Delivers update aimed at reducing hardware bill shock
VMware has announced an update to its flagship Cloud Foundation (VCF) private cloud suite and tried to make it fit the times by adding features that allow users to run with less hardware.
VCF 9.1, announced today, tries to improve on VMware's memory tiering tech that shifts data out of RAM and onto NVMe storage, so that servers can get by with less memory. We're told the new version includes better detection of cold memory pages so VCF can shunt more data to NVMe, more often. VMware has already argued memory tiering is the antidote to soaring hardware prices, because it means users won't need to invest in RAM-crammed servers. Improved tiering many improve that argument.
The Broadcom biz unit has also added what it describes as "next-generation storage compression" for AI data pipelines, an addition that should mean users need less storage capacity – another potential saving. And there's a new Kubernetes environment aimed at spinning up lightweight test and dev environments, so orgs don't need to dedicate a full cluster to that task.
Another inclusion promises the chance to create a multi-tenant infrastructure that isolates AI workloads so they can safely run on shared infrastructure.
VMware exists to maximize hardware utilization and the high cost of AI hardware gives it a moment to point to its expertise in the field, push multi-tenant AI to demonstrate the value of its partner community, and give itself another angle from which to peddle its current argument that implementing on-prem infrastructure running VCF will mean AI-related cloud bill blowouts.
Prashanth Shenoy, marketing boss for Broadcom's VCF division, told The Register buyers have responded to this pitch – and VMware has racked up more than 2,000 implementations of VCF 9 in the year since its release.
"We had less than 2,000-3,000 full stack private cloud customers before acquisition," he said, and uptake of VCF 9 is the fastest VMware has recorded.
For some perspective, pre-acquisition VMware had upwards of 350,000 customers. The outfit's vSphere server virtualization products remain on the books, but users tell The Register Broadcom does not offer license renewals for anything other than VCF. So while VMware is selling plenty of VCF, fewer than one percent of pre-acquisition customers have made the move so far.
Shenoy thinks AI will prompt more organizations to adopt VCF.
"As customers move from pilot to production, they want to bring compute closer to data," he said. That means running LLMs on-prem. "They do it because of costs, regulations and security and IP concerns."
For those not yet running AI anywhere, VCF 9.1 adds more automated provisioning tools to push VMs and containers to edge locations, live patching for more hosts, on-prem disaster and ransomware recovery tools, and more observability tools – including the ability to monitor AI workloads to measure token consumption, and inventory of active agents and the models they are using.
VMware also added support for AMD Instinct MI350 GPUs, and improved vMotion – the tech that non-disruptively moves workloads to different hardware – so AI workloads can hop between GPUs with zero downtime.
Shenoy told The Register VCF 9.1 customers given early access to the release rated it worthy of full VCF 10.0 release status.
That reaction is significant because VMware's competitors often allege Broadcom intends to lock customers in, then maximize profits by slowing innovation. Shenoy thinks VCF 9.1 rebuts that argument.
But he also acknowledges that many VMware customers are yet to embrace VCF. "This is a huge mindset shift we have asked customers to take," he said. ®