Running VMware across multiple clouds ain't simple. It has taught me that running Kubernetes across multiple clouds isn't a solution to multi-cloud operations. Each cloud's networking alone is different enough to throw a wrench in that concept. #CTOAHI

I'll add some detail since this has gotten some RT's. Take for example VMware on AWS is in an entirely different AWS account's VPC. You can choose to treat it as the separate compartment that it is or try to paint over it with NSX. It gets messy. /2

Oracle Cloud VMware Solution integrates the SDDC networking with your OCI compartment. Great if you are all in on OCI but still a different approach than VMConAWS. That means two different NSX designs to manage. /3

Now switching over to how this translates to K8s management. K8s has the advantage that you can run your pods and control plan inside of VMs. However, you still need to use something like NSX to create a consistent overlay. /4

On the surface that's not too bad. And it is a layer less of complexity. But you still have to deal with the network underlay. Which are each cloud's virtual network control planes. It's like managing different operating systems for the same application. /5

The process of establishing connectivity between each Cloud is the devil in the details. There are products that help manage that complexity. I haven't investigated many of them. It's something we are interested in researching. /6

In the end, you have to ask yourself what's the ultimate value for figuring all of this out. It's a decent enough challenge that you can ask if those resources are better spent solving something with more value. /7

My gut without quoting a customer? There's a better use of your time. K8s is complex enough. If I had the task of making it work, I'd focus on a hybrid-infrastructure use case and limit the choice of what centralized IT would support. /8

I know the modern business-focused IT people don't like to hear that IT is limiting choice. However, we do it in every other part of the business. Development orgs don't say use what language and framework you want for a mission-critical app. /9

There have to be guardrails. That is if you want centralized support. K8s is hard. From what people tell me multi-cloud K8s is even that much more difficult with questionable return. This VMware study has shone a light on details of multi-cloud for me. /10

And none of this solves the cloud control plane stuff. The control plan to provision VMs, Networking, and Storage all vary wildly between cloud providers. Sure their are K8s providers for each but when an app or your observability breaks, someone has to fix it. /11

I also want a single service mesh across all of my cloud providers. I’ve started to dive into this world a little. It cool and frightening to think about deploying and managing a single service mesh across multi-cloud. /12

So let’s say you do all of the amazing work to sticth multi-cloud together. How does it help you sell more widgets than your competition or have a materially lower cost to doing business than your competitor? How did it enable tighter integration with your supply chain? /13