AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog
Best Practices from Eviden, an Atos Business, for Migrating to VMware Cloud on AWS
By Tim Carr, Director, Hybrid Portfolio Services – Eviden
By Anil Sharma, Partner Solutions Architect – AWS
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| Eviden |
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VMware Cloud on AWS allows customers to migrate VMware vSphere-based workloads to a VMware-managed software-defined data center (SDDC) running on Amazon Web Services (AWS). With it, customers can extend on-premises data centers without replatforming or refactoring applications.
But what’s the best way to manage migrating to AWS while minimizing disruption and maximizing return on investment?
In this post, you’ll learn about the “Eviden Approach” of addressing cloud migrations to VMware Cloud on AWS, which has been specifically developed and optimized to address complex cloud migrations.
This methodology addresses the whole migration lifecycle—developing a deep understanding of a customer’s IT infrastructure and application landscapes, developing a migration approach tailored to each customer’s unique capabilities and timelines, executing that migration with a minimum of downtime, and potentially even providing post-migration managed services.
Eviden, an Atos business, is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner and AWS Marketplace Seller supporting a global client base by bringing together people, business, and technology. Eviden has five AWS Competencies, including Migration Consulting, and is also a member of the AWS Managed Service Provider (MSP) and AWS Well-Architected Partner Programs.
The Eviden Approach
For the purposes of this post, we’ll talk about applying the “Eviden Approach” (see Figure 1) to a VMware Cloud on AWS migration, which is based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework and covers all project phases—from strategy through execution and even post-migration operations.
Figure 1 – The “Eviden Approach” for VMware Cloud on AWS migrations.
The high-level phases of the “Eviden Approach” includes:
VMware on AWS Cloud Smart Proposal
After Eviden’s first contact with you, the team will provide a high-level initial migration proposal and initial migration plan to move your target infrastructure and application landscape to AWS using tested and flexible methodology. This plan combines the intelligence of VMware Cloud on AWS with the flexibility and rapid scalability of a broad range of AWS-native services.
VMware on AWS Cloud Smart Assessment
Once the proposal is accepted, Eviden develops a detailed migration plan to match the customer’s needs. This includes:
- Developing a deep understanding of a company’s specific strategy (or helping you develop one) for both the overall AWS cloud landscape and the specific use of VMware Cloud on AWS. This is accomplished through one or more discovery workshop meetings, depending on the size and complexity of the migration.
- Performing a landscape discovery and application assessment of your infrastructure using Eviden’s proprietary Cloudamize Suite. This is a patented app-centric analytics platform that provides data analysis and recommendations through its own discovery analysis, as well as for the ingestion of existing data sources to speed and simplify AWS assessment and planning.
VMware on AWS Cloud Smart Migration
Eviden engineers and consultants will carry out the migration seamlessly and with minimum downtime. This is accomplished through several steps:
- Design and implementation of the VMware Cloud on AWS landing zone environment, including connectivity to your current network and VMware infrastructure. Eviden ensures your new cloud infrastructure is flexible and scalable enough to grow and evolve with changing business needs over time.
- Optionally conducting a lighthouse (proof of concept) migration of one or more servers to provide your company with confidence in the new solution and minimize unforeseen issues.
- Fully-automated migration of your target landscape using a variety of tools, including TDS TransitionManager and VMware HCX. Using TransitionManager, you can see every asset across your hybrid landscape in visual, interactive maps while tracking dependencies, spotting potential conflicts, identifying rogue assets, and unraveling complexity so migration plan changes can be made with confidence. It also applies business rules to transform your data and align outcomes with strategic business goals. The result is an execution with precision, at scale, while virtually eliminating risk. This automated migration approach, combined with VMware’s HCX migration technology, provides a 30% or more improvement over standard manual migration methods.
- During and after the cutover event, Eviden monitors the environment in a HyperCare (under migration team responsibility) period to verify no adverse impacts have resulted from the change.
VMware on AWS Cloud Managed Services (Optional)
Once migration to VMware Cloud on AWS has begun, Eviden offers the choice of transferring the support and operation of your new infrastructure and application landscape to Eviden. This approach typically results in a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers while providing higher overall uptime, backed by service-level agreements (SLAs).
Eviden currently provides this service to thousands of customers worldwide using a combination of ITIL-based delivery and architecture standards, right-shoring, and decades of experience.
Why Companies Move to VMware Cloud on AWS
There are a variety of business objectives accomplished to moving to VMware Cloud on AWS, including:
- Extending your data center: Leverage the scale, performance, and capacity of the AWS global infrastructure on-premises and in the cloud to meet your business needs.
- Simplifying disaster recovery solutions: Leverage proven VMware disaster recovery technologies and the speed of AWS to protect your virtual machines, stress-free.
- Migrating and scaling rapidly to the cloud: Using the tools and skills your IT team uses today, simplify and accelerate the migration of mission-critical production workloads to AWS.
- Building next-generation applications: Increase the value of your enterprise applications by leveraging over 200 AWS services to modernize existing applications or building new ones.
Conclusion
The “Eviden Approach” to VMware Cloud on AWS migration helps customers to:
- Identify and plug any infrastructure gaps that may prevent a successful migration, cause system instability, or reduce return on investment (ROI).
- Check workload suitability to ensure workloads are suitable for migration and optimized for VMware Cloud on AWS before migration takes place.
- Implement disaster recovery, with SLAs tailored to your business goals and customer needs.
- Enable workload mobility by designing and implementing an environment that allows you to move workloads between cloud instances.
- Increase uptime with a cost-effective, agile, and resilient fail-over strategy.
Working with Eviden is a quick and robust way to migrate to VMware Cloud on AWS and reduce risk, complexity, and overhead.
Get in touch with Eviden to find out how it can help you with a tailored migration to VMware Cloud on AWS. You can also learn more about Eviden in AWS Marketplace.
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Eviden – AWS Partner Spotlight
Eviden is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner and leading independent multi-cloud services company specializing in AWS cloud architecture, security, and resiliency.