VMware Explore 2022 Europe: Multicloud Shapes Product Launches, Partnerships

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.