AWS & VMware - Making The Enterprise Happy?
Since the announcement of AWS and VMware teaming up to form the long expected response to Microsoft's Azure Stack there has been no tech meeting without this subject being discussed. One thing is for certain: it will draw huge numbers of today's VMware customers towards AWS and away from Microsoft. However, there is more to this than just a marketing push.
Should Microsoft be scared?
Many see the new partnership as a direct response to Microsoft's Azure Stack. And what else would it be? But thinking about it, I am not so sure if the two setups can be compared. Microsoft as a one-for-all service provider. AWS and VMware as a partnership, offering a technological choice but most of all an easy migration and operation scenario. Microsoft must have seen this coming. Their only relevant competitor in public cloud and the only competitor in the hypervisor market, both looking for the ultimate solution for their lack of hybrid cloud capability. What else would they do than teaming up in the end. And their joint experience certainly exceeds that of Microsoft by far.
Hybrid Cloud - this time for real?
The whole thing is about hybrid cloud scenarios, we can agree on that I guess. And we understand that this new partnership appears to address an existing market demand. The most common hybrid scenario today is that IT environments are divided by project / system. For example: your ERP runs on premise and your website on AWS. Nothing really moves in our out of the premise / the cloud, right? Will this change with Azure Stack or AWS ft. VMware towards Dev / Test in the Cloud and Prod on prem? I wonder. You hear a lot of this "seamless" move from workloads to the cloud and back. To be honest I have not met a customer that actually moved back. But maybe I am mistaken and too narrow sighted. Seamless workload mobility could surely be made easy with AWS's VMware partnership.
Questions!
I hope I made it obvious so far that I have no clear view about wether or not the news are as good as people seem to perceive them. There are a ton of questions coming to mind when you actually play through the real life deployment of the AWS & VMware setup, for example:
Surprises in 2017
Wether VMware will aim to be just another overlay on top of AWS infrastructures like so many before them or actually become a relevant hybrid cloud enabler - we'll see. My personal guess is that it will most of all increase the market share of AWS and help VMware retain theirs. To be honest, I have a certain sympathy for AWS and VMware too and was amazed to hear that they finally teamed up. I consider this good news, really. Excited to see what becomes of this! My guess is that Azure-Stack needs a strong hardware partner soon, as VMware brings EMC / Dell to the table. Microsoft, your turn now.
Should Microsoft be scared?
Many see the new partnership as a direct response to Microsoft's Azure Stack. And what else would it be? But thinking about it, I am not so sure if the two setups can be compared. Microsoft as a one-for-all service provider. AWS and VMware as a partnership, offering a technological choice but most of all an easy migration and operation scenario. Microsoft must have seen this coming. Their only relevant competitor in public cloud and the only competitor in the hypervisor market, both looking for the ultimate solution for their lack of hybrid cloud capability. What else would they do than teaming up in the end. And their joint experience certainly exceeds that of Microsoft by far.
Hybrid Cloud - this time for real?
The whole thing is about hybrid cloud scenarios, we can agree on that I guess. And we understand that this new partnership appears to address an existing market demand. The most common hybrid scenario today is that IT environments are divided by project / system. For example: your ERP runs on premise and your website on AWS. Nothing really moves in our out of the premise / the cloud, right? Will this change with Azure Stack or AWS ft. VMware towards Dev / Test in the Cloud and Prod on prem? I wonder. You hear a lot of this "seamless" move from workloads to the cloud and back. To be honest I have not met a customer that actually moved back. But maybe I am mistaken and too narrow sighted. Seamless workload mobility could surely be made easy with AWS's VMware partnership.
Questions!
I hope I made it obvious so far that I have no clear view about wether or not the news are as good as people seem to perceive them. There are a ton of questions coming to mind when you actually play through the real life deployment of the AWS & VMware setup, for example:
- What happens from a software license point of view if I extend my VMware based environments into the AWS platforms? Example: Oracle Database.
- Do I have to pay VMware licenses for a vDC on AWS, when working in a hybrid model?
- What about my fancy AWS automation tools and scripts? What about my container fleet?
- What about my AWS monitoring and logging mechanisms and dashboards? Replicated, lost?
- Looking at Security, how do I replace my AWS RBAC and account structures to VMware?
- What about the beautiful (and proprietary) AWS PaaS or SaaS services?
Surprises in 2017
Wether VMware will aim to be just another overlay on top of AWS infrastructures like so many before them or actually become a relevant hybrid cloud enabler - we'll see. My personal guess is that it will most of all increase the market share of AWS and help VMware retain theirs. To be honest, I have a certain sympathy for AWS and VMware too and was amazed to hear that they finally teamed up. I consider this good news, really. Excited to see what becomes of this! My guess is that Azure-Stack needs a strong hardware partner soon, as VMware brings EMC / Dell to the table. Microsoft, your turn now.
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