Live Migration of Virtual Machines: vSphere vMotion

VMware has rolled out a basket of Kubernetes-based offerings to help users prepare for container migration as a way to modernize their apps and maintain investments in vSphere.

No application can afford downtime, but fortunately some downtime is completely avoidable. For those instances where you know ahead of time that system downtime is eminent such as for maintenance, moves, or natural disasters you can perform a vMotion of the workload from the server where downtime is expected to one that is not.

VMware vSphere vMotion is a zero downtime live migration of workloads from one server to another. This capability is possible across vSwitches, Clusters, and even Clouds (depending of the vSphere edition that you have). During the workload migration, the application is still running and users continue to have access to the systems they need. Talk about keeping productivity high!

VMware has rebranded Pivotal Application Service to Tanzu Application Service and changed its Wavefront monitoring software's name to Tanzu Observability by Wavefront. VMware hopes to be a big player in the Kubernetes ecosystem with its Tanzu portfolio.

VMware hopes a raft of new Kubernetes-based enhancements can position the company as the right choice for customers interested in container migration while they retain investments in vSphere.

The strategy centers on Tanzu, a product portfolio VMware introduced at the VMworld conference in August. A chief component is the Kubernetes Grid, a distribution of the container orchestration engine that sets up clusters in a consistent way across various public clouds and on-premises infrastructure.

Another product, Tanzu Mission Control, provides management tooling for Kubernetes clusters. VMware has also pushed its acquisition of Bitnami under the Tanzu header. Bitnami, which offers a catalog of pre-packaged software such as the MySQL database for quick deployment across multiple environments, is now called Tanzu Application Catalog.

"Kubernetes has practically stolen virtualization from VMware, so now it needs to upgrade the engine room, while keeping the promenade deck the same and hoping the passengers stay on board and do not jump ship," said Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research.

A big part of this plan involves the new vSphere 7, which has been reworked to run both container and virtual machine workloads by embedding Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and other components. This vSphere option is initially available only through VMware Cloud Foundation 4, which is supported on AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle, Rackspace and IBM's public cloud services, as well as through other VMware partners.

VMware also plans to release a separate, Kubernetes-less edition of vSphere 7 for customers who don't want that functionality. Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, Application Catalog and Mission Control are available now, while Cloud Foundation 4 and vSphere 7 are slated for release before May 1.