VMware announced a slew of new updates and solutions to its cloud computing platform at its annual VMware Explore 2023 event held this month in Las Vegas.
The next evolution of VMware Cloud was debuted at the event, which includes a simplified deployment and operations structure for Cloud Foundation environments, alongside a host of security updates to help enterprises scale in the cloud. The aim with these announcements is for customers to use VMware Cloud services to run enterprise workloads more securely at scale with advanced data protection, cloud-based disaster and ransomware recovery, and multi-cloud networking and security.
Specifically, VMware Cloud combines VMware Cloud Foundation Software and VMware Cloud Services. Cloud Foundation combines what VMware describes as the best innovations from VMware’s on-premises and public cloud software offerings into a unified stack to deliver a consistent environment across any on-premises, hyperscaler cloud, or partner cloud environment.
VMware Cloud services simplify the deployment and operations of VMware Cloud Foundation environments across any cloud or on-premises environment. Additionally, it includes advanced developer services, built-in Kubernetes, and optimized access to hundreds of native cloud services.
Complementing these announcements, the company also expanded its Tanzu Application Platform portfolio, adding Intelligence Services with AI and ML solutions and a beta marketplace of backstage plugins. For edge customers, VMware announced a unified management which brings together edge networking and compute, alongside new orchestration capabilities.
“VMware Cloud is setting a new benchmark for helping customers modernize, optimize, and better protect their businesses,” said Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager, cloud infrastructure business group, VMware, in a statement. “Our latest VMware Cloud advancements further modernize cloud infrastructure and deliver a single cloud operating model that improves developer productivity and advances security.”
See also: AI Workloads Need Purpose-built Infrastructure
VMware Cloud Modernization
VMware is making a concerted effort to modernize its cloud offering to compete with the big players, updating its offering to include five editions: Essentials, Standard, Pro, Advanced, Enterprise. According to VMware, this provides customers with more flexibility at every stage of their cloud journey. It has also made its cloud storage offering more cost-effective and scalable with VMware vSAN Max, which has petabyte-scale disaggregated storage.
The offering is designed so that customers can deploy and consume the services in various ways. If offers flexible choices of:
- Customer Managed – VMware Cloud editions can be deployed by customers in their own data centers or their choice of colocation partners with full control of the infrastructure environment.
- VMware Managed – VMware Cloud on AWS is a VMware-managed cloud service with fully integrated hardware and software. VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal will be a distributed cloud service that enables customers to purchase software and hardware as a service separately for maximum flexibility.
- Provider Managed – new VMware Cross-Cloud managed services based on VMware Cloud editions from partners such as IBM Cloud enable customers to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for on-premises environments, simplify operations, reduce risk with observability, actionable insight, and performance optimization, and accelerate cloud migrations.
On the security side, VMware has a new service for multi-cloud environments, called NSX+, which includes a centralized security policy solution, network and application visibility, and network detection and response tools embedded into it. This service will also be available as part of the virtual private cloud package, with full isolation tools for networking and security. VMware has also added Ransomware Recovery to its cloud service, which is able to recover data from fileless attacks and concurrent multi-virtual machine recovery operations.
Tanzu Portfolio Expansion
VMware is expanding its Tanzu portfolio to enable developers to accelerate application delivery and provide more seamless transitions from development to production. The Tanzu Application Engine provides developers with runtime requirements, enhanced Kubernetes operations, and an ecosystem of Backstage plugins.
Alongside this, VMware announced a new data platform called Tanzu Intelligence Services, which is part of the Aria platform. The Intelligence Services suite includes a range of solutions with AI and ML capabilities, letting operations teams optimize for cost, performance, and security.
Business Operation Transformation at Edge
VMware is beefing up its edge portfolio as well with the announcement of Edge Cloud Orchestrator, a unified management platform which combines edge networking and edge compute. It has also simplified the management of virtual machines on the edge with upgrades to its Edge Compute Stack.
Specific solutions for retail customers are available in Edge Compute Stack, allowing retailers to build, manage and protect their operations across multiple stores.
