VMware Updates Tanzu, vSAN, vSphere, & Cloud Foundation

Today, VMware has announced new product releases and offerings to simplify customer’s applications and infrastructure modernization. The company has updated its portfolio with a vast number of items, including 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. These releases introduce new developer-ready capabilities to streamline customer adoption of Kubernetes and support stateful applications and features to enhance scalability and operations.

VMware vSphere with Tanzu

vSphere with Tanzu will allow customers to configure enterprise-grade Kubernetes infrastructure with their existing network and block or file storage in less than an hour, according to VMware. Including enabling customers to extend vSphere Distributed Switch support for Kubernetes clusters. vSphere with Tanzu will also allow customers to deploy NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials or choose their own L4 load balancing solutions. Using VMware vCenter Server, customers will be able to deploy Kubernetes clusters in minutes, provision role-based access, and allocate capacity to developers. Overall, the integration with VMware Tanzu will allow administrators to manage consistent, compliant, and conformant Kubernetes while providing developers self-service access to IT infrastructure.

VMware Tanzu Editions

VMware Tanzu editions packages portfolio capabilities that address the most common enterprise requirements to modernize infrastructure and applications. The VMware Tanzu editions lineup consists of Basic, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise. VMware Tanzu Basic is an add-on to vSphere that entitles customers to run Kubernetes as part of their vSphere environment. VMware Tanzu Standard edition will enable customers to run and manage Kubernetes across multiple clouds with a single, open-source aligned distribution, and centralized management of policy across clouds, clusters, and teams.

VMware vSphere 7 Update 1:

Monster VMs: vSphere 7 Update 1 virtual machines (VMs) scale up to 24 terabytes (TB) and 768 vCPUs to deliver (what VMware calls) “monster VMs” in support of resource-intensive applications such as in-memory databases.
Cluster Scale Enhancements: vSphere 7 Update 1 has expanded support for the number of hosts per cluster by 50% for a total of 96 hosts per cluster.

VMware vSAN Update 1

VMware vSAN has one of the biggest releases in the last three years. VMware is introducing the vSAN data persistent platform and new partnerships. VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 with VMware Tanzu will introduce the vSAN Data Persistence platform, a framework for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) enabling modern stateful services such as object storage and NoSQL databases to integrate with the underlying infrastructure.

Other vSAN updates:

HCI Mesh: vSAN 7 Update 1 introduces HCI Mesh, a unique software-based approach for disaggregation of compute and storage resources that helps customers scale incrementally. This feature will enable customers to reduce CAPEX by sharing capacity across clusters while lowering OPEX as they reduce the number of storage resources managed by scaling efficiently.
Compression-Only Option: This new vSAN 7 Update 1 option will allow customers to enable compression-only instead of deduplication and compression. Customers will benefit from an up to 20% increase in usable capacity and improved performance across both all-flash and hybrid systems without compromising space efficiency for databases.
Enterprise-Ready File Services: 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 Partnerships: new partnerships and co-engineering efforts with Cloudian, DataStax, Dell Technologies, and MinIO to integrate and validate their respective offerings on the vSAN Data Persistence platform. Partners will introduce plug-ins in support of the platform over time.

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1

Remote Clusters: New remote cluster capabilities enable VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 to extend its operational capabilities to edge locations and branch offices.
vVols Integration: New vVols integration into VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1 with Tanzu provides a common storage management framework for external storage.
VMware Skyline Support for VMware Cloud Foundation: VMware Skyline brings proactive intelligence to VMware Cloud Foundation by identifying management and workload domains and proactively surfacing VMware Cloud Foundation solution findings.

Product Availability

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 are all expected to become available in VMware’s Q3 FY21 (Oct. 30, 2020).

VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Essentials is expected to be in beta in Q3 FY21. VMware Tanzu Advanced and Enterprise editions will be available at a later date.

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