VMware at re:Invent 2018

Hey everyone, re:Invent this year was huge and VMware presented news about their future plans on AWS infrastructure. Much of my time was spent on Twitter and social media checking to see if any new relevant announcements would come out surrounding VMware on AWS. There’s been a lot – and I mean a lot – of activity since it was announced. VMware Cloud on AWS is the only hybrid cloud solution allowing you to modernize, protect and scale vSphere-based apps to the cloud, leveraging AWS. Together, these services integrate allowing you to rapidly extend and migrate your VMware environment to the AWS public cloud.

I thought I’d put together a quick post to highlight some of my favorite items that were announced at re:Invent. So here goes!

VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts

VMware and AWS are already huge Goliath’s in the virtualization and cloud market but they’ve partnered again to deliver a new as-a-service, on-premise offering that includes the full VMware software stack (think vSphere, vSAN and NSX) that can run on AWS Outposts. After partnering on technology to bring VMware virtualization software to the AWS public cloud last year, they’re now joining up to introduce “Outposts,” hardware that brings the AWS cloud on-premises. It’s a fully managed and configurable server built to run on AWS-designed hardware. It will be a subscription-based service and will support existing VMware payment options.

AWS CEO Andy Jassy said AWS Outposts provides a way to run AWS infrastructure on premises for a “truly consistent” hybrid experience. It’s available in two options, with the first through the VMware Cloud on AWS offering and the second as AWS native.

Option #1: For customers who want to use the same VMware control plane and APIs they’ve been using to run their infrastructure, they will be able to run VMware Cloud on AWS locally on AWS Outposts.

Option #2: For customers who prefer the same exact APIs and control plane they’re used to running in AWS’s cloud, but on-premises, they can use the AWS native variant of AWS Outposts.

AWS Outposts are in private preview, with public general availability in the second half of 2019, according to Amazon.

This offering is the AWS and VMware answer to the hybrid cloud deployment model Microsoft has been pushing with Azure Stack. This provides AWS a hybrid cloud play that they previously lacked, and sets up a rivalry of sorts in an area that Azure has dominated (hybrid deployments). There have been many AWS customers looking for this type of play, as well as many VMware customers wanting a more native hybrid offering. This solution covers both bases, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves over the coming year.

VMware Cloud Foundation for EC2

Another huge announcement from re:Invent was the addition of services that extend datacenter management to the public cloud. They’ve coined it VMware Cloud Foundation for EC2. There are two major components. A mechanism to insert and manage these services on Amazon EC2, as well as networking, security, data, and management services themselves.  It creates a common set of data center services that spans the hybrid cloud. These services support all types of workloads from traditional VM based enterprise applications to modern container-based workloads utilizing platforms like PKS or Red Hat OpenShift.

Wrap up

Hopefully, the above tools will help expand some environments. When they officially go live it will be interesting to see the adoption. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite sessions I watched from re:Invent. I still have several more to catch up on. It’s a great video for anybody wondering about connectivity for VMware Cloud on AWS. If you’re new or even considering, you should check this session out. One day I hope to make it to re:Invent. I hear it’s a great conference to go to!

If you’ve attended and would like to share your experience, let us know in the comments section below!

Enjoy the Video!

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