At VMware Explore 2024 Las Vegas, Broadcom Inc. unveiled
VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, marking a pivotal step forward in private
cloud technology. This newest release aims to accelerate the transition from
fragmented IT architectures to a unified, integrated platform that enhances
security, scalability, and efficiency. VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 is designed
to radically simplify the deployment, consumption, and operations of a secure
and cost-effective private cloud.
As the industry's first platform to merge the benefits of
public cloud scale and agility with private cloud security, performance, and
resilience, VMware Cloud Foundation is uniquely positioned to support
customers' digital innovation needs. By delivering faster infrastructure
modernization, VCF offers a truly unified cloud experience, increasing
operational efficiency, boosting cyber resilience, and significantly lowering
the total cost of ownership (TCO). This makes it an ideal solution for
businesses seeking to modernize their infrastructure without sacrificing
security or cost efficiency.
Making It Faster and Easier to Deploy and
Operate Modern Infrastructure
VMware Cloud Foundation 9 introduces a suite of features
designed to help organizations rapidly modernize their infrastructure. With a
focus on unified, automated operations, VCF 9 enables enterprises to operate
their environments as a single, cohesive system. This helps them keep pace with
modern application requirements while leveraging the advanced VMware
capabilities from Broadcom.
- Unified
Operations and Automation: VMware Cloud Foundation
9 reduces operational complexity by consolidating more than a dozen
management consoles into just two—one for operations and one for
automation. The newly introduced self-service cloud portal allows IT teams
to streamline provisioning, minimizing the manual overhead associated with
infrastructure management. Furthermore, integrated workflows simplify the
handoff between operations and automation tasks, improving overall
efficiency. Enhanced insights and analytics provide more proactive and
informed decision-making, reducing the risk of downtime and performance
bottlenecks.
- Expanded
VCF Import: As businesses move to modernized
infrastructures, one challenge is migrating existing environments with
minimal disruption. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 addresses this with expanded
VCF Import capabilities, allowing organizations to seamlessly import critical
components such as VMware NSX, VMware vDefend, and VMware Avi Load
Balancer, as well as complex storage topologies. This minimizes downtime
and simplifies migration, helping businesses transition to VCF with ease.
A new, intuitive user interface further simplifies these tasks, ensuring
smooth management and deployment for IT teams.
- Advanced
Memory Tiering with NVMe: As data-intensive
applications like AI, databases, and real-time analytics become more
prevalent, performance demands are higher than ever. VMware Cloud
Foundation 9’s memory tiering capability, powered by NVMe, addresses these
needs by reducing latency and accelerating data throughput. This is
especially critical for AI workloads that require fast data retrieval for
training and inference tasks. The efficiency of NVMe tiering enables
organizations to manage large datasets cost-effectively, ensuring scalability
without compromising performance.
Delivering a Cloud Experience that Provides
Frictionless Consumption of Resources
One of the most significant advancements in VMware Cloud
Foundation 9 is its ability to streamline the deployment and consumption of
resources, creating a frictionless experience for developers and application
owners. VCF 9 exposes easy-to-consume infrastructure services, making it
possible to deploy any type of application—whether virtual machines (VMs) or
containerized workloads—with minimal complexity.
- Integrated
VCF Multi-Tenancy: A key innovation in VCF 9 is the
integration of multi-tenancy capabilities directly into the platform,
eliminating the need for separate VMware Cloud Director deployments. This
enables enterprise IT teams to support multiple organizations, business
units, or development teams on the same shared infrastructure. The
platform allows for the segmentation of resources based on specific
access, workload management, security, and privacy requirements. This
provides flexibility for teams to tailor their environments without
compromising the overall infrastructure's performance or security. The
result is a more efficient use of shared infrastructure while maintaining
autonomy for individual teams.
- Native
VPC Deployment: With VCF 9, VMware introduces native
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) deployment as a networking-as-a-service
experience. This capability is designed to boost developer productivity by
simplifying networking configuration. Instead of relying on complex VLAN
setups, developers can now self-provision isolated connectivity with VPCs,
reducing the operational burden on IT teams. VCF 9’s Native VPCs also
integrate seamlessly with existing network infrastructures, offering
non-disruptive expansion. By leveraging Advanced Services, such as
VMware vDefend for security group creation and VMware Avi Load Balancer
for one-click load balancing, organizations can ensure secure, scalable,
and highly available network configurations, further enhancing agility.
- Accelerated
Adoption of VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA:
In response to the growing demand for AI workloads, VCF 9 accelerates the
adoption of VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA. This solution
is aimed at enterprises looking to harness the power of AI while
maintaining the control and security benefits of private clouds. New
enhancements in VCF 9 will simplify the deployment and scaling of GenAI
applications. Features such as vGPU profile visibility and GPU
reservations allow for optimized resource management in AI
environments. Additionally, services like data indexing and retrieval
and an AI agent builder further streamline the development and
management of AI-driven applications. These capabilities provide
enterprises with a robust and secure framework to scale AI operations
efficiently.
Enabling Uninterrupted Operations, Cyber
Resilience, and Compliance
VMware Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9) aims to provide
enterprise-grade resilience by enabling fleet-level operations, centralized
security, and streamlined compliance management. These capabilities ensure that
organizations can maintain uninterrupted operations, improve their security
posture, and mitigate risks more proactively. Key enhancements in VCF 9,
alongside Advanced Services, will significantly improve customers’ operational
security and data resilience.
- Unified
VCF Security Management: VCF 9 introduces native
Security Operations (SecOps) capabilities that enable enterprises to
bolster their security posture across global deployments without
sacrificing operational efficiency. Through a centralized security hub, IT
teams will be able to access accurate and timely security insights from
all VCF deployments in one place. The new comprehensive security view
offers visibility into various security aspects, ranging from
configurations to threat detection. Enhanced configuration drift
detection will proactively identify inconsistencies in system
configurations, helping IT teams address potential vulnerabilities or
misconfigurations across the entire VCF fleet before they escalate into
larger issues. This unified approach to security management not only
increases visibility but also simplifies the response to threats, reducing
the operational overhead typically associated with maintaining security at
scale.
- Native
vSAN-to-vSAN Data Protection with Deep Snapshots:
VMware Cloud Foundation 9 strengthens data protection with native vSAN-to-vSAN
snapshot replication, which is crucial for enterprise-grade disaster
recovery (DR). With the introduction of deep, immutable snapshots,
VCF 9 enables organizations to maintain a rich history of data snapshots,
offering stronger resilience against data loss or corruption. These
snapshots are ideal for ransomware protection, as they provide a
tamper-proof method for recovering critical data. In the event of an
attack, organizations can recover data using an on-premises Isolated
Recovery Environment, ensuring data sovereignty while avoiding
reliance solely on cloud-based recovery options. This flexibility supports
diverse disaster recovery strategies while leveraging the full potential
of the VCF stack to secure workloads across multiple environments.
- Advancing
Cyber Threat Prevention: VMware’s vDefend
security tool is being expanded with a suite of new capabilities designed
to enhance cyber threat prevention across VCF environments. These include distributed
firewall rule impact analysis, which simplifies micro-segmentation
policies by allowing IT teams to better understand the impact of rule
changes before implementation. The addition of distributed intrusion
detection and prevention (IDPS) offers improved threat detection and
mitigation, particularly in large and complex multi-instance VCF
environments. Moreover, rapid threat assessments will enable IT teams to
proactively address vulnerabilities by providing threat profiles specific
to each VCF deployment. For highly regulated industries that require
air-gapped environments, on-premises malware prevention offers a
safeguard against malware threats without relying on cloud-based
solutions. Furthermore, Project Cypress introduces GenAI-powered
intelligent assistance that can help IT security teams stay ahead of
evolving cyber threats by proactively triaging sophisticated campaigns and
suggesting appropriate remediation options.
Introducing VMware Cloud Foundation Advanced
Services
Broadcom is unveiling VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
Advanced Services, a comprehensive suite of ready-to-deploy solutions
designed to accelerate innovation and enhance the capabilities of private cloud
environments. This new catalog of services offers enterprises a diverse range
of tools and technologies that mirror the flexibility and scalability typically
found in public clouds, but with the security and control of a private cloud
infrastructure.
- A
Robust Catalog of Solutions: VCF Advanced Services
represents a significant leap forward in providing enterprises with access
to a broad array of pre-configured solutions. These services are designed
to address various use cases and business opportunities quickly and
efficiently. The catalog includes advanced solutions for infrastructure
management, application deployment, security, and compliance, all tailored
to meet the specific needs of private cloud environments.
- Accelerating
Deployment and Time to Value: Each solution within
the VCF Advanced Services catalog has been thoroughly vetted by Broadcom,
ensuring high quality and compatibility with existing VCF deployments.
Customers can leverage these services either independently or in
collaboration with a certified VMware Partner. The solutions come with
prescriptive architectural guidance, streamlining the deployment process
and accelerating time to value. This approach helps organizations
implement advanced functionalities and capabilities without the traditional
delays associated with custom deployments.
- Enhancing
Private Cloud Capabilities: By providing
ready-to-deploy services, VCF Advanced Services helps enterprises enhance
their private cloud environments with minimal effort. Organizations can
rapidly integrate new technologies and functionalities, enabling them to
respond more quickly to changing business needs and technological
advancements. Whether it's optimizing infrastructure, improving security,
or deploying advanced applications, VCF Advanced Services offers the tools
and support needed to achieve these goals efficiently.
For more details on the full catalog of VCF Advanced
Services and how they can benefit your organization,Click here.
VMware Cloud Foundation 9 delivers unparalleled simplicity, security, and efficiency for modern private clouds. Stay tuned for more insights as we continue to explore the future of cloud technology.
