By David Johnston
Tracer Cloud takes the mystery out of hybrid cloud with a highly resilient, scalable VMware Cloud on AWS architecture.
Not a day seems to go by without hearing about another benefit of hybrid cloud computing. Let’s take a closer look and evaluate the benefits of hybrid, while keeping an eye on common misconceptions.
At Tracer Cloud, we’ve developed a world-leading hybrid cloud practice which guides organisations to an optimal cloud architecture from the outset.
The hybrid cloud world
With so many options for private and public cloud computing, developing a hybrid cloud architecture delivers the capability to accelerate enterprise technology transformation.
What’s the best approach to hybrid? There is no right answer to that question, but at Tracer Cloud, we find the VMware Cloud on AWS hybrid cloud architecture to be resilient, scalable, flexible and an extension to – or as a complete replacement for – managed data centres.
With VMware Cloud on AWS, enterprises can adopt cloud on a fit-for-purpose basis, an important benefit of hybrid. There is a clear migration path to cloud with minimal change to applications and, if providing a robust scalable technology platform is an immediate requirement, VMware Cloud on AWS is the perfect solution.
Counting the benefits of VMware Cloud on AWS
The good thing about hybrid with VMware Cloud on AWS is it can deliver a number of immediate benefits for your organisation. These include:
Low risk: Using VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) to stretch existing VMware cloud networks to AWS makes for a low-risk migration.
Elasticity: You gain the ability to scale compute and storage capacity up or down in minutes.
Availability: Benefit from a native highly available cluster within an AWS availability zone. And there are options to deploy VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC stretched clusters across multiple AWS availability zones.
Management: Manage VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC reducing operational overheads.
Path to modernisation: VMware Cloud on AWS has direct integration to native AWS services for application modernisation.
In addition to the operational benefits, an effective hybrid cloud architecture establishes a platform for successful growth, scale and digital transformation.
I was speaking with one of our NSW government clients (Department of Customer Service NSW) recently and the senior manager of cloud services told me he was very happy with the way a hybrid approach could migrate some of the most critical customer facing applications to cloud.
With VMware Cloud on AWS, and Megaport for connectivity, the agency was able to build a flexible, robust, scalable solution that was available in days, not months.
Steps to a VMware Cloud on AWS architecture
Hybrid cloud might be seen as a difficult concept, but at Tracer Cloud we are able to deliver an outcome by accelerating the hybrid cloud process and removing any uncertainty.
Customers benefit greatly from our ability to run a low cost 30-day proof of concept and, after reviewing the success criteria, the VMware Cloud on AWS environment can be productionised with little effort or destroyed with no additional commitment.
Evaluate: Firstly, we evaluate business application capacity requirements and risks associated with a migration.
Design: Next, we design the future state platform and sizing for VMware Cloud on AWS. A pragmatic, common-sense architecture for success with little business interruption utilising Hybrid Cloud Extension to stretch existing networks.
Deploy: Then, within hours, the VMware Cloud on AWS software defined data centre is deployed. An initial POC with a single node for up to 30 days will prove the ability to stretch VLANs and an initial workload migration. With a successful POC approved, the environment will be moved into production by adding the required capacity for workload migration.
And you’re in! Hybrid doesn’t need to be complex and by being agile with experienced local staff, we can deliver large-scale VMware Cloud on AWS deployments to give your business the edge in cloud.
From an architectural standpoint, you need to establish your connectivity with a high-speed link from on-premises to cloud. Get ahead of the game by engaging a low-cost, high-speed (up to 5Gbe) connectivity provider via AWS Direct Connect to VMware Cloud on AWS.
With your hybrid cloud journey in progress you and your teams can focus on getting more value from IT and driving wider business initiatives.
David Johnston is Founder and Managing Director of Tracer Cloud, www.tracercloud.com.au