VMware Cloud on AWS - A huge step forward for enterprise cloud computing
Our Cloud Native practice at Solstice speaks frequently at conferences, in webinars and at client offices around the emergence of the new modern cloud architecture - 12 factor applications that run in a cloud native fashion on the cloud or PaaS of your choice. Such systems targeted to be re-platformed as cloud native apps are those that sit at the epicenter of your business; often these are applications and systems that are core enablers of other downstream systems and technology, especially digital. Many of these systems today are monolithic in structure and while critically important, they sometimes represent an anchor that enterprises need to constantly carry from to place to place in order to get just about anything done. Again, these systems are perfect candidates for consideration to re-platform or modernize on new cloud first architectures.
But, when it comes to Enterprise IT, back office applications and utility systems typically act as satellites that orbit and further enable these larger core systems. As someone who was the architect for an entire portfolio of back office applications back when I was working in the enterprise, I can tell you that many of these systems fulfill a specific need, haven't been updated in years and yet still provide a critical function. And while these applications themselves are not candidates for re-platforming or modernization, many CIO's are wondering when and how they can move these workloads to the public cloud? What is the path for migration? And more importantly, who is going to fund the migration of these behind the scenes and lesser known applications.
About a year ago, VMware and AWS announced an interesting partnership - one which turned heads as each represented the leader on different ends of the cloud spectrum; VMware representing the unanimous private cloud stalwart and AWS representing the leader in the public cloud domain. While the partnership itself sounded interesting, we didn't really get a sense of how the two companies would work together until Tuesday of this week. At this week's VMWorld conference, both companies announced the unveiling of VMware Cloud on AWS. The service would enable the VMware common stack and toolset (vSphere, VSAN, NSX) on the AWS Cloud.
Why is this important?
The simple fact is that back office applications and utility workloads make up a majority of the enterprise IT portfolio. Many of these workloads today run in private data centers on VMware virtualized hardware with NSX network virtualization allowing for these systems to communicate with each other. Now that enterprises have access to the same VMware stack in AWS that they are running on-premise, they can confidently move these workloads to the public cloud without having to retrofit the changes that could be required to run on AWS had a solution like this not been available. Prior to this unveiling, many CIO's felt that the combination that the lack of back office technology funding and the amount of work required to retrofit signaled a long road to move these workloads to the public cloud. Conveniently, Amazon and VMware have essentially built the bridge for migration for them.
VMware essentially takes the pole position in the hybrid cloud space with this move as well. As enterprises get more aggressive with their cloud migration strategies, it is inevitable that these organizations will sit in a hybrid state for years. Its likely to see enterprise CIO's quickly modifying their existing hybrid cloud strategies to take advantage of the VMware Cloud on AWS.
