VMware unveils slew of new cloud data management and recovery tools

VMware has announced a large expansion of its cloud data services, with an update for its Data Service Manager and expanded compatibility for databasing alongside new protections against ransomware and services for data recovery.

Data Services Manager 2.0 is now natively available within VMware Cloud Foundation, providing IT managers with full control over policies for data and infrastructure. VMware stated it could cut the time spent on provisioning database services from hours to minutes.

The release of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 will also bring new capabilities to support the data needs of customers seeking to implement generative AI workloads. VMware said the updated system will deliver double the GPU capacity and four times the storage performance boost, as well as improved policy enforcement.

Another new feature is Intelligent Threat Detection, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to detect hidden ransomware in customer workloads via an isolated VMware Cloud environment.

When attacks do happen, Intelligent Threat Detection scans offline snapshots for anomalies in metadata or data exchange to identify encrypted data. It will pair with VMware Live Recovery, now available as a single unified solution for data remediation in the wake of an attack. 

VMware announced the updates at VMware Explore Barcelona 2023, its annual EU event that complements the yearly VMware Explore conference in the US. 

“The challenge statement that we're trying to address with our data services manager and data service strategies is how can we provide our customers a consistent and unified operational model and ensure their service level objectives for all of these modern databases and data services,” said Prashanth Shenoy, VP marketing, Cloud Infrastructure Business Group at VMware.

VMware said that 85 million workloads now run on VMware Cloud Infrastructure, with the firm having recorded a 31% year-over-year growth in consumption for VCI workloads.

The PostgreSQL database Google Cloud AlloyDB Omni will also be added to VMware Cloud Foundation as the first native third-party integration of its kind. 

Run on VMware’s hyper-converged vSAN infrastructure, AlloyDB Omni is capable of up to 100x performance of competing PostreSQL solutions.

It will be joined by the third-party object storage MinIO Object Store, which VMware described as a resilient object store ideal for mission-critical production environments such as for AI and ML.

“Whether residing on-premises, across hybrid clouds, or in a sovereign cloud environment, data is the fuel for digital transformation,” said Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager of cloud infrastructure business unit, VMware.

“Through our new data services innovations and partnerships, we are making VMware Cloud Foundation the best platform to power the traditional, modern, and AI and ML applications that are central to business.” 

Leaps for Sovereign Cloud 

While Sovereign Cloud demand is still largely being driven by data residency requirements, Bhardwaj stated that local regulations such as the EU AI Act and Data Act are driving greater needs for sovereign cloud architecture.

Brewing legislation on AI has also driven VMware customers to implement measures that ensure data sovereignty is respected by models they are using, in the cloud or on-premise via VMware Private AI.

VMware said that as customers need to manage their Kubernetes clusters, they need centralized policy management.

To help deliver this VMware will deliver its SaaS service Tanzu Mission Control, which is used for multi-cloud Kubernetes management, as a self-service solution for air-gapped environments.

MongoDB, Kafka, and Greenplum will also be made accessible through new ‘as-a-service’ offerings, for added options on real-time and data analytics, as well as flexible and fast data transactions.

VMware additionally announced expanded partnerships with NetApp and Thales. NetApp will provide its StorageGRID Object Storage directly within Sovereign Cloud, while Thales is set to provide Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) services for Sovereign Cloud through its CipherTrust service.

“We are seeing increased adoption of our Sovereign Cloud solutions, which we announced last year in Barcelona,” said Rajeev Bhardwaj, vice president, cloud provider platform at VMware.

“I’m happy to report that we now have 55 cloud service providers who are part of the VMware Sovereign Cloud program.”

Innovations at the edge

In addition to its cloud announcements, VMware unveiled a range of advancements for its Software-Defined Edge ecosystem, such as Intelligent Assist for VMware Software-Defined Edge. 

This builds on the other VMware services containing its generative AI Intelligent Assist solutions which already serve Tanzu, Workspace ONE, and NSX+.

It is hoped that the tool will help customers to perform smoother rollouts across VMware’s SDE and secure access service edge (SASE) products. The firm cited Gartner research that indicated that by 2026, 50% of all edge computing deployments will involve machine learning (ML) at some level.

VMware is also rolling out Microsoft Security Copilot for its SASE customers as a trial, with the intention of expanding the generative AI tool’s scope to include data on network perimeter security.