VMware Bundles Virtualization Products To Spark Cloud Buildout

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 08/30/12

In an effort to prod organizations to convert their sometimes-scattered virtualized operations into private cloud formations, VMware has put together an expansive set of its products into a single suite. The idea is to reduce the complexity and cost of implementing an infrastructure-as-a-cloud (IaaS) operation--all based on VMware technology. At the same time, the products making up the suite have been updated. The company made the announcement during VMworld 2012, its annual user conference taking place this week in San Francisco.

VMware also announced a new set of consulting and training services to help customers plan and assemble their VMware-based IaaS setup.

vCloud Suite 5.1 pulls together VMware's multiple virtualization offerings and adds in extensibility products in an effort to help organizations pool computing, storage, and networking resources to deliver faster and more resilient services.

The new suite consists of upgraded versions of:

• vSphere, the technology that allows IT to pool hardware resources--storage, networking, and security--into a shared environment;
• vCloud Director, which provides the controls for pooling, abstraction, and automation of data center services;
• vCenter Operations Management Suite to handle performance, capacity, and configuration management;
• vFabric Application Director, a set of middleware products for helping companies migrate custom applications to a virtual environment;
• vCloud Networking and Security, which provides virtual services for managing and securing the network, including firewall, virtual private network, application scaling, and load balancing;
• vCenter Site Recovery Manager, for disaster recovery and failover operations;
• vCenter Orchestrator for automating IT tasks;
• vCloud Connector to allow IT to view, manipulate, and transfer computing resources between private and public clouds; and
• vCloud application programming interfaces

The new release of vSphere includes more powerful virtual machines along with improvements to help customers avoid unplanned downtime and achieve stronger networking capabilities. For example, vSphere 5.1 will support increases in scalability, such as virtual machines with up to 64 virtual CPUs. It also includes updates in backup and recovery, replication, and security features, among others.

The latest version of vCloud Director has enhanced application programming interfaces and an extensibility framework that lets IT connect internal resources to third-party infrastructure services.

The suite, expected to be available September 11, 2012, will have three editions: standard, advanced, and enterprise, with variations in components. Pricing will start at $4,995 per processor. Depending on the type of user, with this release the company has begun the move away from confusing licensing schemes that take into account the number of virtual machines or cores or amount of vRam in use. Existing customers of vSphere Enterprise Plus may be able to upgrade free.

The company also announced a new set of consulting and training services called Cloud Ops Intellectual Property (IP). This offering comes out VMware’s experience in helping clients navigate through the decisions around building and running public and private cloud environments. It will include a forum that brings together consulting and integration partners to develop best practices, training, certifications, metrics, and other ingredients to assist organizations in building, operating, staffing, and measuring a cloud environment.

Specifically, VMware said Cloud Ops would include:

• Cloud operations services to provide customers with assistance in analyzing, designing, and implementing cloud solutions;
• Consulting services to help customers implement the vCloud Suite;
• New training and certifications to help organizations expand their in-house skills; and
• A set of documents to help customers build a business case for putting in place a cloud infrastructure.

Pieces of that offering are available immediately, the company said in a statement.