VMware has announced that vSphere 8 is available for download. More than just the initial release announced during VMware Explore, this is a major release with improvements to bring the benefits of cloud to on-premises workloads, improve performance through DPUs and GPUs, and accelerate innovation with an enterprise-ready integrated Kubernetes runtime.
VMware has announced that vSphere 8 is available for download. More than just the initial release announced during VMware Explore, this is a major release with improvements to bring the benefits of cloud to on-premises workloads, improve performance through DPUs and GPUs, and accelerate innovation with an enterprise-ready integrated Kubernetes runtime.
Improved Workload Performance
With vSphere 8, enterprises can increase workload performance by offloading and accelerating network infrastructure services, such as VMware NSX, on the DPU. VMware plans to offer more infrastructure services utilizing DPUs in the future. Customers can choose server solutions from Dell Technologies and HPE based on DPU technologies from NVIDIA and AMD Pensando. vSphere 8 makes it easier to introduce DPUs into the infrastructure.
In previous releases of vSphere, major strides were made in making GPUs accessible and scalable for AI/ML workloads. vSphere 8 goes one step further by supporting eight vGPUs and 32 passthrough devices per VM.
NVIDIA DPU
Improved DevOps Innovation
In vSphere 7, customers were introduced to managing containers alongside VMs, allowing enterprises to modernize applications at a convenient pace. vSphere 8 adds several advancements that help DevOps teams innovate faster. vSphere 8 introduces the Cloud Consumption Interface, a simple and intuitive self-service web and API interface which enables DevOps teams to access and provision IaaS services.
VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) 2.0 support is included in vSphere 8, helping developers tackle the growing complexity of deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters. TKG 2.0 now supports ClusterClass, a declarative Cluster API that standardizes the process to provision, upgrade and operate multiple Kubernetes clusters.
TKG streamlines authentication across Kubernetes clusters. Pinniped, a “batteries included” authentication system for Kubernetes clusters, supports LDAP and OIDC federated authentication. You can define identity providers that can be used to authenticate users to the supervisor clusters and Tanzu Kubernetes clusters.
Improved Operational Efficiency
To reduce the overall maintenance window, vSphere 8 will pre-stage ESXi image download commencement. Also, remediation can be performed in parallel with more than one host. These enhancements shrink the maintenance window allowing IT teams to return to normal operations much faster.
vSphere 8 gives a major upgrade to DRS and vMotion when PMEM is present on a host by leveraging memory stats to optimally place VMs.
In July, VMware announced vSphere+, a new offering from the vSphere family combining industry-leading virtualization technology with high-value cloud services that transform existing on-premises infrastructure with cloud benefits. With vSphere 8, customers can bring the on-premises infrastructure and VMware cloud services seamlessly without requiring any lift and shift of workloads.
vSphere 8 is available for a free 60-day trial
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