VMware announced a TON of new products and versions last week, including VMware vSphere 7, VMware Cloud Foundation 4, the VMware Tanzu portfolio, updates to VMware Cloud, vSAN 7, and vRealize Suite 8.1. It’s completely understandable that you might have been focused on other things so here’s the rundown on all of them. We will be doing recap posts every Monday until vSphere 7 is released, and technical posts covering major features Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays into May. Please tune in directly using the RSS feed, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
On deck this week for the vSphere Blog are posts about major enhancements to migration and upgrade processes, improvements to vMotion to make it faster and more seamless for ALL applications, an introduction to the different cluster types in vSphere with Kubernetes, and an announcement for an upcoming event you’ll want to watch (no spoilers!).
Adam Eckerle introduces us to the technical features of vSphere 7 & vSphere with Kubernetes, helping us see not only the “what” of a feature but also the “why.” Adam’s team will be posting deeper dives on these features into May and beyond.
Kit Colbert shows us what it means to have Kubernetes integrated so deeply with vSphere now. Here’s a spoiler: it’s all the vSphere we’ve always known plus Kubernetes the way developers want to see it. How did we pull that off? Read it to find out.
Yearning for some other technical content? Who isn’t! We’ve got some great videos showing what’s new in vSphere 7, vCenter Server 7, and details around DRS & vMotion. More to come, please subscribe so you’re notified as we post.
Rick Walsworth shows us why VMware Cloud Foundation 4 is the place that vSphere with Kubernetes can be found. He says “Cloud Scale” but it’s really “nearly all sizes” – Cloud Foundation has evolved into a very flexible and cost-efficient package worth serious consideration, especially if the last time you heard about it was more than 6 months ago.
Josh Townsend gets us into the details of what’s new in VMware Cloud Foundation 4. Cloud Foundation encompasses so many products that the post ends up being a great summary of the announcements. Worth a read.
Ray O’Farrell shows us where all of this is heading with the Tanzu portfolio, as well as what’s happening with the Pivotal Application Service. He’s got a lot of information to talk about a very simple concept: vSphere with Kubernetes is designed to be absolute easiest way to get Kubernetes into your organization’s existing infrastructure, security, and governance processes. Major parts of the Tanzu portfolio are designed to be agnostic, so it can manage your Kubernetes instances wherever they are: public cloud, VMware Cloud, vSphere with Kubernetes, homegrown… all of it.
If you’re new to Kubernetes you’re in good company. Michael Coté has a great post going through the results of the “State of Kubernetes” survey and has some real insights that all vSphere Admins can learn from, so what the developers are asking for starts making sense.
VMware Cloud is evolving into an abstraction layer for the public cloud, making it dead simple to run, manage, and migrate applications in six public clouds and as many on-premises data centers as you have. Thinking about Kubernetes? VMware Cloud on AWS has Tanzu now, too, just like it’s cousin, vSphere. In fact – and don’t tell the Cloud Foundation folks we said this – it is easy to get into Kubernetes this way, too.
VMware Cloud on AWS has a release model that rolls out new features and functions on a predictable schedule to customers. The latest release has some very interesting improvements. It adds Tanzu, which we knew from the link above, but adds Terraform support, new notification gateways for operational events, large SDDC support for our biggest customers, and new stretched cluster support in South America.
This is a new report showing the results of a study of over 1200 organizations and their developers and leadership. It’s a very insightful read. For example, about a quarter of the organizations studied have been working on cloud migrations for over three years. How does that track with your organization’s experience? Hopefully it makes you feel better that you’re not alone. Studies like these help VMware help you, so please download it, read it, and then talk to your account teams about what you need, both now and in the future.
Jason Massae covers a lot of the improvements to the core storage functionality in vSphere 7. NVMe-over-Fabrics, vVols, lots of things but the killer feature for many vSphere Admins is Windows Server Failover Clustering support WITHOUT RDMs. No, really – I do not joke about topics this serious. Go read it now.
Deep integration with vSphere Lifecycle Manager, Native File Services, enhanced Cloud Native Storage, vSphere DRS is more aware of stretched clusters, better repair options, new device support… LOTS of great things here. Update to vSphere 7 and it’s like getting a better storage array at the same time. If you aren’t looking at vSAN, or it’s been a while, you probably want to look again. It’s a very interesting platform.
Pete Flecha and John Nicholson welcome Glenn Sizemore and Myles Gray to talk about vSphere with Kubernetes. If you haven’t seen their podcast before it’s a great one, lots of great guests on a variety of topics (when it’s slow they even invite me!). Check it out.
Cato Grace takes us into the wonderful enhancements in Site Recovery Manager 8.3. Things like automatic protection for VMs, performance enhancements, UI improvements, decoupling from vCenter Server, and no more dependence on Adobe Flash, which is good because Flash is being retired at the end of 2020.
vRealize Operations Manager is a terrific monitoring and optimization platform for VMware infrastructure, and I say that based on personal history. Taruna Gandhi shows us what’s new. Do you think it has native vSphere with Kubernetes support in it? Of course. It also has a ton of other new features and integrations and improvements, including Slack integration and new CIS & DISA compliance packs.
VMware Cloud Foundation is the easiest way to install and update the vRealize Suite, but the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager makes it very simple if you aren’t running VCF yet. Scott Rong walks us through the new features, lots of integrations to make life easier. These folks take the idea of “better together” very seriously.
Alina Thylander shows us what is coming in vRealize Automation 8.1. Multicloud, hybrid cloud, VMware Cloud Foundation, better governance options, and direct support for Kubernetes & Tanzu.
Orchestrator has quietly been helping us automate our infrastructure for years. Scott Rong outlines how it’s learned new scripting languages and has new ways to help us view information and debug workflows.
Log management and alerting is crucial for organizations of all sizes, and Matt Jones runs down the improvements to Log Insight that make it one of the easiest-to-use tools around. Kubernetes of course, plus better dashboard sharing, better scaling, and my personal favorite: variable retention based on log types.
Thank You
Whew! That was a LOT of announcements, but it speaks to what an exciting time this is for vSphere and VMware. As always, thank you for being our customers, and we look forward to the journey ahead into Modern Applications with you. Please stay safe & healthy.
We are excited about vSphere 7 and what it means for our customers and the future. Watch the vSphere 7 Launch Event replay, an event designed for vSphere Admins, hosted by theCUBE. We will continue posting new technical and product information about vSphere 7 and vSphere with Kubernetes Monday through Thursdays into May 2020. Join us by following the blog directly using the RSS feed, on Facebook, and on Twitter. Thank you, and please stay safe.
VMware vSphere 7
VMware Cloud Foundation 4
VMware Tanzu
VMware Cloud
VMware vSAN & Storage
VMware Site Recovery Manager
VMware vRealize Suite
