---
name: vmwaresolutions-overview
title: KMIP for VMware overview
description: As of 17 July 2025, new automated installations of Red Hat® OpenShift® for VMware® are no longer available for new or existing deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated instances. You can still use or delete your existing Red Hat OpenShift for VMware automated installations until 16 July 2026. The service will no longer be available from 17 July 2026.
last-updated: 2026-03-05
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# KMIP for VMware overview
{: #kmip-overview}

As of 17 July 2025, new automated installations of Red Hat® OpenShift® for VMware® are no longer available for new or existing deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated instances. You can still use or delete your existing Red Hat OpenShift for VMware automated installations until 16 July 2026. The service will no longer be available from 17 July 2026.
{: deprecated}

**End of Marketing**: As of 17 July 2025, new deployments of VMware Regulated Workloads instances are no longer available for new customers. If you are an existing customer, you can still add or delete clusters, add or delete VMware ESXi™ servers or NFS storage, and add or remove services for your existing Regulated Workloads instances. As an existing customer, you can also view or delete your Regulated Workloads instances.
{: note}

This solution architecture describes the KMIP™ on VMware architecture for protecting your VMware® instances. Many storage encryption options are available to protect your VMware workload. KMIP for VMware works together with VMware native vSphere encryption and vSAN™ encryption. The vSphere and vSAN encryption provides simplified storage encryption management together with the security and flexibility of IBM Cloud® Key Protect or IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services customer-managed keys.

This solution is considered to be an extra component and extension of the VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic offerings on IBM Cloud. As a result, this document doesn't cover the existing configuration of these foundation solutions on IBM Cloud. To understand more about the foundation solution architecture, see [Overview of VMware Solutions](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-solution_overview&format=markdown).

## Key benefits
{: #kmip-overview-benefits}

While many storage encryption solutions are available for your VMware workload, KMIP for VMware offers the following benefits:

* Integration with VMware vSAN encryption and vSphere encryption, both of which are implemented in the hypervisor layer rather than the storage or virtual machine layer. This approach allows easier management and transparency to your storage solution and application.
* Fully managed key management server is available in many IBM Cloud multizone regions (MZRs).
* Integrating your VMware cluster with IBM Cloud Key Protect or IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services provides you with fully customer-managed keys that you can revoke at any time.

## Related links
{: #kmip-overview-related}

* [Solution design](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-kmip-design&format=markdown)
* [Implementation and management](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-kmip-implementation&format=markdown)
* [High availability and disaster recovery](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?topic=vmwaresolutions-kmip-hadr&format=markdown)