Google Cloud VMWare Engine

Is your on-premise VMware deployment feeling the strain of increasing demands? Are you looking to modernize your existing applications? Are you seeking a secure, scalable, cost-effective solution for your virtualized infrastructure? Are you a nonprofit organization, a small and medium-sized business, or a government agency?

Are Broadcom’s changes after the acquisition affecting you? Is it price increases? Can you still use the products that were creating value for your business? Is it time to reevaluate your commitment to VMWare?

Let’s see some of the use cases for choosing GCVE:

1. Retire or migrate data centers

By doing that you will reduce the load on your IT Department as they will no longer have to plan for hardware refreshes. The skillset of your staff will still be relevant while you have the opportunity to plan for modernization using google cloud services.

2. Expand on demand

Does your next surge warrant you buying servers that will only used for one season? Do you want to rent conveniently instead?

3. Disaster Recovery and Virtual Desktops on Google Cloud

Create a Disaster Recovery Plan in GCVE. Instead of having everything on-premise, create part of your environment in Google Cloud, giving you the ability to transition fully in case of a disaster. Backup your Virtual desktops in the cloud, ensuring business continuity in case of a disaster.

4. Power high-performance applications and databases

Do you have an application that is growing faster than expected? Do you have enough capital to maintain that growth? Do you prefer to transition from a Capex model to an Opex model?

Moving to GCVE lets you plan subsequent migrations to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) at your own pace. The case for GCP is Artificial Intelligence (AI) if you are concerned about your competitor taking advantage of AI before you. Moving your VMWare infrastructure to the cloud will allow you to take advantage of AI and/or move smoothly to GCP completely.

We understand the complexities of moving your critical workloads to the cloud. We offer a comprehensive approach that minimizes downtime and ensures a smooth transition.

Understanding the high-level Migration Process

Migrating your VMware deployment to GCVE involves several key steps:

1. 1. Establishing a Secure Connection:

• Cloud VPN:?A site-to-site VPN connects your on-premises network to your Google Cloud project, offering a secure tunnel for data transfer. It is a standard option for initial connectivity. Each VPN tunnel supports between 1Gbps and 3Gbps.
• Cloud Interconnect:?For higher bandwidth and lower latency requirements, Cloud Interconnect connects your on-premises environment to your Google Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). It comes in two flavors, depending on your bandwidth needs.
• Partner Interconnect: You can establish the connection using one of Google Cloud Partners. It supports bandwidth from 50 Mbps to a maximum of 10 Gbps.
• Dedicated Interconnect:?This option offers the highest bandwidth and lowest latency for mission-critical applications, establishing a direct connection between your network and Google Cloud. A dedicated interconnect can be a 10 Gbps or 100 Gbps connection. The maximum number of connections for 10 Gbps is eight, and for 100 Gbps, it is two, making the maximum bandwidth for a dedicated interconnect 200 Gbps.

1. 2. Configuring Cloud DNS:

After establishing communication between your on-premises environment and your VPC, you need to configure cloud DNS. Make sure that your on-premise DNS can forward requests to the cloud DNS. After this configuration, resources on Google Cloud will be available to resources on-premise.

1. 3. Deploying the GCVE Environment:

Google Cloud provisions a fully managed VMware environment within your Google Cloud project, including vCenter, NSX, and HCX. This dedicated environment provides familiar VMware tools and interfaces, minimizing your IT team’s learning curve.

VMWare Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) helps migrate resources between vSphere environments. HCX solves many business problems, including migrating from on-premise to the cloud. Follow this link for detailed information about HCX and the business cases it addresses.

1. 4. VPC Peering

After deploying the GCVE environment, you must connect with your Virtual Private Cloud. You are connecting the VPC of the GCVE environment to one or more of your other VPCs. For resources in GCVE and your VPC to be discoverable, GCVE management zone cross-project binding happens automatically. Because the DNS in your VPC and the one in your GCVE are talking, resources on-premise can find resources in GCVE since we already established the connection between the on-premise DNS and the VPC DNS was already established.

1. 5. HCX Connector

With the HCX Connector OVA, you will deploy a virtual machine to establish a connection between your on-premise and GCVE environments. Remember that Google deploys the HCX cloud when you create the GCVE environment.

1. 6. HCX L2 Stretch

Moving a VM while maintaining the same IP address is more manageable. The obvious advantage is that the VM can continue to fulfill its role in the infrastructure without service interruption while migrating. See how to stretch a network when moving to GCVE. Any stretch network will need to be unstretched to complete the Migration. Moving a network from on-premise to GCVE implies that network engineers must advertise the network from GCVE back to the on-premise resources. The network will be unstretched after the transfer of the Virtual Machines.

1. 7. Seamless Transfer of Virtual Machines:

• Cold Migration:?Files for VMs are copied to the GCVE environment, resulting in a short downtime during the switchover between the on-remise virtual machine and the GCVE virtual machine.
• Live Migration (vMotion):?This preferred method allows VMs to be migrated with zero downtime, ensuring continuous operation of your critical applications.

After the Migration, we will leverage HCX mobility-optimized networking. This technology allows your VMs to prevent latency caused by transiting through the on-premise network.

1. 8. Connecting to Google Services:

Once migrated, your GCVE environment can easily access a wide range of Google Cloud services through Peering. Some of the services that can help enhance your infrastructure include cloud storage and backup tools.

After completing the migration to GCVE you can add capabilities to your environment:

• Backup and Disaster Recovery

This section is divided in various solutions for workload backups including Cohesity, Dell EMC, Veeam, Commvault and Rubrik and some solutions for disaster recovery using VMWare SRM and Zerto.

• Data Management

You can add virtual trusted platforms module to your existing Virtual Machines in GCVE. You also have the option to use vSAN encryption with the default google solution in GCVE which is Cloud Key Management Service free of charge or you can use an external service of your choice from the supported vendors which are CipherTrust Manager, Fortanix and Hytrust KeyControl.

In Google Cloud you will have access to different providers of workload volumes including NetApp Volumes and Dell PowerScale. You have different solutions for Network File Systems also which are NetApp Volume and FileStore.

• Application architectures

For your application architecture you can use either Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) or VMWare Cloud Director Service.

• Operations Management

In GCVE you can configure VMWare Aria Automation and VMWare Aria Operations Manager.

• Google Cloud Services

Now that you are in Google Cloud you will have access to a number of relevant services like Cloud Storage, Cloud Monitoring, BigQuery and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). Cloud Storage will allow you to either export data from your VMs or as a target to store data. With Cloud Monitoring you will be able to efficiently manage your applications. BigQuery will allow you to export from your databases for analytics. GKE can be used to containerize your existing applications or to create new modern applications.

Benefits of Migrating to GCVE:

• Scalability:?Easily scale your resources up or down based on demand, ensuring optimal application performance.
• Cost Efficiency:?Leverage Google Cloud’s competitive pricing models and pay-as-you-go structure to reduce capital expenditure and optimize operational costs.
• Enhanced Security:?Your company will benefit from Google Cloud’s robust security infrastructure, including advanced security monitoring, threat detection, and data encryption, to safeguard your valuable data.
• Simplified Management:?Google Cloud handles the underlying infrastructure management, allowing your IT team to focus on core business objectives.
• Modernization: With Google Cloud’s extensive product lists, you can modernize your existing applications to create more value.
• Tools: Your team will continue to use the tools they have been using.

This article was first published by clairservices.com