VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail provides the simplest path to the hybrid cloud through a fully integrated platform that leverages native VxRail hardware and software capabilities and other VxRail unique integrations.

Dell EMC helps organizations with their IT Transformation and adoption of hybrid cloud by providing flexible modern cloud infrastructure solutions that can seamlessly and simply transform at the pace they are ready for. IT Transformation is a journey that does not happen overnight. Dell Technologies is looking to be become businesses’ strategic partner to help them on their journey.

Dell EMC believes IT Transformation can be accomplished by adopting a MAT strategy, which takes advantage of the benefits that a hybrid can deliver. In MAT, businesses:

• Modernize their infrastructure, taking advantage of scale-out, software-defined and cloud-enabled technologies across servers, storage, and converged systems.
• Automate their services and create a new self-service experience for the business to interface with IT.
• Transform the way they operate, recognizing the need for new roles, skills, and organizational structures in order to leverage and optimize these new technology capabilities.

Businesses that can successfully navigate the MAT strategy are poised for success in the Digital Era. Customers who are just getting started, can look to modernize their traditional 3-tiered infrastructure by adopting hyper-converged infrastructure to help simplify compute and storage operations. Instead of managing compute and storage in silos and using hardware-based infrastructure to provide compute and storage services, customers can simplify their operations by consolidating compute and storage management using native VMware tools and leverage the power of automation and compute and storage virtualization to provide IT with more agility in provisioning infrastructure and lifecycle management. Instead of taking days to weeks to provision compute and storage infrastructure, this can now be done in minutes to hours. These capabilities can be introduced by deploying VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure. VxRail comes included with vSphere for compute virtualization, vSAN for storage virtualization, and VxRail HCI System Software, which includes VxRail Manager software for HCI lifecycle management. This stage can address the Modernize portion of the MAT strategy.

Customers who have a desire to virtualize all of their infrastructure and deploy a full VMware SDDC with the benefit of automated SDDC Lifecycle Management can start with implementing a standardized VMware SDDC architecture on VxRail with VMware Cloud Foundation that includes NSX for Network Virtualization and Security, vSAN for SDS, vSphere for SDC and SDDC Manager for SDDC lifecycle management. By virtualizing all of their infrastructure, customers can take advantage of what a fully virtualized infrastructure can provide such as resource utilization, workload and infrastructure configuration agility, and advanced security. SDDC software lifecycle automation, provided by VMware Cloud Foundation (and in particular SDDC Manager which is a part of the platform) customers can streamline the lifecycle management experience for the full SDDC software and hardware stack. They no longer need to worry about performing updates and upgrades manually using multiple tools for all of the SDDC software and hardware components of the stack. These processes will now be streamlined using a common management toolset in SDDC Manager in conjunction with VxRail Manager. At this stage, customers can begin to leverage the data services benefits that a full virtualized infrastructure can offer along with SDDC infrastructure automated LCM. An example of some of the data services would be using Software Defined Networking features from NSX like micro-segmentation, which before software defined networking tools, would be nearly impossible to implement using physical networking tools. The other important aspect here is the introduction of a standardized architecture for how these SDDC components are deployed together by the introduction of VMware Cloud Foundation, an integrated cloud software platform. Having a standardized design incorporated as part of the platform provides customers with a guarantee that these components have been certified with each other and has the backing of Dell Technologies. Customers can then be assured, there is an automated and validated path forward to get from one Continuously Validated State to the next across the end to end stack. Customers also have the optional flexibility to incorporate Virtual Desktop and Cloud Native Platform with modern app services use cases, with Horizon and VCF with Tanzu respectively, that can run on this fully virtualized infrastructure. This stage can be used to address the Modernize and Automate portion of the MAT strategy and can also become the foundation for a customer to be able to seamlessly implement a full-blown hybrid cloud in the future.

As IT’s readiness grows, they may have needs for better operational management of this newly totally virtualized infrastructure. Here they can incorporate additional SDDC operations management services capabilities into their SDDC. These operations management capabilities, provided by vRealize Operations and vRealize Log Insight and vRealize Network Insight, can seamlessly be added in alignment with best practices standardized architecture guarantees. In this stage, customers can begin transforming how they operate to better manage and monitor a fully virtualized infrastructure. Customers now can gain more insight into the SDDC abstractions that exist across compute, network, and storage. They can leverage the power of built in analytics to become smarter and more efficient when performing capacity planning or troubleshooting. This stage can begin to address the Modernize and Automate portion of the MAT strategy.

Once IT has a comfort level in managing, operating, and automating a fully virtualized SDDC infrastructure, they may be ready to fully transform how they deliver this infrastructure to the business by adopting a cloud operating model and thus providing the business with services such as Infrastructure as a Service and Desktop as a Service etc. using IT provided self-service portals and catalogs to business users. This stage in the MAT strategy would involve a combination of people and process changes within an IT organization as well as technology to support it. Here, IT organizations can introduce cloud management with vRealize Automation, and cloud costing with vRealize Business. At this stage, IT would have a full private cloud and would be addressing the Transform stage of the MAT strategy.

For many customers, the final destination they want to achieve is a hybrid cloud. In this stage, customers extend on the capabilities they’ve built up with their private cloud and begin to incorporate public cloud services to enable workload mobility and location independence for deciding where workloads should run, all while leveraging a common operating model across both private and public cloud resources. Here customers can leverage public cloud services such as VMware Cloud on AWS, or other consumption models, such as VMware Cloud on Dell EMC, to align to business priorities whether it be for cost purposes or governance requirements. It allows IT to be a strategic business enabler for new Digital Transformation initiatives.

In summary, VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail makes operating the data center fundamentally simpler by bringing the ease and automation of the public cloud in-house by deploying a standardized and validated network flexible architecture with built in lifecycle automation for the entire cloud infrastructure stack including hardware. It enables a true hybrid cloud based on a common and compatible VMware Cloud Foundation platform that stretches from on premises to off premises. The platform combines the speed and flexibility of public cloud with the security and control of on-premises infrastructure, providing simplicity, consistency and peace-of-mind that empowers organizations to deliver business innovation and differentiation.