• VMware says it’s getting telcos and their 5G and edge strategies to market with Project Maestro 
• 57 per cent of organizations moving toward an integrated on-premises/off-premises hybrid IT environment 
• So cloud is now all about hybridisation using multiple IaaS providers

VMware has been holding its annual VMworld event in Barcelona this week and has made a number of major announcements on the many ways it’s extending the reach and capabilities of the VMware cloud environment.

Telco cloud orchestration 

A major announcement for telcos was a  preview of VMware’s Project Maestro - a telco cloud orchestrator built to help CSPs accelerate the time taken to get to market with modern network functions and services ‘across clouds’, from core to edge, and from private to public clouds. This might be considered one of the potential complexity pain-points in the telco cloud effort as the telco industry transitions to 5G and edge computing. 

“CSPs are readying their infrastructure to be able to deliver next generation apps and services to both consumers and enterprises with agility and scalability. This requires a Telco Cloud architecture that unifies their network and IT environments and connects them to private enterprise clouds, edge clouds, and public clouds,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud, VMware. “To make sense of it all, a new approach to orchestration is required – one that is cloud-first and abstracts the multi-cloud complexity. This is precisely what we are aiming to address with Project Maestro.”

Project Maestro will deliver a unified approach to modeling, onboarding, orchestrating, and managing virtual network functions and services so that CSPs will be able to build and automate network services that span across a wider variety of network function formats, enabling interoperability and optimizing their operations across every layer of NFV and Telco Cloud architecture. The telco cloud orchestrator will be able to deliver operational efficiency at scale to ultimately help CSPs accelerate time to market of new services, mitigate the cost of managing ever more complex networks, and improve customer experiences, it claims. (find more detail on Project Maestro - VMware Unveils Project Maestro, A Telco Cloud Orchestrator, To Help CSPs Accelerate Multi-Cloud Operational Agility). 

Multi-tenancy on AWS

VMware also announced a new multi-tenancy service for VMware Cloud on AWS for customers of all sizes through managed service providers (MSPs). It also announced a tech preview of Project Path designed to help cloud providers and MSPs adopt new business models that will help generate new value, revenue and improved margins to their cloud businesses.

According to 451 Research, the vast majority of enterprises are going toward an integrated hybrid IT environment, with 57 percent of organizations moving toward an integrated on-premises/off-premises hybrid IT environment. IDC research finds that 62 percent of public cloud IaaS users surveyed use multiple IaaS providers. Many enterprises are pursuing a strategy that brings together native public cloud services and a consistent hybrid cloud environment into a single cloud strategy. In response to this shift in customers’ cloud strategies, cloud providers, too, are evolving their own multi-cloud journey. VMware is innovating to support partners’ diverse business models.

“VMware’s strategy is to offer partners consistent cloud infrastructure... .. to enable them to simultaneously employ both asset heavy and asset light business models,” said Rajeev Bhardwaj, vice president of products, Cloud Provider Software Business Unit, VMware. “For the first time, VMware Cloud on AWS will support multi-tenancy through the new VMware Cloud Director service, enabling MSPs to more quickly and easily create full software defined data centers in the AWS cloud for small- and medium-sized enterprises. (For more details see  VMware Expands Reach of VMware Cloud on AWS for Cloud Providers and MSPs with VMware Cloud Director Service).

European Reach

Also announced: VMware Cloud on AWS will be launching in the AWS EU (Stockholm) region, meaning that customers in the Nordics will be able to adopt VMware Cloud on AWS as part of their cloud strategy. That move brings up the fifth European region and the global total to 17. 

It’s also announced new capabilities on its all-important hybrid cloud service with customers  now be able to migrate and modernize their applications with integrated Kubernetes support. (for more see VMware Cloud On AWS Helps Customers Across Europe Migrate and Modernize Applications). 

Security

No collection of product announcements is complete without a vigorous nod towards security. VMware says it has new and expanded intrinsic and automated security solutions, comprising:

• Dell will make Carbon Black Cloud, along with Dell Trusted Devices and Secureworks, the preferred endpoint security solution for Dell commercial customers

• New VMware NSX Distributed Intrusion Detection and Prevention

• New VMware NSX Federation for consistent, centralized network and security policy configuration and management for large-scale NSX deployments

• Enhanced VMware SD-WAN branch firewall performance, flexibility and usability features

• VMware Secure State updates that reduce public cloud risk and improve security posture

• A new Zero-Trust security architecture for the digital workspace

It also announced an enhanced partnership with Dell that will make Carbon Black Cloud, along with Dell Trusted Devices and Secureworks, the preferred endpoint security solution for Dell commercial customers. The enhanced partnership will bring Carbon Black’s advanced, next-generation endpoint protection to businesses of all sizes directly on-the-box. (for in-depth information on VMware’s security announcements, see VMware Announces New Security Solutions to Bring Intrinsic Security to the Modern Distributed Enterprise.)