devices. This allowed staff at Sri Lankan Airlines to work and collaborate anywhere, anytime, and across various devices. Overall, this has empowered true business mobility, and increased productivity and security, ultimately enhancing customer service and experiences. Through VMware Workspace ONE™ and VMware Horizon ® , VMware has integrated identity management, device management and application delivery onto a single platform, allowing business critical information to be easily accessed by employees regardless of platform, location, device or application. VMware’s software-defined solutions also provide consolidated management of both traditional and cloud-native applications, so businesses can use applications and data to reinvent, innovate and differentiate.

Integrating Public Clouds
Enterprises in Sri Lanka are starting to realize the benefits of integrating public clouds to scale their businesses. By virtualizing resources, automating processes and standardizing tasks, companies, especially financial services institutions and telecommunications operators, can accelerate innovation to meet customer needs and service standards.

Marriott International, the world’s largest hotel company, needed to respond to changing customer demographics and how they prefer to consume hospitality services. The 90-year old company successfully integrated public clouds as a part of its digital transformation strategy. As a result, the company said it achieved an increase in revenue by introducing new digital services that meet the needs of younger travelers.

Hybrid Clouds deliver agility, scalability and flexibility, by extending a company’s data center to any public cloud service of choice. As a result, businesses can now manage multiple clouds through on-premises solutions or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based services.

Transforming Security
With data breaches on the rise, VMware helps transform IT security by building on a virtualization foundation and developing a new security architecture that is intrinsic, highly granular and policy-driven. When the London Capital Group needed to launch a new financial trading platform, it turned to VMware’s software-defined approach to boost the security and resilience of its global online trading platform. Having leveraged VMware’s micro-segmentation and IT automation capabilities, the financial services firm can now provide services that adhere to the industry’s compliance and security laws. This also reduced data center space and the cost of running its network by 50 percent, according to the company.

Similarly, the Prague Stock Exchange adopted VMware’s software-defined approach to strengthen data security, but without sacrificing accessibility and convenience for end-users. Apart from reducing hardware needs, the Exchange said VMware technology helped improve security by automatically limiting the lateral movements of potential security threats, enabling business continuity as a result.

VMware NSX ® uses micro-segmentation; should a component within the network become compromised, its attributes can be quickly and automatically updated or deleted, and quarantine controls enforced to stop a cyber threat from moving laterally and causing more damage. Using VMware AirWatch ® , organizations can gain end-to-end visibility and control from the data center to the endpoint without impacting the user experience. VMware NSX ® and VMware vSphere ® then provide a ubiquitous software layer that streamlines and simplifies compliance in regulated business environments.

“Forward thinking organizations that have adopted a software-defined approach to IT are already realizing new possibilities and real business benefits. It’s no longer about using technology to optimize cost of ownership but to drive business innovation and growth. By implementing a ubiquitous IT architectural plan that cuts across all levels of compute, network, storage, clouds and devices, businesses are empowered to have the scalability, agility and security required to truly succeed in the digital era,” said Hia.