Larik-Jan: “VMware Explore features a very comprehensive program this year, starting right from 9:00 AM on Monday. However, there is a small but noticeable difference compared to previous years; traditionally, this day was dedicated to partners, with the event only opening to both partners and customers from Tuesday onwards. The event is just as grand and well-organized as in previous years, though the number of attendees seems a bit lower. Today, I attended several initial sessions, all of which were very interesting, and I would like to walk you through them below.”

Supervisor Services

Monday morning focused on the development of VMware Cloud Foundation. But how did that work again? VMware has consolidated its 168 products into two main offerings: VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation, along with a number of add-ons.

The first session demonstrated how VCF is evolving into a platform for all Private Cloud services: infrastructure services (virtual servers) and Kubernetes have received full focus, with the Tanzu product name disappearing from the catalog. In its place, the Service Control Plane has returned. The reason: in the world of applications, Kubernetes has become the standard platform. Interoperability across different cloud platforms and the ease of scaling and modularity are the reasons for this. Currently, 86% of organizations are looking into migrating to Kubernetes for their applications.

Kubernetes can be fully managed via an API, thereby facilitating simple DevOps activities. VMware by Broadcom has adopted this concept and translated it into the service control plane, with the goal of enabling uniform deployment of all Private Cloud services using APIs: the Supervisor Control Plane.

These Supervisor Services also include vSphere Kubernetes Services (VKS), which has been decoupled from vCenter, allowing for faster streamlining of new Kubernetes services.

Another improvement showcased is an enhancement to stretched vSAN clusters, which enables robust redundancy for the Supervisor Control Plane (ETCD).

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Furthermore, Windows Container support has been added, and self-service capabilities are being further developed. All in all, this session was very inspiring and clearly shows that VCF is viewed as the flagship product and will continue to be expanded.

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