Cloud solutions such as VMware’s vCloud Director have a long history. Starting off as Lab Manager, it is a piece of software that has morphed and evolved like none. Truth be told, it is a key part of infrastructure when it comes to the services provider arena, and if you don’t spend time there you may not have heard much this solution.
Let’s learn a little bit more about VMware Cloud Director, and take a look at some new key features and cloud solutions.
What is VMware Cloud Director?
VMware Cloud Director, formerly known as vCloud Director is all about complete lifecycle management for cloud providers. You’ll also see it stylized as VCD vs the vCD it was known as previously.
When we want to manage at scale, it all comes down to operational efficiency, from deployment, to management, to migration to teardown.
It also provides easy to configure multitennacy so providers can better serve their customer base, and makes vSphere easy to consume through either the UI or via APIs.
Of course, at the heart of this all is automation. There’s also a Terraform Provider for this solution, making possibilities truly endless.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the new features in VMware Cloud Director 10.2
VMware Cloud Director vs vSphere solutions
The next question you may be asking yourself is what is the difference between VMware Cloud Director, and the vSphere many of us are more familiar with.
If you’re looking at VMware Cloud Director; a cloud services option, you don’t have to throw away everything you know about vSphere, in fact, they are both very closely related.
Think of it as another layer on top of VMware vSphere. For huge the huge, large scale deployments many service providers use, VMware Cloud Director is the glue that holds it all together, and allows for streamlined operations from deployment to decomissioning.
VMware vSphere is still alive and well under the covers, and VMware Cloud Director binds it all together and adds the additional features service providers need to operate at scale.
Cloud solutions and Simplified Deployment
First things first, major enhancements are being made to the deployment of VMware Cloud Director 10.2.
Why? Simple. As most of us can attest, the hardest part of running an environment is often getting started.
Deployment will become easier with a brand new UI and error checking. New validation will also be built in to the deployment process to help prevent from encountering errors that can be avoided.
Maximum Flexibility with a Single Code Base
Unified management is a must when it comes to environment at scales, that’s why a unified code base when it comes to cloud management is so important.
As of version 10.2, VMware Cloud Director will manage across all clouds demo on prem to a provider cloud to a public cloud.
This is a huge win for those taking advantage of VMware Cloud on AWS cloud solutions.
Integration with VMware Tanzu
One of the hottest announcements at VMworld 2020 was VMware Tanzu. Now Virtual Data Centers can recreated using vSphere with Kubernetes, and customers can deploy vSphere with Kubernetes thanks to the
Container Service Extension 3.0.
If we’re talking about adoption enablement, this is a key integration when it comes to Tanzu and Kubernetes becoming more mainstream.
Getting Started with VMware Cloud Director 10.2
First and foremost, be sure to check out the VMware Blog for the full details on VMware Cloud Director 10.2.
It is expected to be released sometime in Q4 2020.
In the meantime, don’t miss the VMware Cloud Director documentation to help you get up to speed on these cloud solutions.
