Extending VMware SDDC to Google Cloud: Introducing Google Cloud VMware Engine

Google made significant advancements in accelerating the cloud journey for VMware-centric customers through their acquisition of CloudSimple in the fall of 2019. The CloudSimple investment has enabled organizations to extend their existing VMware Software Defined Data Centers (SDDCs) and run vSphere workloads natively within Google Cloud. Today, Google Cloud continues to build upon these capabilities with the announcement of Google Cloud VMware Engine . The offering is a first-party solution, providing a single support methodology for customers running applications within VMware Cloud Foundation on Google Cloud.

Hybrid cloud with Google Cloud VMware Engine

As customers continue to evaluate their cloud adoption strategies, one of the biggest points of consideration is how to best integrate with existing, on-premises infrastructure. Many organizations are hoping to preserve applications while assessing the benefits of cloud computing to their lines of business. Google Cloud VMware Engine helps implement a hybrid cloud approach, allowing customers to maintain the current construct of their vSphere-based workloads while realizing the inherent benefits associated with consuming cloud infrastructure. These benefits include simplified integration with Google Cloud native services, such as BigQuery and Google Cloud Operations (formerly Stackdriver), to deliver analytics and monitoring capabilities beyond those available on-premise. Access to tools like these will help organizations modernize the capabilities of their traditional applications, increasing their long-term business agility and helping them meet their organization's evolving needs. 

With this solution, customers can establish connectivity from their existing VMware environment directly to Google Cloud. In doing so, customers recognize the benefits of cloud computing (scale, availability, performance, accessibility) while maintaining familiarity with the administrative tools well-known to their operational teams. Unified management across cloud environments simplifies overall operations and reduces the learning curve often associated with new platforms. Eliminating the need to source hardware facilitates rapid response times to sudden demands. The inverse is also recognized with the ability to automatically reduce consumption, and in turn costs, during periods of lower resource usage. 

The partnership between Google Cloud and VMware to deliver a cohesive cloud solution provides well-tested methodologies for customers to continue on their path to the cloud. The integration between data centers provides seamless operational continuity and strengthens the ability for business to pivot rapidly. Reducing the overhead with cloud migrations allows for greater focus on tasks that help capitalize on desired business outcomes, resulting in a sustained competitive advantage for businesses alike. 

Use cases

There are a variety of questions that arise when exploring cloud solutions, and understanding where a hybrid cloud strategy fits into the picture can lead to unintended complexities. How will the separate cloud environments be managed? How will workloads be migrated, and will this process be seamless? Fortunately, Google Cloud VMware Engine addresses the majority of these considerations upfront.

We worked alongside Google Cloud and VMware to identify specific use cases for organizations to target when analyzing their approach.

Hybrid Cloud and Data Center Expansion Extending existing infrastructure to Google Cloud enables the consumption of resources in a dynamic, highly scalable manner. Google Cloud VMware Engine can be utilized to augment data center refreshes or serve as a permanent workload destination for organizations retiring an on-premises data center.

Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) Google Cloud VMware Engine provides organizations with a cloud-based failover site and simplifies the strategies and administrative tasks related to managing a DR plan. In addition to VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), current business continuity measures can be extended to Google Cloud with support for third-party solutions such as Veeam, Zerto, Cohesity, NetApp and Dell. 

Application Modernization Customers can connect legacy applications with cloud-native services to generate advanced business insights that would traditionally be unavailable to these workloads. The value derived from securely sharing traditional application data with intensive analytics engines provides comprehensive understanding allowing businesses to make beneficial decisions in real time. 

Cloud-based Virtual Desktops Organizations with existing VMware Horizon environments can expand these environments to Google Cloud or deploy a net-new Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) within Google Cloud VMware Engine for a fully cloud-based desktop solution. The intrinsic elasticity allows businesses to burst desktop instances on-demand, providing a digital workspace at scale.

Hands-on experience testing and delivering VMware and multicloud solutions

We have extensive experience within the VMware ecosystem and subject matter experts for all components that comprise VMware Cloud Foundation. When combined with the capabilities of our multicloud platform architects, we can deliver holistic solutions optimized for all on-premises and cloud-oriented objectives affiliated with a hybrid cloud implementation.

Our Advanced Technology Center (ATC) allows us to test these solutions in controlled lab environments. Within the ATC, we record project outcomes in environments that mimic that of the customer. We perform very complex proofs of concept and proofs of value for cloud and data center solutions, allowing for testing and modifications in a controlled environment prior to rolling out new initiatives across our customers' organizations.  

Our ability to validate and demonstrate bleeding-edge solutions stems from our partnerships across the industry. Whether working directly with Google Cloud to mesh an Anthos deployment with Google Cloud VMware Engine for continued app modernization, or testing third-party integrations with NetApp Cloud Volumes, we are experienced in architecting and deploying complete solutions.

Reach out to your WWT Account Manager to learn more about our multicloud capabilities and services. 

Consideration points

As Google Cloud continues to release information surrounding Google Cloud VMware Engine, we are here to help customers evaluate how this offering fits into their cloud strategy. Below are some immediate considerations from today's release.

• Accelerate the overall migration process and simplify the overhead in moving workloads to the cloud.
• Google Cloud VMware Engine is a first-party solution and thus provides a single-support model. All requests are handled in combination by Google Cloud for simplified troubleshooting.
• Elevated access to management tools, such as vCenter, is permitted, and support for third-party plug-ins is available day-one.
• The solution will be generally available in June 2020 (US-East & US-West), and eight other regions will be rolled out over the course of the year.
• Many advantages of Google Cloud (per-second billing, automatic discounts) apply to the offering.
• Ease of integration with native Google Cloud services helps modernize applications and enhances existing workloads beyond traditional capabilities on-prem.