HP’s Converged Cloud has expanded with VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 and was unveiled at VMworld 2012 on Monday. The software intertwines  VMware’s virtualization, cloud infrastructure and management portfolio into one SKU, which simplifies the adoption of cloud technology.

“Today’s IT requires organizations to take a holistic approach to planning, building and operating their infrastructure, especially as we move into this new era of cloud computing,” said Don Henderson, Chief Technology Officer of NYSE Technologies.

In a nutshell:

 The software is an updated version of the virtualization platform, which has over 100 enhancements and new features for higher service levels in all applications, including business-critical workloads and low-latency as well as I/O-sensitive applications. The key advancements have more powerful VMs and more innovations to assist customers with unplanned downtime and more robust networking capabilities. The software also has simplified, reliable VM back-up and recovery, vSphere Replication for affordable disaster protection, and vShield Endpoint, which provides more effective security.

VMware and its partners have taken one big step toward watering down the complexity of IT so customers are able to build, operate and manage their cloud environments, according to VMware CEO Paul Martiz.

“The VMware vCloud Suite delivers the software-defined datacenter – the architecture for implementing cloud computing,” Martiz said.

The three main purposes of vCloud can be broken down into the three simplest purposes, which include: creating clouds, deploying apps and managing ongoing operations.

How it works:

What makes the whole thing tick is a set of software-designed datacenter services that apply the virtualization principles of abstraction, pooling and automation to the different components of storage, networking, security and availability. VMcloud Director allows these services to deliver VDCs within minutes.

vCloud Networking and Security allows customers to create networks for each of their applications and can isolate network traffic between applications that can be grouped together, regardless of the network’s physical boundaries, so now the software has the ability to support thousands of isolated virtual networks with the ability to easily create and manage VMs.

“VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 and HP Converged Cloud solutions will enable our joint customers to accelerate their journey to the cloud, giving enterprises a proven, integrated   solution that provides a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving market,” said Raghu Raghuram, Executive Vice President of Cloud Infrastructure and Management, VMware.