Author: Robert Campbell, Sr. Global Partner Solution Architect
Contributors: Prasad Kalpurekkal
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and VMware are working together to run VMware Cloud Foundation with HPE Synergy composable infrastructure beyond the data center. Now, with VMware Cloud Foundation, you can build applications with private cloud data center infrastructure and migrate those workloads to public cloud. Likewise, you can also develop apps in public cloud and migrate back to private cloud. VMworld 2019 will highlight many new technologies addressing key requirements for Hybrid Cloud, including the latest set of solutions being delivered by both HPE and VMware which will be the subject of this blog post.
Here’s Why You Should Care
Hybrid Cloud is addressing real world use cases, so HPE and VMware are working closely to deliver a reference architecture that results in workload mobility between data center and public cloud, offering investment protection and measurable value back to the business.
VMware, HPE, CloudSimple and Microsoft focuses on these pain points and use cases, giving customers the freedom to choose where, when and how they use public clouds. VMware Cloud Foundation delivers consistent infrastructure and a consistent cloud operating model to streamline and accelerate new application development to enable the delivery of new services and revenue much faster.
Workload Mobility – Ideal Use Case
This post will focus on the workload mobility use case, delivering the ability to dynamically configure, provision and migrate workloads using a cloud operating model, regardless of the app or dev team location. This use case delivers higher intrinsic value, but has been the most difficult to implement. Until now. Workload mobility enables developers to build, test, validate and check-in their Apps in Cloud, then once the app has been accepted, deploy production systems on-premises. Workload mobility also empowers customers to burst/migrate enterprise applications running in production on-prem to the cloud when internal resource consumptions are high and there is a need for on-demand resources.
Cloud Native and Traditional Applications
This hybrid cloud model can be deployed for traditional application development for SQL-based databases and business intelligence systems using traditional waterfall development methodologies, but the real advantage of this kind of mobility is revealed for cloud native applications in agile DevOps methodologies using container ecosystems such as Kubernetes.
For cloud native workloads, VMware PKS now runs natively within a Cloud Foundation workload domain, which provides an entire Kubernetes environment running on the Cloud Foundation full stack (vSphere + vSAN + NSX-T) hyperconverged infrastructure. NSX-T is a network virtualization solution that has been qualified to run in Cloud Foundation environments, including new support for Layer 3 stretch clustering with NSX-T.
VMware Enterprise PKS Workloads
The target VMware PKS environment in VMware Cloud Foundation can be deployed on the HPE Synergy platform, to automate deployment of Kubernetes workloads and include all of the tools, libraries and registries needed. HPE Synergy OneView Composer software stack with Cloud Foundation management software stack, a unique workload domain is built for VMware PKS.
The VMware PKS software can be automatically deployed and configured to host production-ready Kubernetes Clusters. (Deploying Enterprise PKS on Cloud Foundation)
Figure 1: VMware Enterprise PKS on VMware Cloud Foundation Deployed on HPE Synergy Hardware
Newly Introduced Hybrid Cloud Offerings
VMware customers running VMware technologies in their private datacenters now have access to a plethora of VMware-based Cloud offerings. For these demos we are leveraging the VMware Cloud Provider Program (VCPP) relationship with VMware-as-a-Service In Public Clouds with CloudSimple. VMware has worked with HPE and CloudSimple on two separate use cases to show examples of how customers can leverage VMware’s hybrid-cloud technologies to expand their private datacenter to the Microsoft Azure cloud for both application development and for production.
CloudSimple – Enabling Technology
CloudSimple has developed a solution to move enterprise workloads to public clouds and preserve operational continuity; managing Cloud workloads as if they were on-premises using the same tools, processes and policies. A good example of how customers can get these benefits is the Azure VMware Solutions by CloudSimple.
Connecting the Two Clouds
While each public cloud provider has their own unique way of securing capacity in their Public Cloud, this example scenario outlines the typical process:
- Build The Private Cloud – For the test environment we deployed Cloud Foundation on Synergy leveraging HPE OneView, VMware SDDC Manager and VMware VMware PKS to build out both the management workload domain and a separate workload domain for hosting the VMware PKS Management stack and Kubernetes Clusters.
- Purchase Capacity In The Cloud – In this example scenario, CloudSimple suggested we work with Azure and to secure a Subscription ID.
- Request Resources and Duration – Each Cloud Provider have their own a-la-carte menu offerings and pricing models. For our demo we requested an entire vSAN Cluster which requires 3-Nodes minimum.
- Azure VMware Solution By CloudSimple –Azure rapidly had the 3-node vSphere Cluster, based on vSAN, provisioned with its own vCenter in the Azure cloud, ready for CloudSimple to connect to our on-prem environment over the Internet.
- Network Options – Each Cloud Provider typically offers basic Low-End access across the Internet to High-Bandwidth dedicated MPLS VPN connections. For our demo we chose VPN-to-VPN over the Internet. Azure ExpressRoute can be advantageous when considered for production.
Figure 2: Hybrid Cloud with HPE, VMware and CloudSimple
Use Case 1: Develop Container App in Azure & Deploy Container App in Production On-Prem (VMware PKS/VMware Cloud Foundation/HPE Synergy)
Having the VMware PKS production environment hosted on VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy and ready to run Kubernetes containerized applications, the environment was ready to build out a container application in the Public Cloud and ready to be deployed via PKS CLI running on-premises. For this demo we built an Ubuntu VM in the public cloud, leveraged our VPN connections across clouds to register VM in PKS Harbor Registry and enabled the environment to demo the following:
Phase 1: Develop (Cloud) and Deploy Container Apps (On-premises)
- Check out several containers apps, registered in VMware Harbor Registry on-prem, for development. (Command Line)
- Tag/Push updated Container apps back into VMware Harbor Registry in PKS. (Command Line)
Witness new applications are accessible and running on-prem. (Yelp app accessible via a browser.
Figure 3: Deploying Container Applications with Hybrid Cloud
Use Case 2: Resource Constrained On-prem (PKS/VCF/HPE Synergy) Burst/Migrate Enterprise Database to Microsoft Azure
For this use case, we wanted to show the case where a data center becomes resource constrained on-premises and use their Azure cloud environment for production. In this case, Azure VMware Solutions by CloudSimple is a service that can easily migrate databases across clouds.
Figure 4: Migrating Database Workloads from On-Premises Data Center to Azure
Take the Next Step:
If you’re at VMworld in San Francisco, then I would encourage you to visit the sessions listed below to learn more about the work that has been built to address this workload mobility challenge. If you’re not at the VMworld conference, then contact your local VMware and HPE Sales teams to learn more about these technologies or go to https://www.hpe.com/us/en/integrated-systems/synergy.html or https://www.vmware.com/products/cloud-foundation.html.
VMworld Sessions to Attend:
[HBI1514BU] VMware Cloud Foundation and HPE Synergy: The Ultimate Hybrid Cloud
[HBI2047BU] Synergy Composability for VMware Cloud Foundation
[HCI3482BUS] Build an Agile Cloud with VMware and HPE Composable Solutions
[HCI3135PU] The HPE Software-Define Data and Analytics Platform
[HCI3135PU] Best of vSAN Ecosystem: Partner Drive HCI Innovation
