VMware Introduces Kubernetes as a Service on Photon Platform
Marketwired
BARCELONA, SPAIN--(Marketwired - October 18, 2016) - Today at VMworld® 2016 Europe, VMware, Inc. (VMW) announced built-in support for Kubernetes in VMware Photon™ Platform to enable IT operations teams to deliver Kubernetes as a Service to development teams. VMware Photon Platform will also add networking and storage services powered by VMware NSX® and VMware Virtual SAN™, respectively. With the addition of these new services, Photon Platform offers an end-to-end enterprise cloud-native infrastructure platform for running modern, containerized applications in production with support provided by VMware.
Businesses are increasingly differentiating themselves via software applications and services that deliver innovative customer experiences. To reduce application development lifecycles, developers are adopting cloud-native application methodologies, architectures and technologies. VMware Photon Platform will now deliver access to the services needed to build and run modern applications including Kubernetes as an on-demand service in customers' data centers. The comprehensive Photon Platform automates IT infrastructure provisioning and allows businesses to focus on their development efforts versus building, operating and supporting a custom solution.
"VMware Photon Platform takes a major step forward by empowering IT teams to deliver, secure and operate the modern services that development teams require with the infrastructure automation demanded by today's leading enterprise organizations," said Paul Fazzone, vice president and general manager, Cloud-Native Applications Business Unit, VMware. "Based on the industry-leading hypervisor, network virtualization and hyper-converged storage solutions, VMware Photon Platform offers customers unprecedented business speed and agility to deliver innovative software solutions to market quicker."
Photon Platform Introduces Kubernetes as a Service, New Networking and Storage Services
In August 2015, VMware introduced Photon Platform as an enterprise cloud-native infrastructure platform optimized for containers and modern applications. It is purpose-built for use in API-driven, multi-tenant and high-scale environments. With this release, VMware will expand Photon Platform with new developer services and broader infrastructure functionality including:
Kubernetes as a Service
VMware Photon Platform will enable IT operations teams to deliver Kubernetes as a Service to developers in a multi-tenant fashion for workload isolation and security. Kubernetes clusters -- which can be sized from single node clusters to hundreds of nodes -- can be provisioned in minutes with developers being able to scale up their clusters as needed with no down time. The resilient VMware Photon Platform features high availability capabilities such as automatic healing from failures to reduce downtime of Kubernetes services. VMware provides end-to-end support of Photon Platform including a commercially-supported distribution of Kubernetes.
Virtual Networks Powered by VMware NSX
Photon Platform will introduce network services based on the industry leading VMware NSX. Initially, the platform will provide switching and routing services. Over time, the platform will offer a complete set of logical networking elements and services. Learn more about VMware NSX.
Hyper-converged Storage Powered by VMware Virtual SAN
Photon Platform will introduce block storage services featuring the industry-leading VMware Virtual SAN. This new service will offer flexible, programmable and proven persistent storage for containerized and cloud-native applications. The service will deliver elastic storage that scales up and out to enable rapid application deployment. Workloads will benefit from robust data services such as deduplication, stretched clusters, erasure coding and more. Built using a hyper-converged infrastructure model, Photon Platform offers customers a simplified hardware architecture that enables customers to scale-out their server and storage resources incrementally. Photon Platform will also connect to external NAS and SAN arrays. Learn more about VMware Virtual SAN.
Photon Platform has incorporated Kubernetes, network and storage services to enable IT to deliver a growing set of on-demand services to developers. Developers will be able to rapidly provision Kubernetes clusters, containers and virtual machines from a catalog of machine sizes, container and operating system base images managed by IT.
Photon Platform is suited for deployments where organizations are embracing DevOps and agile development practices and require a technology stack that aligns with modern application development practices. Additionally, Photon Platform supports IT operations teams moving workloads from public cloud to private cloud to reduce OPEX costs without sacrificing the benefits of highly available IT resources.
Pricing and Availability
VMware Photon Platform will become available in Q4 2016. Pricing and licensing will be made available upon general availability of the platform.
Components of the VMware Photon Platform -- Photon Controller and Photon OS -- are available today as open source software and are accessible via VMware's GitHub page at https://github.com/vmware.
About VMware VMware, a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, helps customers accelerate their digital transformation. VMware enables enterprises to master a software-defined approach to business and IT with VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture™ and solutions for the data center, mobility, and security. With 2015 revenues of $6.6 billion, VMware is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA and has over 500,000 customers and 75,000 partners worldwide.
VMware, VMworld, Photon, NSX, and Virtual SAN are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding features of and availability of new product releases and their prospective benefits for customers. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in consumer, government and information technology spending; (iii) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization software and cloud, end user and mobile computing industries, and new product and marketing initiatives by competitors; (iv) customers' ability to transition to new products and computing strategies such as cloud computing, desktop virtualization and the software defined data center; (v) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (vi) changes in the willingness of customers to enter into longer term licensing and support arrangements; (vii) rapid technological changes in the virtualization software and cloud, data center and end user computing industries; (viii) changes to product and service development timelines; (ix) VMware's relationship with Dell Technologies and Dell's ability to control matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of VMware's board members and matters relating to Dell's investment in VMware; (x) VMware's ability to protect its proprietary technology; and (xi) VMware's ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including VMware's most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that VMware may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
