There has been many discussions about the future of vCloud Director and if VMware intends to deprecate it. There is not much information from VMware about its vision but recently there is a great emphasis on vCloud Automation Center for cloud management that is now embedded in vRealize Suite. It seems a great product, especially for enterprises considering that it integrates management of different infrastructures (even physical and public cloud) into a single platform; but I still have some questions when I look at both vCloud Director and vCAC in regards to service providers who offer services to completely different, critical isolated organizations. I have read this blog post by VMware that explains VMware vision of Cloud management and transition plan, but still unsatisfied!

By the way, it seems that sooner or later vCAC will be dominant solution for Cloud management and VMware will add features to satisfy different requirements rapidly. So, it’s a good time to get familiar with this product. I saw this post that is a very good practical introduction and hand out that explains and clarifies basic concepts in vCAC. There is also another simple, more detailed manual here. Of course, more information can be found in VMware documentation.

p.s – From business perspective, it’s a smart move from VMware to focus more on enterprises rather than service providers because cloud service provider market is and will be dominated by other players.