VMware Inc. is building out its portfolio of software-defined wide-area network tools as part of an effort to advance its vision of a “virtual cloud network” that connects and secures applications, data and users across multiple cloud platforms.

VMware’s idea of a virtual cloud network is a key ingredient of its wider hybrid cloud strategy, in which it intends to facilitate the migration of enterprises’ applications and workloads across various public clouds, edge platforms and private data centers. The idea is to provide a consistent experience across all of these environments, and that can only be done with a software-defined approach that allows all networking services to be automated, the company said.

Tom Gillis, senior vice president and general manager of the networking and security business unit at VMware, said in a press conference Monday that customers have told the company, “I want the public cloud experience, but in my private cloud data center.”

To that end, VMware early today announced the launch of its new NSX Advanced Load Balancer, which it says is a “distributed application delivery controller” that’s used to distribute workloads uniformly across compute resources in order to optimize network efficiency, reliability and capacity. It’s essentially a virtual device that combines load balancing with advanced analytics and monitoring tools that work together to intelligently automate connectivity, the company said.

VMware also says it can now deliver hyperscale SD-WAN via a new architecture that’s similar to public clouds such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Its new VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud offering provides access to thousands of gateways across all of the major public cloud platforms, enabling customers to increase their application traffic automatically and dynamically without reconfiguring their networks.

The company is also adding new analytics capabilities to its vRealize Network Insight and NSX Intelligence tools that are used for troubleshooting network problems. The latest release of vRealize Network Insight provides visibility and troubleshooting for physical and virtual infrastructure stretching from the data center to the network edge, with new support for VMware SD-WAN, AWS, VMware Cloud on AWS and Azure.

NSX Intelligence, meanwhile, is a brand-new offering that provides continuous visibility across data centers for network and application security teams. The idea is to provide insights at the packet level into virtualized workloads, allowing for intuitive and automated network and security policy generation and enforcement.

“VMware has become the de facto leader in next-generation software-defined networking and security, delivering consistent, pervasive connectivity and intrinsic security for apps, data and users wherever they reside,” said Gillis. “Our advanced analytics capabilities provide the visibility and troubleshooting needed to make the Virtual Cloud Network easy to operate.”

In essence, he said, “It’s all about the one-click public-cloud experience.”

New capabilities for telcos, edge clouds

VMware today also said it’s expanding its Telco and Edge Cloud portfolio in order to deliver real-time intelligence for telco networks, and better automation and security for telecommunications providers, the network edge and “internet of things” applications.

On the telco side, VMware said it’s updating its Smart Assurance platform for communications service providers, which is used for monitoring and management across physical and virtual networks. The platform is being updated with a new “real-time deep learning engine” that helps to optimize the network experience for CSPs, VMware said. VMware obtained these deep learning capabilities from a startup called Uhana Inc. that it recently acquired.

VMware Smart Assurance also integrates with the latest version of VMware Integrated OpenStack, enabling telcos to establish a consistent set of policies across multicloud environments. The company said it will deliver service impact and root-cause analysis with visibility across physical and virtual OpenStack networks, as well as multicloud networks — essentially an automated approach to operational intelligence to reduce service impact and operational expenses.

In addition, VMware said, it’s making available a new “Telco Edge Reference Architecture” that details best practices for designing and deploying Edge-based cloud networks built on VIO and VMware vCloud NFV infrastructure. The architecture is designed to enable CPSs to set up a network through which they can manage multiple edge locations from a single, centralized data center.

Finally, VMware announced the release of an on-premises version of its Pulse IoT Center platform for managing IoT devices at the network edge.

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