We are a service integrator. For example, a customer might have a roadmap to migrate to the cloud and want to have a single cloud management platform to manage their virtual machines on both public and private clouds. They need a CMP layer. There are multiple tools that we use for this. For example, we use VMware vSphere for virtualization and automation.
I also use other products, such as IBM, which is a multi-cloud management platform for managing workloads running on public clouds (Azure, AWS, and GCP) and on-premises VMware vSphere virtualized environments. So, I use VMware products, such as vSAN and VMware, for virtualization and software.
VMware as a product, has existed for so many years, more than a decade. Now as we move to the public cloud world, we are seeing the acceptability of VMware on the public cloud as well.
So we have Azure VMware solution as well as we have VMware running on AWS cloud as well, these days.
There is an area of improvement. For example, you are migrating from a customer's existing data center to a new target data center. To facilitate this transition, you'll initially need to evaluate the customer's aging hardware hosting VMware, which is nearing the end of its operational life. The customer expresses the intention to upgrade to a newer version, necessitating an overhaul of everything in the new data center. As a Systems Integrator (SI), consultant, or architect, your recommendation would be to acquire the latest hardware with a specified configuration and then install VMware on top of it.
However, there's a crucial aspect related to the infrastructure requirements for VMware to run seamlessly on that hardware. If there's an opportunity to potentially reduce these infrastructure prerequisites, it would be highly beneficial. This is because a higher number of VMware licenses requires more infrastructure capacity from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) or Colocation partners.
Consequently, when discussing the operation of this virtualized environment from VMware over a contractual period of five years, the overall cost to the customer is influenced by the infrastructure requirements. If there's a feasible way to decrease these prerequisites for the infrastructure supporting the virtualization layer, it would be advantageous in terms of cost for the customer.
Any customer in today's world exists or wants to exist in a hybrid model, so in future releases, we would like to see this. So, going forward, if this virtualized environment would exist, it has to be a combination of on-premise plus public cloud Azure/AWS.
It should be more seamless when your interface or when you are interacting with workloads running on-premise VMware/AWS VMware. So it is only there in some capacity and space, and I'm aware of it. And Azure and VMware already have a tie-up on the same lines, but at the same time, if it is more seamless, if it is more interchangeable, if you could move your workloads, or if you can access your workloads or your virtual machines irrespective of whatever platform it is running, whether it is on-premises, or cloud or public cloud, it'll be a lot more comfortable for a user than the user to consume that infrastructure. Firstly, it needs to have a combination of deployment and be more seamless for the customers.
Secondly, more software-defined features, more in terms of managing the infrastructure pool in a software-defined way. Managing the infrastructure pool in a more optimized fashion is going to be the key in the upcoming times.
It's not just on-premise, but at the same time, it should also be the public cloud as well. Probably because when I meet my customers, this is one thing that I always tell them. I have seen people moving from on-premise public cloud only to realize at the end of the month that they end up paying a higher bill compared to what they were paying when they were running their business on-premise. The reason is that they do not understand or do not realize the full potential of the public cloud, and the way it should be consumed, the way it should be used, and the way it should be scheduled to ensure that the billing at the end of the month is very optimal. You pay for what exactly you need, not everything that you have from the cloud. That's not a way to use the cloud, whether it is on-premise or from the cloud.
For example, an enterprise has over 100 applications. Out of that 100 applications, only 25 applications are running the production instances, and the remaining 75 are running non-production instances. It can be a development environment, a test environment, a sandbox, etc. In this case, you need to run only the 25 applications on the public cloud 24/7. You do not need to run your remaining 75 applications 24/7. Because, eventually, your developers, testers, quality managers, and whoever will use the non-production environment only when they're in the office and working on those applications. Then why do we need to have those applications, which are non-production in nature, lower environments? So we're running on the public cloud all the time because, for a cloud provider, it is a virtual machine; whether you are consuming it for production work or non-production work, it is going to charge you the same bill.
And if you are not optimizing, if you're not scheduling workloads, you are actually wasting money. You're wasting your money, and your bills, which you are going to pay with the public cloud provider provided, are going to be bad. It's going to be crazy. And then customers do not know what to do in this situation. And you cannot fight with the public cloud provider because they would say, "I had given you all the possibilities, all the opportunities to learn about it, the way you should be functioning it, the way you should be utilizing it. If you are not using it the way it should be used, That's not my problem."
I've been using it for quite some time, around six years. We use the latest version of the solution.
The stability is good. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.
The customer service and support have been really good.
I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. It is straightforward. It's not that difficult. For anyone who was using this product for the first time, they need to go through the manual. I understand the dos and don'ts of it. But as an admin, if you have an experience of doing it, it's not it's not that difficult. It's easy to use.
Our customers require moving to public cloud adoption while upgrading their existing virtualized environment. There can be multiple use case scenarios based on which this decision can be made. The first could be if any workloads, servers, or applications are making the journey directly to the public cloud, and if it's a re-host candidate, then it has its own treatment plan. But the ones that stay on-premise have to have the workloads running on the latest VMware vSphere version for obvious reasons.
The recommendation, as an SI to the end customer, would be to go ahead and upgrade the VMware vSphere version to the latest 7.0 if you are not there yet.
However, it depends on multiple other factors. For example, you may be able to recommend that, but the servers/applications sitting on top of it should be able to support that as well. If that's not the case, then you'll have to make those delta changes in your servers/applications to ensure they support the upgraded underlying virtualized layer
I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, where one is low price and ten is high price.
This is another area of improvement. The price can be more competitive. I resell to the end customer. So, if I am reselling a product and cannot put my margin comfortably on top of what I get from VMware. It becomes really difficult for me. So, I have to really squeeze my margin.
VMware is a leader in the market in terms of virtualization, so I would definitely recommend using this solution.
Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.