VMware product overview

For my own benefit, I spent some time summarizing VMware’s product family as it stands today:

• Data Center Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructure
  • vSphere: umbrella brand for VMware’s family of virtualization products (hypervisor, server, etc.); also refers to the vSphere Client that manages vCenter server and vSphere hypervisor (formerly ESXi)
  • vSphere with Operations Management: vSphere offering that provides added operational capabilities such as health and performance monitoring, and operations automation
  • vCenter Server: basic foundation for managing and coordinating one or more hypervisors. Consists of Platform Services Controller (PSC, which provides SSO, license, and certificate services) and vCenter Server components (provides remainder of vCenter services).
  • VMware Integrated Open Stack (VIO): OpenStack API; not a mere shim, but rather a somewhat sizeable deployment
  • vCloud Director: management of clouds, including SDDC provisioning, multi-tenancy
• Foundational free products
  • vSphere Hypervisor: formerly known as ESXi
  • vCenter Converter: conversion tool for VM disk formats
  • Software Manager: download tool for VMware suites and products
• Networking and Security
  • NSX: network virtualization / SDN
• Storage and Availability
  • Virtual SAN: integrates with various storage offerings to provide storage management (including replication and mirroring) and software-defined storage
  • Site Recovery Manager (SRM): disaster recovery planning and orchestration
• Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI)
  • Hyper-Converged Software: integrated vSphere, Virtual SAN, vCenter Server
  • EVO SDDC / SDDC Manager: point of management for a vSphere cloud within a scalable HCI
• Cloud Management Platform
  • vCloud Suite: bundling of vSphere base virtualization offering and vRealize Suite
  • vRealize Suite: bundling of vRealize Automation, Operations, Log Insight, and Business for Cloud
  • vRealize Operations (vROps): workload operations (e.g., policy-based vertical scaling)
  • vRealize Automation (vRA): workload deployment
  • vRealize Business for Cloud: cloud cost reporting, analysis, and planning
  • vRealize Business Enterprise: same as previous with advanced features
  • vRealize Log Insight (vRLI): workload log collection and analytics
  • vRealize Code Stream (vRCS): application release and delivery pipeline automation
  • vRealize Orchestrator (vRO): workload workflow automation
  • vRealize Hyperic: vROps component to monitor OS, middleware and applications
• Digital Workspace
  • Content Collaboration Bundle: bundle of tools for corporate media sharing and social collaboration
  • Identity Manager: integration of corporate directory with various cloud applications
  • Workspace ONE: corporate mobile device integration and management
• Desktop and Application Virtualization and Virtualization Management
  A set of solutions built on Horizon, including Horizon Air (desktop as a service / DaaS) and Horizon FLEX (management of physical workstations)
• Endpoint Security: TrustPoint
• Enterprise Mobility Management: AirWatch
• Personal Desktop
  • Fusion [Pro]: run Windows applications on Mac
  • Workstation Player / Pro: x86 virtualization for Windows and Linux
• Applications and Data Platform: a variety of Pivotal tools