VMware Cloud Applications Marketplace Goes Live

VMware has launched an online marketplace designed to help partners speed up the deployment of what it has called “software-defined data centres”, part of a broader initiative that integrates the components necessary for generating virtual machines, applying cloud management, and carrying out performance and capacity management tasks.

VMware vCloud Suite 5.1, announced on Monday, combines vCenter Operations Management Suite for virtual systems management and vFabric Application Director 5.0 for deploying applications in a virtual environment.

vCenter Operations Management Suite

While the vCenter Operations Management Suite component handles performance, capacity and configuration management for an organisation’s cloud infrastructure, the vFabric Application Director component makes it easier to deploy cloud-based applications through the use of application blueprints that feature standardised, pre-approved operating system and middleware components.

This is where the VMware Cloud Applications Marketplace, also launched on Monday, comes into play. The marketplace offers vFabric users access to more than 100 downloadable application blueprints, reference architectures, and logical templates containing operating systems, middleware services and application components, provided by more than 30 ISVs, system integrators and content providers.

For instance, the marketplace offers blueprints for database auto-scaling and load-balancing, and best-practice Hadoop configurations, VMware said.

Partners Bluelock, iLand, NTT America and Savvis have announced they will be delivering new vFabric-based cloud application provisioning and maintenance services. vFabric supports deployment across third-party virtual and hybrid cloud infrastructures, including Amazon EC2.

VMware vCloud Suite is priced starting at $4,995 (£3,100) per processor, with licenses also available priced per virtual machine.