Last year, VMware announced “Project Arctic” as a technology preview, which aimed to natively integrate cloud connectivity into vSphere. The idea was to consolidate all management functionality into one cloud-based console that not only allows management of all vSphere platforms, regardless of their location but also allows add-on services to be made available to them in a consistent fashion.
Today, VMware is launching the fruits of that labour under the names of “VMware vSphere+” and “VMware vSAN+”. While the naming seems a bit cliché, it accurately reflects what VMware is looking to achieve here i.e. to keep the local management going independently but also provide the capability to enhance the available functionality via add-ons and a consistent management plane.
The aim here is to achieve functionality enhancements in three key areas:
Administration
The console should enhance operational efficiency due to central management of all VMware clouds through a single cloud-based console. Once under the same console, it will also simplify lifecycle management functions of those platforms through automation and configuration drift detection and remediation. In addition, all inventory and alerts will appear in one console, thereby giving a holistic view of the whole environment, and enabling quick remediation actions should any problems arise.
Developer Services
Consolidation under one console also extends the visibility and access to all developer services across the different environments. In the same way as general administration, developers can take advantage of enhanced platform management with integrated logging, registry management and monitoring functions. Furthermore, the security and governance of all Kubernetes clusters under management also become centralised through a common console.
Enhanced On-Premises Infrastructure
A single console (which is the same cloud console that users of VMware Cloud on AWS should be familiar with) also allows integration and therefore, consistent deployment of add-ons to target environments. That allows enhancements of infrastructure services using services like disaster recovery, ransomware protection and capacity planning etc.
Considerations
A thing to bear in mind is that the additional functionality introduced via this console e.g., provision of add-ons requires conversion of licensing to a subscription model. While the console provides an easy method to convert traditional licenses to subscriptions, it is not clear today how much this conversion will cost. However, I am sure more details on this will come out in due course.
I know that some organisations have their concerns about moving to a subscription model permanently, so it will be interesting to see if these added features are compelling enough to convince them to make a move towards it.
As I was mentioning earlier, this console is additional to your local management provision so losing access/control in case of disconnection of services should not be a concern. Think of it as a VMware Cloud Gateway Appliance on steroids – while it was just focused on creating hybridity between on-premises and cloud-based VMware Cloud environments, vSphere+ and SAN+ are designed to provide a lot more functionality in addition to just the hybridity aspect.
For more information on this new offering, please visit vSpherePlus.com
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