VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts is a jointly-engineered solution that delivers VMware Cloud on AWS as a fully managed experience to virtually any datacenter, co-location space, or on-premises facility with AWS Outposts. It runs VMware’s enterprise-class Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) on dedicated AWS Nitro System-based EC2 bare metal Outposts instances. It is optimized for VMware workloads with low latency, data residency, or local data processing requirements.
VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts simplifies IT operations. AWS delivers and installs the Outpost at your on-premises location, monitors, patches, and updates it, and handles all maintenance and replacement of the hardware. VMware provides continuous lifecycle management of VMware SDDC and serves as your first line of support.
VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts share the same infrastructure, architecture, and operations, offering a truly consistent hybrid experience. With optimized access to over 200 AWS services, VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts empowers you to innovate faster wherever your workloads need to be deployed.
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Use cases
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Industry Examples
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Use cases
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Low-latency compute
Some VMware workloads on premises are sensitive to latency and variability in latency, such as applications running on factory floors for automated operations in manufacturing, medical imaging and diagnostics, high-frequency trading, and school applications or media content concurrently accessed by hundreds of thousands of users. VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts allows you to run applications where you need them to be to meet latency requirements.
Local data processing
Data intensive on-premises VMware workloads can collect and process hundreds of terabytes of data a day. Frequent transmission of this large volume of data to AWS Regions over long-distance Internet connections can be challenging due to cost, size, or bandwidth constraints. VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts allows you to process data closer to where the data is generated while keeping data lakes and ML training in AWS Regions.
Data residency
Certain VMware workloads need to remain in a particular country, state, or municipality for regulatory, contractual, or information security reasons, as is often the case for public sector or highly-regulated industries such as healthcare and financial services. With VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts, you can shorten your infrastructure procurement cycle and rapidly deploy production ready instances of your applications in approved locations with minimal application changes.
Migration & modernization
In a cloud migration journey, it can be challenging to migrate VMware-based applications that require low-latency access to on-premises compute and storage systems to the AWS Regions. In application and infrastructure modernization projects, IT admins are often required to consolidate multiple data centers or leverage a hardware or VMware vSphere refresh to modernize infrastructure. For these scenarios, VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts accelerates the adoption of a unified cloud operating model on premises while providing optimized access to over 200 AWS services for application modernization.
Disaster recovery
Self-managing a disaster recovery (DR) site requires significant planning and investment. VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts simplify disaster recovery and enhance business continuity wherever your workloads need to failover to, without the overhead of managing DR sites. You can easily implement a DR plan using VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts as a target to meet data residency or low latency requirements, or using VMware Cloud on AWS as a target to take advantage of the scalability and cost benefits of AWS Global Infrastructure, both with the same tools and processes.
Test and development
To meet the needs of short-term projects or test and development environments for modern applications, you can rapidly spin up a test environment with VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts and access over 200 native AWS services before moving to AWS Regions for production deployment. Build and test applications on the same infrastructure as VMware Cloud on AWS in AWS Regions.
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Industry Examples
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Healthcare & life science
Improve patient and caregiver experience by developing modern healthcare applications with analytics and machine learning AWS services. Use Outposts to rapidly deploy these applications at hospital sites for low-latency access to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) retained locally in VMware environments.
Government
Use AWS services to build new application capabilities that improve quality of public service and citizen experience. Empower global operations and tactical edge deployments by integrating these new capabilities with sensitive government or user information in VMware environments that need to stay within the boundary of a country, state, or municipality to meet regulatory or compliance requirements.
Manufacturing
Keep VMware-based manufacturing process control systems and applications close to factory floor equipment with Outposts for real-time monitoring and quick response to defects or failures. Integrate with AWS services in the Regions for centralized operations and ML training.
Financial services
Run latency-sensitive high frequency trading and exchange platforms near the trading floor with Outposts. Augment digital financial services experience with new capabilities using AWS services while storing Personal Identifiable Information (PII) locally in VMware environments with Outposts to meet data locality requirements.
Education
Easily deploy Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or other VMware-based educational applications on premises with Outposts to enable low-latency concurrent access by tens of thousands of students and faculty members. Deliver high-quality user experience for interactive educational applications running in VMware environments.
Telecommunications
Use VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts to centralize and simplify operations and management of VMware-based Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that are distributed in cell towers, where full-time IT support can be limited or non-existent.
Benefits
Simplified IT operations
Use familiar VMware compute, storage, and networking technologies without the burden of installing, monitoring, patching, or updating IT infrastructure. Benefit from a fully managed service on premises that makes it easy to order, deploy, and scale infrastructure as needed, resulting in reduced time and resources required for managing IT infrastructure and increased IT productivity.
Consistency across AWS Regions and on premises
VMware vCenter spans across on-premises locations and AWS Regions, providing a unified control plane across environments. Live migrate existing VMware workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts with no application changes or downtime. Continue using a rich set of proven enterprise capabilities in VMware SDDC.
Access to the latest cloud innovations
Workloads running on VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts have seamless access to over 200 native AWS services in AWS Regions, such as services for AI/ML, analytics, and containers.
Highly performant infrastructure with enhanced security
VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts is built on the AWS Nitro System, the same highly performant and secure platform that powers VMware Cloud on AWS and modern Amazon EC2 instances. AWS monitors, updates, patches, and handles all maintenance and replacement of hardware for VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts as part of its global infrastructure, enabling a consistent operating and security model wherever your VMware workloads reside.
How it works
Resources
October 5, 2021
