VMware Unveils Hybrid Cloud Tools
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VMware is folding management features into the latest version of its cloud infrastructure as another way of easing the enterprise deployment of hybrid clouds. Along with automating the provisioning of cloud components across hybrid clouds via its vRealize suite, the company also this week announced expanded market traction for its Cloud Foundation platform running across private and public clouds.
Separately, VMware unveiled application container and networking upgrades for "emerging app architectures."
Version 2.3 released on Tuesday (Dec. 5) "expands the definition of Cloud Foundation to include cloud management," Matt Herreras, VMware's director of product marketing, said during a conference call. That includes automatic configuration and deployment of vRealize to manage and provision processing, storage, networking and application services across hybrid clouds, Herreras added.
Billed as a simpler path to the hybrid cloud, the cloud manager can be deployed on premises or used as a service in the public could, and runs with both virtual machines and application containers, the company said. The latest release of Cloud Foundation delivers "a direct path to the hybrid cloud by providing them a common infrastructure that can be deployed on-premises or run as a service from the cloud with a consistent operational experience across clouds," the company added in a statement.
Herreras said Cloud Foundation version 2.3 would be generally available later in the company's current fiscal quarter.
VMware (NYSE: VMW) and other vendors are moving to provide agile IT platforms as enterprise shift to hybrid cloud deployments. A company survey released last year found that 60 percent of customers are using at least one public service. Since then, more companies have adopted multi-cloud strategies designed to avoid vendor lock-in.
VMware and other cloud management vendors are attempting to differentiate their offerings with upgraded cloud-native components. Also this week, VMware announced the initial availability of a container service developed along with partner and Cloud Foundry distributor Pivotal Software.
The Pivotal container service to be released in mid-December would provide VMware customers with an enterprise version of the Kubernetes container orchestrator. The service is described as a "purpose-built" platform designed to "operationalize Kubernetes for enterprise and service providers" by simplifying deployment of Kubernetes clusters, VMware said.
Kubernetes specialist CoreOS also released the latest version of its Tectonic platform this week that the San Francisco-base startup promotes as the first "open cloud services for Enterprise Kubernetes."
A container adoption survey sponsored by CoreOS and released in May by 451 Research found that more than half the 200-plus IT managers surveyed preferred a combination of hosted and on-premise container services. That approach is seen as the most effective way to manage applications across hybrid cloud infrastructure.
Meanwhile, VMware also this week unveiled the latest iteration of its NSX-T platform designed to provide networking and security across emerging application architectures. NSX-T 2.1 serves as the networking and security platform for the Pivotal container service while integrating with the latest 2.0 release of Pivotal Cloud Foundry where it serves as the networking and security engine.
