At VMware Explore 2024 in Las Vegas we are introducing VMware Cloud Foundation 9 – a significant leap forward that will streamline the transition from siloed IT environments to a unified, integrated private cloud platform. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 will make the deployment, consumption, and management of a secure and cost-effective private cloud faster and easier than ever before.

Simplifying Modern Infrastructure Deployment and Operations

VMware Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9) is being built with the goal of simplifying how businesses deploy and operate modern infrastructure. It will allow organizations to manage their entire infrastructure as a single, unified system.

This capability helps meet the demands of modern applications while integrating advanced VMware features into a private cloud platform. The core VCF platform is enhanced by a suite of advanced services, expanding its use cases, enhancing security, and supporting a comprehensive application development ecosystem.

VCF addresses the needs of two key groups: infrastructure teams responsible for building and maintaining IT environments and infrastructure consumers like platform engineers and data scientists who leverage these environments to run applications.

For infrastructure teams, VCF 9 offers a unified platform that automates and simplifies operations, allowing them to deploy private cloud environments efficiently. 

But let’s take a moment to acknowledge how we’re addressing the challenge of multiple personas in different IT environments.

Elevating Both The Cloud Admin and the Platform Engineer

For the Cloud Admin, VCF 9 will offer a streamlined approach to infrastructure management. The new centralized console provides a unified view of the environment, allowing admins to perform capacity and tenant management, configure governance policies, and access a comprehensive security dashboard all from one place. 

The inclusion of features like VCF Diagnostics and Application Topology and Network Analysis will enable faster issue resolution and optimized performance, making day-to-day management less of a chore and more of a streamlined operation.

For the Platform Engineer, VCF 9 delivers a consumption-ready environment that supports traditional VMs, Kubernetes, and containerized applications. The enhanced multi-tenancy capabilities provide the flexibility needed to manage multiple projects while maintaining strict security and isolation protocols. 

Engineers can easily leverage the platform’s self-service capabilities to deploy resources quickly, adhering to governance standards set by Cloud Admins. This approach not only enhances productivity but also accelerates the time-to-market for new applications, aligning with the fast-paced needs of modern development environments.

Transforming Core IT Infrastructure

With VMware Cloud Foundation 9, it’s not just the unified experience, but it’s also our ability to continuously innovate on the existing platform, and bring fantastic new features to the forefront. However, what’s changing with VCF9 is to innovate both at the platform level, and at the individual technological level.

Let’s start with the platform-wide advancements:

Enhanced VCF Import:

• Integrates VMware NSX and various vSAN topologies directly into VCF environments.
• Reduces downtime during migration, ensuring seamless integration and future-proofing of existing setups.

Sovereign VCF Multi-Tenancy:

• Enables secure, isolated multi-tenant environments on shared infrastructure.
• Provides tailored governance and resource management, enhancing operational flexibility.

Fleet-Level Operations and Security:

• Centralized management for all VCF deployments, improving visibility and control.
• Unified security configurations across the entire fleet reduce vulnerabilities and enhance compliance.

Compute Enhancements in VCF9

We want to start with our compute stack, with our hypervisor sitting at the heart of VCF. Let’s take a look at the new set of features coming in VCF 9 designed to support infrastructure demands:

• Advanced Memory Tiering with NVMe: This feature optimizes memory management by offloading cold data to NVMe storage while keeping hot data in DRAM. This results in a 40% improvement in server consolidation, enabling businesses to run more workloads on fewer servers.
• Confidential Computing: Leveraging technologies such as Intel TDX and AMD’s SEV-SNP VCF9 will deliver confidential computing features such as advanced security by isolating and encrypting workloads, ensuring data integrity and privacy at the hypervisor level.
• vSphere Kubernetes Service Enhancements: VCF will include out-of-the-box support for Windows containers, direct network connectivity through VPC, and native OVF support, enhancing the flexibility and scalability of containerized applications.

Delivering Storage Capabilities with vSAN in VCF9

Now let’s move on to our storage stack. vSAN has been integrated in VCF for many years now, it’s been a staple of our private cloud deployment. So will be new and noteworthy in VCF9 as far as storage goes?

• Native vSAN-to-vSAN Data Protection with Deep Snapshots: Offers near-instantaneous data recovery with 1-minute RPOs, providing robust disaster recovery and data resilience.
• Integrated vSAN Global Deduplication: Reduces storage costs by 46% per terabyte compared to traditional solutions, thanks to efficient data deduplication across clusters.
• vSAN ESA Stretched Site Recovery: Ensures business continuity by maintaining operations and data availability even during dual-site failures, supporting critical applications with stretched cluster architecture.

VCF9 and The Power Of Integrated Networking

Lastly, we cover networking. Having a network fabric that spans your entire private cloud, effortlessly, performant and deliver on the connectivity demands of your workloads is key. And that is where NSX sits in our VCF9 story. Let’s take a look at some of the innovations:

• Native VPCs in vCenter and VCF Automation: Simplifies the creation and management of secure, isolated networks, reducing the complexity and time required to set up virtual networks.
• High-Performance Network Switching with NSX Enhanced Data Path: Delivers up to 3x the switching performance, meeting the demands of modern, data-intensive applications and reducing network latency.
• Easy Transition from VLAN to VPC: Streamlines the migration from traditional VLAN-based networks to VPCs, simplifying network management and improving security.

Conclusion

Our upcoming release of VMware Cloud Foundation 9 represents an important advancement in private cloud infrastructure, delivering integrated, native features across compute, storage, and networking. It’s an essential release for any organization looking to enhance security, optimize performance, and streamline operations within their IT environment. 

However, as we eagerly anticipate the innovations coming in VCF 9, VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 is already making significant strides today. With powerful capabilities for modern infrastructure management and private cloud modernization, VCF 5.2 offers a powerful platform for businesses to start enhancing their cloud environments right now. VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 ships today, and has a blog dedicated to everything that’s new, right here.

For enterprises looking to stay competitive and secure, there’s no better time to explore what VMware Cloud Foundation can offer, both today and in the exciting future ahead.