VMware Drives Its Infrastructure Modernization Initiative With VCF 5.2, Featuring Easy Integration With vSphere Environments
VMware by Broadcom showcased the new VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.2 at Cloud Field Day in October. The rollout, which was announced in June, is a significant update featuring new transformative capabilities that show off VMware’s vision for the flagship solution.
“[It] is not just a product update; it’s an evolution designed to address your most pressing needs,” VMware wrote in a press release.
VCF 5.2 advances certain key strategic initiatives for its makers; key among them are easy-to-implement infrastructure modernization, improved developer-friendly cloud experience and proactive security and resilience features.
Eric Gray, principal architect, demoed how users can migrate infrastructure from vSphere to VCF environment using the new features.
“Managing your existing environment with VCF, you don’t have to start from scratch,” he said.
The new version delivers capabilities that make it devilishly simple to import existing vSphere and vSAN environments and integrate them into VCF as opposed to spinning up new hardware from scratch. Two options, “convert” and “import” allow any existing cluster to be brought up under VCF management.
Many of the operational processes in the vSphere environment are still manually orchestrated, admitted Gray. This new feature will allow vSphere users to take advantage of VCF’s lifecycle management features which include automated workflows, password management, and granular control of component versions.
The transition is done in two easy steps, Gray told. “When you’re starting with an existing environment, one of the things you need to do is build a management domain and you do that by what we call “converting”.”
The VCF Import Tool in v5.2 allows users to create this management domain, or alternatively, a virtual infrastructure (VI) workload domain for vSphere environments.
“Every VCF environment has one workload domain that’s called the management domain, and that’s where the vCenter server appliances and some of the other appliances run.”
Users can deploy the SDDC Manager, downloadable from the Broadcom support portal, on their existing vSphere environment and using the import tool, can then convert clusters in the environment to VCF management domain.
The process is simple, said Gray. The SDDC Manager appliance can be imported like any other Open Virtual Machine (OVA) onto the existing infrastructure. Then logging into the portal, administrators just need to run a pre-built command line script that does the conversion.
For those who are already using SDDC Manager, environments can be “imported” directly as VI workload domains.
While conversion is a one-time operation, Gray reminded that import needs to happen in iteration. “You can import a vSphere environment that has a single cluster or multiple clusters,” he said.
For the next step of the journey, VMware offers VMware HCX, its signature workload migration and mobility platform, that is now embedded in VCF.
“It’s a very mature solution,” told Gray. “It has been around for many years and has been refined over time. It has all the capabilities that you might expect from a tool like it.”
These include hybrid interconnect, configurable transport encryption, WAN optimization, OS assisted migration, live, bulk and cloud to cloud reverse migration.
“HCX really does two primary things – network plumbing, and actual VM migration, individually or in mass – hundreds if necessary.”
Its core capability is to stretch the Layer2 network from one location to another without having to change the IP address and therefore sustain no downtime.
“Be it on-prem to the cloud or vice versa, old infrastructure to new infrastructure, what have you, once you could stretch that L2 network, you have a lot of flexibility with how you proceed with your migration plans.”
As noted, HCX can perform both live and non-live migrations. For less critical workloads that can sustain a little downtime, Gray recommends opting for scheduled migration, and following up with IP address changes on the other end to continue operations in the new environment.
Gray also highlighted the HCX network extension as a “critical piece”. Loaded with HA capability, it allows administrators to deploy a pair of redundant appliances on either end of the connection, ensuring zero downtime from technical hiccups.
HCX is included in VCF, and users are entitled to the Enterprise edition for getting workloads into VCF.
And if you’re using Google Cloud VMware Engine or Azure VMware Solution (AVS), it already comes set up with the HCX server which makes it really easy to active and integrate, said Gray.
Go to Techfieldday.com to watch the full VMware presentation with demos from the Cloud Field Day event.
