VMware Explore Chock-Full of Multicloud News for Partners
This week’s event features big announcements the channel needs to know. One example? VMware Aria.
![Overfull suitcase Overfull suitcase](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt49642dfffe190f3b/65241a794c3b7b14d7b893bb/Overfull.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Shutterstock
Channel partners who use and/or sell VMware’s cloud management platforms — vRealize, CloudHealth and Tanzu Observability — need to know about the new VMware Aria portfolio name, and associated upcoming changes.
Aria now stands as VMware’s overarching name for the platforms that oversee multicloud management and operations. For example, vRealize will rebrand as Aria Cost. CloudHealth will become Aria Operations. And Tanzu Observability will be called Aria Automation.
Importantly, current clients relying on these products will receive the equivalent Aria offering, VMware says. That should come as good news. Partners and their customers can breathe easier knowing that (at least for now — there’s no word on what might change once Broadcom owns VMware) they do not have to pay more as VMware introduces enhancements.
VMware Aria represents “the newest chapter in our multicloud management story,” said Purnima Padmanabhan, senior vice president and general manager of cloud management, in a recent media briefing.
Aria will house all of VMware’s multicloud management platforms. That includes the existing software that covers cloud cost, performance, configuration and delivery of infrastructure and cloud-native applications.
Take note: VMware is launching the Aria Hub, where all Aria software and management controls will reside. It will also contain Aria Graph, which will deliver near real-time insight into the cloud environment, VMware says. Aria Graph will integrate with third-party tools for observability and application performance management, although VMware did not specifically name those tools.
Due to the introduction of Aria Hub, VMware is changing the branding, documentation, support systems and SKUs tied to its current cloud management software to reflect the Aria name. That should all be done by early next year.
VMware Aria will feature more than existing, rebranded platforms, though. Go to the next slide for details.
Organizations juggling cloud environments from different vendors have to deal with more complexity than if they just used one provider. So, VMware created Aria to oversee all of that. That’s where the aforementioned Hub and Graph come in, but there is more.
To that point, keep an eye out for Aria Automation Guardrails, Aria Migration and Aria Business Insights. Here’s what they each do:
· Guardrails: This platform automates enforcement of cloud guardrails for networking, security, cost, performance and configuration for multicloud environments.
· Migration: Automates assessment, planning and execution.
· Business Insights: Provides analytics for decision-making.
As for availability, we know that Guardrails will go online in the third quarter.
Now that we’ve covered the Aria multicloud software news, it’s time to get into the cloud infrastructure side of VMware’s announcements this week at Explore.
Scaling workloads across private and public clouds, and at the edge, is no easy feat. To that end, VMware is debuting new releases of its compute and storage products so users may best operate within their cloud environments of choice.
First up, vSphere 8. The latest iteration of this infrastructure brings so-called data processing units (what VMware was calling “Project Monterey”) into the fold alongside CPUs and GPUs. VMware says this makes the future of modern infrastructure accessible to all enterprises. vSphere on DPUs will work with technology from AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo, VMware says. Overall, VMware expects vSphere 8 to reduce total cost of ownership, support DevOps innovation, improve efficiency and productivity for operations and IT, and bring cloud benefits to on-premises infrastructure.
In tandem with vSphere 8, VMware is announcing some fairly arcane additions, including NSX Distributed Firewall, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.0 and a new cloud consumption interface service.
vSphere 8 will be available in late October.
Next up, a new iteration of the vSAN cloud storage product.
VMware is launching a new version of its cloud storage infrastructure, vSAN. This iteration, vSAN 8, enhances the performance, storage efficiency, and data protection and management of vSAN running on the latest generation storage devices, according to VMware.
As with vSphere 8, VMware promises reduced total cost of ownership with vSAN 8, thanks to more efficient data protection and compression capabilities. The company also says users will experience higher availability because of a new storage pool construct.
vSAN 8 will be available on or before Oct. 28, like its vSphere 8 counterpart.
VMware also released information about some other cloud initiatives it has developed. We bullet-point those here:
VMware Cloud Foundation+: New cloud-connected architecture for managing and operating full stack hyperconverged infrastructure in data centers. It’s built on vSphere+ and vSAN+.
VMware Cloud for Hyperscalers: VMware is talking up new capabilities in the jointly engineered VMware Cloud on AWS service, as well as availability of VMware Cross-Cloud services in the AWS Marketplace. It’s all designed to help enterprises move VMware workloads to AWS.
VMware Edge Compute Stack 2: This platform will include support for smaller cluster sizes to run containers on smaller commercial, off-the-shelf hardware. It also will offer higher performance with GPU passthrough support for use cases enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Right now, VMware Edge Compute Stack only supports x86 hardware only. Later on, it will support non-x86 processor-based specialized small edge platforms that run IT/OT workloads and workflows on one stack. This will be available in late October.
Managed Edge Solution with NTT: VMware and NTT are expanding their partnership to deliver a fully managed edge compute solution with private 5G connectivity. VMware says this will give enterprises greater access to edge computing. NTT will provision the connectivity, running it on VMware Edge Compute Stack.
VMware Private Mobile Network: Similar to the NTT announcement, this managed service offering will provide enterprises with private 4G/5G mobile connectivity for edge-native applications. The beta version will become available in the third quarter of VMware’s 2023 fiscal year.
While not solely reliant on cloud computing, hybrid work continues to showcase itself as the next major form of global work models. Enabling hybrid work requires the thoughtful inclusion of various technologies — namely, cloud, mobility, connectivity. With that in mind, VMware is introducing enhancements across the Anywhere Workspace platform. Ultimately, VMware aims to make the interface autonomous, meaning that it will self-configure, self-heal and self-secure. The company is doing that across virtual desktop infrastructure and DaaS, Digital Employee Experience, unified endpoint management and more.
Go to the next slide to learn what’s happening with VDI and DaaS.
Because hybrid work is driving demand for multicloud VDI, VMware is releasing a new version of VMware Horizon Cloud. The biggest change is updates to Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure, VMware says. As such, it is built to simplify the infrastructure that needs to go inside customer environments — and that should cut infrastructure costs (by more than 70%, VMware contends), while increasing scalability and reliability of the DaaS platform. For instance, it’s API-driven, so users and channel partners, including ISVs, will be able to develop tools, services and automation.
Customers with Horizon subscription licenses are entitled to the new Horizon Cloud at no additional charge.
Next, look for the new VMware Horizon Managed Desktop. This will be a cloud-hosted service with fully managed virtual desktops and apps. End users will get to choose whether to run those on-premises, or in hybrid or public clouds. IT teams (or their channel partners) will be able to scale up or down quickly and count on predictable opex spending, per VMware.
Note, too, that Google just earned certification for Chromebooks as a validated VMware endpoint.
We go into the Digital Employee Experience news on the next slide.
VMware Horizon and third-party devices now are considered part of VMware’s Digital Employee Experience. Previously, only Workspace One-managed devices were included. Now, because of this change, organizations will need to support far more employees, ranging from those in remote and corporate offices to those working on the front lines. Specifically regarding the latter, VMware is introducing a Digital Employee Experience Management pack. That features out-of-the box dashboards that show ROI, shared-device usage, device loss, critical application performance and more. Workspace ONE also will feature algorithms to help IT solve issues more quickly, among other capabilities.
Next, if you’re into Kubernetes and Tanzu, VMware has news.
We aren’t going to go too deep into the container side of the house here. Kubernetes and Tanzu certainly have their place within the channel, but for the most part, they are such specialized and complex areas of knowledge among most Channel Futures readers that we’re just going to share what seems most universally relevant.
· Tanzu Mission Control now is part of Aria Automation (which was vRealize Automation Cloud). VMware says this will help customers consolidate their IaaS and Kubernetes platform operations. Accordingly, here are some outtakes of what to expect as VMware supports more container-oriented work.
· Tanzu Mission Control users will be able to directly provision and manage Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service clusters.
· These same users now may employ clusters via GitOps to configure Kubernetes clusters.
· Mission Control lets users move applications between any cluster, running on any cloud or on-prem data center.
· Tanzu Application Platform 1.3 will be available on RedHat OpenShift, running in vSphere and on bare metal. Expect that late this year. Right now, though, the platform features air-gap support, a big deal for highly regulated and disconnected environments.
Channel Futures readers who really dig all the container news should visit the VMware website for all the nitty-gritty we haven’t included in this slideshow.
Next, though, you’ll want to get a look at VMware’s many new “Project” initiatives.
VMware loves to talk up its various upcoming innovations, referring to them by different “Project” names. This week, the company is going all in on networking and security efforts that will support cloud operations. Here’s the list:
· Project Northstar, for multicloud networking, security and holistic visibility. Services include policy management, network detection and response, network visibility and analytics, advanced load balancing, and workload mobility for private cloud environments and VMware Cloud deployments.
· Project Trinidad, for advancing VMware’s API security and analytics. In technology preview, this project deploys sensors on Kubernetes clusters. It detects anomalous behavior in certain traffic moving between microservices.
· Project Watch, for multicloud networking and security via advanced app-to-app policy controls. In technology preview, Project Watch helps IT with continuous observation, assessment and dynamic risk mitigation in composite multicloud applications.
VMware also is expanding network detection and visibility to the Carbon Black cloud endpoint protection platform. Early access is available now. (“Expect to see more from us in that direction of security-meets-infrastructure,” Tom Gillis, senior vice president and general manager of VMware’s Networking and Advanced Security business group, told media recently.)
So there you have it, the roundup of the major product announcements coming out of VMware Explore 2022. Check back to Channel Futures throughout the week for ongoing coverage of the event. We’ll publish updates from keynote speeches, press conferences and select sessions.
So there you have it, the roundup of the major product announcements coming out of VMware Explore 2022. Check back to Channel Futures throughout the week for ongoing coverage of the event. We’ll publish updates from keynote speeches, press conferences and select sessions.
VMware this week is holding its annual conference, which now goes by VMware Explore rather than VMworld.
First, to address the elephant in the virtual room: Attendees may be listening and hoping for updates on the pending Broadcom acquisition. However, we advise readers not to hold any collective breath. In various pre-briefings leading up to VMware Explore, the company has remained steadfast in its decision not to discuss the $61 billion deal. Top executives may touch on the agreement during their keynote speeches this week, but do not expect deep details. Much of the reason, of course, pertains to the standard quiet period that kicks in when publicly traded companies undergo M&A. In fact, for that reason, VMware did not hold an earnings call on Aug. 25 regarding its second-quarter results. (Profit declined, though not as sharply as analysts had predicted.)
Product Focus
Instead, expect VMware Explore to focus on product enhancements and launches, especially as those that pertain to cloud computing. VMware is full-steam ahead on getting out of its legacy, one-time-purchase model and into the more lucrative software-as-a-service world. The company continues to make strides on that front, including within its newly revamped channel partner program. Executives who have spoken with Channel Futures in recent months keep reiterating the theme that everything VMware does is aimed at producing recurring revenue for shareholders.
With that in mind, look for a plethora of news to come out of VMware Explore this week. (Channel Futures is onsite in San Francisco and will have daily coverage.) To kick off the event, we’ve compiled the most channel-relevant announcements. And, no surprise here, pretty much everything revolves around multicloud. Click the slideshow above to dive in to this year’s VMware Explore happenings.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Kelly Teal or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like