How to Best Migrate from VMware to AWS

Broadcom's acquisition of VMware and recent usage changes has caused enterprises to reassess their virtualization and infrastructure strategies and consider migrating their VMware environments to cloud-native environments like AWS.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise once you consider that VMware prices have increased by up to a whopping 1,200% for some customers while the quality of support that customers receive continues to decline. Broadcom's acquisition has also severed VMware's partnership with Amazon for AWS Cloud, resulting in VMware Cloud no longer being resold by AWS or its partners. In other words, AWS has drawn a line in the sand on behalf of its customers.

As a result, many organizations are considering migrating their VMware environment to AWS as part of a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategy, combining both on-premise infrastructures with cloud environments.

Migrating from VMware to AWS offers three main advantages:

1) Agility and Scalability:

AWS offers on-demand scalability, allowing organizations to quickly adjust their resources to match workload requirements. This elasticity is harder to achieve with on-premises VMware infrastructure, which often requires purchasing and installing additional hardware.

Moreover, AWS uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which means organizations only pay for the resources they use. This not only allows SMBs to scale accordingly but can also significantly reduce costs compared to the upfront capital expenditures required for VMware’s on-premises infrastructure.

2) Cost Savings:

In addition to the cost-savings that come with AWS’ pay-as-you-go model, AWS manages the underlying hardware and infrastructure, reducing the need for in-house IT staff to maintain and upgrade servers, storage, and networking equipment. Additionally, AWS provides tools like AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Trusted Advisor to help organizations optimize their resource usage and costs. This ensures that they are not over-provisioning or paying for unused resources.

3) Security and Compliance:

Security and compliance remain paramount concerns for enterprises, especially in highly regulated industries. Of course, AWS’ reputation provides enterprises with a level of visibility and confidence that they often don’t find elsewhere.

Moreover, AWS's ability to build security into the core of its cloud infrastructure and offer foundational services to help organizations meet their unique security requirements in the cloud has proven incredibly valuable for resource-tight companies.

Navigating VMware Migration to Amazon EC2

Amazon Web Services is now the world’s largest cloud service provider. However, despite the extensive and comprehensive portfolio of migration tools that come with AWS, enterprises will most likely require a third-party solution such as Wanclouds that can offer multi-cloud migrations as a service that is not only efficient, but compliments the robust service that AWS provides. Additionally, moving on-premises VMware workloads to Amazon EC2 offers substantial benefits such as enhanced scalability, better performance, and lower operational costs.

Removing Barriers with a Simple Approach

At the heart of Wanclouds’ approach is our SaaS application called VPC+, which enables seamless and hassle-free migrations, disaster recovery, visibility, and compliance. It helps enterprises achieve key outcomes most efficiently and cost-effectively by eliminating the need to learn dozens of tools, complex scripting, and expensive consulting engagements.

However, while tool fatigue is undoubtedly a barrier to a seamless transition, having the right tools can mean the difference between a simple cloud migration and a complicated cloud migration.

As such, our customers have come to appreciate having a multi-cloud infrastructure backup and multiple accounts under a single pane of glass, as well as the ability to restore environments across different regions or set up VPCs in other clouds. Additionally, customers can schedule backups anytime for VPCs, network functions, Kubernetes deployments, data, and more.

Modernize and Diversify Disaster Recovery

Even if you are not using the cloud today, Wanclouds solution provides several benefits and makes it easy to adopt AWS. It allows users to take advantage of cloud-native features and be ready to restore their infrastructure and workloads in a non-VMware public cloud environment. The additional choice and flexibility enable you to either maintain both VMware and cloud environments or completely exit VMware and fully transform to an AWS environment.

Migrating VMware Virtual Machines to AWS with Wanclouds: A Step-by-Step Guide

Migrating your VMware virtual machines (VMs) to AWS can significantly enhance your infrastructure's flexibility and scalability, while giving you back the AWS support you need!

This guide provides detailed instructions to migrate to AWS using Wanclouds' migration solution on the VPC+ platform to ensure a smooth transition. By following these steps, you'll ensure a seamless transition of your VMware workloads to the AWS, leveraging the full benefits of cloud computing.

Step 1: Accessing VPC+ and Navigating to VMware and Data Migrations

Start by logging into the VPC+ platform with your credentials. Once logged in, navigate to the "VMware and Data Migrations" tiles on the left side of your screen.

Step 2: Setting Up the Migrator

In the Migrator section, follow the instructions provided by Wanclouds on the VPC+ application to set up your migrator. Once the setup is complete, you will see the migrator displayed as "wc-vmware-migrator."

Step 3: Initiating the Migration Process

Head to the "Migrations" section and click on the "Get Started" button. Under the VMware section, choose the "VMware to Cloud" option and click "Next" to proceed to the migration form.

Step 4: Filling the Migration Form

Complete the migration to AWS form by entering your VMware credentials, AWS credentials, region, and storage instance details. After filling out the form, click "Create" to initiate the migration process.

Step 5: Managing Migration Objects

After clicking "Create," an object for VMware migration will be generated and listed. Click on "Discover VMs" to identify all VMware machines ready for migration.

Step 6: Selecting VMs for Migration

Once the discovery process is complete, select the VMs you want to migrate to the AWS cloud. Ensure that the VMs are powered off; if a VM is running, shut it down and repeat the steps.

Step 7: Initiating the Migration Process

Select the VMs and click on "Migrate" to begin the migration. The migrator will create snapshots of the VMs and convert them to a format compatible with AWS during the "Prepare" phase. In the "Migrate" phase, these snapshots will be transferred to the target cloud, and bootable images will be created.

Step 8: Verifying Migration Details

Once the migration to AWS is complete, review the details of the migrated VMs listed. Carefully check these details before proceeding to create new servers on the target cloud.

Step 9: Creating New Servers on the Target Cloud

To conclude you can fill out the VM creation form with accurate details. After completing the form, click "Create" to verify the details and create new VMs on AWS.

Reach out to Wanclouds today to unlock the best and most cost-effective way to migrate from VMware to AWS.