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Latest VMware cloud management updates focus big on automation
Thu, 20th Aug 2020
FYI, this story is more than a year old

VMware has added new functionality to its portfolio of VMware vRealize cloud management on-premises and software as a service (SaaS) offerings, including new AI and self-driving features.

VMware vRealize Cloud Management offers new capabilities for modern infrastructure automation supporting DevOps principles and self-driving operations.

Available both on-premises and as SaaS, VMware vRealize provides customers with cloud infrastructure at scale, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and DevOps principles such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and GitOps to provision, orchestrate, optimise and govern hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

New releases, capabilities and enhancements span VMware vRealize Automation 8.2, VMware vRealize Automation Cloud, VMware vRealize Log Insight 8.2, VMware vRealize Log Insight Cloud, VMware vRealize Operations 8.2, VMware vRealize Operations Cloud, and VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.2.

VMware vRealize Operations delivers self-driving operations from apps to infrastructure to optimise, plan and scale private, hybrid and multiple public clouds, the company states.

Powered by AI and predictive analytics, it delivers continuous performance, capacity and cost optimisation, proactive planning, intelligent remediation and integrated compliance.

VMware vRealize Operations 8.2 and VMware vRealize Operations Cloud will feature:

Kubernetes operations: New support for Kubernetes via integration with VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and Red Hat OpenShift so customers can auto-discover and monitor the health, performance, capacity, cost, and configuration of Kubernetes constructs on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS.

App-to-infrastructure troubleshooting: This latest release will feature integration with APM tools such as AppDynamics, Datadog and Dynatrace. It will also include new app discovery via integration with VMware vRealize Network Insight.

Monitoring VMware Cloud and more: Improved metric-correlation and new near real-time monitoring will enable enterprise observability. Enhancements to native AWS management will unlock capacity calculations for EC2 instances and automatically import metrics into VMware vRealize Operations for faster troubleshooting.

Capacity and cost management: Improvements in pricing and costing engine, including daily virtual machine (VM) cost granularity, enhanced metering capabilities, and pricing support for non-VMware vRealize Automation workloads.

Similarly, VMware vRealize Log Insight 8.2 and vRealize Log Insight Cloud will also introduce enhanced Kubernetes support, deeper integration with VMware Cloud on AWS, and overall usability enhancements, the company states.

In addition, VMware vRealize Automation 8.2 and VMware vRealize Automation Cloud will deliver enhanced capabilities for customers most important automation use cases including Modern Automation Platform, DevOps for Infrastructure, Self-Service Cloud and Kubernetes Automation.

The new VMware vRealize Automation capabilities will include:

Modern automation platform: Enhanced capabilities including granular role-based access control (RBAC), enhanced support for multi-tenant infrastructure, expanded support for Day 2 actions and network automation with NSX policy APIs.

DevOps for infrastructure: Enhanced Infrastructure as Code capabilities with the introduction of VMware Cloud Templates as the templating engine for VMware Cloud infrastructure. This also includes management of Terraform configurations from the service catalog.

Self-service cloud: Enhanced integration with VMware Cloud Foundation to simplify private cloud setup for customers.

Kubernetes automation: Self-service provisioning of Kubernetes namespaces via the service catalog with support for VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu.

According to the company, VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.2 will deploy and manage vRealize Suite products on VMware Cloud on AWS, support vRealize Operations product re-sizing and scaling capabilities as well as continuous availability architecture, and configure single or multiple data sources for vRealize Network Insight.

VMware senior vice president and general manager Cloud Management Business Unit Ajay Singh says, “Enterprises face multiple challenges in support of the business in these uncertain times.

"They seek to modernise their apps, accelerate hybrid and public cloud innovation, and deliver a modern developer environment. VMware is a trusted partner that enables customers to address those IT challenges head on allowing them to focus on transforming their business.