VMware updates multi-cloud platform

VMware has unveiled a collection of hybrid cloud innovations at VMWorld, including the introduction of VMware vSphere Platinum Edition, an update to vSAN and VMware vRealize Cloud Management Platform.

The company said these new and updated hybrid cloud products will enable businesses to embrace the flexibility of hybrid infrastructure, while also future-proofing their business for a hybrid cloud world.

"While our customers' needs and priorities stretch far and wide, we're focused on driving innovations that will provide them with a digital foundation to meet their future IT needs while creating critical linkage that will help them get the most out of their existing IT investments," said Rajiv Ramaswami, chief operating officer, Products and Cloud Services, VMware.

vSphere Platinum Edition is a security application for protecting applications, infrastructure, data and access across the cloud. It combines VMware's standard cloud security tools with VMware AppDefense, integrating powerful security defences in the hypervisor, with machine learning and behavioural analytics to identify threats and provide a fast response to any anomalies.

vSAN 6.7 Update 1 makes it easier for customers to start using HCI, with faster spin-up times and reduced maintenance thanks to built-in intelligence that detects changes in capacity requirements. Its Quickstart guided cluster creation uses a startup wizard for creating new vSAN and non-vSAN clusters, making it easier for anyone to spin up new development environments.

Finally, VMware has announced enhancements to its vRealize Cloud Management Platform, including the addition of vRealize Operations 7.0 that automatically places workloads in clusters according to their business intent. Not only will it save costs and capacity, but it will also accelerate the performance of a deployment.

vRealize Automation 7.5 will use Ansible Tower integration and offer Kubernetes cluster management via VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS) to program the provision and app operation to offer more developer-friendly infrastructure, while vRealize Suite 2018 will offer more agility for businesses running traditional and cloud-native applications both on and off-premise.

"We continue to invest in infrastructure software for compute, networking, storage, and management that customers can count on to more securely and efficiently support the apps, data, people, and processes that will impact and power their businesses for decades," Ramaswami added.

VMware also revealed an update to its vSphere 6.7, adding some minor refinements including the addition of HTML5-based vSphere Client for admins to manage their virtual infrastructure and support for intelligent workloads with vMotion and snapshot capabilities for NVIDIA Quadro vDWS powered VMs.