VMware Cloud Foundation dramatically simplifies the path to hybrid cloud adoption by delivering a common platform for private and public clouds, enabling a consistent operational experience and the ability to quickly and easily move workloads at scale across clouds without re-architecting applications, leveraging VMware HCX.

The first is in the area of management. Here we can take advantage of Hybrid Cloud Linked Mode capabilities in vCenter to connect to a vCenter instance in a VMware powered public cloud such as VMC on AWS and have centralized visibility of your on prem SDDC Infrastructure and workloads along with the SDDC infrastructure and workloads running in your VMC on AWS instance.

The other area of management is related to Cloud Management with vRealize Automation. Here you can develop a centralized IT self-service catalog for the business to consume that is sourced from on premises and public cloud infrastructure services. vRA has integration not just with Cloud Foundation based public cloud services but also other native clouds such as AWS EC2, and Microsoft Azure as examples. This allows IT teams to determine which clouds make the most sense to source the catalog services their business can consume using self service.

For example, when a user requests a new WindowsOS based Virtual Machine, IT can determine if it is more valuable for vRA automatically deploy that VM in the public cloud on a VMC on AWS service or deploy on premises in the VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail private cloud. The public cloud integration of vRA makes businesses more agile and flexible to align the physical location of where a workload should run based on business needs all while still maintaining control and visibility.

The other areas of hybrid cloud operations include the workload mobility capabilities available through HCX, which allows customers to perform online VM migrations to VMware powered public clouds non-disruptively. This function allows customers to vMotion their virtual machines to the public cloud and back to on premises.

Figure 35.    Building a hybrid cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS and other partner clouds