Published on Aug 31, 2022
VMware’s flagship vSphere and vSAN software have been updated in response to enterprise interest in hybrid cloud infrastructure.
VMware’s computing and storage software is going cloud. DevOps tools for cloud-focused infrastructure are becoming more interoperable with hyperscalers like AWS.
VMware’s server and storage virtualisation tools, vSphere and vSAN, now support new hardware VMware expects to become ubiquitous in enterprise data centres.
Additionally, VMware announced new products for AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Oracle Cloud.
This interconnected cloud is protected and shepherded by Project Northstar, an enhanced version of VMware’s NSX network security platform.
VMware Explore 2022 added to the company’s hybrid cloud capabilities, but did not advance technical innovation compared to hyperscalers’ capabilities, said Sid Nag, an analyst at Gartner.
“Everything VMware announces at this conference is incremental,” he said. Plus-plus.”
Cloud powered by V8
Through Tanzi, vSphere and van support new hardware technology and increase container interoperability.
VMware vSphere 8 supports data processing units (DPUs) alongside GPUs and CPUs. By supporting DPUs, the CPU and GPU can take on more computing tasks.
VMware’s vSphere on DPUs feature will launch with support for Nvidia’s Bluefield DPU and Dell EMC’s VxRail HCI (hybrid cloud hyper-converged infrastructure). Other notable technology partnerships include Intel, HPE, and Lenovo.
NSX platform supports network security with DPU support. NSX Distributed Firewall in vSphere eight now operates on the DPU instead of existing hardware.
Tanzi Kubernetes Grid 2.0 is also part of the vSphere eight update, bringing Kubernetes container support and more capabilities.
VMware vSAN 8 features TLC (triple-level cell) flash storage, improved storage performance and availability, and container hardening through a rewrite of the vSAN software.
Both vSphere eight and vSAN 8 will be available by November 2022.
Hyperscalers get more VMware services.
HCI platform VMware Cloud Foundation gains cloud interoperability with VMware Cloud Foundation+, a SaaS version of the platform offering subscriptions and immediate updates.
VMware Cloud Foundation+ adds a centralised console to manage both on-premises and cloud infrastructure, like VMware vSphere+ and VMware vSAN+. Users can choose where to run their workloads and connect to other VMware cloud services from the console.
Four cloud hyperscalers are also getting VMware products.
VMware Cloud Flex Storage, VMware Cloud Flex Compute, and VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (DR) will benefit AWS cloud users the most.
Forrester Research analyst Naveen Chhabra says VMware Cloud on AWS brings most of VMware’s products into a public cloud.
The two companies entered a partnership in 2017 and have been working together ever since. The whole VMware portfolio is coming to AWS.”
vRealize Log Insight Cloud support within Azure and Tanzu Standard support within GCP and Oracle Cloud gain minor benefits. VMware says GCP will have API/CLI integration soon.
VMware looks forward to Project Northstar, its next major update to NSX network security.
Through a SaaS model, Northstar will offer multi-cloud security, threat detection, and more as a centralised workload monitoring web console.
Project Northstar will also offer network policy management, analytics, load balancing, and cloud migration.
