Tthe next step toward a modern Private Cloud

Simplification, Efficiency and Innovation as guiding principles

With the integration of VMware into the Broadcom portfolio, a lot has changed. While last year’s focus was primarily on simplifying the product portfolio, VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 (VCF) now impressively demonstrates where the journey is headed: away from isolated infrastructure components and toward a fully integrated private cloud platform.

The key questions that many companies are currently asking our NTS experts are:
How can we manage the growing demands driven by AI, containerization, and modern applications without further increasing the complexity in the data center?

And how can we weather the current hardware crisis with minimal impact by using hardware more efficiently? VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 provides clear answers to these questions.

Private Cloud Instead of a Hypervisor Silo

VCF 9.1 improves integration with the various VMware suites, and it takes care of a simplified operation.

Many companies still primarily associate VMware with vSphere and virtualization. In fact, VMware Cloud Foundation has long since evolved into a comprehensive private cloud platform.

Today, VCF unifies all central infrastructure components into a single, complete platform:

  • vSphere for compute
  • vSAN for storage
  • VCF Networking (NSX) for network virtualization
  • VCF Operations for monitoring and observability
  • VCF Automation for self-service and provisioning
  • vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) for modern container platforms

The result is a fully integrated cloud architecture that supports both traditional virtual machines as well as modern Kubernetes’ workloads.

Less complexity through consolidated operations

One of the key topics of VCF 9.1 is the simplification of user experiences. While earlier versions still used several different management interfaces, VMware is increasingly focusing on three central interfaces:

vCenter for managing hosts and virtual machines.
VCF Operations for monitoring, logging, lifecycle management and alerting.
VCF Automation is a self-service platform for using the private cloud.

In parallel, more and more components are being containerized and integrated into the new “VCF Management Services Platform.” This results in a significantly more flexible platform architecture that makes future expansions easier.

The trend is clear: fewer silos, less complexity, and a more consistent operational model.

Storage becomes a competitive factor

One of the most exciting new features in vSphere 9.1 is what is known as NVMe Memory Tiering. Thereby, NVMe SSDs are used as an additional storage level for less frequently accessed memory pages. The platform automatically moves “cold” memory content from expensive DRAM to a NVMe storage that is significantly less expensive.

Through tiering, cold memory pages are automatically offloaded to a currently more cost-effective NVMe storage.

For businesses, this means one thing above all: significant cost savings.

Real-world examples show that the cost of a host’s storage configuration can be reduced by more than a third without having to sacrifice the familiar VMware functionality.

This opens up new opportunities for scaling infrastructure more cost-effectively, particularly for AI workloads, data analysis, or large in-memory applications.

Faster maintenance and easier Lifecycle Management

VMware has also implemented numerous optimizations in VCF Operations for day-to-day operations.

New features such as:

  • Topology-aware scheduling
  • Improvements to vMotion
  • ESX live patching with TPM and Secure Boot
  • Quick Patch for critical security updates
  • Zero Touch provisioning via UEFI HTTPS Boot

help shorten maintenance windows and to further reduce administrative overhead. The direction is clear: infrastructure should increasingly be operated in a self-optimizing and automated manner.

VSAN 9.1 MAKES NVME STORAGE EVEN MORE EFFICIENT

With the Express Storage Architecture (ESA), VMware is consistently modernizing its storage platform. Notable features include:

Cluster-wide deduplication
Deduplication now takes place across the entire cluster, rather than just within individual hosts. At the same time, processing is performed downstream, thereby avoiding performance losses.

Improved compression
The new ZSTD algorithm replaces LZ4 and enables a more efficient data reduction.

Native S3 functionality
vSAN is increasingly evolving into a universal data platform. With the native S3 target in the technology preview, the platform will also open up to modern object-based storage applications in the future.

Kubernetes is finally becoming the Standard

Today, containerization is one of the most important technologies in modern IT architecture. With VKS 9.1 (vSphere Kubernetes Service), Broadcom is further expanding its Kubernetes integration with VMware.

Key new features include:

  • Support for up to 500 Kubernetes clusters per supervisor
  • Up to 66 % faster cluster upgrades
  • Linked clone rollouts for faster provisioning
  • Support for multiple network interfaces
  • Multi-availability zone migrations
  • Operation on various operating systems such as RHEL, Ubuntu or Photon

Of particular interest is the introduction of vSphere Pods, which can run containers without a full Kubernetes cluster. With this, VMware lowers the barrier to entry for businesses looking to run their first container workloads in production.

Network and Security continue to grow together

The VCF 9.1 is also making significant strides in the areas of networking and security, as the following novelties demonstrate.

EVPN integration
The direct integration of overlay networks with the physical network infrastructure significantly simplifies the operation of hybrid environments. Supported environments include Cisco, Arista and SONiC, among others.

New stateful services
With the Virtual Network Appliance (VNA), central network services such as NAT can be provided without traditional centralized traffic redirection.

vDefend becomes more powerful
In the security domain, the capabilities of VMware vDefend have been significantly expanded:

  • IDS/IPS performance of up to 9 TBit/s
  • Layer 7 gateway firewall with up to 82 GBit/s
  • Self-service firewall rules
  • IDS/IPS protection for container workloads

This integrates security even more tightly into the platform, particularly in modern multi-tenant and Kubernetes environments.

VCF Networking in conjunction with vDefend, combines networking, security, and microsegmentation into a joint platform.

HOW TO GET STARTED IN THE DIRECTION OF VCF 9.1

Our NTS experts are already working with many customers to plan or implement migration paths toward the VCF architecture.

The path that typically involves the least friction is a greenfield deployment of VCF with a new management domain, followed by the integration of existing workloads into a new workload domain.

Alternatively, there is also a brownfield VCF import path, which usually requires an update to version 9 of vCenter and vSphere first. Broadcom’s VCF Upgrade Planner has recently begun supporting this process as well.

VCF migrations are simplified with the VCF Upgrade Planner.

Our NTS specialists are here to assist you with our signature “Relax, We Care” approach and support you throughout your migrations.

Conclusion: the private cloud is coming of age

VCF 9.1 clearly demonstrates that VMware Cloud Foundation is now much more than just a virtualization platform.

Developments are consistently moving towards:

  • simplified operations
  • higher grade of automation
  • better scalability
  • seamless support of Kubernetes
  • integrated security
  • more efficient resource utilization

Whether companies want to deploy workloads more flexibly and quickly or further develop their private cloud strategy, VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 provides a mature platform and numerous compelling reasons to do so. In particular, the combination of traditional virtualization, a modern container platform, integrated security, and automated lifecycle management makes it clear where the data center of the future is headed.

In other words: VMware’s journey from a hypervisor to a complete private cloud platform continues steadily. VCF 9.1 marks another important milestone in this journey. Our NTS experts are here to guide you every step of the way with advice and support.

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