VMware introduces unified platform for hybrid cloud

VMware has announced a unified platform of virtualised compute, networking and storage for the hybrid cloud. Defined in software, VMware’s platform will enable customers to create one consistent environment across the private and public cloud to run, protect and manage any cloud-native or traditional application. The company introduced  VMware vSphere 6 that delivers new capabilities to address the unique needs of business-critical and cloud-native applications with higher performance, scale and consolidation ratios. [caption id=“attachment_1999251” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] VMware Integrated OpenStack is an OpenStack distribution that will enable organisations to quickly provide developers with open APIs to access VMware’s enterprise-class infrastructure. VMware packages, tests and supports all components of the distribution, including the open source OpenStack code, and will provide the distribution free of charge to VMware vSphere customers. Designed to enable mass adoption of software-defined storage, VMware Virtual SAN6 will introduce scalability and performance enhancements to the company’s hypervisor-converged storage solution. Additionally, VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes will offer a new level of storage integration to make external arrays natively aware of virtual machines.   In addition, the company introduced VMware vCloud Air hybrid networking services powered by VMware NSX. Expanding on integration work announced earlier this year, VMware revealed vCloud Air hybrid networking services that will help customers bridge VMware’s vCloud Air public cloud service and VMware vSphere-based private clouds to enable a single, secure network domain through a gateway appliance. VMware NSX is a network virtualisation platform that delivers the entire networking and security model from L2-L7 in software. VMware NSX is being deployed as the networking foundation for VMware vCloud Air. Available via a phased release starting in the first half of 2015, VMware vCloud Air hybrid networking services will enable customers to maintain hundreds of virtual networks spanning the private cloud and vCloud Air over a single WAN connection, and share the same fine-grained “zero trust” security policies and network isolation for applications, unchanged.     VMware vSphere 6, VMware Integrated OpenStack, VMware Virtual SAN 6 and VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes are expected to become available in Q1 2015.