VMware VMworld 2020 News Includes SaltStack Acquisition

VMWARE VMWORLD — VMware on Tuesday unveiled new solutions for the distributed workforce and security for digital infrastructure. Also new are an expanded Tanzu portfolio and partnerships, insight into Project Monterey and more. The announcements come via the company’s VMworld 2020 (virtual) event.

The vendor also announced its intent to acquire SaltStack, an infrastructure automation software provider. VMware’s interest in SaltStack is to extend its automation capabilities beyond infrastructure to applications, and advance its cloud automation capabilities.

VMware’s Ajay Singh

“Once closed, SaltStack will help us complete our automation story, enabling us to extend our automation capabilities beyond infrastructure to the entire application stack,” Ajay Singh, senior vice president and general manager, cloud management business unit at VMware, wrote in a blog. “This will include the software ad packages inside virtual machines and containers. These software configuration management capabilities will help us address the full spectrum of customers’ automation needs and further strengthen customers’ ability to automate the deployment and configuration of infrastructure platforms both on premises and in the cloud with VMware vRealize Automation.”

Future Ready Workforce Solutions

VMware’s new Future Ready Workforce solutions aim to improve the distributed workforce experience. They also offer end-to-end zero-trust security controls and simplified management, the company said.

The Future Ready Workforce solutions combine VMware secure access service edge (SASE), digital workspace and endpoint security capabilities for secure access to any app, on any cloud, from any device.

VMware Workspace Security Remote combines unified endpoint management (UEM), endpoint security and remote IT support into an integrated solution. And VMware Workspace Security VDI integrates VMware Horizon and VMware Carbon Black Cloud into a unified solution to deliver secure virtual desktops and applications.

VMware Workspace Security Remote and VMware Workspace Security VDI are available today. VMware Edge Network Intelligence is expected to be available before the end of next month.

The vendor also announced VMware Cloud Web Security. This is a new service that integrates Menlo Security’s secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access service broker (CASB), data loss prevention, sandbox and remote browser isolation capabilities natively into VMware SASE solutions.

Furthermore, VMware announced that it will integrate its NSX Firewall into the VMware SASE platform. It is delivered as a service in single-tenanted or multi-tenanted deployment option.

Expect VMware Cloud Web Security availability in the first quarter of the company’s 2022 fiscal year, which begins Jan. 30, 2021. NSX Firewall as a Service for the VMware SASE platform should be available sometime later in the year.

More Tanzu

VMware expanded Tanzu portfolio support across VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution and Oracle Cloud VMware Solution. The vendor also announced a partnership with GitLab.

VMware and Gitlab are committed to uniting application developers and operations teams around the shared goal of fast and more secure releases. GitLab delivers a DevOps platform as a single application.

Tanzu is a portfolio for building, running and managing …

… modern apps on any cloud. Since introducing VMware Tanzu last year, more than 75 ISVs are part of the VMware Tanzu community.

Multicloud strategy

To help customers build, run, manage, connect, and protect any app on any cloud, VMware made several announcements.

Intrinsic Security

VMware unveiled new innovations to deliver intrinsic security to digital infrastructure. The solutions will advance security for the public and private clouds, security operations and distributed workforces as organizations accelerate cloud adoption to build resilient, future ready digital infrastructure.

VMware’s Sanjay Poonen

“Amid global disruption, the key to survival for many companies has meant an accelerated shift to the cloud, and ultimately bolting on security products in their data centers,” said Sanjay Poonen, chief operating officer, customer operations, at VMware. “But legacy security systems are no longer sufficient for organizations that are using the cloud as part of their computing infrastructure. It’s time to rethink security for the cloud/ Organizations need protection at the workload level, not just at the endpoint. The future of cloud must be met with a better way to secure data and applications.”

Here are several new innovations:

Project Monterey

Project Monterey was unveiled Tuesday at VMworld. This is a technology preview. Project Monterey will help organizations address an increasingly complex application landscape.

This initiative includes support for SmartNICs and the redesign of VMware Cloud foundation. It will also deliver on VMware vision for intrinsic security.

Industry support for Project Monterey includes collaboration with Intel, NVIDIA and Pensando for SmartNIC technology. Dell Technologies, HPE and Lenovo will deliver integrated systems based on Project Monterey.