VMware's vCloud - All You Need To Know

VMware vCloud Suite is a set of all the VMware software products essential for constructing a private cloud infrastructure. It is composed of different components which are collectively used to serve one single purpose; they reduce the time-to-market the IT products by enhancing the organizational efficiency and decreasing technology costs.

vCloud gives amazingly quick access to IT resources. You need not compromise on managing or securing your data resources.

Characteristics of vCloud
vCloud comes up with exciting features and characteristics. No wonder it is so successful so far. These are the following characteristics:

1. Comprehensive and Integrating:
   vCloud is capable of handling any workloads within the data center devoid of their types and sizes. It also takes care of every part of the fabric coherently and instinctively.
2. Standardized:
   It can run on x86 based servers and utilize them even better than existing traditional implementations. VMs are portable, hence if there is a complication with one of the physical servers, vCloud automatically transfer the other virtual machines into another x86 machine.
   No matter which operating system you install or connect to a given server, VMware takes care of each one of them and reduces your responsibility.
3. Automated:
   If everything is so automated, it is easy to make a significant saving under the vCloud. You will be now capable of: (1) Managing your corporate framework with almost no effort and (2) patching things together without any scripting virtually. The vCloud is not only capable of ‘just working’ but working explicitly, adaptively, collaboratively and in an automated fashion.
4. Adaptive:
   vCloud is known for its flexible nature and ability to adapt the changing demands coming from applications. vCloud is capable of understanding and learning how to use your resources in the best possible manner on the basis of current and expected changes through the entire day.
5. Resilient:
   The vCloud’s resilience could not be challenged so far because it utilizes a software-based architecture. In other words, the hardware is not much of a threat anymore to a successful data center operation and mission critical applications. Even if you have enough x86 tins, it does not require them so much; you see, where vCloud provides you such an amazing resiliency, hardware issues are more likely to keep your workforce productivity unaffected.

If one server is down, the virtual machines are automatically transferred and restarted in one more server. In addition to that, the sets of resources are automatically recalculated to provide you with optimum performance.

Components of vCloud
The latest version, the vCloud 6.0 is out now. It has a sophisticated list of components that are useful for cloud services provisioning, monitoring and showback or chargeback.

The vCloud Suite consists of the following components:

• ESXi: It comes in version, 6.0 and helps you consolidate your applications on less hardware. The ESXi provides a completely bare metal. 
• vCenter Server: It comes in version, 6.0 and provides a centralized platform to manage vSphere environments.
  [In order to build the core infrastructure of the Software-Defined Data Center the vCenter Server is a necessity. It has a separate license on a per instance basis.]
• vCenter Site Recovery Manager: It comes in version, 6.0 and provides the capability of recovering from a disaster to perform disruptive testing and automated orchestration for all the virtualized applications.
• vRealize Automation: The latest version is 6.2.1 and it provides essential functionalities for deployment and provisioning of cloud services relevant for business across public and private clouds, hypervisors, physical infrastructure, and public cloud providers.
• vRealize Business for vSphere: It comes in version 6.1.0 and provides optimal transparency and control over the quality and expenses of IT services that is critical for the success of private or hybrid cloud.
• vRealize Automation Application Services: This equips you with automated application provisioning in the cloud that includes deploying and configuring the components of the application and dependent middleware platform services on the cloud infrastructure.
• vRealize Configuration Manager: This equips you with automated configuration and compliance management across virtual, physical and cloud environments while assessing them for operational and security compliance.
• vRealize Hyperic: This is available in version 5.8.4 and equips you with operating systems monitoring, running middleware and applications in virtual, physical and cloud environments.
• vRealize Infrastructure Navigator: This is available in version 5.8.4 and equips you with automated application service discovery, relationship virtualization, and application maps dependencies on computing, virtualized, storage and network resources.
• vRealize Orchestrator: This is available in version 6.0.1 and equips you with the capability to develop workflows that automate tasks like performing scheduled maintenance, provisioning virtual machines, initiating backups, and much more.
• vRealize Operations Manager: This is available in version 6.0.1 and equips you with broad visibility and detailed insights into the performance, capacity and handling capabilities of your infrastructure.

Other Components
There are other components for Big Data management on vSphere platform, Data protection and replication. They are vSphere Big Data Extensions, vSphere Data Protection and vSphere Replication.

The vCloud Suite comes with network components also. The NSX for vSphere provides networking and security to SDDC. Customers who purchase the vCloud Suite are eligible to purchase NSX for vSphere at a lower, add-on cost.