Faction releases managed VMware Cloud on AWS service
Summary: Denver-based cloud provider Faction rolled out one of the first managed offerings for the VMware Cloud on AWS service. Faction has integrated the VMware Cloud on AWS service into its management portal and will allow customers to manage across AWS, VMware Cloud on AWS or Faction’s VMware-based hosted private clouds in a single Faction-based experience. It will help customers figure out a cloud strategy – where, what and how they will deploy – through consulting and strategy and provide ongoing managed services. Another part of Faction’s value proposition is its focus on performance. It places its infrastructure in places (recently spinning up new nodes with CoreSite in Los Angeles and Northern Virginia) where it can easily connect with major clouds (it uses many Digital Realty-Telx sites). Faction has the ideal kind of portfolio for VMware Cloud on AWS. It is already running a lot of VMware-based compute in its data centres and manages enterprise-grade storage on NetApp that uses its proximity to cloud to integrate or migrate to multiple clouds. The platform consistency makes VWware-AWS an easy product sku to bolt on. Faction already has the background and expertise with VMware along with the experience with multi-cloud and multi-deployment model scenarios – to a level not seen in a lot of places in the market.
New offerings: Denver-based Faction will use CoreSite data centres in Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia to support its cloud infrastructure service, Veeam backup offering and a pair of new offerings: NetApp storage for multi-cloud deployments and managed VMware on AWS. CoreSite provides network density and proximity to major clouds that optimizes performance and services as a convenient on-ramp. This will be key for Faction as it moves to support multi-cloud consumption for its customers. Faction uses other data centre partners such as Telx-Digital Realty Trust and Iron Mountain-FORTRUST.
Summary: As promised last October, VMware Cloud is now available on AWS. The service is initially available from only the AWS US West (Oregon) region. It will be extended to the US East Coast next, and then to AWS regions worldwide in 2018.
Details: The main idea behind VMware Cloud on AWS is to help organizations move away from making a ‘one or the other’ decision between VMware and AWS. Many of the on-premise data centres that occupy a significant addressable market for outsourced infrastructure run VMware. Moving to a public cloud like AWS means moving away from familiar tools, features and UIs to completely new ones. It could involve significant re-architecting. The time and resources needed to make that journey are far from trivial. Amazon and VMware have teamed up to basically make running on-premise or on AWS – and moving between them – a seamless and consistent experience. Users for vSphere, for example, can use the same tools to run VMware in-house as they do on AWS servers. End users also won’t have to change vendors. VMware will sell and support the service. Other services are in the works such as data recovery.
More details: Everything will be powered by VMware Cloud Foundation: the software-defined data centre (SDDC) platform, which comprises vSphere for compute, VSAN for storage, NSX for network virtualization and vCenter for management. Notably, AWS is going to run this on bare metal servers, which is obviously not its normal practice. But running on AWS bare metal infrastructure is intended to provide customers with the same architecture, capabilities and operational experience across their vSphere-based on-premise environments and AWS. This should make migrations easier to figure out and application re-writes will not be needed to move to cloud.
Value proposition: With the ability to run VMware on AWS, organizations will gain the flexibility to run in multiple deployment models. They will not have to burn CapEx to buy and deploy new gear and can move at least partially to an OpEx-based model. Cloud can be taken advantage of to scale up and shut down in short-term or burst scenarios. They can run workloads in cloud or on-premise based on performance or compliance reasons. And they can migrate over to cloud with the advantage of being able to do this according to any timetable.
Partners and third party cloud services: VMware was quick to point out that service provider and MSP partners can get in on the action. Hosters like Rackspace that host a lot of VMware-based infrastructure now have a bridge over to the AWS cloud. There are plenty of places where service providers can benefit and drive value. First, they won’t have to worry about an all or nothing lift and shift conversation. They can still drive nice margins from traditional deployments and move incrementally to cloud where it makes sense. Second, the ability to create complex hybrid environments is a natural driver of managed services and consulting. Organizations are going to have a more consistent operational experience, but they will need to strategize and optimize. That is where service providers will happily step in. Third, while MSPs get involved with application re-architecting, avoiding this is still a good situation to be in. Service providers can get workloads that they maybe weren’t even managing and applications will have a potentially longer shelf life, which leads to more predictable revenue streams. Rackspace and Faction are partnering and Capgemini and Deloitte are going to as well.
Angle: Any enterprise that has virtualized with VMware will now be able to run any app on vSphere in the AWS public cloud, with no need for additional investment, tools or training, easing the migration to cloud services. VMware has a similar deal with IBM Bluemix, so its customers aren’t locked into a single cloud service provider and can more easily deploy hybrid cloud environments, and more are expected to come. VMware is moving in a decidedly agnostic direction and it cleared a big hurdle in this when it sold the vCloud Air business to hosting partner OVH. It is clear that VMware is no longer interested in competing head-on in cloud, but is looking to run on third party clouds.
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