A look back at the VMworld Europe 2018 highlight reel
With VMworld Europe 2018 now in the books, we wanted to take a moment and reflect on some of the exciting announcements that IBM shared with our clients, partners, and attendees at the conference.
Taking the IBM and VMware partnership to the next level
The show started off with a bang when Arvind Krishna, SVP of IBM Cloud, joined Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, onstage during the general session keynote to chat about the strategic partnership between IBM Cloud and VMware. When the two companies came together a couple years ago, they embarked on a mission to accelerate hybrid cloud adoption, helping clients extend their VMware investment into the IBM Cloud without the need to retool their operations and replatform or rearchitect their applications. This partnership builds on top of over a decade of deep VMware expertise that IBM has accumulated as one of the largest operators of VMware workloads in the world. To continue the momentum, Pat announced the formation of a joint-innovation lab with dedicated engineers from both VMware and IBM who will work closely together on the cloud services of the future.
Journey to app modernization with hybrid cloud
Since the start of the strategic partnership in 2016, IBM Cloud and VMware have focused on simplifying and accelerating hybrid cloud adoption. This year at VMworld Europe, not only are we simplifying the migration and extension of clients’ VMware workloads to the public cloud, but we are continuing to jointly develop new solutions that enable clients to adopt cloud wherever they are in their journey. Businesses need an open, hybrid cloud approach to developing, running, and deploying applications in a multicloud environment. IBM and VMware are delivering new solutions to help enterprises accelerate hybrid cloud adoption without incurring the cost and risk typically associated with retooling operations, rearchitecting applications and redesigning security policies
On November 12, 2018, IBM released a self-managed, hosted deployment of IBM Cloud Private that runs on VMware on IBM Cloud. ICP Hosted is a single-tenant application platform for developing and managing containerized and virtualized applications. You can now modernize your apps at your own pace by using containers and the speed and scale of IBM Cloud while maintaining the same level of control and visibility that you enjoy on-premises.
There are many paths for clients looking to achieve a fully optimized hybrid cloud. While you can build net-new cloud-native apps using ICP Hosted, you can also lift and shift VMware workloads into the cloud and then transform them without having to completely rearchitect and refactor the heritage apps.
Let’s use a common three-tier app as an example. By containerizing stateless components and keeping the stateful components running as VMware VMs, you can take a cloud-hosted app and extend it into cloud services like Watson AI, Blockchain, IoT, and many more. Containers coupled with high-value microservices accelerates innovation and breathes new life into your apps!
If you prefer not to manage the underlying infrastructure needed to run Kubernetes in the cloud, then check out the recently published technical guide that documents how to securely extend communication from a VMware on IBM Cloud instance into the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Services. The guide follows the mock skateboard client ACME Skateboards as they modernize their e-commerce platform by plumbing the virtualized database to securely communicate with the containerized front-end that resides on the IBM-managed Kubernetes infrastructure.
To provide a unified networking solution that will bridge IBM Cloud Private and the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, IBM is expanding use of virtual cloud networking with the adoption of VMware NSX-T Data Center. As the foundation for a software-based network architecture that delivers services to applications and data wherever they are located, NSX-T provides consistent networking and security for all deployment models, including VM, containerized, and bare metal. NSX-T has been validated by IBM as a supported network stack for IBM Cloud Private.
Breaking up monolithic apps and rebuilding them with cloud-native practices is time-consuming, expensive, and challenging. If you need help along the way, IBM Services offer global consulting that helps ensure that your next app modernization project is on budget, on schedule, and successful.
Run mission-critical VMware workloads on the IBM Cloud
Mission-critical applications are the lifeblood of enterprises, and any unexpected downtime can cause millions of dollars in lost revenue, tarnish brand reputation, and negatively affect relationships with partners, suppliers, and customers. The IBM solution is designed to support these workloads at a targeted aggregate availability higher than many clients can currently achieve with on-premise environments. The solution includes IBM Cloud infrastructure, VMware software-defined data center technologies, and IBM Services that cover a variety of enterprise needs, including networks, storage, resiliency, and other tools built for monitoring and troubleshooting cloud applications. In addition, the new solution includes Intel Optane™ DC SSD, which, when combined with VMware vSAN, supports IT organizations looking to improve their VM density, improve performance, and lower the cost of running virtual machines.
On November 6, 2018, IBM announced a highly available global architecture that is designed to provide uptime for mission-critical VMware workloads on IBM Cloud. This architecture will be managed by IBM Services and can be deployed across 18 availability zones in the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The IBM Services-managed solution includes VMware software-defined data center stack on IBM Cloud infrastructure, and the managed services cover a variety of enterprise needs including networks, storage, resiliency, and other tools built for monitoring and troubleshooting cloud applications.
Single-node trial for VMware vCenter Server on IBM Cloud
We are now enabling a self-service model on the IBM Cloud side to enable migration of up to 20 VMs for simple workloads to evaluate VMware on our cloud. This is leveraging VMware’s HCX (Hybrid Cloud Extension) technology to easily move workloads from an on-premise data center to the IBM Cloud. HCX is a proven migration technology to IBM Cloud, where thousands of clients workloads have already been migrated. Our clients can enlist IBM Cloud Migration Factory for assistance if needed.
A new cost-effective storage target for backups
Ahead of the anticipated release of Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 4, IBM announced that Veeam will support IBM Cloud Object Storage in its upcoming version. Object storage is a great fit for long-term storage and provides a lower cost storage alternative for backups.
When the new release becomes available, Veeam on IBM Cloud clients can download the new version and leverage the cost-effective, massively scalable object storage repository for their data protection needs.
Price reductions and expanded capacity for IBM Cloud File Storage
IBM Cloud is committed to providing innovative cloud offerings at competitive prices to our customers. To deliver on that commitment, we are announcing reduced prices for select tiers of IBM Cloud File (NFS) Storage. Specifically, we are lowering the price for new volumes provisioned in 0.25, 2, and 4 IOPS tiers. The new prices are effective worldwide on October 29, 2018, and offer cost savings of up to 40% for 0.25 IOPS tier, 25% for 2 IOPS tier, and 43% for 4 IOPS tiers. The new pricing can be found on our pricing page.
In addition, we will soon offer a 100% increase in the maximum File Storage capacity supported specifically for VMware on IBM Cloud customers. We will expand our offering to 24 TB for the 0.25, 2, and 4 IOPS tiers, increasing the maximum performance to 96k IOPS. This will make it easier for VMware customers to move more of their data to the IBM Cloud and run their workloads with the highest possible performance. IBM Cloud File Storage offers high performance, durability, and availability with comprehensive security capabilities to support your VMware workloads.
Carrying momentum into the new year
With 2018 almost over, IBM will close out the year having helped over 1700 enterprise clients adopt the hybrid cloud and discover opportunities where they can deliver value to their end users in new innovative ways.
When we look forward into 2019, we’re excited by the prospects of working with clients like Banca Carige, one of the leading Italian Banking groups, who believe that VMware on IBM Cloud and cognitive tools will give them the competitive edge to carry on their tradition for another 500 years.
Ciao!