A couple of weeks ago VMware announced VMware vRealize Suite 7. vRealize Suite is VMware’s cloud management platform and (of course) supports VMware platforms, as well as 3rd party cloud and virtualization solutions. With the introduction of vRealize Suite 7, VMware provides a more coherent offering: both the vRealize Suite and the vCloud Suite include exactly the same products. There’s one big difference; the vSphere license is included in the vCloud Suite, while the vRealize Suite lacks the license for VMware’s virtualization platform. The vRealize Suite license is more or less meant for heterogeneous environments, while the vCloud Suite is a best fit for vSphere based environments.
Details on the different vRealize Suite are provided through the diagram at the beginning of this article. vRealize Suite comes in three editions: standard, advanced and enterprise. vRealize Suite is positioned as a cloud management platform (CMP), however the standard version of vRealize Suite is missing some of the essential features that one would expect in a CMP. Self-service provisioning, automation and orchestration options are not included in the standard edition. The standard suite is more focussed on operations management, and in that way a good offering.
If a CMP is on your roadmap, you should definitely take a look at vRealize Suite advanced/enterprise; or vCloud Suite advanced/enterprise if you’re already running VMware vSphere. These offerings provide self-service provisioning, automation, orchestration and charge/showback features on top of the operations management options that are already included in the standard edition.
VMware vRealize Suite now part of the cloud management platform comparison
As of today VMware vRealize Suite 7 is part of the cloud management platforms comparison at whatmatrix.com. With the second highest WhatMatrix Score®, VMware provides a complete offering in the CMP space. As stated before, specifically the advanced and enterprise version offers a complete set of features and provide integration options with VMware’s own solutions as well as 3rd party platform such as Amazon Web Services, KVM, OpenStack and more. I’ve also included the standard edition in the comparison for completeness and to maximise comparison options.
When evaluating automation & orchestration options, you should know vRealize Automation (VMware’s self-service platform) is tightly integrated with vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). vRO is VMware’s orchestrator and the platform to build workflows, integrations with 3rd party solutions using plugins or just to connect to REST API’s to build highly customisable integration options.
With the addition of VMware vRealize Suite, the CMP comparison at WhatMatrix.com becomes a very complete, compelling comparison. In addition to VMware’s CMP, products of CliQr, CloudBolt Software, Oracle, RedHat and RightScale are all included. I would suggest to take a look at the comparison now.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at viktor@whatmatrix.com, or through twitter.
Viktor van den Berg, VCDX #121, viktorious.nl.
paul brown
