VMware Hybrid Cloud Deployment Model

Entire content and images are from VMware blog articles, paraphrased to capture essential points.

Even if an organization never actually moves cloud workloads back on premises, a process known as cloud repatriation, an exit strategy can guide negotiations with providers and influence application design. It is a corporate plan developed to ensure that the cloud services that support business activities can be replaced or replicated efficiently and without significant disruption to the company. Having a well-planned cloud exit strategy alleviates the pressures of vendor lock-in. 

This motivation, avoiding lock-in, is also present when it comes to considerations about where to build cloud native services based on containers, microservices and Kubernetes. 

The term hybrid-cloud is generally used to describe the combination of private and public cloud infrastructure, where private is either on-premises or hosted in a colocation facility and public cloud infrastructure is provided by one or more hyperscaler clouds. In a hybrid cloud scenario, common management and orchestration tools are used to deploy workloads and maintain the balance between the two as well.

Hybrid multi-cloud makes cloud exit (and entry) strategies easier. 

Hybrid cloud is therefore a specialized type of multi-cloud. Multi-cloud is a strategy or philosophy where an organization deliberately exploits the unique capabilities of different clouds, rather than going ‘all in’ with a single cloud provider. 

Key to the hybrid cloud model is application and data portability. the ability to seamlessly migrate workloads and their respective applications across public and private cloud is a key step that will support any cloud exit strategy.

One of the key drivers of multi-cloud use is shadow IT, where technology is being adopted by business units independently of any governance from a central team concerned with the needs of the overall enterprise.

A common VMware hybrid cloud deployment model consists of VMware Cloud Foundation based private cloud and an VMware SDDC as a service such as VMware Cloud on AWS or Azure VMware Service or Google Cloud VMware Service (2020) or Oracle Cloud VMware Solution (OCVS). 

VMware Cloud on AWS is sold and operated by VMware (since 2017) while all the others shown are built, sold and operated by VMware cloud partners. 

VMware Cloud on AWS is a VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) deployed on AWS bare metal hardware “for rent.” More specifically, it is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud that is owned and operated by VMware and built using the SDDC model. The service is dedicated, with hardware that is solely assigned to that customer SDDC. It delivers a private cloud operating experience with high speed low-latency access to AWS native services.

In this scenario, an application can be deployed to either the public cloud provider or to an on-premises data center.  Either way, this application can be migrated with zero downtime, while maintaining consistent operational support.

This architectural model represents the ultimate cloud exit strategy. This architecture allows data and applications to be truly portable, allowing the organization to leverage a common administrative skillset and operational toolset across all the cloud environments involved.

For net new applications, the deployment model can use VMware Tanzu for developing, testing and running production applications on a single common framework that can work across all of the major cloud providers in scope in a cloud-agnostic way. 

Azure VMware Solution has some key licensing advantages not available to any other public cloud vendor

Oracle is the only VMware hyper-scale cloud offering that allows customers to migrate existing vSphere environments to the cloud while retaining total control over lifecycle management, such as updates, patches, and validation of integrated third-party tools, for all VMware components.

Comparing native public cloud services with a VMware software-defined data center running within that same public cloud is not easy and is a bit like comparing apples with oranges  or beer and wine. If flexibility, choice and control are key requirements when it comes to workload placement, then VMware offers a compelling set of options.

Extending or migrating an on-premises infrastructure to the public cloud using a non-VMware approach can be time consuming, costly and fraught with complex cloud migration, implementation processes and challenges.

Cloud economics - Under the VMware model you pay per host, which, despite the move from Capex to Opex, is the same economic model as on-premises.  The cost of a Cloud Native IaaS workload is consistent. It doesn’t change based on how many workloads you deploy. However, in the VMware model, as the host cost is fixed, the cost per workload decreases the more workloads you are able to consolidate onto a single host

Cloud Native IaaS can provide richer automation across the entire public cloud ecosystem (on a single cloud) whereas a VMware solution might require additional cloud management or automation tooling to create this more deeply integrated capability. 

Another consideration might be ISV integrated tools. For instance, Microsoft has an Azure Backup solution that integrates directly with Azure Native IaaS, therefore, it is likely that a separate solution for VMware in Azure would be required.

VMware on public cloud solutions make Hybrid Application Design a reality. Hybrid Application Design describes an application topology which spans both a VMware Cloud platform and native public services, with a unique solution that delivers a two-way high-bandwidth low-latency interconnect with native services for hybrid application architectures. 

Also see: Comparison of Public Cloud VMware offerings