VMware Cloud on AWS

What is VMC (VMware Cloud on AWS)

• Run VMware workloads natively as an AWS service.
• Extend your VMware workloads into the Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Vmware SDDC (Software designed data centre) running on AWS bare metal servers
• Enables seamless hybrid cloud capability between on-premises and AWS
• Elasticity and scalability for on-premises Vmware workloads
• Direct access to 200+ AWS products and services

VMware Cloud on AWS — Use cases

Data Centre Extension — On-demand capacity, Global expansion, Test / Dev Env, AI / ML workloads, Peak / burst capacity

Migration to AWS — Data centre exit, Remove Technical debt, Infrastructure refresh, Virtual Desktop

Modernization to AWS — Application Modernization, Hybrid Cloud, Conternisation (Tanzu), EKS with VMware on AWS

Disaster Recovery — New DR, Replace DR, Compliment DR

Benefits of VMware Cloud on AWS:

Cost and Operational efficiencies: 57% savings in migration cost due to zero refactoring, 41% reduction in IT Infra. Costs, 71% savings in operation and training cost by using existing VMware skilled resources, 43% reduction in total cost of operations, 22% lower cost of infrastructure, 28% lower three-year cost of operations, 32% higher IT infrastructure team efficiencies

52% less staff time required to migrate, $143,400 per 100 VMs, business and productivity gains, faster migration

Business Benefits: 6 months payback period, 13% increase in compliance, 76% reduction in unplanned downtime, 361% three-year ROI

Performance: 37% increase in application performance, 18% increase in developer productivity, 40% increase in IT Infra. Management efficiency, 46% faster migration

Source: IDC Business Value Snapshot, sponsored by VMware by Broadcom 2024, IDC The Business Value of VMware Cloud on AWS for Supporting Business-Critical Applications, 2021

Migration options:

VMware HCX, vSphere vMotion, Advanced cross vCenter vMotion, VMware Site Recovery, vSphere Content Library, VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery

Recommendations for Selecting a Migration Option:

HCX: consider for its ease of use and advanced capabilities, HCX should be the default option for the majority of migrations

vMotion: consider vMotion without HCX if migrating a handful of VMs and HLM is already in place

Backup and Restore: If HCX cannot be installed, or if on-premises VMs are already being backed up to AWS (e.g. using Amazon S3), consider a migration using backup and restore

Migration Approach:

Plan

• Create VMC on AWS account
• Analyze on-prem workload
• Analyze network dependencies
• Size workloads
• Prepare target resources in AWS
• Network ranges
• DNS Strategy
• Network connection

Build

• Create SDDC
• Configure Network
• Configure Intra AWS connectivity
• Download HLM gateway
• Enable Vmware Aria operations for logs

Migrate

• Planning for Migration
• Installing and testing HCX
• Migrate by wave

Migration approach with VMware HCX

1. Log into on-prem vCenter
2. Obtain IP Address of Source Virtual Machine
3. Log in to Target Site vCenter
4. Identify the SDDC which will be used as the target for VM migrations
5. Create Target VM
6. Start a ping from your VM in SDDC A to the source VM in SDDC B
7. Login to the source SDDC and initiate an HCX Migration
8. Right-click on the Linux-HCX Virtual Machine and then click on HCX Actions > Migrate to HCX Target Site
9. Click on Services > Migration, then click on the Tracking tab. Find your VM in the list of Migrating VMs. Under the Progress column, it should show as Migration Complete.

VMware on AWS Disaster Recovery (Options)

Stretched cluster Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDCs)

VMware Site Recovery

Stretched cluster SDDCs with VMware Site Recovery

VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR)

VMware Site Recovery and VCDR

Backup and restore with AWS Backup or Veritas NetBackup

Disaster Recovery with VMware Site Recovery Approach:

1.Create an Inventory Group in On-Prem SDDC

2.Create Firewall Rules in On-Prem SDDC

3.Create a Network Segment in AWS SDDC

4.Create an Inventory Group in AWS SDDC

5.Creating Firewall Rules in AWS SDDC

6.Network Mapping with VMware Site Recovery

7.Protect a VM with VMware Site Recovery

Fail Over a VM with VMware Site Recovery

Pricing calculator:

VMware Cloud on AWS TCO tool

https://www.vmware.com/uk/products/vmc-on-aws/pricing-calculator.html

Regulatory and compliance:

VMC on AWS complies with ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, SOC1, SOC 2, SOC 3, HIPAA, Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and Cyber Essentials.

VMware Cloud on AWS also complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), PCI DSS etc

Modernize Applications with Microservices Using Amazon EKS — Approach:

1. ENI is attached to EC2 in VMC on AWS
2. Provision Amazon EKS clusters
3. Use AWS App2Container to refactor /rearchitect. Use Amazon EKS to manage and automate the testing and deployment workloads.
4. The existing database tier can keep running on VMware Cloud on AWS to avoid the complexity and delay of database migrations.
5. Network Load Balancer integrates with the Kubernetes Ingress Controller
6. Amazon Route 53 resolves incoming requests to Network Load Balancer in the primary AWS Region.
7. The dev team commits code to an AWS CodeCommit repository, which initiates AWS CodePipeline to start processing the code changes through the pipeline.
8. AWS CodeBuild packages the code changes and dependencies and builds a Docker image.
9. The new Docker image is pushed to Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR).
10. CodeBuild uses a Kubectl command line tool to invoke Kubernetes API and update the image tag for the microservice deployment.
11. Kubernetes performs a rolling update of the pods in the application deployment according to the new docker image specified in Amazon ECR.