Going Digital with Agile and Scalable Azure VMware Solution | HCLTech

Going Digital with Agile and Scalable Azure VMware Solution

 
May 12, 2021
Avtar Singh

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Avtar Singh
Associate General Manager, PMG – Hybrid cloud Practice
May 12, 2021
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The disruption caused by COVID-19 has established that cloud transformation is a must for organizations’ overall digital strategy, to survive and thrive. As per a recent survey conducted by an eminent research organization, nearly 70% of enterprises use cloud services and this number is going to increase during and after the pandemic. Hybrid cloud models have emerged as the ‘de facto’ choice for operating in the new normal. The focus of enterprises has now shifted to achieving agility and resilience across all major digital touchpoints than to simply manage cost and optimization.

Cloud service providers (CSPs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have also recognized the pace of the evolving market; a trend supported by major analyst reports and customer feedback. Enterprises need to implement solutions that complement their digital strategy without disrupting their value chain. CXOs are prioritizing hybrid cloud model adoption, especially to facilitate the next generation of innovation for developers, that empowers them to develop new applications.

Accelerating Cloud Adoption with AVS

As enterprises work toward new technology adoption, they recognize the need for an agile and cost-optimized solution that can help them assimilate the latest technologies faster. Organizations are constantly looking for hybrid cloud models that enable seamless transformation, mitigate complexity and disruption in the existing value chain, and unlock financial flexibility.

AVS helps the enterprises to accelerate the application modernization through lift and shift to increase productivity with elasticity, scale, and faster provisioning cycles.

To address these business requirements, Microsoft and VMware have synergized to build Azure VMware Solution (AVS), a unique hybrid cloud offering that combines the best of their Cloud solutions. It helps enterprises to accelerate application modernization through a lift-and-shift approach to increase productivity with elasticity, scale, and faster provisioning cycles. As a solution, AVS allows customers to consume and run their VMware workload on dedicated bare-metal Azure Cloud infrastructure. It is a first-party service, directly owned, operated, and supported by Microsoft that equips the customers with the following capabilities:

  • Integrated Functions

    AVS simplifies cloud management with a familiar and consistent set of tools, application programming interfaces (APIs), security, governance, and operations policies for both on-premises and public cloud environments.

  • Strategic Investment Management AVS complements the customer’s digital strategy as it limits the need for expensive technology investments and minimizes disruption by leveraging the current infrastructure, available skillsets and processes to efficiently manage the Day1 and Day 2 operations across the hybrid cloud environment.
  • Powered by VMware Cloud Foundation

    AVS is an on-demand service that comprises VMware vSphere, vSAN, NSX, vCenter management, and other features as part of the VMWare Cloud Foundation. These are optimized to run on dedicated, elastic, and bare-metal AVS infrastructure.

  • Access Azure Services

    AVS allows customers to seamlessly leverage Azure Marketplace and Azure Native services like Azure Monitor, Storage, AD, Backup, ASR, and so on.

Prominent Use Cases of AVS

The technology market offers innumerable cloud solutions designed for enterprises in different stages of their digital transformation journey. Here are some relevant instances where the Azure VMware solution can be utilized to maximize business outcomes:

  • Cloud extension and cloud bursting
  • Automation and Agile Infra with cloud capabilities
  • Lift-and-shift of high total cost of ownership (TCO) workloads to avail benefits of cloud economics
  • Application modernization leveraging microservices, DevOps, and containers
  • Elevation of non-compliance challenges
  • End-of-life workload migration
  • Mitigation of capacity bursting
  • Disaster recovery enablement
  • Data center exit strategy

Unique Characteristics of AVS

AVS, with its unique combination of in-demand technology modules, offers a lift-and-shift approach for applications and databases to cloud. However, it is critical to understand and address the business demand to be sure that the transition remains uninterrupted.

Below are the key features of AVS which make it one-of-a-kind solution that drives business agility while contributing to improved cloud economics.

  • Legitimate Hybrid Approach

    With seamless bidirectional extendibility and deployment from on-premises to cloud, AVS offers distinct advantages in terms of economies of scale. An integrated VMware technology footprint can help manage workloads at ease with best-in-class automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using JSON format in ARM, DevOps, DevSecOps, and AI Ops.

  • Cloud-Native Integration

    AVS allows broader access to Azure services and tools such as AKS, ACI, Terraform, Chef, Puppet, and others. This enables the ecosystem to overcome the digital divide and leverage the latest cloud capabilities and services.

  • Microsoft Support and Billing  

    AVS provides the benefit of integrated support and unified dashboards for management and billing requirements.

  • License Cost Conservation of up to 90%

    The platform allows reuse of existing investments on licenses via AHUB and Bring Your Own License (BYOL) for VMware licenses. Additionally, other than NSX-T, the offering also consists of HCX, vSphere, and vSAN.

  • Reserved Benefit

    AVS facilitates re-hosting of the on-premises environment through an AVS 3-year reserved instance, which offers an infrastructure cost benefit of up to 50%.

HCLTech as the Certified Partner and Trusted Advisor for Microsoft and VMware Technology

HCLTech helps customers pursue the path of digital dominance by aligning transformation to meet their overall business objectives while simultaneously remaining agile to the digital transformation journey. HCLTech, being an early adopter and beta testing partner, has invested over 200 engineering worker-days that resulted in inculcating deeper knowledge and insights into the platform. We have also helped bring automation modules, orchestration components, knowledge management, and a reporting layer to the solution.

HCLTech has already performed the AVS migration for multiple customers, spread across different regions and verticals. By incorporating the solution under the ITSM-based framework, we offer a holistic customer experience at every stage of the AVS journey.

For more details, please contact us at ITO@hcl.com

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Tags:
Digitalization
Cloud
Agile
Azure
Scalibility
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