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VMware vSphere, More Get Kubernetes Updates as Dell Announces Integrations
Dell Technologies announces synchronous product releases.
Lynn Haber
September 15, 2020
5 Min Read
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VMware’s application and infrastructure modernization efforts are getting a boost. The vendor just announced new Kubernetes product updates for VMware vSphere, Tanzu Editions, vSan and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).
More specifically, VMware announced vSphere 7 Update 1, vSAN 7 Update 1 and VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 product releases. The company is also introducing VMware vSphere with VMware Tanzu and Tanzu editions.
VMware’s Sheldon D’Paiva
“This is how we’re bringing modern applications to the hybrid cloud,” said Sheldon D’Paiva, director, cloud platforms business unit, VMware. “We continue to power forward and provide a developer-ready infrastructure. We feel good based on customer conversations about how we’re delivering a single platform from traditional, as well as modern, applications. Customers don’t need to add yet another platform on top of where they are already. They can leverage existing investments in tools and skills sets.”
More on Tanzu
Tanzu is a portfolio for building, running and managing modern apps on any cloud.
Earlier this year, VMware announced a slate of products around Kubernetes, and also unveiled the VMware Cloud Foundation hybrid platform. That supports both traditional VM-based and container-based applications, as well as an expanded Tanzu portfolio. What’s new today is vSphere with Tanzu.
“It’s an integrated Kubernetes solution. We rearchitected the heart of the platform, which is namely vSphere,” D’Paiva said. “That’s the fastest way for many of our customers to get started with Kubernetes.”
With vSphere, Tanzu customers can bring their own networking and storage. That is one key differentiator between VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu and vSphere with Tanzu.
“We believe that it will open the floodgates for application modernization initiatives,” said D’Paiva.
Beyond the Infrastructure Domain
The new Tanzu editions are packaged add-ons that come in basic, standard, advanced and enterprise. The design simplifies the customer journey with Tanzu by addressing common customer challenges.
“The Tanzu portfolio covers a broad gamut of capabilities that unlock productivity for engineering teams, large and small,” said Craig McLuckie, vice president, modern applications platforms business unit at VMware.
To simplify Kubernetes adoption, there’s Tanzu Basic Edition and Tanzu Standard Edition. Basic has Kubernetes fully integrated into vSphere. Standard is available in vSphere in VCF and is also available across multiple clouds.
Tanzu Advanced is for customers who deploy custom apps on Kubernetes. Finally, Tanzu Enterprise aims to transform the way organizations build software.
Other Updates
VMware vSphere 7 Update 1, vSAN 7 Update 1 and VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 offer new capabilities that support traditional workloads. New features and enhancements will help customers …
… scale their infrastructure and simplify their operations.
vSphere 7 Update 1 virtual machines (VMs) scale up to 24 terabytes (TB) and 768 vCPUs to deliver “monster VMs.” This is in support of resource-intensive applications such as in-memory databases.
vSphere 7 Update 1 has expanded support for the number of hosts per cluster by 50% for a total of 96 hosts per cluster.
vSAN 7 Update 1 introduces HCI Mesh, a software-based approach for disaggregation of compute and storage resources designed to help customers to scale incrementally.
The new vSAN 7 Update 1 option will allow customers to enable compression-only instead of deduplication and compression. Customers will benefit from an increase in usable capacity and improved performance across both all-flash and hybrid systems without compromising space efficiency for databases.
vSAN 7 Update 1 now offers all of the most common file service protocols by adding support for the SMB v3 and v2.1 protocols. Additionally, vSAN File Services now features Active Directory integration, a critical component of enterprise-ready file storage, and Kerberos support for network authentication. With these new capabilities, customers can use vSAN for both block and file storage for most use cases.
New remote cluster capabilities enable VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 to extend its operational capabilities to edge locations and branch offices.
New vVols integration into VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 with Tanzu provides a common storage management framework for external storage.
VMware Skyline brings proactive intelligence to VMware Cloud Foundation by identifying management and workload domains and proactively surfacing VMware Cloud Foundation solution findings.
VMware is also introducing the vSAN Data Persistence platform. It’s a platform that several of the company’s technology partners can plug into to deliver their solutions on top of the VMware platform. The partnerships and co-engineering efforts are with Cloudian, DataStax, Dell Technologies and MinIO.
Initially, expect to see object storage and NoSQL databases.
Product Availability
Expect VMware vSphere with Tanzu, VMware vSphere 7 Update 1, VMware vSAN 7 Update 1, VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 with Tanzu, VMware Tanzu Basic and Tanzu Standard editions, and VMware Skyline support for VMware Cloud Foundation to become available by the end of October. Look for VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials in beta in the same time frame. VMware Tanzu Advanced and Enterprise editions will be available later.
Dell Technologies News
In keeping with its commitment to synchronous releases, Dell Technologies today announced integrations with the new VMware HCI software and Tanzu offerings.
More specifically, Dell announced VMware Tanzu on Dell EMC VxRail integration, and new vSAN and vSphere releases. The vendor also announced new VMware Cloud Foundation remote cluster management functionality.
VMware Tanzu on Dell EMC VxRail integration provides multiple, fully integrated HCI options. This enables customers to build, run and manage Kubernetes container-based applications.
The new vSAN and vSphere releases deliver a number of new advancements for VxRail customers; for example, a “compression only” option for demanding workloads and extended file services. Other advancements include new security features, and VCF remote cluster management to extend workloads to the edge.
New VCF remote cluster management functionality allows VxRail customers to extend VCF workload domains to remote locations. They can do this while maintaining consistent operations and integrated full-stack life cycle management across the hybrid cloud to the edge.
Dell’s Jeff Boudreau
“Customers seeking to adopt agile, cloud-native development methods need to quickly spin up Kubernetes environments on the same infrastructure already supporting their other business-critical applications,” said Jeff Boudreau, president, Dell Technologies Infrastructure Solutions Group. “As the first HCI solution with a fully integrated Tanzu portfolio, Dell EMC VxRail offers the fastest path to Kubernetes when deployed with vSphere with Tanzu and a fully integrated Kubernetes environment when deployed with VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu. These offerings exemplify the ongoing work between Dell Technologies and VMware to bring integrated, innovative solutions to customers.”
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