VMware vCloud Suite

2012

VMware vCloud Suite 5.1

On August 28, 2012 the VMware company within the VMworld 2012 conference, presented the complete solution which combines means for cloud infrastructure and management of a cloud, support of an ecosystem and complex of knowledge for the help to clients in substantial increase of efficiency and speed of work. The first solution for providing the software-defined data processing center (DPC) — the new version of VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 is the cornerstone of this announcement. The software package vCloud Suite integrates in itself the whole set of the advanced products of VMware for virtualization, cloud infrastructure and management that simplifies transition to use of technologies of a cloud era.

For implementation of dynamic, flexible, effective and reliable IT services the software-defined DPC offers clients all potential of cloud computing on the basis of use of advantages of virtualization to each aspect of work of a data processing center: calculation, storage, organization of networks and also smooth operation and security. The architecture program opredelemogo DPC receives all hardware resources in the order and integrates them in a whole, allowing automation function effectively and to safely distribute them according to requirements of applications. Using software-defined DPCs users or clients can create own virtual data processing centers with logically isolated set of all available at their order of virtual resources for calculation, storage, network work and protection.

Thanks to conversion of all levels of infrastructure of DPC to program services which are used with all available set of standard hardware the solution VMware vCloud Suite allows to simplify and automate work and, at the same time, to provide appropriate level of application services even for the most resource-intensive and important business applications. The solution VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 integrates components which are necessary to clients for creation of cloud infrastructure, its use and management: virtualization, services of software-defined DPC, provision of services on a basis the politician, disaster recovery and also applied and operational management:

• VMware vSphere 5.1 — the platform tested with time for any applications. VMware vCloud Suite is the cornerstone upgraded version of the virtual platform, most widespread in the world, which includes over 100 improvements and also new opportunities that provides the highest service level for all applications, including the important business applications requiring considerable workloads and also applications with small waiting time for which input-output operations are important. The main innovations and improvements in VMware vSphere 5.1 concern performance improvement of virtual machines, elimination of unplanned idle times and also reliability augmentation of network work. In VMware vSphere 5.1 support of virtual machines at most with 64 virtual processors will be implemented. For maintenance of continuous operation (24/7) such machines the VMware company improved the product VMware vMotion® that will allow to perform dynamic migration of virtual machines without the need for use of the distributed storage. New applications are also submitted to VMware vSphere 5.1: VMware vSphere Data Protection™ for simple and reliable backup and recovery of virtual machines, VMware vSphere Replication for economic abnormal protection and also VMware vShield Endpoint™ for more effective security of virtual machines.

VMware vSphere 5.1 will also contain a number of the important improvements concerning VMware vSphere Distributed Switch™, including a possibility of support up to 500 network hosts on one distributed switch. Thanks to new features — Network Health Check (Status monitoring of network), Configuration Backup and Restore (Backup and recovery of a configuration), Roll-Back and Recovery (Return and recovery) — VMware vSphere 5.1 Distributed Switch simplifies deployment of virtual networks and their current management and also search and fault recovery. Besides, VMware vSphere 5.1 supports single-root virtualization of input-output (SR-IOV) for the purpose of performance improvement of network now for those applications for which waiting time is important.

• VMware vCloud Director 5.1 is providing virtual DPCs in read minutes. A basis of VMware vCloud Suite is a set of services for program DPC which apply the virtual principles of abstraction, creation of a pool and automation to such aspects as storage, use of networks, security and working capacity. VMware vCloud Director allows to plan providing data of services with the purpose to provide clients with full-function virtual DPCs which in read minutes can be prepared for use. In VMware vCloud Director 5.1 important changes which concern scalability are implemented and allow to support the "elastic" full-function virtual DPCs containing a set of clusters of VMware vSphere and to 30,000 virtual machines. VMware vCloud Director 1.5 has the improved API interfaces and also the structure giving the chance of expansion that gives to clients the chance to connect a broad set of third-party infrastructure services.

• VMware vCloud Networking and Security 5.1 is high-quality change of network

Representing vCloud Suite, the VMware company proposes the advanced software solution for network work and security which will allow to overcome one of the last obstacles in a way of achievement of high-speed performance of cloud computing — network. Thanks to VMware vCloud Networking and Security there will be perhaps dynamic creation of virtual networks and services which will be completely independent and separated from the hardware of physical network.

vCloud Networking and Security will give to clients the chance, despite of restrictions or borders of physical network, to create logical networks for each application or the user and also to share network traffic between the applications belonging to the same organization. By means of creation of a pool of network transmission capacity, over any network equipment, vCloud Networking and Security can support without effort tens of thousands of isolated virtual networks thanks to convenience and simplicity of creation of virtual machines and their managements.

VMware vCloud Networking and Security will allow to integrate the VXLAN and VMware vShield protocol еdge™ and also services of protection of applications to provide a full range of program network functions and a line of comprehensive solutions for network virtualization: from virtual switching before virtual services of a network model of levels 4-7. VMware vCloud Networking and Security also supports integration into third-party solutions for networks and protection within vCloud Ecosystem Framework.

• vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1 is automation of disaster recovery for all applications. To guarantee smooth operation and fast application recovery, working in the environment of program DPC, vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1 allows to plan easily disaster recovery and provides the predicted recovery thanks to automatic testing and accomplishment of the planned actions. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1 can also support migration of DPC and prevention of emergency situations. This product is integrated with VMware vSphere Replication and also a broad spectrum of the technologies of duplication provided by partners of VMware company. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager is supported by the growing ecosystem of the service providers offering services of "disaster recovery on a cloud" which allow clients to get all advantages of advanced technology of disaster recovery of vCenter Site Recovery Manager without need to invest in infrastructure of disaster recovery.

As data processing centers become program-controlled, clients have an opportunity to simplify and automate their management and use for the purpose of increase in efficiency and high-speed performance of cloud computing. vFabric Application Director™, vCenter Operations Management Suite™ and vCloud Connector™ which allow to accelerate providing application services are a part of VMware vCloud Suite, to redistribute workloads between clouds and to provide intellectual automation for planning of use of computing power and also for performance management and compatibility.

2013

VMware vCloud Suite 5.5

The VMware company announced on August 27, 2013 a release of the version of VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 with the new and improved opportunities, capable to be integrated with a set of other products.

VMware vSphere 5.5 contains improvements for all applications taking into account new workloads. They mentioned calculations, availability, storage and data backup. Increasing availability of critical applications to business vSphere App HA allowing to execute failure recovery of the application or operating system is added to VMware vSphere 5.5.

• The new VMware vSphere Flash Read Cache application virtualizes server a flash memory that allows to reduce significantly waiting time from applications. To reduce even more response time from applications, sensitive to delays, function of sensitivity to short delay is entered into VMware vSphere 5.5. VMware vSphere 5.5 allows to create the configurations twice exceeding the previous physical processor, memory and a limit of the NUMA nodes on indicators.

• Existence of VMware vSphere Big Data Extensions allows to start Apache Hadoop and to work with large volumes of data in VMware vSphere 5.5 and other applications. It promotes optimal use of resources, increases reliability and flexibility. Besides, VMware vSphere 5.5 supports processors of new generation Intel Xeon processor E5 v2 and Intel Atom Processor C2000 now.

• Possibilities of VMware vCloud Automation Center and VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite are added to all VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 options. VMware vCloud Automation Center gives to clients the chance of control and fast adaptation under the changing conditions thanks to flexible automation of providing IT applications and services. VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite offers the integrated means of proactive control by performance, capacity and configurations for dynamic cloud environments.

VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 contains new versions of VMware vCloud Connector VMware vCloud Director, VMware vCloud Networking and Security and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager.

2014

VMware vCloud Suite 5.8

On August 25, 2014 the VMware company announced a release of the new version of VMware vCloud Suite 5.8.

VMware vCloud Suite 5.8 will be followed by enhanced capabilities of initialization on the basis of accepted the politician which will allow customers to add new means of calculations, storages, security and also network components and the systems of disaster recovery to existing applications and infrastructure.

As a part of the last release of vCloud Suite 5.8:

• 5-fold increase in protection — IT departments will be able to create plans of disaster recovery for 5 thousand virtual machines for each VMware vCenter Server server by means of replication of data on different arrays. It provides the corporate level of protection for by 5 times of large volumes of data, than earlier.
• Additional integration will provide to customers access to funds of self-service for ensuring the predetermined levels of protection against failures. The solution is created for new virtual machines based on already ready rules vCloud Automation Center using replication of data between disk arrays.
• Big Data Extensions supporting the solution Hadoop 2.
• The improved interaction with the solution VMware NSX.
• New means of pro-active support (a free plug-in of Support Assistant for vCenter).
• Support of a public cloud of VMware vCloud Air. Now at setup of replication suggest to select where it will be necessary to do it - per other host under control of vCenter or in a cloud.

Also means of backup of VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced to version 5.8 was updated. There were following new features:

• The improved support of business and critical applications. Users can execute backups of server clusters of the Microsoft SQL Server, also as well as the Microsoft Exchange DAGs groups (Database Availability Groups).
• Proxy servers and Backup Work Streams now more kastomizabelna - now it is possible to select number in parallel of the executed backup flows to observe requirements for SLA.
• Now it is possible to recover replicable VM both on the main, and on the reserve website. Replicated VM can be replicated again.

Also the automation equipment of administration of PowerCLI 5.8 U1 was in addition updated:

• The improved work speed
• Cmdlets politician of storages
• Possibility of poll of properties of the virtual modules OVF/OVA and also their deployment and configuration
• Filters on tags
• The improved reporting under errors
• Support of RelatedObject in the Get-HardDisk procedure
• Support of filters in different areas
• Support of the latest version of vCloud API
• New cmdlet of New-CIVM
• Support of VMware of SRM 5.8.

2015

On the way VMware vCloud Suite 6.0

On March 11, 2015 the herd is known of the forthcoming exit of upgraded version of a packet for creation of a private cloud of the VMware vCloud Suite enterprise 6.0^[1].

According to messages of vendor, VMware vCloud Suite 6.0 consists of products:

• VMware vSphere is the virtualization platform of servers.
• VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager is a management system for disaster recovery on a basis the politician.
• VMware vRealize Business is a solution package for automatic detection of cost of infrastructure and measurement of resource consumption.
• VMware vRealize Automation is the solution for control automation by infrastructure and applications for the vSphere environments on a basis the politician and in the self-service mode.
• VMware vRealize Operations - Software for intellectual performance management (monitoring), resources and configurations.

Plan of decrease in complexity and simplification of a system, 2015

Products are removed version 6.0:

• VMware vCloud Director - this product is laid off, its functions are transferred to the vRealize Automation application (earlier it was the product vCloud Automation Center, vCAC).

• vCenter Networking and Security (vCNS) - it the solution is brought out of structure of a packet of VMware vCloud Suite 6.0. Earlier vCNS represented the universal solution on security for the vSphere 5.1 platform and cloud infrastructure under control of vCloud Director. Now its functions were undertaken and expanded by the VMware NSX platform (is not a part of a packet and it is purchased separately).

All editions vCloud Suite include the solution vRealize Automation (the name of the edition corresponds to the vCloud Suite edition), and the vCloud Suite Advanced and Enterprise editions - the solution vRealize Business Standard:

In connection with removal of vCNS from sales, an opportunity to unroll the interface of security is given by use of vShield Manager only for installation and administration of vShield Endpoint. Its functions will be licensed by a key to vSphere. Other vCNS functions will be unavailable.

Notes