Broadcom at the VMware Explore 2024 conference today updated its VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform to provide both deeper levels of integration, multitenancy capabilities and a single console through which all VCF components can be managed.

Paul Turner, vice president of products for the VCF division of Broadcom, said VCF 9 will substantially reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) by, for example, eliminating the need for more than a dozen consoles that were previously required.

The overall goal is to make it simpler for IT teams to manage private clouds that can be deployed either in an on-premises IT environment or on a public cloud service, said Turner.

As part of that effort, Broadcom is also making virtual private cloud (VPC) maturity assessment, training and jumpstart services.

Additionally, Broadcom is adding an Advanced Memory Tiering with NVMe capability to VCF 9 that makes it more cost-effective to run data-intensive applications. VCF 9 also makes it possible to manage fleets of virtual machines, including security operations augmented by generative artificial intelligence (AI), and deploy virtual machines as much as 61% faster.

At the same time, network virtualization elements of the platform based on VMware NSX are better integrated with VMware ESXi to streamline operations, noted Turner. Virtual private clouds (VPCs) can also now take advantage of services such as VMware vDefend to enable security groups and VMware Avi Load Balancer to enable one-click deployment of load-balancing capabilities. The VMware hypervisor can now also serve as a threat for vDefend.

A VCF Import tool will make it easier to import VMware NSX, VMware vDefend, VMware Avi Load Balancer and more complex storage topologies into existing VCF environments. VCF 9 also now supports native vSAN-to-vSAN Data Protection with Deep Snapshots to improve resiliency.

Finally, Broadcom is making it easier to deploy VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA capabilities on top of VCF 9 by adding support for virtual graphics processor unit (vGPU) profile visibility, GPU reservations, a data indexing and retrieval service, and an AI agent builder service.

It’s not clear how many enterprise IT organizations are signing up for VCF. Broadcom is providing additional capabilities to make VCF attractive, but many IT organizations have already invested in other networking, storage and security platforms. In addition, many DevOps teams have adopted alternative platforms for accelerating the building and deployment of applications that don’t necessarily depend on what virtual machine is employed.

Many IT organizations are also still trying to determine what their total costs under a subscription license are compared to the perpetual licensing model for VMware which is no longer an option. The primary issue is not so much migrating workloads but rather the degree to which it makes economic sense to deploy additional workloads on VMware platforms.

At a time when IT organizations are increasingly sensitive to the total cost of IT, however, there is a case to be made for consolidation. The challenge is convincing IT teams they will not become beholden to a single vendor that might in the future increase licensing fees after they no longer have any other viable alternatives.