At the VMware “App Modernization in a Multi-Cloud World” online launch event, VMware announced its new Modern Apps strategy with which they aim to position themselves as a leader in the cloud and cloud-native space. 

Since the VMware Tanzu and Project Pacific initial announcements at VMworld 2019, it’s clear VMware is focussing heavily on Kubernetes to realize their “Any app” vision. They acquired Heptio, Pivotal and Bitnami in the cloud-native space and today this is all coming together with a series of massive product launches and announcements. 

With today’s launches, VMware wants to bring developers and modern infrastructure together leveraging Kubernetes as the core technology. They want to address Developer Velocity and Infrastructure Stability with a single product portfolio. VMware is calling this a dual focus on “Applications Down” and “Infrastructure Up” across multiple clouds that improves developer experience and allows enterprises to consume Kubernetes across clouds.

This blog post will summarize the most important announcements of today’s launch event. To keep things structured, I will follow the Modern Apps “Build, Run & Manage” themes.

Build

In the space of Building Modern Apps, VMware acquired Pivotal and Bitnami. The products and services of Pivotal and Bitnami are now adopted in the VMware Tanzu family. Pivotal Application Service will become Tanzu Application Service and the Bitnami enterprise catalog will power Tanzu Application Catalog (formerly known as project Galleon).

Run

vSphere 7.0 with Kubernetes

VMware is announcing vSphere 7.0 with Kubernetes built directly into the hypervisor (Project Pacific), making containers a first-class citizen just like VMs.

VMware vSphere 7 will be available in two major configurations. The first configuration, vSphere with Kubernetes, will be available in VMware Cloud Foundation 4 with Tanzu to power container- and VM-based applications. vSphere 7 will also be available in a configuration for VM-based applications in a number of editions including VMware vSphere Standard Editio

vSphere 7.0 also includes vSphere Life Cycle Manager for desired-state config, including patching and updating. vSphere 7.0 also features a new version of DRS and a slew of other improvements. Read all the announcements in the vSphere 7.0 blog.

vSAN 7

This new version of vSAN delivers simpler life cycle management, integrated file services (block and file storage) and ​Enhanced Cloud-Native Storage.

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 with Tanzu

VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 will feature all the latest and greatest releases: vSphere 7, vSAN 7, NSX-T 3.0 and vRealize 8.1 and will include VMware Tanzu services. VCF 4.0 is THE platform for running Modern Apps and Traditional Apps alongside each other. To support Modern Apps, VCF 4.0 will come with Tanzu Runtime Services. This delivers core Kubernetes development services, including VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. 

VMware also announced they are bringing VCF 4.0 with Kubernetes to VMware Cloud on AWS in the second half of 2020!

VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid is the evolution of VMware Essentials PKS. It delivers an operationally consistent Kubernetes deployment that is available everywhere: from the Edge to the Data Center, and into the Public Cloud. It takes away the complexity of Kubernetes by simplifying deployment and operations. It is an enterprise-ready Kubernetes runtime that streamlines operations across hybrid- and multi-cloud infrastructure. It includes an upstream-aligned Kubernetes distribution and tools for capabilities like multi-cluster lifecycle management. 

Manage

VMware Tanzu Mission Control (TMC)  

TMC will allow you to manage and operate Kubernetes centrally across environments with consistency. You can provision and life cycle manage Kubernetes clusters across data centers and clouds. TMC enables developer independence with self-service access to Kubernetes. TMC was announced at VMworld 2019 and is now generally available!

vRealize 8.1

In vRealize 8.1, VMware is releasing new versions of vRealize Operations (and Cloud), vRealize Network Insight 5.2 (and Cloud), Log Insight 8.1 (and Cloud) and vRealize Automation 8.1 (and Cloud). The support for vSphere 7.0 with Kubernetes is the biggest change but there are multiple exciting improvements. I will dedicate a separate blog post to this. Stay tuned!