Cloud becoming vital for VMware modernization

Since the Broadcom acquisition of VMware, 72% of organizations have reported a cost increase in their hypervisor environment due to changes in their provider's licensing model.

In response, businesses explored multiple options to mitigate these cost increases. Recent research by Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia, a division of Informa TechTarget, can shed light on the more popular response strategies. Most businesses have landed on a multiprong approach. IT leaders have chosen strategies that encompass a combination of increasing virtualization budgets (45%), modernizing applications to operate in container-based environments (39%) and shifting workloads to an alternative hypervisor (29%).

In addition to these options, 46% of organizations that experienced a price increase tied to their hypervisor environment said they plan to accelerate their public cloud strategy. The popularity of accelerating public cloud adoption for an organization's virtualized application environment suggests that it is likely a core strategic component that complements one of the other options.

Public cloud-based modernization of on-premises virtualization environments offers an option to retain the VMware experience while still optimizing costs. Modernization can reduce the burden on on-premises data center infrastructure and operations. The ability to ensure consistency of experience can also help accelerate digital operations, reduce the personnel burden and reduce business risk.

According to Enterprise Strategy Group research, 84% of IT decision-makers agree that consistency of experience across data centers and cloud environments delivers significant operational benefits. Larger users often have already made considerable investments into internal tools, automation and processes based on VMware technology. These extended virtual ecosystem elements can add additional risk to switching the technology.

There is another effort launching to simplify the path to cloud adoption for on-premises VMware environments. Earlier this month, AWS announced the general availability of Amazon Elastic VMware Service (EVS) for running VMware Cloud Foundation within Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) environments. Amazon EVS enables organizations to use existing VMware tools without having to rearchitect applications or change established practices.

AWS also enables organizations to use third-party storage and data protection options to better protect and support the needs of VMs. Supported third-party storage and protection options include Amazon FSx for NetApp Ontap, Pure Cloud Block Store and Veeam Backup and Replication. The Amazon EVS local instance will continue to reside on VMware vSAN, and the third-party offerings will provide options for scaling capacity.

AWS is not alone. Microsoft Azure offers its Azure VMware Solution, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers Google Cloud VMware Engine with VMware Cloud Foundation. Both services also offer simplified migration of on-premises VMware environments, along with the usage of third-party storage and data protection technologies. AWS' announcement builds on an already capable market of public cloud service options for organizations to evaluate.

It is important for IT decision-makers to recognize that most organizations are taking a multiprong approach to mitigate cost increases, with public cloud adoption being one option. Research shows that the average stakeholder chooses more than three options when asked how they plan to respond to increased hypervisor costs.

A multiprong approach can offer choice. Organizations will likely continue to experience more diversity of application virtualization platform environments in the near term, as the field of alternatives continues to grow with providers such as HPE, Microsoft, Nutanix, Red Hat and Verge.io.

Increased diversity could improve organizational flexibility, but at the expense of complexity. Increased complexity will warrant taking a measured approach. Stakeholders will modernize applications and embrace alternatives where viable, while simultaneously accelerating cloud adoption to retain the experiential benefits of their existing tools.

Here is where advanced public cloud options -- such as those from AWS, Azure and GCP -- can help. Businesses can retain a familiar experience, tool set and capabilities, while integrating the added advantages of the public cloud to reduce the overall IT administrative burden. In this manner, organizations can free up cycles for the business to embrace alternatives where it makes the most sense.

Scott Sinclair is practice director with Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia, covering the storage industry.

Enterprise Strategy Group is part of Omdia, a division of Informa TechTarget. Its analysts have business relationships with technology providers.