Why VMware and Microsoft collaborated to develop Azure VMware Solution?

Cloud migrations often face significant challenges. Organizations begin with ambitious plans to migrate workloads from their VMware on-premises data centers to the Cloud, to discover that these migrations take much longer than expected, require skills they lack, and exceed schedules and budgets. The reasons are straightforward: In a VMware environment, you use ESXi and vSphere Hypervisors, VMware virtual networking, and VMware-specific storage. In contrast, the Cloud offers a different computing platform with hypervisors, storage solutions, and networking configurations. As a result, migrating a virtual machine to the Cloud requires extensive refactoring and retraining of IT staff on new management interfaces, tools, and automation features. Also, it requires revising operational processes related to disaster recovery, backups, and other critical functions.

Azure VMware Solution

To address the challenges of Cloud migration and speed up customer transitions to the Cloud, VMware partnered with Microsoft to develop Azure VMware Solution (AVS). AVS integrates VMware infrastructure, including vSphere, vSAN, and NSX, running on bare metal hosts within Azure data centers worldwide. This solution offers a consistent VMware infrastructure within the Azure Cloud. As a native Azure service sold and supported by Microsoft, AVS provides the benefits of Cloud computing, such as rapid capacity scaling and flexible subscription options, hourly on-demand, or one- and three-year reserved instances. It allows IT teams to retain existing skills and operational processes as they continue to be managed with familiar VMware tools like vCenter. This means existing automation, scripting, and operational processes seamlessly transfer to AVS, which operates as VMware within Azure Cloud. For existing Azure users, AVS can be managed through familiar interfaces like the Azure Portal, Azure Resource Manager, Azure Command Line Interface, and APIs. It offers access to numerous Azure regions worldwide, ensuring proximity to operations and low latency. Also, AVS provides easy access to hundreds of Azure services near your VMware workloads. These services include identity management, databases, AI/ML, and storage. They are readily available through a simple connection over the Azure backbone network, enabling integration with the VMware workloads running in AVS.

With consistent VMware infrastructure in the Cloud, you can use the HCX tool provided with Azure VMware Solution to migrate workloads live from your on-premises VMware environment to Azure. This capability enables stalled migration projects that were over budget or behind schedule to proceed efficiently. Thanks to the consistent platform it offers, customers can now migrate hundreds or even thousands of virtual machines per week with AVS.

Benefits of Azure VMware Solution

Modernized Pragmatically: After migration to Azure, customers can now access a wide range of Azure services and modernize their workloads at their own pace. They can also use the VMware Tanzu portfolio of cloud-native application platforms, which are certified to run on Azure VMware Solution.

Azure Reliability and Scale: Customers benefit from Azure's robust reliability and scalability, which provides rapid scaling and provisioning of nodes within AVS. Managed and supported by Microsoft, this model eliminates the need for your IT team to handle tasks like hardware setup, software updates, and patching. Microsoft takes care of all these responsibilities.

Run Best on Azure: This highlights the financial benefits of Azure VMware Solution. It leverages the Azure Hybrid Benefit, allowing customers to transfer existing Windows and SQL Server licenses from their on-premises environment to AVS. It includes access to free extended security updates, which are part of Azure and also available to Azure VMware Solution.

VMWare Horizon and Microsoft Azure

How VMware Horizon and Microsoft Azure collaborate to deliver Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and DaaS solutions?

Several factors contributed to the recent surge in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS). One obvious factor is the shift towards a distributed or hybrid workforce. Organizations looking to expand into new regions can easily achieve this through VDI, providing end-users with secure access to corporate resources. The growing adoption of Cloud technologies is another driver, as many are exploring how to integrate Cloud solutions into their existing IT infrastructure. There's a need for agility in responding to disasters or business continuity challenges, and the Cloud offers the flexibility required to address these challenges.

Organizations are at different stages in their Cloud journey. Some continue to run everything on-premises, while others are considering the public Cloud. Many are adopting a hybrid approach, keeping certain workloads on-premises while using the Cloud for others. To meet these diverse needs, VMware Horizon and Microsoft Azure offer solutions that cater to any Cloud model. Horizon's Control Plane provides a single pane of glass to manage the entire Horizon deployment, whether on-premises, in Azure, or using Windows 365. This ensures a comprehensive solution that can be managed across different environments.

To explore these solutions in more detail, they can be categorized into two main options: virtual desktops and fully managed Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solutions.

VDI: For those running Horizon on-premises and seeking to integrate Azure, Microsoft manages the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC), providing comprehensive support. This setup allows leveraging hybrid Cloud use cases such as disaster recovery and data center expansion. It also enables easy scalability for additional capacity when needed. AVS provides an effective way to extend your Cloud capabilities and support these use cases.

DaaS: For customers already using Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) but wanting to maintain on-premises operations, adding Horizon is an excellent option. With this setup, the VDI component is managed for you, while Azure handles the infrastructure. This approach offers hybrid Cloud management capabilities, along with application lifecycle management. You also benefit from the cost efficiencies of multi-session functionality, allowing you to continue using multi-session while integrating Horizon.

For those considering implementing Cloud PCs using Horizon Cloud with Windows 365, Horizon provides robust capabilities for hybrid management, application delivery, and optimization of desktop delivery with the Blast protocol.

How does VMware Horizon Cloud support Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 deployments?

Horizon supports a wide range of device types and operating systems, accommodating diverse user needs. It also supports various peripherals, including smart cards used in healthcare and government sectors. This broad support ensures that Horizon can meet the specific requirements of different industries.

Horizon improves Microsoft solutions by offering advanced personalization features. It supports home drive redirection and provides personalized settings that follow users regardless of where they log in. Also, Horizon integrates with FSLogix to ensure a consistent and personalized experience each time users access their virtual desktops.

Another key benefit of Horizon is its use of the Blast protocol to optimize the user experience across various applications. This includes improving how desktops are displayed and ensuring high-quality voice performance during Zoom or Teams calls. The Blast protocol is designed to deliver a superior experience for collaboration tools, improving performance and user satisfaction.

Another critical area of focus is application and image management, including the associated costs and time investment. VMware's application volume solution simplifies the lifecycle management of applications and image management, streamlining how they are packaged and delivered to end users. New technologies like Apps on Demand help reduce server utilization by efficiently managing app delivery.

For hybrid deployments, Horizon offers the Horizon Control Plane, which enables the management of workloads across both on-premises and Azure. This provides flexibility in managing various deployment types.

Accelerate your App Delivery

In today's landscape, every organization must operate with the agility of a software company to remain competitive, regardless of industry. Software application agility is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge, enabling teams to release software much faster. However, achieving this agility involves improving developer productivity without compromising security and costs. The challenge lies in selecting from a wide array of tools, multiple clouds, virtual machines, and containers, which can lead to complexity.

To address this, VMware offers a new approach to managing this complexity. It provides a trusted foundation for platform engineering teams, delivering a unified solution from development to production. This approach ensures scalable application operations, adaptable infrastructure, and continuous optimization of costs and security.

VMware Tanzu

This solution is known as the Tanzu Platform, which covers the entire software delivery lifecycle. It begins with the Develop phase, offering secure, curated gold paths and app accelerators to streamline development. Then, in the Operate phase, it enables the deployment and management of applications at scale while optimizing costs, performance, and security across your environment.

The Tanzu portfolio comprises two primary product families: Tanzu Application Platform (TAP) and Tanzu Intelligence Services (TIS). Also, there is the Tanzu Hub, formerly known as Area Hub. Tanzu Hub collects data from various clouds, including Azure and Kubernetes ecosystems, offering a unified dashboard for insights and management. This integration supports both development and operational environments.

No application operates in isolation; it relies on various services such as databases, message brokers, and AI to function effectively. The Cloud-native landscape offers thousands of services, creating a complex and costly ecosystem. While these services enable the creation of powerful applications, the sheer number of options can be overwhelming for development teams to select the right services.

VMware has introduced three app-aware platforms for Azure Spring applications: VMware Tanzu Application Service, which is designed for running mission-critical apps; Tanzu Application Platform, a Kubernetes-native solution for managing applications in Kubernetes environments; and Azure Spring Apps Enterprise, tailored for deploying Spring applications on Azure. Alongside these platforms, VMware also provides Spring consulting services to assist teams working in Azure and VMware environments, offering support for building, upgrading, and maintaining the latest versions of Spring.

Reference:

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