Kathy Gibson reports from VMworld 2020 – When it comes to quickly scaling a service, arguably the best example is how Zoom coped with exponentially-expanded usage this year.
Aparna Bawa, chief operating officer of Zoom, points out that the online meeting service went from 10-million participants a day in December 2019 to 300-million daily participants in April, at the peak of pandemic lockdowns.
“Fortunately we have an incredibly scalable architecture that just worked so we were able to move with the increased usage,” Bawa says.
She attributes at least part of the service’s popularity and rapid growth to its simple user interface that allows anyone to quickly figure out how to use the product.
“These two factors helped us to scale to massive user demand.”
Zoom takes security seriously, Bawa adds, and the organisation is constantly adding new features and protection.
“We care about customer feedback, and many of the new features in the product are based on comments from customers. When it comes to security, we have been able to consolidate feedback from our CISO council and quickly implement any changes.”
The massive disruption that the world has seen this year does have some silver linings, Bawa believes.
“The future of work has changed forever and is no longer the way we envisaged it in December.
“From positive stance, the circumstances have shown even most conservative customers how services like ours can change employees’ lives.
“And using the right tools can make employees more productive – companies are often amazed at how much productivity they can get.”
Zoom itself saw its workforce disrupted impacted by the pandemic and global lockdowns, but as a VMware Workspace One user the company was able to work effectively.
“At the basic level Workspace One allows us to exist and thrive, with employees all over the world.
“Workspace One allowed us to manage teams, pushing automatic software updates and securing workspaces including apps and endpoints.
“This makes our more flexible, and makes the integration of their endpoints and apps more secure.”