3 keys to building a VMware hybrid cloud and multicloud strategy

So you’re ready to move your VMware environment to the cloud. Maybe you want to get out of the data center business. Maybe you’re looking for agility and speed to market. Maybe you just have a cloud mandate and need to make your boss happy.

Whatever your reasons, you probably know that the fastest and easiest way to do that is to move from VMware on premises to VMware in the cloud. As we discussed in a previous blog post, VMware and NetApp have partnered to allow more flexible and precise use of cloud compute and storage to reduce costs, while adding enhanced data management and protection capabilities.

Here are three steps to modernizing your VMware environment to take advantage of the cloud.

1. Map your environment. Take stock of what you have, see the interconnections, and identify what you are going migrate to the cloud. NetApp® cloud software gives you visibility into your entire environment, so you can see all the application interdependencies with your infrastructure. Once you know which workloads to move, NetApp’s services partners can help you design, plan, and implement the actual migration.
   
   
2. Enable a consistent architecture from your premises to the cloud. Why is consistency such a big deal? Think about the total cost of moving to the cloud. A big part of the cost is consistency of operations. You could go cloud native, but refactoring is expensive and can take years. According to IDC, it can cost up to $1,000 per virtual machine; a thousand virtual machines could cost $1M to refactor.
   

   In a hybrid and multicloud world, you want a consistent architecture between what you have on premises and what you have in the public cloud so you can more quickly realize the benefits of the cloud. Your longer-term plan may be to refactor your applications off of VMware. And that’s OK. But if you want to get to the cloud and save money doing it, having a consistent architecture across your VMware hybrid cloud and multicloud will enable you to move to the cloud now and refactor at your own pace while saving money by not being in the data center.

3. If you’re moving data-intensive workloads, modernize to the latest version of ONTAP and vSphere. If you’re already a NetApp customer, be sure that you’re on the latest version of ONTAP^® data management software. With the latest versions of VMware vSphere and ONTAP, we have developed new and innovative integrations to help maximize the value of your VMware solutions, including support for NVMe and VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols).
   

   And if you’re running VMware solutions on other storage, moving to NetApp and ONTAP will enable the consistent operational experience that you need to migrate VMware workloads to the cloud. It will also enable you to leverage 20 years of deep integrations between NetApp and VMware to get more value from your VMware environment. When you’re finished, the environment that you’re on will be the environment that you will use in the cloud. Nothing to refactor. Nothing to learn. It’s all about gaining consistency and top performance so that your VMware environment runs better.