The first part of this article covered the launch of VMware Cloud on AWS, which as a reminder, is the new on-demand service being launched by VMware that runs of bare-metal AWS infrastructure, initially in the AWS US West (Oregon) region. The service will be expanding worldwide next year, providing what perhaps could eventually become a default migration path for moving virtual machines (VMs) into public clouds. VMware certainly holds a strong position in enterprise data centers and Amazon Data Services continues to run ahead of its competitors in public clouds.
VMware Cloud on AWS is powered by VMware Cloud Foundation, which is the unified software-defined data center (SDDC) platform that integrates vSphere, VMware vSAN and VMware NSX virtualization technologies.
We've been tracking the rise of AWS for some time. As AWS gets bigger, it is almost as if the force of gravity is pulling in more data and applications into its data centers. Although VMware has designated AWS as its primary public cloud infrastructure partner, it is officially pursuing a multi-cloud strategy, where the presumption is that enterprises will continue to operate their own data centers for the foreseeable future while moving selected workloads, applications and data stores to multiple public clouds, one of which would be VMware Cloud on AWS.
Raghu Raghuram, chief operating officer, Products and Cloud Services, VMware, states: "Customers are accelerating digital transformation by deploying applications across clouds, with upwards of two-thirds of enterprises deploying applications on three or more clouds today," said Raghu Raghuram, chief operating officer, Products and Cloud Services, VMware. "VMware Cloud brings a consistent operating model, enterprise control, and investment protection for IT resources and skillsets to a multi-cloud world."
VMware's big picture slide shows vision
Many partners are stepping forward at this week's VMworld show in Las Vegas to join this vision. We profiled some of them in the first part of this article. But could it be that all this activity really benefits just one player in the end? Will this new workload mobility benefit AWS above all?
VMware’s auxiliary offerings
While the AWS provides the bare-metal infrastructure (and integration with its broad cloud services), the VMware Cloud Foundation has many other hooks to keep the customers on platform even once their workloads are in an AWS data center. These include:
- VMware AppDefense: a data center endpoint security solution that protects applications by embedding application control, and threat detection and response capabilities into the VMware vSphere-based environments on which applications and data live. By leveraging vSphere, AppDefense gains a deep understanding of the intended state and behavior of the applications running on virtual machines and can detect and respond to unauthorized changes
- VMware Cost Insight: a cost monitoring and optimization service for public and private clouds that helps IT analyze cloud spend, find savings opportunities, and communicate the cost of services to the business.
- VMware Discovery: an automated inventory service that improves cloud visibility and tames shadow IT by bringing together inventory information and cloud accounts from multiple clouds, making it easy for IT to search for and identify workloads deployed from their enterprise. Using native cloud tags and properties that have been identified, customers can group cloud resources even if they span across multiple clouds.
- VMware Network Insight: a network and security analysis service offering purpose-built for public clouds and software-defined data centers. Network Insight provides comprehensive network visibility and granular understanding of traffic flows to enable cloud security planning and network troubleshooting.
- VMware NSX Cloud: a service that provides consistent networking and security for applications running in multiple private and public clouds, via a single management console and common API. Micro-segmentation security policy is defined once and applied to application workloads running anywhere -- in cloud virtual networks, regions, availability zones -- and across multiple clouds. Overlay networking enables more precise control over topologies, traffic flows, IP addressing, and protocols used in public clouds.
- Wavefront by VMware: a metrics monitoring and analytics platform that handles the high-scale requirements of modern cloud-native applications. Wavefront by VMware's speed, scale, and flexibility empowers DevOps, and developer teams with instant insight into the performance of highly-distributed cloud-native services. Wavefront by VMware's analytics, query-driven alerts, interactive visualizations, open API, and integrations, all powered by a scalable time-series database, deliver "first pane of glass" visibility to help DevOps teams detect performance anomalies while enabling high availability of key cloud services.
Rackspace seeks an edge
Rackspace is jumping into the VMware Cloud on AWS game too, announcing plans to participate in VMware's Managed Service Provider (MSP) program early next year. This is a tricky game for Rackspace. At first blush, we wonder what strategic advantage Rackspace would have in helping customers move workloads into somebody else's data center, especially those of Amazon Web Services. Rackspace already runs one of the largest vSphere footprints in the world.
Some might say that once a workload has been moved out of your house and into the arms of AWS it may never come back. Maybe that's a risk that Rackspace, and all others announcing support for VMware Cloud on AWS, will have to take. However, Rackspace is a Premier Consulting Partner for AWS, so maybe this strategic choice was made some time ago.
Rackspace said it can bring its own spirit of "fanatical support" to mutual customers seeking a multi-cloud choice. Their idea is to let customers run their VMware workloads out of the data center and in the best-fit location, whether in Rackspace datacenters or VMware Cloud on AWS. What can it offer? Rackspace's value-add be in providing architecture, provisioning and management guidance. In the long term, even with fanatical support, will it be enough to retain the customers?
Peter FitzGibbon, vice president and general manager of VMware at Rackspace states "Operating across multiple cloud deployments is relatively new to many organizations, however, and some mutual customers will want support to operate VMware Cloud on AWS effectively. As a leading VMware Cloud Provider Partner and a Premier Consulting Partner in the AWS Partner Network, Rackspace is uniquely positioned to provide multi-cloud expertise and identify customer needs."
CoreSite provides a performance on-ramp
CoreSite is working with Faction, an enterprise-class private cloud and backup infrastructure provider, to deliver expanded multi-cloud service offerings
in both the Northern Virginia and Silicon Valley markets. Specifically, Faction will leverage connectivity to the CoreSite Open Cloud Exchange to deliver high-performance VMware based clouds with Administrator-level access to VMware vCenter that offers unprecedented control, flexibility, and integration capabilities for hybrid & multi-cloud deployments. Faction is launching a multi-cloud NetApp storage solution and Managed VMware on AWS offering. CoseSite's data centers enable the low-latency cloud on-ramps.
In the northern Virginia market, CoreSite operates three highly scalable data centers - one in Washington, D.C. and two on its Reston, VA campus (VA1 and VA2). CoreSite recently announced the expansion of both its Reston and Washington, D.C. campuses, all of which will now total over 1,097,000 square feet of colocation data center space upon full build out.
In Silicon Valley, CoreSite operates seven operational data centers, providing colocation solutions to one of the largest concentrations of Internet and technology companies in the world. These data centers connect more than 185 international and national carriers, social media companies, cloud computing providers, media and entertainment firms, and enterprise customers.
CloudVelox helps speed the migration to VMware Cloud on AWS
CloudVelox, which develops cloud automation and orchestration software for clouds and data centers, introduced its new One Hybrid Cloud software for "workload portability" for customers of VMware Cloud on AWS.
The CloudVelox mission is to provide the flexibility to shift workloads in and out of data centers and clouds without fear of being locked into a single destination environment (cloud or data center). The CloudVelox software can automate the mapping of compute, storage, network and security characteristics of a workload from a source environment to matching infrastructure services in the destination cloud or datacenter. It can be used to migrate workloads from any source to data center environments including between data centers (DC to DC), rack to rack (intra-datacenter) as well as migrate or repatriate workloads from the cloud to the data center (Cloud to DC). This allows users to migrate physical, virtual, or cloud workloads into a VMware virtualized data center, AWS Cloud, AWS GovCloud, or VMware Cloud on AWS.
"VMware Cloud on AWS provides customers a seamlessly integrated hybrid cloud offering that gives customers the SDDC experience from the leader in private cloud, running on the leading public cloud provider, AWS," said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president, products, Cloud Platforms Business Unit, VMware. "Solutions such as One Hybrid Cloud™ enable IT teams to reduce cost, increase efficiency, and create operational consistency across cloud environments. We're excited to work with partners such as CloudVelox to enhance native VMware Cloud on AWS capabilities and empower customers with flexibility and choice in solutions that can drive business value."
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