Our News Bits is a roundup that typically covers news pieces that are just small in content, not in impact. This gives content room to breathe even if it comes in less than what we normally cover. This week VMworld 2019 took place in San Francisco, California. While we covered the major announcements from the VMware and Dell Technologies, there were several other smaller announcements. These announcements come from vendors such as Apstra, Lightbits Labs, Cohesity, Rackspace, Supermicro, and Check Point.
Our News Bits is a roundup that typically covers news pieces that are just small in content, not in impact. This gives content room to breathe even if it comes in less than what we normally cover. This week VMworld 2019 took place in San Francisco, California. While we covered the major announcements from the VMware and Dell Technologies, there were several other smaller announcements. These announcements come from vendors such as Apstra, Lightbits Labs, Cohesity, Rackspace, Supermicro, and Check Point.
Apstra Announces AOS 3.1
Apstra announced the latest version of its Intent-based networking for the data center, Apstra Operating System (AOS) 3.1. New features include:
- VMware NSX and Apstra: Closed-Loop Integration of Overlay & Underlay Fabric
- Multidomain Unified Group Based Policy: Increased Application Availability & Security
- Intent-Based Analytics: Troubleshooting and Root Cause Identification
- Enterprise Network Support: Expanded Feature-set & Multi-vendor Support
Lightbits Labs Brings Disaggregation to VMware vSAN Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Lightbits Labs demonstrating its LightOS solution working on VMware vSAN. The combined technology enables vSAN to independently scale storage and compute. The combined technology gives VMware vSAN users the benefits of NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) disaggregation, allowing for heterogeneous clustering of vSAN nodes with local drives or even diskless hosts.
Cohesity Attains VMware Partner Ready Validation
Cohesity announced that is Cohesity DataProtect and Cohesity DataPlatform have attained “VMware Partner Ready for VMware Cloud on AWS” validation. Gaining this status allows Cohesity customers to realize the benefits of the complete DataPlatform and DataProtect solutions in VMware Cloud for AWS rather than being limited to reduced functionality provided through backup proxies or gateways. Both Cohesity DataProtect and Cohesity DataPlatform are available on the VMware Solution Exchange.
Cohesity DataProtect on the VMware Solution Exchange
Rackspace Expands Hybrid Cloud Portfolio
Rackspace is expanding its hybrid cloud capabilities in order to help its customers with their IT modernization. New offerings include:
- Managed VMware Cloud on AWS – Customers are now able to leverage VMware HCX and Managed Guest OS Services for their VMware Cloud on AWS workloads, with availability of Managed External Storage coming soon. With these capabilities, Rackspace is able to offer customers a hybrid-interconnect to enable fast, simple and secure application migration and mobility between VMware-based private clouds and VMware Cloud on AWS, increased storage scalability without the need to purchase additional hosts, and access to Fanatical Support for operating systems on customer VMs.
- Advanced Kubernetes and container services – Rackspace now provides professional and managed services to help customers incorporate container architectures into their cloud strategies. These capabilities provide customers with the tools and expertise they need to modernize their applications on agile, cost-effective container-based infrastructures.
- Advanced cloud-native support – With the new Cloud Reliability Engineering Service Block, a Rackspace infrastructure engineering team will work with the customer’s in-house IT team to provide expert support through close collaboration on infrastructure projects to help enable transformation and the adoption of cloud-native capabilities.
- Rackspace Managed Security (RMS) Service Blocks – The portfolio has been expanded to provide Proactive Detection and Response and Compliance Assistance services to customers on VMware private clouds. Additionally, RMS Service Blocks for Managed Public Cloud customers are being expanded to provide support for native security tools on all the leading public clouds, beginning with AWS. The functionality will be integrated into the Rackspace Managed Security portfolio and will provide customers with a single pane of glass view into their security landscape.
- Integration and API Management Assessment – With this new assessment, Rackspace evaluates the current state of application and data integration across the entire organization, including hybrid IT deployments. Rackspace provides integration recommendations that accelerate business goals and strategies, enabling businesses to create new business models, accelerate products and services, and deliver superior customer experiences.
Supermicro Extends vSAN System Portfolio
Super Micro Computer, Inx. Expanded its vSAN system portfolio with the introduction of its new enterprise-class vSAN solution in an Ultra SuperServer and BigTwin. These new server turn-key systems add to Supermicro’s line of vSAN ready nodes. The systems include:
- Supermicro 2U/1U Ultra SuperServers are highly configurable for different types of deployments. Ultra SuperServer platforms support a large number of NVMe drives and ample PCI-E lanes to accommodate network interface cards (NICs) that provide sufficient bandwidth for external access over fabrics.
- The BigTwin with 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors features a flexible, resource-saving Supermicro I/O networking module (SIOM) and supports All-Flash NVMe. Configured with Intel Optane DC SSDs and NVMe as caching for high-performance SDS, this solution accelerates storage performance up to 3x. There is improved endurance, up to 30 drive writes per day (DWPD), to extend the lifecycle of deployments.
Check Point CloudGuard Now On VMware Cloud Marketplace
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. announced that its CloudGuard solutions is now available on VMware Cloud Marketplace. According to the company, Check Point's CloudGuard protects assets in the cloud from the most sophisticated Gen V cyberthreats with dynamic scalability, intelligent provisioning and consistent control across physical and virtual networks.
CloudGuard on VMware Cloud Marketplace
