VMware Unveils Tools for Software-Defined Data Center

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VMware's VMWorld 2012 conference opened Monday with OpenStack news, a dual-CEO keynote and a number of new solution updates to the software-defined data center. As the company transitions from CEO Paul Maritz to incoming chief executive Pat Gelsinger, VMware (VMW) is unveiling updated solution strategies and its partner ecosystem is helping to enable the next generation of integrated cloud infrastructure.

News before the conference started Monday was that VMware (along with Intel and NEC) wase on the docket to be approved as Gold members of the OpenStack Foundation. Last month VMware embraced software defined networking (SDN) by acquiring OpenStack contributor Nicira. Time will tell if VMware is embracing the open source nature of OpenStack, or if it is a strategic play to best Citrix, which has taken a different approach from OpenStack.

vCloud Suite 5.1 - Software-defined data center

VMware announced a comprehensive solution of cloud infrastructure and management  products, expertise and ecosystem support to help customers drive greater efficiency and improve operational agility.  At the center architecting and implementing cloud computing is vCloud Suite 5.1, which VMware describes as the first solution to deliver the software-defined data center.  Tenants or customers can use vCloud Suite to create their own virtual data centers,with a logically isolated collection of virtual compute, storage, networking and security resources.

“Today’s IT requires organizations to take a holistic approach to planning, building and operating their infrastructure, especially as we move into this new era of cloud computing,” said Don Henderson, Chief Technology Officer, NYSE Technologies. “At NYSE Euronext, not only have we embraced cloud computing as a foundation for our corporate IT strategy, we’re extending that value to financial services organizations looking to modernize their individual IT operations, leveraging VMware cloud technology and expertise to offer the financial industry’s first community cloud.”

The vCloud Suite combines virtualization, software-defined data center services, policy-based provisioning, disaster recovery, and application and operations management. For the vCloud Suite platform vSphere 5.1 will support VMs with up to 64 virtual CPUs and will include key enhancements to the vSphere Distributed Swtich and the ability to support up to 500 networked hosts per distributed switch. Also included in the suite are vCloud Networking and Security 5.1 for a software-defined networking and security solution, and vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1 to automate disaster recovery.

The VMware vCloud Suite will be licensed per processer with no core, vRAM or number of VM limits and is expected to be available September 11, 2012.

New Operating model for the Cloud Era

VMware announced new Cloud Ops Intellectual Property (IP) and advisory, transformation and education services. Cloud Ops IP helps IT teams transition to an operating model for cloud computing that promises to accelerate delivery of new business value and innovation. Additionally a Cloud Ops Forum was introduced - a group of consulting and integration partners that will collaborate on further definition of this new operating model. Launch members of the forum include Canopy, Capgemini, CGI, CSC, Dell, Deloitte, EMC, HP, Infosys, and T-Systems. The combination of CloudOps and the CloudOps Forum will help drive innovation and efficiency through four areas: processes and control, people and organization, financial modeling and measurement, and software technology and architcture.

“Customers evolving to Cloud Ops are realizing significant gains in efficiency, agility and reliability,” said Carl Eschenbach, VMware chief operating officer and co-president. “In fact, we have seen some VMware customers reduce labor operating costs by as much as 25 percent, freeing resources for reinvestment into new services that drive innovation and competitive differentiation.”

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