VMware Explore 2022 Europe kicked off Tuesday with a raft of product and partnership updates.

With some already previewed at VMware Explore 2022 US, this week’s event in Barcelona, Spain, provided more details on the launches. Product innovation on show this week spans cloud, automation and endpoint management. Meanwhile, major partnerships have been announced with Equinix and Wipro.

Equinix and VMware to Expand Global Cloud Services

First up, Equinix and VMware announced an expanded global relationship to deliver new digital infrastructure and multicloud services.

VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal is a new distributed cloud service. The companies say will deliver “a more performant, secure, and cost-effective cloud option to support enterprise applications.”

The service will combine VMware-managed and supported cloud infrastructure as a service with Equinix’s interconnected, global Bare Metal as a Service offering. It will extend customers’ cloud environments into distributed metro locations to satisfy business-critical performance demands at the edge. At the same time, they claimed they can preserve the integrity of enterprise workloads.

VMware is pitching the offering at distributed cloud use cases including smart cities, video analytics, game development, real-time financial market trading, retail POS, and those using IoT and ML/Inference.

Equinix’s Zachary Smith

Zachary Smith, global head of edge infrastructure services at Equinix, said companies require consistent application experiences that span private and public clouds, the core to the edge. “We are pleased to partner with VMware to provide an on-demand, dedicated cloud infrastructure solution that can be deployed globally,” he said.

Wipro’s Dedicated VMware Business Unit

On the subject of partnerships, technology and consulting giant Wipro is to launch a new dedicated VMware-focused business.

The unit will focus on Wipro FullStride Cloud Services across industries along with VMware Cross-Cloud services. The goal will be to streamline VMware implementations and accelerate deployment of applications, leading to better, faster ROI.

Wipro will offer a portfolio of digital transformation services in collaboration with VMware across industries, with major focus on banking and financial services, health care, and consumer and retail. Wipro will be significantly scaling the technical competency in VMware Cross-Cloud services for multicloud infrastructure, modern apps, anywhere workspace, networking, and security. It said it will have 5,000 cross-trained professionals for these areas over next two years.

The Wipro and VMware collaboration will cover the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. The firm said it will involve multimillion-dollar investments across sales, alliances and delivery resources in each of these regions. The delivery will be executed through Wipro FullStride Cloud Studios in US, Europe, and India.

New Anywhere Workspace Updates

At VMware Explore 2022 US, VMware outlined its vision for “autonomous workspaces.”  It’s one that encompasses data science and automation across endpoint management, security and end-user experiences.

Today’s updates bring that vision a step closer. VMware Anywhere Workspace incorporates intelligence and automation to simplify IT operations and enable a more secure and flexible digital employee experience.

• DEX Solution Expanded to Support Third-Party Managed Windows Devices
VMware will broaden coverage of its DEX solution to support Digital Employee Experience Management (DEEM) for third-party managed Windows devices. With this update, the DEX solution will span delivery, measurement, analysis, and remediation by supporting multiple endpoint use cases and operating systems. The goal is for organizations to “seamlessly manage the digital workspace experience for multiple endpoints”.

• Extend IT Systems with Workspace ONE Freestyle Orchestrator
Workspace ONE Freestyle Orchestrator is a modern no-/low-code orchestration framework designed to help IT teams automate complex and manual configuration tasks. New updates will enable automation beyond device-based task-specific workflows to ticketing workflows that span third party IT systems. VMware said firms can benefit from “intelligent, proactive ticketing” through expanded integration into ticketing tools such as ServiceNow and Coupa.

• VMware Horizon Cloud Next-Gen Now Extends to Hybrid Deployments, Receives FedRAMP Authorization
Horizon 8 customers using new Horizon SaaS subscriptions will be able to use their on-premise and cloud deployments to connect to Horizon Cloud next-gen, enabling a hybrid cloud experience. Customers will have the flexibility of deploying virtual desktops and apps in Microsoft Azure. They will have an option to also run Horizon 8 on-premise or in the cloud. VMware said IT can broaden the scope of use cases their VDI and DaaS environments can cover, including HA/DR and cloud bursting.

Additionally, Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) High Authorization through the Joint Authorization Board (JAB), it has also received its Authority to Operate (ATO) in Civilian agencies. VMware’s Horizon Cloud authorization package is now with the U.S. Defense Information Security Agency (DISA), and a Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) for U.S. Department of Defense Impact Level 5 is expected by end of the calendar year.

• Workspace ONE Mobile Threat Defense Supports Phishing and Content Protection
Workspace ONE Mobile Threat Defense is built into VMware Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub. Now, customers will also be able to enable Phishing and Content Protection, coming soon as a Beta release.

Multicloud Networking and Security

Announced in technology preview at VMware Explore US, VMware’s Project Northstar aims to simplify how networking and security services are consumed in a multicloud world. The vendor said it deliver delivers multicloud networking, security, workload mobility, and end-to-end threat detection and response from a centralized management console. This helps customers achieve consistent policy, automation, and simplified software-as-a-service (SaaS) consumption across private and public clouds.

Today, VMware unveiled VMware HCX+ and enhancements to the VMware NSX ALB PULSE Cloud Service. It will help enterprises with centralized management, orchestration, and observability across their cloud networking infrastructure. With HCX+, customers will get a dashboard view of their multi-site connectivity and migration activities.

VMware’s Umesh Mahajan

Umesh Mahajan is senior vice president and general manager for VMware’s Networking and Security business unit. He described Project Northstar as “the future of cloud-smart networking and security services delivered via a flexible subscription model.”

Sovereign Clouds and Sovereign-Ready Solutions

 The number of VMware Sovereign Cloud providers has more than doubled to 25 partners globally.

VMware is also announcing VMware Tanzu on sovereign cloud, VMware Aria Operations Compliance pack for sovereign clouds, and new open ecosystem solutions.

The vendor said that together these will enable partners to deliver services equivalent to those found in public clouds. However, they will better assure data is protected, compliant, and resident within national territories.

VMware is building a portfolio of sovereign SaaS offerings. Partners deliver sovereign SaaS natively using VMware software running in their sovereign cloud datacenters, disconnected from the public internet. All data remains resident and exists only within a given sovereign region. There is no access by foreign jurisdictions, no data or meta data leaves the country or provider.

VMware said that with Tanzu on sovereign cloud, organizations can build, run, manage, and better secure modern applications on sovereign cloud infrastructure with enterprise Kubernetes built in. The Tanzu portfolio simplifies platform operations and frees developers to move faster and access the right resources for building the best applications.

Meanwhile, VMware is announcing initial availability for VMware Aria Operations Compliance pack for sovereign clouds. These provide capabilities across availability, performance, capacity management, cost management, and compliance for infrastructure or applications. Packs include out-of-the-box regulatory compliance kits, configuration checks, and reporting based on the 20-point Sovereign controls such as microsegmentation, data at rest and in-transit encryption, and ISO 27000 compliance.

Finally on Sovereign Cloud, VMware has delivered third-party offerings from partners such as Cloudian, Veeam and Fortanix for Object Storage, ransomware protection, backup/recovery, and key management. These services are integrated with VMware Cloud Director for multi-tenant.

VMware’s Rajeev Bhardwaj

Rajeev Bhardwaj is vice president, cloud provider platform solutions at VMware. He said: “There is no data sovereignty without cloud sovereignty. And sovereignty does not have to come at the expense of cloud innovation.”

Enabling Enterprises to Connect and Secure the Distributed, Multicloud Edge

Finally, VMware unveiled its next-generation SD-WAN solution. It includes a new SD-WAN Client to help enterprises better deliver applications, data and services no matter where they reside. This could be to the site, branch, and home, across any network to any device.

Cloud-native by design, VMware said its SD-WAN and SASE offerings enable enterprises to bring edge compute and networking together for application transformation. This is while delivering “consistent security and ubiquitous, reliable, and optimal connectivity for the branch and distributed workforce.”

The platform features a single management interface that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to simplify operations.