With 25 partners globally, VMware unveils VMware Tanzu on sovereign cloud

VMware has announced that the number of VMware Sovereign Cloud providers has more than doubled to 25 partners globally. VMware is also announcing VMware Tanzu on sovereign cloud, VMware Aria Operations Compliance pack for sovereign clouds, and new open ecosystem solutions. Together these new Sovereign SaaS innovations will enable partners to deliver services equivalent to those found in public clouds, while also better assuring data is protected, compliant, and resident within national territories. With sovereign SaaS, VMware Sovereign Cloud Providers can build highly differentiated solutions to capture modern workloads, simplify operations with continuous compliance monitoring, and support data monetization with lower risk.

The VMware Sovereign Cloud Framework and associated capabilities that make up the VMware Sovereign Cloud Initiative are aligned with Gaia-X and other global data sovereignty regulations to further simplify the delivery of sovereign clouds. New VMware Sovereign Cloud providers include Advanced Wireless Network Co., Ltd., Fundaments B.V., Hitachi, Ltd., Macquarie Government, National Information Center, NCS PTE Ltd., PT Aplikanusa Lintsarta, Tata Communications Limited and Credence.

VMware is now building a portfolio of sovereign SaaS offerings. Partners deliver sovereign SaaS natively using VMware software running in their sovereign cloud data centers, completely disconnected from the public Internet. All data remains resident and exists only within a given sovereign region, with no access by foreign jurisdictions, no data or meta data leaves the country or provider.

“There is no data sovereignty without cloud sovereignty. And sovereignty does not have to come at the expense of cloud innovation,” said Rajeev Bhardwaj, vice president, cloud provider platform solutions, VMware. “With our new sovereign cloud innovations, we’re again setting the agenda by bringing SaaS services into sovereign environments. This will enable VMware Sovereign Cloud providers to help their customers innovate and drive digital transformation while reducing the risk of unlocking the value of data.”

With VMware Tanzu on sovereign cloud, organizations can build, run, manage, and better secure modern applications consistently on sovereign cloud infrastructure with enterprise Kubernetes built in. The Tanzu portfolio simplifies platform operations and frees developers to move faster and access the right resources for building the best applications. Sovereign-ready Tanzu is delivered by partners natively from their sovereign cloud data centers, completely disconnected from the Internet. VMware Tanzu on sovereign cloud includes:

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid: VMware’s enterprise-ready, Kubernetes runtime provides customers with simplified installation, automated multi-cluster operations, and integrated platform services. Carvel-based tooling provides a set of reliable, single-purpose, composable tools that aid in application building, configuration, and deployment to Kubernetes. For sovereign clouds, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid includes open source components such as Fluent Bit, Prometheus, Grafana, and Contour that offer monitoring and ingress capabilities. Organizations can observe and adapt based on open-source metrics, traces and logs which display where Kubernetes cluster failures may arise, and better ensure traffic is safe and allowed.

Tanzu Application Platform: Sovereign-ready Tanzu Application Platform provides development teams with the tools and services they need to get their code to production faster and more securely. Tanzu Application Platform has added air-gapped installation for enhanced security and compliance in sovereign cloud environments. Developer productivity has been enhanced with the addition of Dynamic API spec registration using the Backstage API plugin to more securely automate publishing, consumption, and collaboration on APIs for software development. A new, centralized vulnerability monitoring dashboard will aid app teams with their pre-deployment security checks and secure app deployments. Tanzu Application Platform has added support for Red Hat OpenShift, Jenkins, and Carbon to expand the footprint of ecosystem integrations.

Tanzu Mission Control: Sovereign-ready Tanzu Mission Control will provide policy-based cluster automation and management at scale for better visibility, control and security for operators, more consistency and speed for DevOps, and flexibility and autonomy for developers. Tanzu Mission Control will enable sovereign cloud partners to benefit from full Kubernetes visibility while maintaining full control over their network infrastructure connectivity. Simplified Kubernetes cluster management from a single control plane will help eliminate cumbersome and time-consuming tasks to streamline operations. VMware is working to add support for private deployments of Tanzu Mission Control in sovereign cloud environments. The solution is in private beta today.

VMware Data Solutions: VMware Data Solutions (formerly Tanzu Data Services) support compliant and conformant data management. Customers have access to a self-service user interface and API for lifecycle management of these services so they can tune their instances for optimal performance of their applications. VMware RabbitMQ is a lightweight and easy-to-deploy message broker that supports multiple messaging protocols and can be deployed in distributed and federated configurations to meet high-scale, high-availability requirements. VMware’s open source SQL Database (Postgres & MySQL) is a relational database service providing cost-efficient and flexible deployments on-demand, at scale, while automating time-consuming administration.

VMware Aria Operations Compliance pack for sovereign clouds provides continuous compliance monitoring, reporting, remediation, and automation capabilities that help partners remain compliant with both regulatory benchmarks and VMware Sovereign Cloud guidelines. Sovereign-ready Aria Operations provides comprehensive capabilities across availability, performance, capacity management, cost management, and compliance for infrastructure or applications. VMware Aria Operations Compliance packs include out-of-the-box regulatory compliance kits, configuration checks, and reporting based on the 20-point Sovereign controls such as microsegmentation, data at rest and in-transit encryption, and ISO 27000 compliance. Full integration with VMware Cloud Director and a unified dashboard provide an automated and efficient way to demonstrate compliance across the complete sovereign cloud infrastructure. VMware is announcing initial availability for VMware Aria Operations Compliance pack for sovereign clouds.