It is no longer a question of: Should I consider Public Cloud to be part of my IT Strategy? But more of: Which cloud provider shall I use? The greater elasticity, economies of scale, and efficiency that the public cloud brings to the table when used in the right context are undeniable. On the other hand, choosing the right cloud provider is vital for you to capitalize on the benefits of Public Cloud.
VMware vCloud Air has many advantages that make it a strong contender in the public cloud arena. Let me give you my favorite ones at a high level, before I drill into each of them in turn:
- Robust Hybrid Cloud Capabilities
- Workload Mobility
- Advanced Security
- Reliable Disaster Recovery to Cloud
Robust Hybrid Cloud Capabilities
Most enterprises want to venture into the public cloud and run some of their workload there to gain the benefits associated with Public Cloud. However, not many are ready to move all of their workload to the public cloud due to compliance and security restrictions.
Many companies end up with some type of hybrid setup with their workload split between on-premise and off-premise. While this hybrid approach is advantageous in that it doesn’t force you to move your workload all at once, if you don’t choose the right public cloud provider for the task, it will cost you dearly in the long term. If your public and private clouds do not work well together, manageability and supportability could suffer dramatically.
VMware has long prided ourselves on being the Hybrid Cloud leader, providing the right tool for customers to manage their on-premise and off-premise workloads from the same console (ex: Hybrid Cloud Manager, vCloud Connector, and vRealize Automation) and same hypervisor. This results in enhanced workload mobility, which we will cover next.
Workload Mobility
When it comes to workload mobility across your private and public clouds, VMware is the definite winner for the following reasons:
- VMware utilizes the same hypervisor that customers use on-premise for vCloud Air, which in turn means there is no complex VM format conversion when moving between the private and public cloud. This enables easy mobility between your private and public cloud. No more vendor lock-in when you move your workload to vCloud Air, as you don’t have to change your VMs from their vSphere format, and you can bring them back on-premise any time you desire with ease.
- VMware enables you to move your VMs across your VMware-based clouds with minimal downtime. This is a challenge for most other providers. We recently demonstrated Cloud vMotion at VMworld, which highlighted upcoming capabilities that will allow you to move your VMs across your clouds with zero downtime. Yes! Zero downtime! That will be a capability that other public cloud providers will find challenging to ever match.
Advanced Security
vCloud Air offers a broad range of compliance certification, secure private networking connections, data protection, disaster recovery, and dedicated cloud options. Further, with vCloud Air adopting NSX it will offer security features and micro-segmentation that you could only dream of in a traditional datacenter. If you have already adopted NSX in your datacenter, then you can extend your network and security policies with your VMs to the Cloud.
Reliable Disaster Recovery to Cloud
vCloud Air offers a variety of DR to Cloud offerings that should satisfy even the most demanding customers. If you are interested in learning more about DR to Cloud options provided by vCloud Air, please check out the following articles:
- vCloud Air Disaster Recovery Options
- Interesting vRealize Automation Self Service portal fronting vCloud Air Disaster Recovery Use Case: vCloud Air DR to Cloud with vRealize Automation
Summary
VMware vCloud Air’s robust hybrid cloud capabilities, workload mobility, advanced security, and reliable DR to Cloud offerings have positioned VMware as a hybrid cloud leader and a top public cloud contender. If you are evaluating hybrid cloud, public cloud, or disaster recovery offerings, then you would not want to miss out on VMware vCloud Air. Customers whom I work with seem to enjoy the improved manageability offered by our hybrid cloud. In addition, the flexibility and freedom of VMs’ mobility with ease across datacenters and vCloud Air gives customers the confidence of being in control and not locked in to a particular cloud provider.
Eiad Al-Aqqad is a Consulting Architect within the SDDC Professional Services practice. He has been an active consultant using VMware technologies since 2006. He is a VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX#89), as well as an expert in VMware vCloud, vSphere, and SRM. In addition, he serves as a CTO Ambassador. Read more from Eiad at his blog, VirtualizationTeam.com, and follow him on Twitter @VirtualizationT.
