VANCOUVER, British Columbia — VMware has given responsibility — for both service provider and enterprise usage of its VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO) product — to VMware’s Telco NFV Group.

“We believe that the requirements that telcos present to the OpenStack distribution are a superset of what we see in the enterprise world,” said Gabriele Di Piazza, vice president of solutions for VMware's Telco NFV Group. “I would not say enterprises are not interested in OpenStack, but obviously the fact that we decided to move OpenStack into the telco group [indicates] there is much stronger focus on OpenStack in the telco world. With that said, the world is very wide, so you can’t say enterprises don’t use it.”

VMware today released its VMware Integrated OpenStack 5, the newest release of its VIO distribution, which is now based on the OpenStack Queens release. It’s available in both carrier and data center editions.

VMware is announcing VIO 5 during the kick off of the OpenStack Summit 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia, today. Its enthusiasm for the VIO 5 product stands in contrast to the OpenStack 2017 Summit in Boston where it seemed many people weren’t even aware that VMware had an OpenStack distribution.

Asked if VMware’s seeming increased interest in OpenStack was a reflection of an increased interest in open source software, Di Piazza said it’s not a question of a proprietary vendor product versus an open source product. It’s a desire on the part of VMware to support its customers, whether they choose VMware’s proprietary cloud infrastructure or whether they want an OpenStack distribution.

“Many OpenStack implementations out there, specifically at telcos, are packaged and supported distros, whether VMware's or competitors',” he said. “What’s important is the support aspect. Open source is important for innovation, but then what kicks in is deployment, support, and production. We call this the best of both worlds.”

New features included in VIO 5 address specific requirements of service providers deploying network functions virtualization (NFV)-based network services or for moving to 5G. One of these new features is “OpenStack In a Box” for 5G and edge computing. For this feature, VMware provides a small footprint micro data center form factor.

“We have a way of distributing VIO in a compact mode,” Di Piazza said. “VIO is able to scale down as you move to the edge, given our architecture where we have separation from control and data plane. We have a footprint where you implement VIO in large environments. But we can also shrink-wrap it for the edge. We are exposing a set of management APIs so you can see thousands of VIO installs but manage them in a central way.”

VMware has added significant development to VIO on top of what has been delivered via the Queens release. New capabilities will include:

  • Scale to run up to 500 hosts and 15,000 virtual machines (VMs) in a single region, and support for multiple regions at once with monitoring and metrics at scale.
  • High availability for mission-critical workloads with the ability to create snapshots, clones, and backups of attached volumes to improve VM and application uptime via enhancements to the Cinder volume driver.
  • Unified virtualized environments with the ability to deploy and run both VM and container workloads on a single virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) and with a single network fabric based on VMware NSX-T Data Center. This architecture will enable customers to seamlessly deploy hybrid workloads where some components run in containers while others run in VMs.
  • Advanced security to consolidate and simplify user and role management based on enhancements to Keystone, including the use of application credentials as well as system role assignment.

VMware is an active member of the OpenStack community. It’s conducting training on VIO at the OpenStack Summit this week where it will show how its VIO platform works, how to onboard virtualized network function (VNF) (VNFs), and how to distribute VNFs at the edge.

“We’re also showing service assurance capabilities,” said Di Piazza. “We really put this on a boost. There are huge advancements in what we’ve done, specifically for telcos.”