Broadcom Inc. today unveiled a VMware Tanzu 10 platform at the VMware Explore 2024 conference that is designed to make it easier for developers to build cloud-native applications while providing IT teams with a control plane and governance tools needed to manage Kubernetes clusters at scale.
In addition, Broadcom is adding a range of Tanzu AI Solutions, a set of capabilities within the Tanzu platform that simplify the creation and deployment of generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
Purnima Padmanabhan, general manager of the Tanzu Division at Broadcom, said the goal is to provide developers with a framework that will enable them to easily and securely build cloud-native applications.
At the core of this effort is an abstraction layer called application domains that insulates developers from the underlying operational issues, which can be managed, for example, by a platform development team using the Tanzu Salt configuration management platform and command-line interface (CLI) tools to programmatically provision Kubernetes clusters.
In fact, these use cases represent a lighter equivalent of a Platform-as-a-Service PaaS environment. Many of the design principles used in creating VMware Tanzu 10 come from the open source PaaS Cloud Foundry, originally developed by Pivotal Software and ultimately integrated into VMware.
Other features include visibility tools for identifying relationships between applications and the underlying infrastructure on which they are deployed, and built-in service bindings for connecting applications to middleware and databases, which can be automatically deployed and hardened using the Tanzu application catalog.
In addition, an Application Advisor for Java applications developed with the Spring framework makes it easy to secure applications, fix vulnerabilities, enforce policies, and perform audits. There are also Java build packs that optimize startup times for Spring applications.
Broadcom also provides a set of Tanzu extensions for building and deploying generative AI applications, including observation and monitoring tools for identifying the root cause of accuracy and performance issues related to large language models (LLMs).
In addition to providing support for Python, Tanzu AI Solutions also includes Spring AI, an open source application framework that enables Java developers to build applications, and an advanced Application Programming Interfaces (API) gateway based on the specification defined by OpenAI that connects to over 100 open source LLMs.
Tanzu AI Solutions also supports VMware Private AI Foundation, an instance of this platform that is pre-integrated into NVIDIA’s IT infrastructure.
Finally, Borad’s Avi Load Balancer is now integrated with the Tanzu Application Service and supports the Gateway application programming interface (API) defined by the Technical Oversight Committee for Kubernetes. Broadcom also plans to add support for a generative AI co-pilot for Avi Load Balancer.
Ultimately, Broadcom is advocating for a more flexible PaaS experience in Kubernetes environments that allows developers to meet their own needs without the IT and cybersecurity team having to unnecessarily impact their productivity. The challenge, as always, is getting the various IT fiefdoms to sacrifice their prerogatives in the name of the common good.
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