VMware, a US virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions provider, announced a new partnership with GPU maker Nvidia and a slew of updates for its digital workspace platform this week. The company has teamed up with Nvidia for a new enterprise-grade hybrid cloud solution for AWS (Amazon Web Services). This new hybrid cloud product was created for supporting high-performance computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).
The hybrid cloud announcement comes at the start of the VMworld conference in San Francisco and just days after VMware’s acquisition of app development startups Pivotal and cloud security specialist Carbon Black.
Last week, VMware acquired the two companies in separate deals valued at around $5 billion, according to tech website VentureBeat.
The tech giant joined forces for new hybrid cloud solutions
The new VMware Cloud on AWS is optimized for artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science processing. This newly announced product will be capable of operating from the cloud environment as well as on-premise servers, making it easier for IT professionals to migrate VMware vSphere-based applications to the cloud environment. More importantly, this new product will help accelerate high-performance computing and machine learning.
The new hybrid cloud solution offers EC2 instances with GPU acceleration.
The EC2 instances are powered by Nvidia’s T4 100 GPU. The Nvidia T4 GPU, according to Nvidia's website, is optimized for mainstream computing environments and was designed for high-performance computing, machine learning, deep learning, AI, data analytics and graphics, the VentureBeat reported.
Nvidia first introduced its T4 GPU in September 2018.
It’s packed with over 2560 CUDA cores and 320 Tensor cores, and capable of processing queries nearly 40 times faster than a standard-built CPU. It's used in data centers run by big tech companies like Dell EMC, Cisco, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
In addition to the new partnership, Nvidia, a leading developer of the graphics processing unit (GPU) for gaming and professional markets, also announced a new virtual GPU offering for the GPU-accelerated deployment of workloads in virtual environments, including VMware’s core products, the VMware Cloud, vSphere, and vCenter.
The new vCompute Server can be used in deep learning training and is capable of processing up to 50 times faster than that of a CPU, the VentureBeat reported
Latest additions to Workspace One
This week, VMware also announced a number of updates for its digital workplace platform, Workspace One. The latest updates will introduce a new AI-powered virtual assistant, expanded endpoint management services, new multi-cloud support, and other concierge services. VMware made the announcement at the company’s 2019 VMworld conference in San Francisco.
As mentioned earlier by ZDNet, the updates will include an Intelligent Hub Assistant, which will be powered by IBM Watson. This new AI-powered Virtual Assistant will use natural language processing to support both text and voice queries.
Aside from that, the AI assistant can also help users access applications.
The concierge services, according to the tech website ZDNet, also added Workspace One Assist, which allows a user to view and control various devices (corporate and personal devices), and the context-aware tools Intelligent Hub Self-Service. There’s also a new tool that provides predictive and proactive remediation, the company called it the Digital Employee Experience Management.
VMware’s next update introduces broader endpoint management across OEM (original equipment manufacturer) ecosystem, while in other Apple-related updates, the company is providing lifecycle management technology and MacOS encryption. The endpoint management updates also include the ability to lock down Chrome OS-powered devices and Dell BIOS verification, the ZDNet reported.
Finally, the Workspace updates added application support and multi-cloud virtual desktop infrastructure. These updates also added Horizon Services, a new desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) control plane that provides access to virtual desktop across cloud computing environments. These include Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and on-premise computing environments. For more about VMware’s latest updates and announcement, check out VMWare's official website.
