Bringing Benefits of Cloud to On-premises, VMware vSphere+ and VMware vSAN+ Unveiled

VMware has unveiled VMware vSphere+ and VMware vSAN+ to help organizations bring the benefits of the cloud to their existing on-premises infrastructure with no disruption to workloads or hosts. These new offerings will provide centralized cloud-based infrastructure management, integrated Kubernetes, access to new hybrid cloud services, and a flexible subscription model.

Introduced initially during VMworld 2021 as Project Arctic and an integral part of the VMware Cloud strategy, vSphere+ and vSAN+ are the first set of offerings to deliver a consistent infrastructure with capabilities across distributed environments. vSphere+ and vSAN+ will enable customers to activate add-on hybrid cloud services that deliver on critical use cases for business-critical applications running on-premises, including disaster recovery and ransomware protection.

These new offerings will allow all customers, no matter their size, to consume new capabilities, security, and product updates faster and more simply without changing existing applications or hardware.

VMware’s Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager for VMware Cloud Platform Business, Cloud Infrastructure Business Group, said:

“VMware vSphere+ and VMware vSAN+ represent the next major evolution of those foundational solutions that customers know and trust. Wherever customers are on their digital transformation journey and in executing their cloud strategy, vSphere+ and vSAN+ will help accelerate their transformation by bringing the benefits of cloud to their existing on-premises infrastructure and workloads, along with simplified consumption via a flexible subscription model.”

VMware vSphere+

A multi-cloud workload platform delivering benefits of the cloud to on-premises workloads, vSphere+ combines virtualization technology, an enterprise-ready Kubernetes environment, and high-value cloud services that transform existing on-premises deployments into a SaaS-enabled infrastructure.

Building upon technology in the latest version of vSphere Enterprise Plus edition, vSphere+ provides access to a wide selection of cloud services and centralizes management through the VMware Cloud Console. Workloads remain on-premises, running on ESXi hosts orchestrated by vCenter instances, just like traditional vSphere today. But now, vCenter can connect to the Cloud Console through a VMware cloud gateway, allowing metadata to be collected and used to manage the entire distributed vSphere+ estate centrally.

VMware vSAN+

VMware vSAN+ is a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) offering that extends vSAN’s capabilities to deliver cloud-connected services, helping IT administrators centralize management and improve the efficiency of their vSAN environment.

Based on customer discretion, vSAN+ can connect all vCenter instances to VMware Cloud for centralized management. To facilitate this, a vCenter cloud gateway virtual appliance is installed on-premises and connects with vCenter to collect the minimal data needed for display within the VMware Cloud Console. Customers can see their entire HCI estate through the console, centrally monitor events, alerts, and resource capacity, and identify unaddressed security deficiencies.

Services to accelerate administrator tasks include:

Global Inventory Service: provide a visual inventory of HCI resources across multiple vCenters
Event View Service: Quickly triage areas that need attention across the entire HCI estate
Lifecycle Management Service: Update vCenter instances with minimal impact, reducing the maintenance window and allowing rapid access to new features. Updates can be rolled back, and security vulnerabilities can be addressed.
Provision a VM Service: Quickly create VMs within any managed cluster to an existing vSAN datastore

Simplify Operations with Centralized Infrastructure Management

Infrastructure operations teams are under pressure to improve efficiency and productivity and to look for ways to maintain and protect an ever-increasing infrastructure. It’s not unusual for a customer’s vSphere environment to be distributed across siloed locations, edge sites, and clouds, creating an operational nightmare.

Through the VMware Cloud Console, VSphere+ and vSAN+ customers are provided a unified infrastructure management experience for these distributed environments. The console features global inventory, configuration, alerts, administration, and security status for on-premises deployments.

Admins can perform specific operational tasks directly from the VMware Cloud Console, like managing configurations and policies across their deployments. Customers will benefit from a simplified lifecycle management experience through cloud-enabled automation of updates of on-premises infrastructure components. Cloud-based remediation and configuration drift capabilities, including security checks to maintain compliance with corporate and regulatory requirements, are additional benefits.

Accelerate Developer Velocity with Integrated Kubernetes

Providing a single workload platform for running VMs and containers orchestrated by Kubernetes, vSphere+ will help transform on-premises infrastructure into an enterprise-ready Kubernetes platform. This includes providing developers a multi-cloud IaaS consumption experience by extending the capabilities of VMware Tanzu Standard Runtime to enable developers to run and manage Kubernetes at scale with consistency and efficiency across on-premises, public clouds, and edge. Including VMware Tanzu Mission Control Essentials will provide customers with global visibility across their entire Kubernetes footprint and automate operational tasks.

Extend On-Premises with Seamless Hybrid Cloud Services

With vSphere+ and vSAN+, customers will continue to use existing investments, including toolsets and domain expertise, while benefiting from the expanded capabilities of VMware Cloud. Customers will benefit from protection workflows available as add-on cloud services directly integrated into their operating environment, including VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery, on-demand ransomware and disaster recovery service.

Simplified Consumption via a Flexible Subscription Model

With vSphere+ and vSAN+, organizations can adopt a subscription-based consumption model for on-premises deployments. A further benefit is a single SKU that includes all necessary components (VMware vCenter, ESXi, Tanzu Standard Runtime, and Tanzu Mission Control Essentials) and support.

vSphere+ and vSAN+ are both new offerings and are generally available. Tanzu Mission Control Essentials is a component of vSphere+ and is expected to be available in VMware’s FY23 Q3.

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