AWS at VMware Explore US 2023 Recap: 6 Years of Accelerating Digital Transformations

By Bianca Velasco, Product Marketing Manager – AWS

In August 2023, Amazon Web Services (AWS) participated as a Global Diamond Sponsor at VMware Explore US 2023. The four-day event was held in Las Vegas and filled with exciting announcements, insightful sessions, and networking opportunities.

Alongside AWS Partner VMware, the event highlighted our commitment to aiding customers in their digital transformation journey. From the AWS booth to sponsored sessions, our presence at VMware Explore showcased how customers can achieve a faster, safer, and more cost-effective cloud journey with VMware Cloud on AWS.

This post recaps the key highlights at VMware Explore US 2023. Learn about the exciting announcements and access VMware Cloud on AWS sessions on demand.

Newest Enhancements to Accelerate Cloud Transformation

This marked the sixth year of our strategic collaboration with VMware. Since its general availability, VMware Cloud on AWS has helped many customers globally on a faster path to the cloud. The solution has empowered customers to maximize their existing infrastructure and leverage existing skill sets while they capitalize on the power of the cloud.

Learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS in this video.

This year, several significant announcements were unveiled at VMware Explore, and this list outlines the enhancements surrounding VMware Cloud on AWS:

VMware Cloud on AWS: Advanced Subscription Tier

We are excited to introduce the VMware Cloud on AWS: Advanced subscription tier. This new subscription replaces the classic tier, offering an enhanced experience for customers. You can now enjoy the existing benefits from the jointly-engineered compute, network, and storage features of VMware Cloud on AWS, while gaining access to cloud management and security services to accelerate cloud migration.

This new subscription provides customers with access to a comprehensive suite of VMware services, including VMware Aria Automation, Aria Operations, Aria Operations for Logs, a 30-day free trial of Aria Migration, advanced security capabilities such as context-aware microsegmentation (L7 DFW AppID), distributed FQDN allowlisting, user identity-based firewall (IDFW), and NSX+ Policy Management.

All of these services are seamlessly integrated into the VMware Cloud on AWS solution and ready to use. For more information, contact your AWS representative.

Enhancements in Networking

VMware NSX+ is a fully managed software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering for NSX that allows networking, security, and operations teams to consume and operate NSX services from a single cloud console across private, hybrid, and public clouds.

Enhancements in Storage

VMware Cloud on AWS introduced vSAN Express Storage Architecture that delivers enterprise-grade performance without tradeoff, while optimizing storage to reduce cost per capacity. With this launch, VMware Cloud on AWS offers the industry’s first single-tier hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) storage solution, delivering optimized performance, efficiency, high resiliency, and agile operations with next-generation storage devices.

Also announced at VMware Explore, customer software-defined data centers (SDDCs) can now be peered with their FSxN VPC through virtual private cloud (VPC) peering. With this launch, a networking connection between two VPCs can enable customers to route traffic between them using private IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses. Instances in either VPC can communicate with each other as if they are within the same network. See the AWS blog post to learn more.

Enhancement in Disaster and Ransomware Recovery

VMware Ransomware Recovery provides a purpose-built ransomware recovery-as-a-service solution to help organizations recover from ransomware attacks with confidence and agility. This new enhancement helps customers inspect, curate, and recover up to 50 virtual machines (VMs) concurrently for faster recovery and minimized downtime.

Regional Expansion

AWS continues to expand our footprint into regions around the world where customers are requesting our services. With the newest availability in Zurich and Melbourne, VMware Cloud on AWS has expanded to 25 regions.

For a more comprehensive list of announcements, see VMware’s What’s New on VMware Cloud on AWS blog post.

Watch On-Demand VMware Cloud on AWS Sessions

The AWS team hosted nine sponsored sessions comprising of breakouts, tutorials, customer panel, and ask-me-anything roundtables. Click on any of the recorded sessions below to watch on-demand.

AWS Keynote: Accelerate Transformation with VMware Cloud on AWS

Get ready to revolutionize your organization. Watch this keynote to hear from AWS and VMware leaders about leveraging VMware Cloud on AWS for a seamless hybrid cloud solution. This session features collaboration updates, customer stories, and thoughtful insights to drive your business transformation.

Deep Dive Tutorial: Accelerate Migration and Modernization

Enhance your migration and modernization expertise in this tutorial. Delve into effective migration strategies and network architectures, while also mastering AWS services for seamless VMware Cloud migration and workload optimization.

Panel: Successful Transformations with VMware Cloud on AWS

Discover real-world cloud migration success stories in this panel session featuring AWS customers and a partner, highlighting the role of VMware Cloud on AWS in accelerating migrations and driving digital transformation.

Are You Well Architected? Transform VMware Workload Migration with AWS

Get practical insights in this session to ensure a robust, scalable, and cost-effective migration. Learn to assess VMware workloads and design your cloud migration with the AWS Well-Architected Framework.

Using AWS AND VMware Synergy for Developer and DevOps Success

Gain understanding on how to optimize application development and deployment by working with AWS and VMware solutions. In this session, our experts walk through how to enhance Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) capabilities with VMware solutions and how to streamline cloud management. Learn how to seamlessly manage cloud financials and total cost of ownership (TCO) with VMware Aria Cost in the AWS Cloud.

Building Advanced Storage and Network Architectures

Learn to architect a resilient cloud infrastructure and get insights on optimal storage with vSAN, Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP. You’ll also explore efficient networking using AWS Direct Connect, AWS Transit Gateway, and VMware Transit Connect. Master advanced techniques for security, multi-tenancy, and scaling with VMware Cloud on AWS.

Accelerate Data Center Exit with VMware Cloud on AWS for Public Sector

Tailored for the public sector, learn how VMware Cloud on AWS accelerates agency workload migration, modernization, and infrastructure services while meeting FedRAMP and U.S. Department of Defense Impact Level 5 (IL5) authorization. Achieve data center evacuation and cloud migration insights from experts who have completed large-scale projects with other agencies.

AWS and VMware: 6 Years of Joint Innovations and Counting

AWS and VMware remain dedicated to delivering the best of both worlds for customers who want a seamless and integrated hybrid cloud solution.

We thank everyone who visited the AWS booth or joined our sponsored sessions at VMware Explore US 2023.

If you’d like to dive deeper to the newest innovations, check out VMware’s What’s New on VMware Cloud on AWS blog post. For all other sessions on VMware Cloud on AWS, including the sessions hosted by VMware, you can view it on the VMware Video Library.

To learn more how VMware Cloud on AWS can help you a faster, safer, and cost-effective journey to the cloud, visit our website and follow us for new updates: