Today is an exciting day! If you are attending VMworld 2014, you will hear about VMware EVO:RAIL shortly.
VMware EVO:RAIL™ is a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance that will help customers to streamline the deployment and scale-out of Software-Defined IT infrastructure. It is also the first solution in a family of hyper-converged infrastructure offerings from VMware. EVO:RAIL targets use cases in the mid-market and enterprise segments. It is ideally suited for use cases such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) as well as remote office/branch office for industries such as financial services, government – federal, healthcare, higher education, insurance, oil and gas, and retail. You can learn more about EVO:RAIL by reading Duncan Epping’s blog and Chris Wolf’s blog that cover our hyper-converged infrastructure technologies.
What is Next for EVO – EVO:RACK Tech Preview
So while you will be hearing a lot at VMworld about EVO: RAIL, I am excited to offer a preview of some of the other exciting things we are working on – applying the EVO concepts to the full Software-Defined Data Center.
Today at VMworld 2014, we also revealed a new technology preview of VMware EVO:RACK™, a hyper-converged infrastructure project. The technology demonstrated in VMware EVO:RACK can dramatically simplify how companies buy, deploy, and operate Software-Defined Data Centers, helping IT organizations rapidly provision applications and services at data center scale.
Designed as a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that can scale to tens of racks; EVO:RACK meets the increasing demands of private clouds at medium-to-large enterprises. It can run on a range of pre-integrated hardware configurations ranging from Open Compute Project-based hardware designs to industry-standard OEM servers and converged infrastructure.
EVO:RACK also leverages VMware’s full line-up of software solutions for the SDDC including, VMware vCloud Suite, VMware Virtual SAN, and VMware NSX. EVO:RACK is designed to support integrated virtual and physical networking, and brings it all together via EVO software specifically developed to simplify the deployment and ongoing lifecycle management of the SDDC software. The EVO software will create a scalable management solution across a distributed, multi-rack hyper-converged cloud infrastructure.
This approach creates a virtual abstraction (across racks and other form factors) that pools compute/storage/network and uses this abstracted resource pool as a unit of SDDC instantiation and operation. The result is a dramatically simplified model for deployment, configuration, and provisioning.
EVO:RACK provides streamlined and automated lifecycle management of the SDDC components including non-disruptive patching and upgrading of software. The initial target for such an HCI is workloads spanning IaaS and VDI with plans to extend it to support PaaS and Big Data workloads in future.
Summary
With the SDDC vision, VMware has embarked on a voyage to transform the way enterprise IT builds, deploys, and operates its infrastructure. Our goal is to make it easier to build private clouds to deliver IT’s internal customers what they are demanding – agility, availability, and lower OpEx. The EVO family of products will provide ways of creating scalable, virtual infrastructure from appliances to the scale of the cloud. It will help us to deliver on our vision by greatly simplifying how our customers source, build, deploy, provision, and operate their workloads.
If you’re at VMworld this week, you can learn more about our EVO family of products at the VMware booth or check out our Hyper-Converged Infrastructure spotlight session (SDDC3245-S). What do you think of our new EVO technologies? Leave your questions and comments below.
