VMware, Inc., a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, today introduced a new release of
VMware vSAN
featuring industry-first native hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI)
security, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and up to 50 percent
higher all-flash performance. These combined benefits will help
customers accelerate their data center modernization efforts.
HCI
systems are the fastest growing segment in the converged or integrated
systems market, according to IDC. (2) By combining software-defined
compute and storage capabilities with industry standard Intel
Architecture (IA) servers, HCI systems enable customers to simplify IT
operations and increase performance while lowering their upfront and
ongoing costs compared to traditional storage.
VMware vSAN 6.6
will help customers evolve their infrastructure with minimal risk
through native encryption, robust availability and the broadest choice
of hardware platforms, including cutting-edge flash technologies such as
Intel Optane solid-state drives (SSDs). The latest release will also
further lower TCO via intelligent operations and cloud-based analytics
while delivering the flexibility and performance to support modern
applications and hardware.
"Since the initial release of VMware
vSAN in 2014, customers have turned to vSAN because of its TCO savings
and the simplicity of managing compute and storage together," said
Yanbing Li, senior vice president and general manager, Storage and
Availability Business Unit, VMware. "VMware vSAN 6.6 is packed with
innovations featuring several industry firsts, and will further drive
mainstream adoption of HCI by helping customers modernize their data
centers to gain a competitive edge through newfound agility."
Evolve Data Centers with Industry-First Native HCI Security
vSAN 6.6 is the sixth-generation of VMware's simple, enterprise-grade native storage for vSphere.
The storage platform is ideal for a range of use cases including
business-critical and cloud-native applications, virtual desktop
infrastructure (VDI), remote office/branch office (ROBO), and disaster
recovery environments. The new release will offer customers an
efficient, non-disruptive path to a more secure infrastructure that is
highly available for their business-critical workloads. New features
will include:
- Native HCI security:
A software-defined, data-at-rest encryption solution featuring
simplified key management that is built to protect against unwanted
access to data. vSAN 6.6 customers using vSAN Encryption will have the
freedom to select any vSAN-certified hardware to further lower hardware
costs by avoiding expensive self-encrypting drives (SEDs).
- Highly available vSAN management: vSAN 6.6 will enable monitoring and management of the storage platform in the event VMware vCenter Server® is offline.
Lower TCO with Enhanced Site Protection and Intelligent Operations
HCI
solutions powered by vSAN are well positioned to help IT teams
modernize their data center infrastructure despite shrinking or static
budgets and increasing demands from the business and end users. vSAN 6.6
will help customers address these challenges by alleviating the
economic stress on businesses and IT through the following
functionality:
- Efficient and economical site protection:
vSAN 6.6 will deliver enhanced Stretched Clusters with local protection
to provide resiliency against both site and local component failures.
These highly available clusters can be deployed for up to 50 percent
less than leading traditional storage solutions. (3)
- Proactive cloud analytics:
vSAN Cloud Analytics will introduce a new analytics framework that will
initially provide real-time support notifications and custom
recommendations to help customers optimize their vSAN environment. The
cloud-based analytics can be continuously enhanced with new checks and
functionality without requiring any customer intervention.
- Automated hardware maintenance:
Intelligent operations and lifecycle management capabilities will
accelerate initial hardware setup, simplify software install, and
deliver 1-click controller hardware lifecycle management for a more
predictable hardware experience -- without sacrificing the broadest
choice of hardware.
Scale HCI to Support Tomorrow's Applications and Hardware
With
technology advancing at a breakneck pace, VMware vSAN continues to
deliver an efficient, high-performance architecture that provides
customers the flexibility to support modern applications and the latest
hardware. VMware vSAN 6.6 will deliver:
- Faster flash performance:
Optimized data service algorithms in vSAN 6.6 will help accelerate
flash performance of business-critical and cloud-native applications by
up to 50 percent. (3) In addition to existing support for VMware
Horizon®, new validated architectures provide support for workloads such
as Hadoop, Citrix XenApp, InterSystems Cache and Splunk.
- Support for next-generation hardware:
vSAN is architected to support the latest flash technologies enabling
vSAN-powered HCI solutions to adopt new technologies as they arrive on
the market without delays and forklift upgrades to their infrastructure.
For example, vSAN 6.6 will deliver industry-first support for recently
launched Intel® OptaneTM SSDs, which can help boost the performance
write-intensive applications like big data and streaming analytics.
Pricing and Availability
VMware vSAN 6.6 is
expected to become available by May 5, 2017. VMware vSAN list price
starts at $2,495 per CPU. VMware vSAN for Desktop list price starts at
$50 per user.
VMware vSAN Quality of Service capabilities are now
available in all vSAN editions. New VMware vSAN Encryption and enhanced
stretched cluster capabilities will be available solely in vSAN
Enterprise Edition.