VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram

SAN FRANCISCO – VMware kicked off this week’s Explore 2022 event previewing updates to its halo vSphere and vSAN products and unveiling a new iteration of its edge-focused stack.

The newly christened vSphere 8 multicloud platform includes performance updates that add data processing unit (DPU) support to the already supported CPU and GPUs. This will allow vSphere users to increase system performance by offloading network and security features from CPUs onto the DPUs.

VMware claims this will save up to 20% of CPU usage with better performance resulting in a lower total cost of ownership. This will also better support resource intensive artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications.

Workload isolation is also increased to boost infrastructure security. VMware also announced an NSX Distributed Firewall product in beta that can secure east-west traffic at system line rate without the use of software agents.

The DPU work was initially part of VMware’s long-gestating Project Monterey, which moved into early release last year. Its mission was to provide a consistent platform for distributed compute across multiple hardware accelerators using DPUs. In essence, the platform allows users to stitch virtual machines (VMs) together from resources distributed across the data center rather than being limited to a single server.

That work was initiated on platforms from Nvidia and Intel, which has since expanded to AMD and system partners Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and Lenovo.

The vSphere 8 platform also gains VMware’s Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.0 product that allows for container and system orchestration across multi-availability zones for greater resiliency and easier cluster lifecycle and package management.

VMware’s vSAN hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform also gained the “8” designation with similar performance improvement claims. This is through a new architecture that supports a significant boost in storage throughput and lower overall costs. The new architecture also has a new storage pool construct that provides smaller fault domains, faster re-sync times, and native snapshots.

VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram noted during a keynote address that the two updates took two years to develop and “sets the foundation for the next decade of modern computing.”

Both vSphere 8 and vSAN 8 are available through VMware’s recently launched “+” updates. This subscription software-as-a-service (SaaS) option was unveiled in late June, and injects a new control plane that allows enterprises to manage applications running on-premises or in a private cloud environment.

That plussed model also supports VMware's Cloud Foundation+ architecture that allows cloud-based and connected management and control of full-stack HCI in data centers. This provides customers an easier path to manage VM and container-based workloads across hybrid and multicloud environments and gain quicker access to system updates.

VMware also enhanced its Edge Compute Stack to better support and scale enterprises that need to run applications in edge or on commoditized hardware.

The boldly named Edge Compute Stack 2.0 is designed as an integrated VM and container-based stack for edge-native apps. The updated version supports cluster sizes down to a single control node and single worker node that can run containers more efficiently on smaller commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.

It also uses updates from the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.0 platform to support higher GPU passthrough speeds targeted at AI and ML applications. This will include adding support for non-x86-based hardware that is designed to run in smaller form factors at the edge.

The Edge Compute Stack platform is the basis for VMware’s private 5G efforts. The vendor this week expanded that platform by striking a deal with Japan-based NTT and Intel to cross-sell and build on their respective private 5G products.

VMware initially unleashed the Edge Compute Stack platform at last year’s VMworld event. The vendor at that time said it was also working on a thinner version to work in more resource constrained environments.

The vSphere, vSAN, and Edge Compute Stack updates are scheduled to be generally available by October 28.

Read all of SDxCentral’s VMware Explore 2022 coverage here.