VMware Inc. is updating its vSphere Integrated Container Platform in order to make it easier to deploy software containers within virtual machines.

The vSphere Integrated Container Platform is used to manage containers deployed inside VMs from within VMware’s flagship vSphere virtualization product. The technology uses a set of daemons, or background program processes, and software drivers to speed the deployment of containers within VMs. Users can then monitor and manage these containers via the vSphere Web Client using a plug-in that enables control of the virtual container hosts.

Software containers abstract applications away from the underlying hardware, so they can be run on any computing platform. Virtual container hosts are essentially a collection of tools and hardware resources — processor, memory and storage — that enable the creation and control of container services. They also provide access to the Docker application programming interface, and can hold container images downloaded from the Docker Hub. Containers

The vSphere Integrated Container platform 1.3 release comes with a new wizard that allows users to create or delete virtual container hosts directly from the vSphere client interface, VMware’s cloud-native apps team said in a blog post. The wizard walks users through each of the steps required to configure and deploy a virtual container host.

The platform’s user interface has also been updated, so that users can view their virtual container host creation logs for easier troubleshooting. In addition, there’s a new option for users to delete their virtual container hosts while still retaining the persistent data held inside them.

VMware posted the video below showing how to deploy a virtual container host using the new wizard:

VMware also has made a number of stability and performance improvements to vSphere Integrated Containers. These include architectural changes to the software’s Management Portal that should ensure more consistency and faster updates. And there’s more support for third-party container registries, the company said.

vSphere Integrated Containers 1.3 is available now as part of VMware’s vSphere Enterprise Plus platform.

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