VMworld is VMware’s annual conference dealing with all things virtual, software-defined, cloud and more. This article summarises the most important VMworld 2014 announcements and details on:
- The Software Defined Datacenter, including news on VMware vCloud Suite and VMware NSX.
- VMware vRealize Suite, a new suite for cloud management.
- VMware EVO:RAIL, VMware’s new hyperconverged solution.
- VMware vCloud Air, the new name for vCloud Hybrid Service (already announced last week). vCloud Air also includes SaaS-, object based storage-, automation- and databaseservices.
- VMware Integrated OpenStack, a new virtual appliance for simple deployment of OpenStack integrated with vSphere.
- VMware End User Computing announcements on VMworld 2014 day 2.
- VMware vSphere 6 announcements.
Software Defined Data Center announcements
VMware announced version 5.8 of its vCloud Suite. There’s also a new version of NSX available, for both the vSphere and Multi Hypervisor edition.
VMware vCloud Suite 5.8
- VMware vCloud Suite 5.8 is announced with:
- Improved business continuity and disaster recovery – Self service, policy based provisioning of DR tiers, increased scalability of protection and recovery capabilities, improvement on SRM integration with vCloud Automation Center. It’s now possible to offer SRM as a Service in vCAC’s self service portal.
- vCloud Automation Center 6.1 is announced.
- Enhanced next-generation applications, such as Big Data Extensions for Hadoop 2.
- Improved interoperability with NSX.
- New proactive support based on a new VMware vCenter plugin called the Support Assistant.
VMware NSX 6.1 for vSphere / 4.2 Multi Hypervisor
- VMware NSX 6.1 for vSphere:
- NSX integrates with vSphere 5.5 and newer;
- Allows integration with external DHCP servers in the physical world;
- Several different DHCP server can be configured;
- Two stage ECMP support;
- L2 VPN (including VLAN trunking) from two different NSX edges between two different (stretched) datacenter. This feature is comparable with the Cisco OTV feature;
- Load balancing improvements: UDP & FTP load balancing is supported;
- Seamless integration with F5 firewalls;
- Enhancements to the NSX distributed firewall include: reject action, enhancements to troubleshoot and monitoring;
- VMware NSX Multi Hypervisor 4.2:
- Includes HA/hitless upgrade;
- DHCP relay feauture (same as in NSX 6.1 for vSphere);
- OVS performance enhancements;
- GA in Q3 2014.
- Enhanced integration with VMware vCloud Automation Center 6.1. Pre-created shared Distributed Logical Routers, dynamic creation of security groups per application with default isolation policy, create security groups per tenant, assign security tags per vApp.
The VMware vRealize Brand
The vRealize brand is a new brand announced by VMware at VMworld 2014. vRealize is a complete stack for managing a SDDC and public cloud infrastructure (IAAS).
Under the vRealize brand three options are announced:
- vRealized Operations Insight – An add-on for vSphere with Operations Management (vSOM).
- vRealize Air – A SaaS offering for vCloud Automation Center.
- vRealized Suite – The complete set of VMware management products.
There’s some ambiguous information available on the internet whether or not vRealize is the replacement for the vCenter Operations Management Suite, or if it just a new option. If I have more information I will publish it here. Read on for more details on the three options.
vRealize Operations Insight
We have the vRealize Operations Insight suite available which includes:
- vCenter Operations Management Management Suite Advanced.
- vCenter Log Insight.
The vRealize Operations Insight offering is an add-on for vSphere with Operations Management (vSOM). I was already talking about this add-on/upgrade last week in this article and now we can put on label on this new option. vSOM offers vSphere + vCops Standard, with the vRealize Operations Insight package you can add vCops Advanced & Log Insight to your infrastructure.
vRealize Operations Insight is available on a per-processor perpetual license model (which includes unlimited virtual machines and underlying hardware), as an add-on solution to VMware vSphere with Operations Management.
vRealize Air
vRealize Air Automation offers vCloud Automation Center as a SaaS offering. vRealize Air is not the replacement of vCloud Automation Center, but an alternative option/offering. Currently vRealize Air is available as public beta through vrealizeair.vmware.com.
Check YouTube for a short movie on vRealize Air.
vRealize Suite
The vRealize Suite comes in two versions, advanced and enterprise, and includes the following products:
- vCenter Operations Management Suite
- vCloud Cloud Automation Center
- IT Business Management Suite Standard (ITBM)
- vCenter Log Insight
This is quite interesting because the current vCloud Suite lacks the ITBM product and vCenter Log Insight. The vRealize Suite will be licensed per CPU.
More information on vRealize is available in this article.
VMware EVO:RAIL
VMware EVO:RAIL is VMware’s hyper converged solution available to selected OEM hardware vendors.
- VMware EVO: RAIL combines compute, networking, and storage resources into a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance to create a simple, easy to deploy, all-in-one solution offered by VMware qualified partners.
- VMware EVO:RAIL is a turn-key solution and available as one SKU through selected hardware vendors.
- 2U 4 node hardware platform optimized for VMware EVO:RAIL (2 CPU’s, 192 GB RAM per node, 16 TB via VSAN, phone and in-field HW & SW Support & Services). Special hardware requirements are applicable.
- Wizard-based simple configuration for EVO:RAIL – Just Go! / Customize Me! / Upload Configuration File. After 15 minutes EVO:RAIL is ready for use because the solution is pre-configured by the hardware vendor.
- EVO:RAIL Software includes:
- Deployment, Configuration and Management;
- vSphere Enterprise Plus;
- Virtual SAN Storage;
- vCenter Server;
- vCenter Log Insight.
Read more about EVO:RAIL in one of the following documents:
Also read on here: Live from VMworld 2014: A closer look at Hyper-Converged & VMware EVO:RAIL.
My colleague Marcel van den Berg also has an extensive article on EVO:RAIL available on his website.
VMware vCloud Air
VMware vCloud Air is the new name for vCloud Hybrid Service. On top of the IAAS service, vCloud Air will also deliver DR services, desktop services and platform services. These services include:
- DevOps as a service
- Database as a service with support for MS SQL Server and MySQL as a first step. Other database platforms will follow.
- Object based storage VMware vCloud Air Object Storage (based on EMC ViPR technology) – Designed to offer extremely scalable, cost effective, and durable storage for unstructured data, VMware vCloud Air Object Storage will enable customers to easily scale to petabytes and only pay for what they use. VMware vCloud Air Object Storage will include lifecycle management, versioning and large object features that will simplify and reduce management overhead and for highly available hybrid application deployments.
- Mobility services offered by vCloud Air are:
- Enterprise Mobility Management – Offering an industry-leading platform for mobile device, application, email, browser and content management, AirWatch® by VMware solutions will be available this year on vCloud Air. AirWatch provides a simplified, efficient way to manage an organization’s mobile footprint across employee-owned, corporate-owned and shared devices from a centralized console.
- Mobile Backend as a Service (mBaaS) – Organizations will be able to scale their ability to build mobile applications and integrate them with corporate backend systems and third-party cloud services through mBaaS solutions on vCloud Air, offered by leading enterprise BaaS provider Kinvey, enterprise mobile platform, built.io, and Node.js community leader StrongLoop.
- Mobile Application Development Platform (MADP) – Developers will be able to create mobile applications on vCloud Air using mobile web application development tools from Sencha’s high-performance, HTML5 mobile application platform Sencha Touch Bundle and cross-platform application development capabilities, including Appcelerator Titanium or the extensible, integrated Appcelerator Platform.
- Pivotal CF Mobile Services – Enterprise Platform as a Service leader Pivotal® is extending Pivotal CF on vCloud Air with mobile backend capabilities such as Push Notifications, API Gateway and Data Sync, all at enterprise standards of compliance and security.
- Rapid Application Delivery – Customers can create, deploy, manage and change both mobile and web applications on vCloud Air with the high productivity application platform from OutSystems.
- Cloud management as a service through the vRealize Air offering which is actually vCloud Automation Center as a Service.
- Platform as a Service based on Pivotal offering.
New VMware vCloud Air Virtual Private Cloud OnDemand – VMware vCloud Air Virtual Private Cloud OnDemand will provide customers with on demand access to vCloud Air, in an instant access with the swipe of a credit card. Billing is provided in arrears for services consumed.
VMware Integrated OpenStack
VMware is the number 4 contributor to the OpenStack initiative. VMware announces further integration of OpenStack and vSphere through a new vitual appliance called VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO):
- VMware + OpenStack = Better Together. OpenStack offers already integration with vCenter/ESX, NSX, vSphere Datastores and VSAN, using OpenStack Nova, Neutron, Cinder and Glance.
- New is VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO) is the combination of OpenStack and vCloud Suite. A special OpenStack Virtual Appliance will be available for download. The OpenStack appliance will connect and prepare you vSphere environment to be used by OpenStack.
VMware End User Computing Announcements
On day 2 of VMworld 2014 VMware made some important announcements in the End User Computing space:
- VMware, NVIDIA and Google Unveil Future of Graphics-Rich Applications Delivered on Enterprise Cloud Desktops – More information is available here.
- VMware and SAP Collaborate to Deliver Mobile Security and Simplified User Experience for Mobile Applications – More information is available here.
- VMware Unifies Mobile, Desktop and Content Management With VMware Workspace Suite – More information here.
- VMware announces New Horizon DaaS Services and Expansion to Europe – More information in this article.
- VMware Delivers the new Workspace Suite – More in this blog article.
vSphere 6 Beta Announcements
Some announcements regarding vSphere 6 (now in public beta) were made on day 2 of VMworld 2014:
- Fault Tolerance in vSphere 6 will support 4 CPUs;
- vSphere 6 will support cross vCenter vMotion;
- vSphere 6 long distance vMotion is enhanced;
- Using VMware NSX, network properties will now be vMotioned as well when using long distance vMotion.
Also check this article by Marcel van den Berg for another overview of this year’s announcements.
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