(VMware Photo)
Companies that rely on VMware’s software to manage their own data centers as they dip their toes in the public cloud will see several new vSphere features emerge this week alongside security improvements and new options for managing hybrid cloud deployments.
VMworld 2018 kicks off Monday morning in Las Vegas, and a new “Platinum” version of VMware’s flagship vSphere virtualization software will be shown off later today during a keynote address headlined by CEO Pat Gelsinger. The new version adds security features from VMware’s AppDefense product into vSphere, which the company said will make it easier for administrators to determine if hostile workloads are running on their equipment.
Perhaps no company has enjoyed the rise of hybrid cloud computing more than VMware , which at one point was thought to be directly in the path of the cloud computing steamroller . While cloud computing vendors like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure continue to grow much faster than the traditional data center market that VMware serves, the company has continued to grow as large enterprise companies maintain ― and modernize ― their existing data center investments in virtual machine technology while starting new applications on cloud services.
Security is always a big concern for those types of customers, and vSphere Platinum Edition will integrate some features found in AppDefense ― a separate networking security product sold by VMware ― directly into the hypervisor. Platinum Edition customers will also receive credits for VMware Cloud on AWS, the company’s hybrid cloud product developed in conjunction with AWS that lets users manage workloads across their own servers and AWS cloud servers. It also announced that VMware Cloud on AWS is now available in the Asia-Pacific region.
During the event, VMware is also expected to announce a new version of its vSAN hyperconverged infrastructure software that makes it easier to get up and running with the all-in-one clusters, as well as a new version of its vRealize cloud management software that helps administrators assign workloads across hybrid cloud deployments with business goals in mind.
It also plans to talk up its DevOps chops with new releases for VMware Cloud Services, a software suite that helps companies manage software deployments across multiple public clouds and on-premises servers.