UNLOCK INNOVATION FASTER WITH SOFTCHOICE AND VMWARE CLOUD ON AWS · AWS support a comprehensive VMware environment in the AWS cloud, meaning IT teams can run native VMware work-loads

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UNLOCK INNOVATION FASTER WITH SOFTCHOICE AND VMWARE CLOUD ON AWS

Unlock Innovation Faster with Softchoice and VMware Cloud on AWSCONSISTENT | FLEXIBLE | SECURE

©2020 Softchoice. All rights reserved.2

Contents

Unlock innovation faster with Softchoice and VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS) ........................................ 3

The pressure on businesses and IT mounts ............................................................................................................................................ 4

Address immediate needs and set the stage for innovation ............................................................................................................... 5

Where to start ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 5

A reliable, scalable, and secure place for your data. ............................................................................................................................. 7

Keep your VMware Cloud on AWS applications safe from web exploits. ........................................................................................... 7

Develop, deploy, run, and scale your applications and workloads in the cloud ............................................................................... 7

Connect your applications and infrastructure through a network ready to meet the needs of your business ............................ 7

General Solution Benefits .................................................................................................................................................................. 8

How VMware Cloud on AWS works .......................................................................................................................................................10

Address business objectives and set the foundation for transformation .......................................................................... 11

Use Case #1: Disaster recovery at a fraction of the cost .....................................................................................................................11

Use Case #2: Data center extension.......................................................................................................................................................12

Use Case #3: Rapidly Modernize Applications ......................................................................................................................................13

Use Case #4: Avoiding infrastructure refreshes through cloud migration ........................................................................................13

Getting Started with VMware Cloud on AWS ....................................................................................................................... 14

The Softchoice journey for VMware Cloud on AWS .............................................................................................................................14

Why Softchoice for VMware Cloud on AWS? ........................................................................................................................ 16

AWS Experience ........................................................................................................................................................................................16

VMware Experience ..................................................................................................................................................................................16



These early wins have encouraged many IT leaders to pursue

the promise of greater agility and cost savings by embracing

a ‘cloud-first’ philosophy. According to IDC, 85% of enterprise

IT organizations have already committed to a multi-cloud

strategy. However, not every application or workload can be

moved to the cloud. Many workloads are not easily separated

from the on-premise infrastructure they depend on. They rely

on software or operating system (OS) versions that require

upgrades and patches to run in native cloud environments.

Some require refactoring due to differences in the virtual-

ization layer. This involves the much more labor-intensive

process of re-architecting and recoding a given application to

take advantage of native cloud functionality.

Organizations continue to look to public cloud options to

bring higher agility to their IT operations and improve time

to market with new applications and services. Many of them

start with the “low hanging fruit,” such as test and devel-

opment environments, but face greater challenges when it

comes to moving more complex applications into the cloud.

Often, this requires refactoring applications, a process that

has the potential to disrupt business and stall cloud migration.

According to the Softchoice 2020 Research Brief, Cloud The

Engine for Innovation, 54% of IT leaders report that their

teams struggle to form a cloud strategy and we know that

often applications need at least some form of modification,

from minor upgrades to complete rewrites or even swapping

for SaaS alternatives. Many organizations have invested years

into the development of private clouds with providers like

VMware, which until recently, have been incapable of oper-

ating seamlessly in the public cloud. While there are options

for transforming virtual machines (VMs) to run in cloud

environments like AWS, most often this means introducing

all-new tools, scripting and operating procedures. In turn, to

put this into practice requires research and new competen-

cies, which itself creates barriers to change – a big challenge

for lean IT teams.

In the early stages of cloud adoption, organizations often reap quick rewards. This includes leveraging the cloud for test/development or backup or migrating simple workloads that require a straightforward ‘lift and shift’ approach.

https://www.softchoice.com/solution-studio/solutions/enable-hybrid-it/enabling-hybrid-cloud/workload-placement-in-legacy-and-cloud-environments-infobrief

https://resources.softchoice.com/resourcecenter/cloud-migration-and-adoption/google/2020-cloud-migration-adoption/



However, traditional “lift and shift” approaches to cloud

migration will not allow organizations to move as fast they

expect and tend to create more disruption than benefit. This

is because skills developed in the traditional data center or

private cloud environment don’t translate easily to public cloud

infrastructure, further stalling an organization’s attempts to

adapt to changing market dynamics and financial pressures.

Recent advancements in hybrid cloud technology, including

VMware Cloud on AWS, allow IT teams to embrace public

cloud while minimizing the need to refactor applications or

introduce a new operating framework. VMware Cloud on

AWS support a comprehensive VMware environment in the

AWS cloud, meaning IT teams can run native VMware work-

loads while reaping the public cloud benefits in AWS.

The result is IT teams that can address infrastructure chal-

lenges by running, managing and securing applications

across VMware environments and AWS through a common

operating framework. By taking this approach, organizations

will be able to continue getting value from existing VMware

investments, skills, and tools, including VMware vSphere,

vSAN, and vCenter while leveraging the possibilities allowed

by AWS’s scale, performance and advanced services.

The demands to move to the cloud faster are increasing as IT leaders face new financial pressure to address mounting operational and business challenges. Faced with this situation, they tend to view public cloud migration as a means to address immediate concerns, including:

The pressure on businesses and IT mounts

Data center contract expirations

Software end of support (EOS)

Urgent capacity needs

Hardware and software refreshes

Disaster recovery demands



Once organizations have addressed their immediate needs,

VMware Cloud on AWS create opportunities to modernize

applications and use advanced cloud-native services such as

artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. For example,

VMware workloads running on AWS can integrate with over

175 + AWS services including compute, database, analytics,

IoT, AI/ML, security, and more.

Address immediate needs and set the stage for innovation

Based on our experience helping 1,500+ organizations tran-

sition to the cloud, we recommend taking a step back from

the technology to begin with a plan based on an in-depth

assessment of your applications. Then, develop a sound busi-

ness case based on their unique demands and requirements.

By understanding your applications and workloads along with

their underlying architecture in detail, you can determine the

right approach to optimizing their performance, identifying

risks and containing costs in AWS.

Taking an integrated approach using VMware Cloud on AWS,

IT teams can realize the benefits of the cloud while using the

same management tools and governance policies already

operating in the data center. This makes it easier to overcome

the barriers of cultural change and the complexity than can

put a drag on transformation. It also allows your hybrid or

multicloud strategy to have a measurable business impact

sooner by adding the capacity to modernize applications to

meet rising expectations of a modern digital business.

Where to start

LEARN MORE ON HOW TO GET STARTED



Move or extend on-premises VMware environments to AWS

About VMware Cloud on AWS

VMware Cloud on AWS, an integrated cloud offering jointly developed by AWS and VMware, delivers a highly scalable, secure, and innovative service that allows organizations to seamlessly migrate and extend their on-premises VMware vSphere-based environments to the AWS Cloud running on next-generation Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) bare metal infrastructure. VMware Cloud on AWS simplifies

and accelerates the migration of mission-critical produc-tion workloads to the cloud at scale without conversion or re-architecture. You can leverage your existing VMware investments, increase innovation, achieve operational consis-tency, and deploy a hybrid cloud environment without com-plexity. Additionally, your company can maximize its VMware Cloud on AWS investment by leveraging native AWS services.

Reduced costs and complexity of hybrid cloud

VMware Cloud on AWS enables organizations

to optimize the costs of operating a consistent and seamless hybrid IT environment. There is

no custom hardware to deploy in your on-premises environment nor need to

modify applications to shift to a hybrid cloud model. You can use VMware’s

management and policy tools across on-premises

and VMware Cloud on AWS, so you have a

unified and operationally consistent experience. These capabilities let you leverage all your existing investments

to help save money.

Achieve operational consistency

Organizations can simplify their Hybrid IT operations

by using the same VMware Cloud Foundation

technologies including vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and

vCenter Server across both their on-premises data center environments and the AWS

Cloud. You can keep the same VMware provisioning,

storage, and lifecycle policies you use today.

This means you can easily move applications between on-premises environments and AWS without having to

purchase any new hardware, rewrite applications, or

modify operations.

Accelerate innovation with 175+ AWS Native Services.

VMware workloads running on AWS have access to a broad and rich set of over

175+ AWS services including compute, database, analytics,

IoT, AI/ML, security, and more. Latency-sensitive applications hosted in

VMware can directly access databases on Aurora,

Dynamo, or Redshift for petabyte-scale data analysis, as well as direct and secure

access to low-cost S3 buckets, objects, and API

functions.

Enhance availability

VMware Cloud on AWS helps accelerate migration of VMware vSphere-based workloads to the highly

available and scalable AWS Cloud. The service enables

VMware-based workloads to run directly on the next-generation Nitro system-based Amazon EC2 bare metal infrastructure and provisioned in a single-tenant, isolated Amazon

VPC. This approach allows organizations to take

immediate advantage of the scalability, availability,

security, and global reach of the AWS Cloud.



A reliable, scalable, and secure place for your data.Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides persistent

block storage volumes that can be used with VMware Cloud

on AWS. Each Amazon EBS volume is automatically repli-

cated within its Availability Zone to protect from component

failure, offering high availability and durability. Amazon EBS

volumes offer the consistent and low-latency performance

needed to run workloads. Organizations benefit from

Amazon EBS through:

Ability to dynamically increase capacity

Comprehensive security and compliance capabilities

Ability to query data in place

Keep your VMware Cloud on AWS applications safe from web exploits.

AWS Web Application Firewall (AWS WAF) helps protect

your web applications from common web exploits that

could affect application availability, compromise security, or

consume excessive resources. You can use AWS WAF to create

custom rules that block common attack patterns, such as SQL

injection or cross-site scripting, and rules that are designed

for your specific application. AWS WAF also includes a full-fea-

tured API that you can use to automate the creation, deploy-

ment, and maintenance of web security rules. Organization

benefit from AWS WAF through:

Integrated security posture as you develop applications

Increased protection against web attacks

Improved web traffic visibility

Develop, deploy, run, and scale your applications and workloads in the cloudAWS Lambda enables you to run your code for virtually any

type of application or backend service – with zero adminis-

tration. Just upload your code and AWS Lambda takes care of

everything required to run and scale it with high availability.

You can set up your code to automatically trigger from other

AWS services, or call it directly from any web or mobile appli-

cation. Organizations benefit from AWS Lambda through:

Simplified management – no servers to patch or manage

Continuous scalability

Sub-second metering

Connect your applications and infrastructure through a network ready to meet the needs of your business

Accelerate content delivery from your VMware Cloud on

AWS environment by leveraging Amazon CloudFront, a

global content delivery network (CDN) that securely delivers

data, videos, and applications to your audience with low

latency and high transfer speeds. Amazon CloudFront is

integrated with AWS—including physical locations that are

directly connected to the AWS global infrastructure. In addi-

tion, the software works seamlessly with services including

AWS Shield for DDoS mitigation, Amazon Simple Storage

Service (Amazon S3), Elastic Load Balancer, or Amazon EC2,

as origins for your applications and Lambda@Edge to run

custom code close to your audience. Organizations benefit

from Amazon CloudFront through:

Global content delivery network that scales with their growth

Secure content delivery at the edge

Low latency, high-speed transfers



Purpose-built databases for all your application needs.

Quickly, securely, and cost-effectively organize and manage

your data without having to worry about vendor licenses,

platform management, and underlying infrastructure. Inte-

grate your VMware Cloud on AWS applications seamlessly

with Amazon Aurora, a relational database built for the

cloud. It combines the performance and availability of

high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and

cost-effectiveness of open source databases. Amazon Aurora

is a fully managed service which automates time-con-

suming tasks like hardware provisioning, database setup,

patching, and backups. Amazon Aurora provides organiza-

tion with the ability to:

KEY CAPABILITIES OF VMWARE CLOUD ON AWS:

Deliver high performance, scalability, availability and security

MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible

Simplify management through turnkey database services



Key Capabilities of VMware Cloud on AWS:

Predictable, high-performance compute, storage and networking delivered by VMware vSphere®, vSAN™ and NSX® running on modern Nitro system-based Amazon EC2 elastic, bare-metal infrastructure.

Prevent the lateral spread of threats with dynamic policy-driven NSX micro-segmentation and distributed firewalls.

Secure all data at rest with vSAN software-based encryption.

Enable automatic scaling and load balancing of environments with Elastic DRS.

Extend the value of existing enterprise apps with high-bandwidth, low-latency access to AWS services.

Application uptime through capabilities built directly in the service, such as vSphere HA, DRS, auto host remediation and stretched clusters for zero-RPO infrastructure availability.

Enable DR in a day with cloud economics with VMware Site Recovery.

Enterprise-grade capabilities

Reduce operational overhead and achieve your cloud strategy faster, whether it is migration, extension, or protection, by leveraging existing skills, tools, processes and familiar VMware technologies.

In-product, unified support experience brings together intelligent search, chat support, service request management, service health and community help, at your fingertips.

Get a single inventory view of on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS resources using vCenter® Server® technology.

Simple and consistent operations

Align costs to business needs with flexible consumption options and investment protection.

Add or remove hosts in minutes or let Elastic DRS to do it automatically based on optimal utilization.

Get started rapidly and provision an entire VMware SDDC environment in 2 hours.

Consume on-demand hourly or take advantage of one-year and three-year reserved models for deeper discounts.

Flexible consumption

Continue using familiar VMware technologies – plus a broad range of third-party technology solution providers that are validated to work with VMware Cloud on AWS.

Leverage a single point of contact for all your support issues.

Focus on your apps while VMware and its partners take care of infrastructure patches and upgrades.

Empower infrastructure teams to run the most resource-intensive apps with all the performance, availability and scale requirements they need, while your development teams focus on your business requirements.

Familiar and seamless



vRealize suite, PowerCLI

VMware Cloud on AWS Access to all native AWS servicesManagement vCenter server

AWS CLI, SDK

AWS global infrastructureCustomer data center

vCenter serverSingle pane of glass and API across on-premises and cloud

Amazon EC2

Amazon S3

Amazon RDS

Amazon Redshift

AWS Direct Connect

Amazon DynamoDB

vSphere VSAN NSX

How VMware Cloud on AWS works



Often, IT leaders look to use cloud native services to retire technical debt quickly and find new opportunities to improve and modernize digital experiences. The next step is to define business objectives and use cases that will inform a solid business case. This business case is the starting point for a transformation journey that includes:

Address business objectives and set the foundation for transformation

Traditionally, an effective disaster recovery (DR) strategy

called for secondary data center(s) either within an organi-

zation’s owned infrastructure or within a co-location facility.

However, this had the effect of doubling hardware and soft-

ware costs while creating an operational model that was

difficult to sustain under budget pressure. Today, IT leaders

are rethinking DR approaches and these considerations

are no more poignant than when a data center refresh or

contract renewal rolls around.

With VMware Cloud on AWS, you’ll be able to forego

secondary data center(s) and tap into the DR potential of

the public cloud. Using a VMware stack deployed in AWS

as a primary or secondary on-demand disaster recovery site

for on-premises data center infrastructure. VMware Cloud

on AWS allows for all multi-directional disaster recovery and

migration of all VMware environments either natively to

VMware Cloud on AWS or AWS Native. This allows organiza-

tions to protect and recover an entire VMware-based data

center into VMware Cloud on AWS, with no modifications to

the VMs or management tools without the added expense

of establishing a secondary data center.

Use Case #1: Disaster recovery at a fraction of the cost

Disaster recovery at a fraction of the cost1 Rapid modernization

of applications3

Simplified data center consolidation2 Avoiding infrastructure refreshes

through cloud migration4



Today, compute and data storage needs are growing across

the board. As a result, IT leaders face new challenges in

providing the heightened level of service people expect

without taking on the cost of ongoing provisioning for peak

periods. Meanwhile, the need to support remote workforces

as organizations also evolve their business models, is

straining on-premise infrastructure. VMware Cloud on AWS

addresses the 3 most common scenarios that require orga-

nizations to adapt to the new world of work, including:

Use Case #2: Data center extension

Common scenarios How VMware Cloud on AWS helps

Seasonal spikes in demand

AWS allows organizations to tap into hybrid cloud capacity to provision for baseline demand rather than paying for infrastructure to accommodate peak demand. With AWS, organizations can access compute and take advantage of other AWS services to further enhance digital experiences.

Data growth outruns capacity

AWS allows organizations to expand storage into the cloud, minimizing the need to introduce limitless data storage. Once in the cloud, a wide range of AWS services allow organizations to utilize new capabilities such as analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to advance application functionality and unlock value within existing data stores.

Virtual desktop deployment needs

With remote work becoming the norm, organizations need to address rising compute needs for large groups of distributed users. AWS supports rapid expansion of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to address these demands.

Increasing pressure on test and development environments

As organizations push to improve and iterate on their core business models faster, application development increases the load on existing test/dev environments. Using AWS, organizations can augment or fully replace their on-premises test and development environments and introduce DevOps through native toolchains and web services for further speed and agility.



As organization seek to evolve business processes and

routes to market, they will inevitably need to consider

modernizing applications to include rich functionality

found within the public cloud such as Machine Learning or

Artificial Intelligence services.

Through VMware Cloud on AWS, organizations can increase

the value of enterprise applications by leveraging AWS

services for integrated application modernization like

Amazon S3. These prove ideal for organizations looking

to build new/next-gen applications or implement a

strategy to design hybrid applications. Use private access

to AWS services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

(Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon

S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS),

Amazon Redshift, AWS Direct Connect, Amazon Dyna-

moDB, AWS WAF, and Elastic Load Balancing to enrich

architectures and augment applications and services.

Use Case #3: Rapidly Modernize Applications

Major infrastructure refresh cycles often come hand-in-

hand with substantial capital expenditures (CAPEX). At the

same time, IT teams often face pressure to contain tech-

nology spending and direct resources toward initiatives

that will continue to grow or expand revenue streams.

Rather than a cost burden, however, the infrastructure

refresh offers an opportunity for IT leaders to do both. With

VMware Cloud on AWS, organizations can quickly stage

cloud migrations in line with the infrastructure refresh by

porting existing VMware workloads to the cloud, offsetting

the need to invest in further physical hardware.

Use Case #4: Avoiding infrastructure refreshes through cloud migration



Seeking out a partner with deep understanding in VMware Cloud and AWS technology helps ensure your VMware Cloud on AWS deployment is set up for success In addition, setting up the VMware Cloud on AWS requires advanced NSX, vSAN and vRealize Vrealize skill sets as well as knowledge of AWS. At the same time, working with an experienced partner helps to simplify procurement, implementation and operation of any solution when two or more technology providers are involved.

Getting Started with VMware Cloud on AWS

The Softchoice journey for VMware Cloud on AWS

Working with us, you’ll deploy the VMware Cloud on AWS

based on best practices we’ve developed over hundreds of

cloud migrations. We’ll help you with the precise planning

needed to ensure your journey is successful by applying a

unique, proprietary cloud journey approach focused on

your application and business needs. We take you through

the development a cloud roadmap and business case that

demonstrates the business impact and sets the foundation

for a modern hybrid cloud environment ready to support your

evolving digital business.

Extend on-premise investments

with hybrid cloud architechtureApplication

profiling to determine TCO /

suitability for cloud migration

Optimize cloud budgets with the right licensing & financial options

Cloud roadmap with business

alignment and ROI impact

App migration & modernization

for business transformation and

innovation



What you get What you’ll gain

Data Center Technology Review

Discovery and data collection, analysis and workload placement insights leading to an in-depth report based on your environment using proprietary total cost of ownership calculations

Cloud roadmap with business alignment and ROI impact suitable to support complex technical and financial board-level decisions

Hybrid IT Accelerator

Provides end-to-end planning, in-depth assessment and migration of target workloads based on identified applications resulting in a production-ready VMware Cloud Solution led by VMware and Cloud experts

Migrate applications quickly and reduce risk setting the foundation for mass migration activities and access to innovation opportunities

Workload Assessment

A technical scan & analysis of workloads and their servers to understand optimized application resource requirements

Determine the proper outcome of each application, based on business priorities and technical requirements

Create a migration plan with expected actions, timing and costs

Present a reliable budget for cloud migration and operations

Application profiling to determine TCO and suitability for cloud migration

Achieve business & IT alignment

In-depth cloud migration strategy

Application Migration and Modernization Services

Building on the foundation of the Hybrid IT Accelerator, Softchoice moves applications rapidly based on findings from the workload assessment

Enable rapid application migration & modernization for business transformation and innovation

Rapidly reduce costs, reduce business disruption risks, and standardize on the VMC and public cloud platform



AWS + VMware Expertise to drive your Cloud Success

Why Softchoice for VMware Cloud on AWS?

VMWARE E X P E R I E N C E :

100+ AWS + VMware Cross Trained Engineers

2+ Years Delivering VMware Cloud Projects

100s of AWS + VMware Customers

VMware Master Services Competency (MCS): VMC on AWS, Network

Virtualization, Data Center Virtualization, AWS Expert Certification

VMware Value Partner of the Year, North America

AWS E X P E R I E N C E :

Advanced Consulting Partner, AWS

Storage Competency, AWS

Immersion Day Partner, AWS

Amazon EC2 for Microsoft Windows Server Partner, AWS

Ready to get started? Contact your Softchoice Account Manager.

Connect with us today. 1.800.268.7638 | www.softchoice.com |

http://www.softchoice.com

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UNLOCK INNOVATION FASTER WITH SOFTCHOICE AND VMWARE CLOUD ON AWS · AWS support a comprehensive VMware environment in the AWS cloud, meaning IT teams can run native VMware work-loads