Product Announcements

Introducing VMware vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Editions

At VMworld 2014 in San Francisco, we introduced VMware vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Standard and Advanced editions. These exciting offerings will allow us to provide new and existing customers of all sizes with enhanced service level, standardization and availability capabilities for remote and branch office locations.

Customers can expect vSphere Remote Office Branch Office to deliver:

  • Faster provisioning of servers through virtualization
  • Enforcement of configuration standards
  • High availability of IT infrastructure at remote sites via vSphere’s business continuity features such as vMotion, Storage vMotion, Replication and Data Protection

These new offerings feature a per virtual machine licensing metric that offers customers the flexibility to deploy only the number of workloads required at each remote site. vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Standard and Advanced is expected to be available in Q3 2014. They will be available in packs of 25 virtual machines priced at $3,000 for the Standard edition and $4,500 for the Advanced edition. These packs can be distributed across multiple remote sites.  These new offerings will replace existing vSphere Essentials and Essentials Plus Kits for Retail and Branch Offices.

Note that the regular non-Retail/Branch Office Essentials and Essentials Plus Kits (that come in 6 CPU packs with 1 vCenter Server Essentials) will continue to be available.

For more info, go to:  http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/compare.html

If you’re at VMworld this week, you can learn more about using vSphere in Remote Office and Branch Office environments in the following session:

INF1212 – “Best Practices in Virtualizing Remote Offices and Branch Offices with VMware”

  • Tuesday, Aug 26, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PT
  • Wednesday, Aug 27, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM PT

Coming soon: vSphere 5.5 Update 2

We’re also announcing vSphere 5.5 Update 2. The new release offers support for new chipsets, guest operating systems, business critical application and 6TB hosts. It is expected to be available in Q3 2014.

Get details on the pending release at the following session:

INF1502 – “What’s New in vSphere?”

  • Wednesday, Aug 27, 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM PT
  • Thursday, Aug 28, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM PT

vSphere Beta Program Continues

On June 30, we opened up the vSphere Beta Program for everyone to enroll and to help us define the direction of world’s most robust virtualization platform. Over the last couple of months, beta participants have offered up heaps of feedback on product functionality, configurability, usability, and performance in the private beta community. Additionally, they have had the chance to learn more about vSphere through weekly webcasts and interaction with our product teams.

We’re committed to make the next release the strongest possible with your help. The beta program remains open, and we’re still seeking participants. It’s not too late to download, install, and evaluate the vSphere beta software in your environment today.

Join the vSphere Beta Program today at: https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere-beta

There will be a technical previews pod in the VMware booth (1229) showcasing some of the features in this vSphere Beta.  Please stop on by to learn more.