How VMware Wants to Power an ‘Anywhere’ Workforce 

VMware has long been about B2B tech: virtualization, data center infrastructure, hypervisors, collaboration tools, mobility and a long list of other products and services.

This is not technology to be sampled casually in a home office. However, the high professional quality of these things is why about 95 percent of companies globally with IT systems utilize something from VMware–whether it’s SaaS, IT infrastructure, app tools or any number of other products and services.

Now VMware is following the worldwide WFH trend to make a concerted move to the enterprise edge and a home office near you. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has done this by drawing from its existing software lineup a slew of components, services and solutions and shaping them all into a next-generation home workbase called VMware Anywhere Workspace for distributed workforces. It was released April 20.

“Work is what you do, not where you do it,” VMware Chief Operating Officer Sanjay Poonen said in a media advisory. “We developed VMware Anywhere Workspace with this new way of working in mind. It will play  an important role in creating stronger and more focused businesses.”

What the platform is designed to do

VMware Anywhere Workspace was developed to remove friction that can exist between IT systems and employees, Poonen said. According to the company, it enables the following:

• Manages multi-modal employee experience anywhere, so employees ostensibly can be more productive. It gives them access, VMware said, to an “effective user experience and consistent performance on any device, from any location, over any network.”
• Secures the distributed edge with broader and more effective security, the company said. This enables any user to access any app from any device. VMware said its Zero Trust approach combines network security to the edge with endpoint security and management.
• Automates the workspace so that IT lets line-of-business employees focus on the outcomes they want instead of the tasks they need to do, Poonen said. This is all enabled by built-in intelligent management of workflows, compliance and performance.

What makes up Anywhere Workspace

VMware Anywhere Workspace, made available April 20, combines three solutions from the VMware menu:

• VMware Workspace ONE provides unified endpoint management, desktop and app virtualization, and a variety of employee experience, productivity, and security-related solutions.
• VMware Carbon Black Cloud brings cloud-native endpoint and workload protection.
• VMware SASE will combine SD-WAN capabilities with cloud-delivered security functions, including cloud web security, zero-trust network access and firewalling. These capabilities are delivered as a service from a global network of points of presence (PoPs).

VMware Anywhere Workspace includes first-time integration points between the solutions, with more planned over time. For example, Carbon Black Cloud and Workspace ONE integrate to bring physical and virtual endpoint management and security capabilities together; Workspace ONE and SASE services (VMware SD-WAN, Work from Home networking, VMware  Secure Access) integrate to deliver zero-trust network access (ZTNA) over globally deployed POPs, the company said.

Online event planned for May 5, 6

On May 5 and 6, VMware will host a free online event, “Leading Change: Build Trust with the Anywhere Workspace,” during which experts will discuss how organizations can embrace the new normal and transform into secure, work-from-anywhere organizations. The event will feature:

• A keynote to start it off on May 5 at 10 a.m. CEST in EMEA; 9 a.m. PDT in the  Americas; and 11 a.m. SGT on May 6 in APJ.
• Business and technical tracks, featuring different speakers from each region.
• More than a dozen on-demand sessions with technology deep dives covering VMware Workspace ONE and VMware Horizon, VMware SD-WAN and VMware SASE, and VMware Carbon Black Cloud.
• Several speakers, including VMware executives and subject matter experts, customers and community members. Register here.

eWEEK will take a closer look at Anywhere Workspace in the second segment of our “Home as Enterprise Branch” series later this week. Here is the first installment, published April 12.

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