VMware announced the general availability of new releases of VMware vSphere, VMware vSAN (formerly VMware Virtual SAN), VMware vRealize Log Insight and VMware vRealize Operations to help IT operations teams more efficiently run, manage and secure their traditional and modern applications on- or off-premises.
These new releases advance the VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture, which enables customers to run, manage, connect, and secure their applications across clouds and devices in a common operating environment. The Cross-Cloud Architecture delivers consistent deployment models, security policies, visibility, and governance for all applications, running on- and off-premises, regardless of the underlying cloud, hardware platform or hypervisor. VMware's Cross-Cloud Architecture builds on its private and hybrid cloud capabilities by offering customers the freedom to innovate in multiple clouds, and is delivered through VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware vRealize Suite and a new set of Cross-Cloud Services.
Newly available offerings include:
- VMware vSphere 6.5 -- VMware vSphere 6.5 includes new features and multiple enhancements to deliver a simplified customer experience, comprehensive built-in security, and a universal applications platform to support all application types including containerized applications. Specifically, this latest release includes new features in the VMware vCenter Server Appliance, new REST-based APIs, an HTML5-based VMware vSphere Client, and virtual machine encryption. VMware vSphere Integrated Containers, a new feature of vSphere 6.5, is scheduled to be available later in Q4 2016. VMware vSphere 6.5 will be featured in vSphere with Operations Management 6.5. This new release is also expected to be a part of VMware Cloud Foundation moving forward.
- VMware vSAN 6.5 -- VMware vSAN 6.5 further improves total cost of ownership (TCO) savings by adding support for containers and physical workloads, unveiling iSCSI support, eliminating networking hardware costs from two-node Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) configurations, and adding all-flash hardware support to vSAN Standard Edition. A new VMware Ready for vSAN certification program is also now available to provide customers with the confidence that file services and data protection partner solutions will seamlessly deploy, run and interoperate with vSAN. Additionally, vSphere Virtual Volumes 2.0 is now available, featuring enhanced enterprise-readiness through capabilities like native support for array replication as well as support for business-critical applications such as Oracle Database with Real Application Clusters.
- VMware vRealize -- To further accelerate the delivery of infrastructure and applications, VMware has expanded the functionality of its integrated vRealize cloud management platform via the introduction of container management capabilities and support for Microsoft Azure as a dedicated endpoint. The newly available VMware vRealize Log Insight 4.0 features enhanced alert management and a redesigned user interface, while vRealize Operations 6.4 now delivers improved alert management and metric grouping, new customized dashboards, and predictive DRS for improved workload performance. Scheduled to become available later in Q4 2016, VMware vRealize Automation 7.2 will simplify hybrid cloud deployments with new out of the box support for Microsoft Azure. Additionally, it will enable IT to discover, deploy and manage containers throughout their environment with new container management capabilities. vRealize Automation 7.2 will also feature out of the box support for ServiceNow enabling vRealize Automation service catalog items to be accessed directly via ServiceNow.
- VMware Cloud Services -- VMware has expanded to include new Hybrid Cloud solutions for the enterprise. VMware has introduced the beta of a new vCloud Air disaster recovery solution and the beta of VMware Cloud Foundation on vCloud Air. These releases enable customers to gain cloud scale, agility, and flexibility with compatibility for a unified hybrid cloud experience. Learn more here.
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