In a significant product upgrade, VMware has announced the newly expanded VMware Tanzu portfolio for modern applications, and VMware Cloud Foundation 4 with Tanzu, the automated, turnkey hybrid cloud platform that now supports both traditional VM-based and container-based applications featuring the new VMware Cloud Foundation Services using Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and the new VMware vSphere 7 to drive developer productivity.

VMware Tanzu
A portfolio of products and services, enterprises can use the suite to automate the modern app lifecycle, run Kubernetes across clouds, and unify and optimize multi-cloud operations. The initial products in the VMware Tanzu portfolio include VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, VMware Tanzu Mission Control, and VMware Tanzu Application Catalog.

Following the close of the Pivotal acquisition in December 2019, VMware has moved to integrate the Pivotal team, technology and products. This includes VMware rebranding Pivotal Application Service (PAS)—purpose-built for developers to boost feature velocity and operations teams to deliver world-class uptime—to the Tanzu Application Service.

Additionally, VMware has re-branded Wavefront by VMware to Tanzu Observability by Wavefront and aligned NSX Service Mesh with the portfolio as Tanzu Service Mesh, built on VMware NSX. These additions to the portfolio will help enterprises to further increase developer velocity, holistically observe and monitor apps running in multi-cloud environments including Kubernetes-based environments, and simplify the way they connect, monitor and secure microservices.

VMware Cloud Foundation 4
VMware Cloud Foundation 4 with Tanzu will provide hybrid cloud infrastructure with consistent management for both VM-based and container-based applications while delivering intrinsic security and lifecycle management across software-defined compute, storage and network resources. The platform helps to bridge the gap between developers and IT—enabling developers to rapidly build and update apps while providing IT operations with control and enhanced security.

VMware Cloud Foundation 4 with Tanzu also introduces VMware Cloud Foundation Services, an integrated Kubernetes and RESTful API surface to enable organizations to drive API access to all core services.

VMware vSphere 7

VMware also introduced vSphere 7, claimed to be the biggest evolution of vSphere in a decade. VMware vSphere 7 was previewed in August 2019 as Project Pacific—which focused on rearchitecting vSphere into an open platform using Kubernetes APIs to provide a cloud-like experience for developers and operators. A foundational component of the VMware Tanzu portfolio, the new release will support all applications including modern and traditional applications using any combination of virtual machines, containers and Kubernetes.

VMware vSphere 7 will also allow enterprises to continue to take advantage of existing investments in vSphere technology, tools and skillsets.

VMware Tanzu Application Catalog, VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and VMware Tanzu Mission Control are all available today. VMware Cloud Foundation 4, VMware vSphere 7, VMware vSAN 7, VMware vRealize Automation 8.1 and VMware vRealize Operations 8.1 (both on-premises and as SaaS) are all expected to become available by May 1, 2020 (the end of VMware’s Q1 Fiscal Year 2021).

VMware vSphere 7 will be available in two major configurations. The first configuration, vSphere with Kubernetes, will be available in VMware Cloud Foundation 4 with Tanzu to power container- and VM-based applications. vSphere 7 will also be available in a configuration for VM-based applications in a number of editions including VMware vSphere Standard Edition.