VMware this week formed a larger business unit that spans across network infrastructure for service providers, secure access service edge (SASE), and edge computing. 

The reorganization effort resulted in the creation of VMware’s Service Provider and Edge Business Unit (SEBU) and is being led by Sanjay Uppal, SVP and GM of the unit. Uppal previously led VMware’s SASE and SD-WAN business and is now responsible for a much broader portfolio of services, technology, and infrastructure that touches more enterprises and operators. 

The new division is built around three primary teams focused on service providers, SASE, and edge computing. The service provider team will focus on VMware’s 5G Telco Cloud Platform for network operators and efforts to modernize core, edge, and radio access networks (RAN) with virtualized and containerized network functions. 

VMware’s SASE team is responsible for cloud-delivered networking and security services, including SD-WAN, firewalls, and distributed edge computing. The edge computing team focuses on edge-native applications that will be underpinned by 5G networks, Kubernetes-based containers, and SASE.

It’s a broad reshuffling for VMware as it continues its search for a new CEO following Pat Gelsinger’s decision earlier this year to leave that post to run Intel. The enlarged business unit was also formed after Shekar Ayyar left his role as EVP and GM of VMware’s Telco and Edge Cloud to lead a special purpose acquisition company that could bolster VMware’s plans in that space.

Uppal, who effectively assumes those responsibilities in addition to those he previously held, said the restructuring was driven by VMware’s evolving strategy and a convergence of industry-wide trends. Telecom operators, vendors, and the enterprises they serve are all going through a period of network transformation, and “in very simple terms, you can think of it as MOMO, modernize the underlay, monetize the overlay,” Uppal said in a phone interview.

“This is a strategy that we’re seeing out there. We’re connecting the dots,” he said. “Why not have a business unit that is focused on an edge native or an edge-in point of view that allows the communications service providers to do modernization and monetization, and at the same time serve the needs of the enterprise.”

Uppal said he is confident that the enlarged business group framed around underlying teams focused on specific technologies, infrastructure layers, and unique requirements in enterprise segments is a major advantage for VMware going forward.

“Because not just strategy drives structure, but if you put a particular structure in place that helps evolve the next step of your strategy,” he said. “We believe that putting these things under one common umbrella in this SEBU that it’s going to drive the next-generation strategy to the advantage of both our communications service provider partners and customers as well as the enterprise.” 

The new framework will also have a positive impact on customers because VMware sells services and technology through channel partners, rather than directly, and one of VMware’s most prominent routes to market is communications service providers, Uppal explained. “What happens in putting it under one umbrella is both the pull that is created from the enterprise as well as the selling that we do through communications services providers,” and that facilitates faster decision making, he said.

“We’ve done this because we think that much faster decision making is called for when in fact both the underlay and the overlay are really going after things like much lower latency,” Uppal said. “If you draw the analogy that the applications themselves are moving out in a much more decentralized fashion, faster application access, then the decision making should be fast as well.”

Reflecting on the convergence that’s occurred thus far and partially led to the formation of this larger business unit at VMware, Uppal said he expects artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to make a greater impact in converging with these technologies as well. 

Both are overused terms, he said, but VMware is focused on determining the appropriate and best use of AI for network operators and enterprises, including self-healing technology for telecom network infrastructure, SD-WAN, and SASE. That requires data for training and for the neural network to be trained, he explained. 

“Models are aplenty, data is not. And so one of the areas that we’re going to be looking at within this business unit is where are the sources of data that will help us train the models,” Uppal said. 

VMware, like most tech companies, operates under a continuum. Technologies that are or will be ready soon are put into VMware’s product roadmap, but other technologies are viewed as projects that inform its outlook, he said. 

In the near term, VMware’s SEBU is working to solve issues around resiliency and scalability in the network core, and the development of use cases that demand low-latency compute, disconnected compute, or highly secure compute for edge computing, Uppal said.