We recently explored the utilization of a well-known VMware product in the Azure cloud. However, a pertinent question arises: what about other cloud platforms? Can the same be achieved in the AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud, wherein you map your VMware virtual infrastructure? The answer is affirmative, and this solution is known as VMware Cloud on AWS (or VMC on AWS for short). That is, by using the same cloud computing virtualization technology based on VMware vSphere on-premises and in the public cloud, you can create a true hybrid cloud architecture that allows you to perform consistent operations using a proven infrastructure. This solution provides optimized access to AWS services and is delivered, sold and supported jointly by VMware and AWS.

VMC on AWS comes with the same VMware tools as the Azure cloud and integrates the VMware Cloud Foundation stack (vSphere for computing, vSAN for storage, NSX for networking) along with vCenter for management. VMware Cloud on AWS runs on dedicated Bare Metal Amazon EC2 infrastructure.

VMware Cloud on AWS comes with two different host configurations, each requiring a minimum of two hosts per cluster.

The SLA of these solutions is measured at 99.9% for unstretched clusters and 99.99% for stretched clusters.

It is possible to test drive this solution using only one host (not available for i3en.metal hosts). This small SDDC (software-defined data centre) configuration allows IT teams to get first impressions of this hybrid cloud offering within a 60-day timeframe. This setup is only suitable for testing, development or proof of concept. You can run production workloads on this small VMC on an AWS solution. If you scale up to a minimum of two hosts before the 60-day period ends, no data will be lost. Otherwise, your evaluation/testing will end with data loss.

Important: Not all features of the standard VMC on AWS offering are available in this limited testing. The VMC on AWS service level offer (SLA) also does not apply to this single node offer.

The following software is included in single-host configurations and production configurations (minimum 2 hosts):

Companies AWS and VMware also offer the opportunity to deploy a solution in their own data center and this solution is called - VMC on AWS Outposts. VMC on AWS Outposts is a fully managed on-premises offering as a service that extends VMC on AWS to a data centre or edge location. This solution uses dedicated EC2 instances (physical hosts in an AWS environment) without an operating system based on Amazon Nitro (the base platform for the next generation of EC2 instances), delivered on-premises with VMware Cloud Foundation running on top.

What does a VMware solution in the AWS cloud physically consist of?

• AWS Outposts Cabinet.
• Configurations of 3–8 servers based on i3en.metal.
• Disk space.
• AWS infrastructure installed.
• AWS manages a Nitro-based dedicated i3en.metal EC2 instance with local SSD storage.
• SDDC software managed by VMware - vSphere, vSAN, NSX-T, vCenter Server.
• VMware HCX (an application mobility platform designed to simplify application migration, rebalance workloads and ensure business continuity across data centres and clouds).
• VMware Cloud Console.
• Support VMware SRE (support professional services from VMware).
• Constant equipment monitoring with breakdown/repair support.

The VMware Cloud on the AWS platform includes and supports such solutions as Tanzu Kubernetes Service and Tanzu Mission Control Essentials. That is, environments for working with a container environment are deployed without problems.

This platform has come to us for a long time. AWS and VMware are constantly collaborating and improving their brainchild. The future roadmap of this solution, including new features, can be found at this link.

Also, using this link, you can find out about the most frequently asked questions on this platform