The services included in vSphere+

In our previous FAQ, we shared the news that vSphere+ is now available and highlighted some of the key points about the release.

We now dig deeper and in this post take a look at the services included in the new vSphere+.

What are the new vSphere+ services available via the VMware Cloud Portal?

VMware currently offers the following vSphere services to simplify the management and operations of your on-premises vSphere environments, visualized via the VMware Cloud portal.

These services include:

1.  Cloud Console, Central Console for all vSphere Deployments (VMware Cloud Console). Consolidate management through a centralised cloud console.
2. Global inventory service, Visualise inventory of vSphere resources. Quickly understand resources across the entire vSphere estate, including VMs, ESXi hosts, and vCenter instances.
3. Event view service, consolidated view of events and alerts. Quickly triage areas that need attention across the entire vSphere estate.
4. Security health check service, Evaluate vSphere security posture. Highlight security weaknesses or exposures across all vSphere infrastructure.
5. Provision Virtual Machine service, Provision VMs from VMware Cloud console. Quickly create VMs within any managed cluster.
6. Lifecycle management service, Simplified lifecycle management of vCenter instances. Update vCenter instances with minimal impact. A reduced maintenance window makes it easier to schedule updates sooner, allowing more rapid access to new features. If there is a problem, you can easily roll back the update. Address security vulnerabilities quickly.

These services are in addition to the management capabilities that you already have with your current vCenter instances. You can continue to use vCenter the same way that they always have.

Are there any Developer services included with vSphere+?

Yes. The following Developer services are included with vSphere+:

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid service which contains vSphere Pod service (requires separate NSX purchase), storage service, network service, Registry service, VM service. These services allow you to transform their existing virtual compute infrastructure into an enterprise-grade Kubernetes environment and access self-service infrastructure through standard Kubernetes commands and APIs.

The Benefits of the services include:

1. Configure an enterprise-grade Kubernetes infrastructure with existing networking and storage.
2. Deliver Kubernetes for developers using a simple, consistent, and secure experience that is upstream conformant and multi-cloud ready.
3. Provision Tanzu Kubernetes clusters using a simple, fast, and self-service experience.
4. Allocate core infrastructure services (such as Network, Storage, and Registry service) and resources using namespaces for developer teams.
5. Use Kubernetes APIs to access virtualised infrastructure.

*Tanzu Kubernetes Grid service was formerly referred to as vSphere with Tanzu.

Are there any Tanzu Standard services integrated with vSphere+?

Yes. The following Tanzu Standard services are included with vSphere+: Policy Management, Conformance/Diagnostics, Ingress, Identity and Access Management, Cluster Lifecycle Management, and Logging.

The Benefits of the services include the ability to streamline the deployment and management of local and in-cluster platform services – like logging, monitoring, networking, and storage services – to easily configure and maintain a production-ready Kubernetes environment.

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