Data Solutions on Cloud Director

Cloud Director is a cloud service delivery platform enabling each user in the B2B2C to run their cloud business. Data Solutions unifies the experience to enable the expansion of service offerings and unlock new revenue channels for Cloud Providers. It streamlines data-related service management for IT Admins and empowers Developers with a user-friendly platform for swift and efficient data service development—all in one place.

Duration
Jun – Nov 2022
Team
PM, Engineering, Tanzu Data
Role
Design Lead

Summary

Big Picture

Customers seek to extend beyond the IaaS capabilities offered by VMware Cloud Director, with increased support for modern applications—particularly data solutions, a market IDC values at $103 billion. In the existing model, customers juggle diverse data solutions individually, amplifying the complexity of managing them outside Cloud Director.

Users liked the direction but need templates, granularity in version statuses, and a dashboard.

Bruno · Sys Admin

Cloud Provider

Lacked the capability to provide multi-tenant, modern, data-centric services. On any given day, he switches between five third-party data service offerings.

How Might Wesimplify Bruno's service management with one unified platform inside Cloud Director?

Anita · IT Admin

Customer

Needs organizational support across data services without switching tools or losing track of version status across environments.

How Might Wegive Anita one place to monitor and act on service health?

Shane · Developer

Customer

Needs a user-friendly platform for swift and efficient data-service development without leaving the Cloud Director workflow.

How Might Wehelp Shane create and manage data-service instances quickly in one familiar place?

Context

Competitors

I audited competitors' data-services workflows for design standards. Most showcased a unified creation flow designed to streamline the process for any type of data service.

Competitor creation-flow audit
Fig. 02Competitor creation-flow audit

Fragmented Experience

VMware Tanzu Data Services lacked multi-tenancy—a crucial capability already integrated into Cloud Director. The existing structure offered disjointed experiences, with each service functioning independently and some entirely on the CLI.

Existing fragmented service experience
Fig. 03Existing fragmented service experience

Solution

Onboard the existing Tanzu Data Services onto Cloud Director, providing a unified experience that integrates multi-tenancy and streamlines the overall workflow.

Fig. 04Proposed unified Cloud Director experience

Design Process

Using a user-centered process, I worked with Tanzu Data Services teams, product management, and engineering to deliver the solution.

Customer Feedback

Built from customer feedback in the prior study, The Next Phase of Cloud Director using VMs and Kubernetes Clusters.

Customer-feedback analysis
Fig. 05Customer-feedback analysis

Concept Validation

Validated demand for GUI-based Kubernetes data services and interest in open-source or VMware Tanzu offerings.

70%would use Data Services on Kubernetes clusters using a GUI
90%wanted open-source data or VMware Tanzu Data Services

User Journeys

Mapped the end-to-end journey for Bruno, Anita, and Shane to connect provider, administrator, and developer needs.

End-to-end user journey mapped by persona
Fig. 06End-to-end user journey mapped by persona

Ideation

Worked across teams to explore onboarding, creation, monitoring, usage, version status, and recovery patterns.

Ideation and testing · 12 frames

Ideation and testing frame 1
Fig. 07Ideation and testing frame 1
Ideation and testing frame 2
Fig. 08Ideation and testing frame 2
Ideation and testing frame 3
Fig. 09Ideation and testing frame 3
Ideation and testing frame 4
Fig. 10Ideation and testing frame 4
Ideation and testing frame 5
Fig. 11Ideation and testing frame 5
Ideation and testing frame 6
Fig. 12Ideation and testing frame 6
Ideation and testing frame 7
Fig. 13Ideation and testing frame 7
Ideation and testing frame 8
Fig. 14Ideation and testing frame 8
Ideation and testing frame 9
Fig. 15Ideation and testing frame 9
Ideation and testing frame 10
Fig. 16Ideation and testing frame 10
Ideation and testing frame 11
Fig. 17Ideation and testing frame 11
Ideation and testing frame 12
Fig. 18Ideation and testing frame 12

User Testing

Ran semi-structured UserZoom interviews with 32 users to test the direction and identify usability gaps.

32users in semi-structured UserZoom interviews
  • “Like the direction of having all data services in one place.”
  • “Can you make the instance deployment easier and faster?”
  • “Make it easy for me to understand the usage.”
  • “I don't know how to take action on the upgrades based on the version status.”
  • “This will help all customers who run their infrastructure on Kubernetes. Can we add some data services for VMs as well?”

Final Solution

The final product was produced after many iterations across the three persona workflows.

Quick time to value

Easy onboarding and templates reduce the time it takes to realize value after the first interaction.

Flexibility and Efficiency

A single creation flow and YAML editor support experienced users without overwhelming beginners.

Easy Monitoring

A dashboard and error recovery make status, performance, health, and the next action visible at a glance.

Bruno

A cloud-provider flow for onboarding services, enabling multi-tenancy, and managing the catalog.

Bruno final solution · 6 frames

Bruno final-solution frame 1
Fig. 20Bruno final-solution frame 1
Bruno final-solution frame 2
Fig. 21Bruno final-solution frame 2
Bruno final-solution frame 3
Fig. 22Bruno final-solution frame 3
Bruno final-solution frame 4
Fig. 23Bruno final-solution frame 4
Bruno final-solution frame 5
Fig. 24Bruno final-solution frame 5
Bruno final-solution frame 6
Fig. 25Bruno final-solution frame 6

Anita

An IT-admin flow for monitoring service health, usage, version status, and recovery.

Anita final solution · 5 frames

Anita final-solution frame 1
Fig. 26Anita final-solution frame 1
Anita final-solution frame 2
Fig. 27Anita final-solution frame 2
Anita final-solution frame 3
Fig. 28Anita final-solution frame 3
Anita final-solution frame 4
Fig. 29Anita final-solution frame 4
Anita final-solution frame 5
Fig. 30Anita final-solution frame 5

Shane

A developer flow for creating and managing data-service instances efficiently.

Shane final solution · 4 frames

Shane final-solution frame 1
Fig. 32Shane final-solution frame 1
Shane final-solution frame 2
Fig. 33Shane final-solution frame 2
Shane final-solution frame 3
Fig. 34Shane final-solution frame 3
Shane final-solution frame 4
Fig. 35Shane final-solution frame 4

Impact

70%weekly use of Data Solutions
85%of users said it meets their expectations
  • “Good to see all available data services in one place.”
  • “Ah! Now I don't have to manage and maintain multiple data services and track them.”
  • “This is a well designed offering for us, the technical scaling is what we are waiting to try.”
  • “Being able to see the consumption of OrgVDCs and instances in real time is very helpful.”
  • “Happy with the new extension.”
“Without UX effort this project would not have made the progress it has towards customer understandable, friendly and attractive user experience.”— Director of Product Management
Evidence and attribution

Owner-published case study. Public copy and results are supported by the supplied source; underlying research and visual artifacts remain pending.

Evidence IDs: evidence_datasolutions_research_study, evidence_datasolutions_concept_validation, evidence_datasolutions_userzoom_interviews, evidence_datasolutions_adoption, evidence_datasolutions_satisfaction, evidence_datasolutions_product_testimonial

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