image courtesy of eweek.com
In the world of technology, partnerships are vital as no provider does everything well. Some partnerships appear successful at first glance, but others require more of a wait and see approach. When I first heard that VMware and Amazon Web Services (AWS) were forming a partnership I felt I wanted a better explanation as to how it would work before deciding on its merits. My cynicism was primarily founded in VMware’s previous attempts to play the public cloud market such as the failed vCloud Air. After learning more, I’m still not convinced it will work but the more I understand, the more sense it makes.
It can be said that VMware invented the cloud through its pioneering of the technology of virtualization. It allowed the enterprise in the 1990’s to spend less money on IT hardware and infrastructure. They taught users how to build and add to an IT infrastructure in minutes rather than weeks. They taught us how to make IT departments to be agile. In a similar way, it seemed that AWS has built an enormous and rapidly growing industry from nothing. It had the foresight to take their excess IT infrastructure and sell it, or more precisely rent it. This excess infrastructure had the ability to be rented because it was built on their flavor of virtualization. For these two to join forces does make sense. Many businesses have built their virtualized IT infrastructure, or cloud, with the VMware hypervisor. This can be on the premises, in another data center or both. With the trend for corporate IT infrastructure to migrate off-site, the business is left with a decision. Should they take a “lift and shift” strategy to migrate data off site or should they redesign their applications for a native cloud environment? The lift and shift strategy refers to moving an application or operation from one environment to another without redesigning the application. When a business has invested in VMware and management has decided to move infrastructure off site, a lift and shift strategy makes sense.
To follow is a more detailed look at a couple of the advantages of this partnership and why it makes sense to work with VMware and AWS together.
Operational Benefits
With VMware Cloud on AWS, an organization that is familiar with VMware can create a simple and consistent operational strategy of their Multi-cloud environment. VMware’s feature sets and tools for compute (vSphere), storage (vSAN) and networking (NSX) can all be utilized. There is no need to change VMware provisioning, storage, and lifecycle policies. This means you can easily move applications between their on-premises environments and AWS without having to purchase any new hardware, rewrite applications, or modify your operations. Utilizing features like vMotion and VMware Site Recovery Manager have been optimized for AWS allowing users migrate and protect critical applications at all their sites.
Scalability and Global Reach
Using the vCenter web client and VMware‘s unique features like vMotion enhance AWS. AWS’s inherent benefits of unlimited scale and multiple Availability Zones (AZ) fit hand in glove with VMware’s cloud management. A primary example is an East Coast enterprise opening a West Coast office. The AWS cloud will allow a user to create infrastructure on the AZ West Coast on demand in minutes. VMware’s vCenter web client will allow management of the new site as well as the existing primary infrastructure from a single pane of glass. This example displays not only how the enterprise can take advantage of the benefits of this partnership but also that the partnership will appeal to the needs of a larger enterprise.
The benefit above, as with the solution in total, is based on the foundation of an existing VMware infrastructure. This article has just touched on a couple of the advantages of the VMware AWS partnership, there are many. It may be noted that cost is not one of them. This shouldn’t surprise many IT professionals as large public cloud offerings don’t typically reduce cost. Likewise, VMware has never been known as an inexpensive hypervisor. The enterprise may realize soft cost reduction by removing much of the complexity, risk, and time associated with moving to the hybrid cloud.
Both AWS and VMware are leaders in their categories and are here to stay. Whether this partnership survives or flourishes, however, only time will tell.
If you would like to learn more about a multi-cloud strategy for your business contact us at: Jim Conwell (513) 227-4131 jim.conwell@twoearsonemouth.net
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