Universal App Platform

vSphere is a universal app platform that supports both traditional and next-generation apps. While these two worlds are vastly different, both require infrastructure with the scale, performance, and availability to meet key business objectives.
vSphere has always been pushing the limits on what apps it can support. Initially it was all about test/dev but then quickly expanded coverage business critical apps as well. Later, it included Desktop Virtualization and 3D graphics. Now we are seeing more modern apps being virtualized including Hadoop, Spark, Machine Learning, HPC and cloud native apps.
To run any app, vSphere 6.5 expands its workload coverage model by focusing on both scale-up and scale-out next-gen apps that are increasingly built using evolving technology building blocks, such as containers. In this release, VMware delivers vSphere Integrated Containers, the easiest way for vSphere users to bring containers into an existing vSphere environment. vSphere Integrated Containers delivers an enterprise container infrastructure that provides the best of both worlds for the developers and vSphere operations teams. Containers are now just as easy to enable and manage as virtual machines. No process or tool changes are required.
VMware vSphere Integrated Containers helps customers to transform their businesses with containers without re-architecting their existing infrastructure. It is comprised of three components – the Engine which provides the core container run-time, Harbor which is an enterprise registry for container images, and Admiral which is a portal for container management by dev teams. vSphere Integrated Containers enables IT operations teams to provide a Docker compatible interface to their app teams, running on their existing vSphere infrastructure and features tight integration with VMware NSX and VMware Virtual SAN to support best-in-class network automation and scale out, high performance persistent storage, respectively.

vSphere Integrated Containers: Delivering the best of both worlds for IT and Developers

vSphere 6.5 also lets you run apps from any cloud, including your data center or in public cloud environments. vSphere 6.5 is not only the heart of the Software-Defined Data Center, it’s also the foundation of VMware’s cloud strategy. vSphere 6.5 is available in both the private cloud and as a service through a public cloud. The newly announced VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Cloud on AWS are both built on vSphere 6.5.
As the ideal platform for apps, cloud, and business, vSphere 6.5 reinforces the customer’s investment in VMware. vSphere 6.5 is one of the core components of VMware’s SDDC and a fundamental building block for VMware’s cloud strategy. With vSphere 6.5, customers can now run, manage, connect, and secure their applications in a common operating environment, across clouds and devices.

Learn More

This article only touched upon the key highlights of this release, but there are many, many more new features. To learn more about vSphere 6.5, please see the following resources.