Broadcom VMware hardens vDefend, drops Tanzu branding in VCF
The VMware Cloud Foundation private cloud platform sheds the Tanzu branding for Kubernetes and adds new capabilities to vDefend, but are prices hikes coming?
Broadcom continues positioning VMware as the all-encompassing enterprise private cloud platform by adding new vDefend services around microsegmentation security and dropping the Tanzu branding from built-in container services.
The tech titan's handling of the VMware product line since its acquisition in 2023 requires them to position the virtualization stack as an all-inclusive platform for enterprise workloads, said Torsten Volk, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia.
The flagship VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) has bundled together many previously disparate software offerings into a complete, if pricey, private cloud offering, he said. This streamlining ultimately means customers have fewer alternative ways into the ecosystem or reasons to stay.
"If they don't win with platform engineering, they don't win anywhere," Volk said. "I think that's the right decision [as] they're competing on private cloud [services]."
These updates arrive as media rumors swirl surrounding possible price increases this spring, which Inform TechTarget could not independently verify. These rumors, first reported by The Register and later CRN, come from a partner reseller email stating that the minimum number of cores for a VMware purchase will increase from 16 to 72.
Broadcom did not respond to a request for comment on the pricing changes.
vDefend additions
The latest vDefend updates, available now, allow customers to generate a report on their microsegmentation security within their VCF environment with the new Security Segmentation Assessment and Report feature.
These reports track up to 30 days of network traffic, provide a VMware-made score and offer suggestions to improve defensive network posture, according to Broadcom.
The Security Services Platform, a VM running numerous vDefend components, is now offered as an Open Virtual Appliance for installation. Features within this latest release include new backup and restore workflows, a new interface, alarms and operational metric services.
According to the company, the existing Network Detection and Response capability, for threat detection and responses, now works within air-gapped environments without the need for an external connection.
The vDefend suite is sold as an add-on to VCF.
As we hear from [security] practitioners, the never-ending demands on their time translates into a push for automation [capabilities] across security.
Fernando MontenegroAnalyst, The Futurum Group
The vDefend platform has already increased the number of automated tools and AI services in recent months, said Fernando Montenegro, an analyst at The Futurum Group. The complexity and scale of modern enterprise IT environments have many security experts demanding more automation and intelligent services.
"As we hear from [security] practitioners, the never-ending demands on their time translates into a push for automation [capabilities] across security," Montenegro said.
vSphere Kubernetes Service
The Tanzu brand for the Kubernetes services within VCF is no more.
The VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service and Tanzu Kubernetes were rebranded in early March as the VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) and vSphere Kubernetes release (VKr), respectively.
The Tanzu branding remains for the VMware Tanzu Platform, a DevOps platform that unifies management of Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry infrastructure. VMware Tanzu Platform remains one of the few separate SaaS applications sold separately from Broadcom's VCF offerings.
The VKS and VKr offerings are included as part of VCF, according to Broadcom. VKS provides the Kubernetes management services, while VKr is the core container capability for VCF.
Other platform-as-a-service providers, such as Red Hat and Cisco, have similarly merged their Kubernetes management capabilities into their respective platform offerings rather than as separate packages, according to Volk.
"It's really a back-to-basics approach," he said. "It's about managing Kubernetes through VCF. It's exactly the same story Cisco and Red Hat are telling together."
Tim McCarthy is a news writer for Informa TechTarget, covering cloud and data storage.
