News Releases•9 min read

VMware Unveils Next-Generation Products and Services to

 

VMware Unveils Next-Generation Products and Services to Further Enable the Software-Defined Data Center

VMware NSX™ Network Virtualization Platform to Deliver New Network Operational Model that Improves Agility and Advances Data Center Economics

VMware vSAN Introduces New Approach to Storage, Delivering Simple, Self-Tuning Storage for Virtual Machines

New Versions of VMware vCloud® Suite and VMware vSphere® with Operations Management™ Increase Management and Automation Capabilities to Strengthen Foundation of a Software-Defined Data Center Architecture

VMware vSphere® 5.5 Extends Support for Business-Critical Applications and New Workloads

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 26, 2013 — Addressing the needs of organizations to simplify IT, VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today at VMworld® 2013 announced a wave of new products and services designed to help IT accelerate their adoption of a software-defined data center architecture and take advantage of the value of advanced virtualization in areas such as networking and security, storage and availability, and management and automation. The news was unveiled at the company's 10th annual VMworld® in San Francisco, where more than 22,000 attendees saw first-hand details and demos of newly-introduced technology including VMware NSX, VMware vSAN, VMware vCloud® Suite 5.5 and VMware vSphere® with Operations Management™ 5.5.

"With today's news, VMware is further empowering IT to help organizations become more agile, responsive and profitable," said Raghu Raghuram, executive vice president, Cloud Infrastructure and Management, VMware. "New products such as VMware NSX and VMware vSAN will fundamentally redefine the hypervisor and its role in the data center. Along with the recently introduced VMware vCenter Log Insight, these products represent the next wave of innovation at VMware. We continue to evolve the software-defined data center architecture to address IT's critical needs - enabling them to build infrastructure that is radically simpler and more efficient while delivering the agility and flexibility to support the velocity of their businesses."

A year after introducing the software-defined data center architecture, VMware's pioneering IT framework has gained wide acceptance across global business giants and start-ups alike. In addition, customers that moved to a software-defined data center architecture have experienced greater value than those that did not. In a recent survey, for example, VMware found two-thirds of respondents reported being able to generate new revenue for their businesses when they expanded their use of virtualization1. Of those businesses able to take full advantage of a complete software-defined data center architecture, 85 percent were able to generate new revenue as high as 22 percent for their businesses.

"The development of new software and services for the auto retail and the OEM auto manufacturing industry globally is key to ADP Dealer Services business," said Bill Naughton, CIO of ADP Dealer Services. "The software-defined data center architecture enables us to deliver true Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service to our lines of business and our development organization with the requisite performance, availability, and security – all automated by software. With increased IT agility and efficiency, we're poised to meet the present and future demands of the business."

Enabling the Future of the Data Center By extending the virtualization principles of abstraction, pooling and automation across all data center resources and services, the software-defined data center architecture can simplify and speed up the provisioning and management of compute, storage and networking resources through policy-driven automation. Today, VMware is announcing four products that enable customers to virtualize infrastructure and deliver it as a service; providing efficiency, agility and control for building and operating private, hybrid and public clouds:

  • VMware NSX – The Platform for Network Virtualization Today, VMware launched VMware NSX, a network virtualization platform that will deliver the entire networking and security model in software, decoupled from networking hardware. By virtualizing the network, VMware NSX delivers a new operational model for networking that breaks through current physical network barriers and will enable data center operators to achieve significantly better speed and agility, while reducing costs.

    Like server virtualization, VMware's approach to network virtualization enables data center operators to treat their physical network as a pool of transport capacity that can be consumed and repurposed on-demand. Virtual networks are programmatically created, provisioned and managed, utilizing the underlying physical network for simple IP connectivity. VMware NSX brings together the best of Nicira NVP™ and VMware vCloud Network and Security™ into one unified platform, delivering the entire networking and security model (Layer 2 – Layer 7) in software. In addition, the VMware NSX virtual networks support existing applications, unchanged, on any physical network infrastructure.

    Similar to other distributed VMware vSphere services, VMware NSX is built upon a groundbreaking distributed architecture where the network services are integrated with the hypervisor kernel. This enables network services to scale out in concert with the hypervisor to meet the application's needs. Since VMware NSX delivers Layer 2 - Layer 7 services entirely via software, all that customers need to do to grow their infrastructure is add more server nodes. This architecture enables VMware NSX to handle as much as 1 TB per second of network traffic per cluster of 32 hosts.

    VMware NSX is an extensible platform that leverages a distributed service framework for easy insertion of partner services. VMware NSX technology partners are organized into service categories that follow the network virtualization lifecycle and include network service gateways to bridge physical and virtual environments; network security platforms that provide multi-service network security including firewall and threat prevention; application delivery services including load balancing, application delivery and WAN optimization controllers; and security services including anti-virus, IDS/IPS and vulnerability management. Today, more than 20 partners announced support or showed demonstrations of VMware NSX at VMworld. VMware NSX will be available in Q4 2013.

    Learn more about the VMware NSX network virtualization platform.

  • VMware vSAN – Delivering Simple and Dynamic Storage for Virtual Machines
    Today, VMware introduced VMware vSAN, a breakthrough technology that extends VMware vSphere to pool compute and direct-attached storage. VMware vSAN will deliver a virtual data plane that clusters server disks and flash to create high-performance, resilient shared storage designed for virtual machines. It will unlock a new tier of converged infrastructure that enables rapid and granular scaling of compute and storage resources.

    Similar to VMware NSX, VMware vSAN is built on a unique distributed architecture that will enable storage services to scale out linearly with the needs of the application. Through the seamless integration of VMware vSAN with VMware vSphere, VMware has redefined the role of the hypervisor to deliver virtualized compute and storage services in an elastic, flexible fashion. The distributed architecture enables VMware vSAN to deliver I/O performance comparable to mid-range storage arrays while leveraging the economics of direct-attached storage.

    VMware vSAN offers a policy-driven control plane that automates storage consumption and management via virtual machine-centric policies. Relying on server-side solid state disks (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs), VMware vSAN delivers significantly lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and test/development environments, among other use cases. Customers can start small and grow storage performance and capacity by adding servers as needed. VMware vSAN will be available via a free public beta program in Q3 2013.

    Learn more about VMware vSAN.

  • VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 – New Release of the Leading Cloud Infrastructure and Management Suite
    Today, VMware introduced VMware vCloud Suite 5.5, which features new and enhanced product functionality as well as broad product integrations. The VMware vCloud Suite will enable customers to build and operate a vSphere-based private cloud using the software-defined data center architecture, providing virtualized infrastructure services with built-in intelligence to automate on-demand provisioning, placement, configuration and control of applications based on policies. The comprehensive, integrated private cloud infrastructure solution simplifies IT operations while also delivering the best SLAs for all applications.

    The VMware vCloud Suite is built on the foundation of VMware vSphere, the world's leading virtualization platform. With VMware vSphere 5.5, VMware continues to evolve vSphere to provide customers with the best platform for all their applications including new workloads through new and enhanced compute, availability, storage and backup capabilities. To improve the availability of business-critical applications, VMware vSphere 5.5 introduces vSphere App HA to detect and recover from application or operating system failure. New VMware vSphere Flash Read CacheTM virtualizes server-side flash to lower application latency dramatically. To further improve the response time of latency-sensitive applications, VMware vSphere 5.5 introduces a low-latency sensitivity feature. VMware vSphere 5.5 enables configurations two times the previous physical CPU, memory and NUMA node limits.

    With VMware vSphere Big Data Extensions, customers can now run Apache Hadoop and Big Data workloads on VMware vSphere 5.5, alongside other applications, to achieve greater resource utilization, reliability and agility. In addition, VMware vSphere 5.5 now supports next-generation Intel ® Xeon ® processor E5 v2 and Intel® Atom™ Processor C2000.

    VMware vCloud Automation CenterTM and VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite™ capabilities have been added to all VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 editions. VMware vCloud Automation Center provides the agility customers need with the control they require through a flexible solution for automating the delivery of IT applications and services. VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite offers integrated, proactive performance, capacity and configuration management capabilities for dynamic cloud environments. VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 also features new releases of VMware vCloud Connector, VMware vCloud Director®, VMware vCloud Networking and Security, and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager™.

    Learn more about VMware vCloud Suite 5.5.

  • VMware vSphere with Operations Management 5.5 – Optimize Virtual Platform Capacity
    Introduced in February 2013, VMware vSphere with Operations Management combines the industry-leading vSphere virtualization platform with insight to workload capacity and health. VMware vSphere with Operations Management will enable customers to optimize their environment through integrated capacity planning while proactively monitoring and maintaining overall performance of their environment. VMware vSphere with Operations Management 5.5 will take advantage of VMware vSphere 5.5 to provide customers with the best platform for all their applications and workloads.
    Learn more about VMware vSphere with Operations Management 5.5.

New Services and Certifications
VMware also announced a host of new professional services to help customers outline the strategy and technology roadmap to define and implement a software-defined data center architecture:

  • New levels of Certifications including VMware Certified Associate (VCA). Available for cloud (VCA-Cloud), data center virtualization (VCA-DCV), and network virtualization (VCA-NV), these certifications offer a new credential to validate entry-level skills before progressing on to the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certifications.
  • New Technology Consulting Services focus on building an extensible platform for a software-defined data center architecture. These services address the key design and deployment elements that deliver the efficiency, agility, control and choice enabled by VMware products and technologies.
  • Strategic Consulting Services, through VMware Accelerate Advisory Services, that help organizations quantify the value of a software-defined data center model within their IT environments, mapping out an actionable strategy to deliver tangible business value.
    Learn more about VMware professional services and certifications.

Partner Support for the Software-Defined Data Center
More than 55,000 strong, VMware's partner community is central to delivering VMware's software-defined data center solutions to customers. This new generation of VMware solutions is supported by a broad range of partners including technology partners and independent software vendors (ISVs), solution providers, service providers and systems integrators, as well as every major global hardware manufacturer.

Read what partners are saying about VMware NSX and VMware vSAN.

Pricing and Availability

  • VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 and VMware vSphere with Operations Management are expected to be available in Q3 2013.
  • VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 is licensed per processor with prices starting at $4,995 per processor.
    Learn more at the VMware vCloud Suite Editions/Buy page.
  • VMware vSphere with Operations Management 5.5 is offered in three editions: Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. Pricing starts at $1,745 per processor.
    Learn more at the VMware vSphere Pricing/Buy page.
  • VMware NSX is expected to be available in Q4 of 2013.
  • VMware vSAN is expected to be available via a public beta program in Q3 of 2013.

Additional Resources

About VMware

VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2012 revenues of $4.61 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 55,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

1VMware Annual Customer Benchmark, based on survey of 1,028 customers, July 2013

VMware, vSAN, vSphere, vSphere with Operations Management, VMware NSX, vCloud, vCenter, vCenter Log Insight, Nicira, Nicira NVP, vCloud Network and Security, vSphere Flash Read Cache, vCloud Automation Center, vCloud Director, Site Recovery Manager and VMworld are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective organizations. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding new VMware products and services, including VMware NSX, VMware vSAN, VMware vCloud Suite 5.5, VMware vSphere with Operations Management 5.5, expected features of the new products, their potential benefits to customers, their expected availability and expectations for continued growth in demand. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in consumer or information technology spending; (iii) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the network virtualization market, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; (iv) our customers' ability to develop, and to transition to, new products and computing strategies such as cloud computing, network virtualization and the software defined data center; (v) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (vi) rapid technological and market changes in virtualization software and platforms for cloud and end user computing and networking; (vii) our ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; and (viii) geopolitical events and stability. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.