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An Enterprise’s Journey to IT-as-a-Service: From Virtualization to ITaaS

Posted on March 14, 2013 by vCloud Team

As an IT Admin, you’re in charge of meeting the demands of your business. You have started the process by virtualizing your servers with VMware (According to IDC, more than 60 percent of all workloads running on global servers are virtualized, with over 80 percent of those servers virtualized by VMware. It’s incredible: More than half of all the applications running on servers throughout the world are running on top of a VMware platform), which has decreased costs, decreased maintenance and decreased time to build and provision new applications, but you are still being asking to deliver IT faster and now through a service portal.

At this point, you may be contemplating exactly how to meet these requests to take your company’s infrastructure toward a service-based model. You may be investigating cloud computing (private, public or hybrid cloud solution) to deliver IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS). With the help of VMware’s vCloud Suite, ITaaS is made easy with a Software-Defined Datacenter (SDDC) which provides an effective and proven solution.

What might surprise you is that you’ve already taken the first step towards ITaaS with a Software Defined Datacenter by virtualizing your servers with VMware.

While the leap from virtualization to the cloud may seem intimidating, the transition can be a simple process with the right executive sponsorship and a strategic plan.

Thinking Outside the Box: Virtualization is not just for Servers

The ITaaS journey to the cloud represents an evolution from rigid, inflexible architecture to a modern and agile infrastructure.

Virtualization was once only thought of as a catalyst for consolidating hardware infrastructure but now is recognized as the foundation for SDDC. Some vendors may have you think that the virtualization of servers is all you need. However, in order for your company to truly be ready for the cloud, virtualization needs to go beyond just your servers to impact your organization’s storage, networking and security resources in addition to your computing environment.

With each phase of the journey to the cloud, virtualization will penetrate every layer of your infrastructure to achieve the SDDC.

Self-service IT: From Reactivity to Proactivity

Traditionally, IT has been for the most part a reactive process: A request comes in, and IT works to solve the problem by scrambling and pulling together the resources to support the request. Depending on how virtualized the servers are, resolving an issue can take several days or even up to several weeks.

ITaaS with a SDDC is all about abstracting, pooling and automating your infrastructure. This puts IT ahead of the game and gives them the power to deliver the appropriate service based on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to meet the demands of the business .

With the combination of virtualization, automation and operations and a service catalog gives IT the environment to provide the right level of service at the right time. Virtualizing and automating all aspects of your infrastructure with integrated operations gives your IT department the ability to manage by application requirements and provides flexibility and cost savings for your end-users.

Making Your Way to the Cloud with VMware

Business is demanding a more proactive IT that revolves around services. The journey to ITaaS means viewing IT as an agile software based service delivery model.

If you’re ready for the cloud, we’re ready to get you there with the VMware vCloud Suite which is built on vSphere, one of the must robust platforms in the history of IT.. As we previously discussed, the vCloud Suite is an all-encompassing cloud IT infrastructure solution that includes our virtualization, cloud infrastructure and management solutions and operates each within Software-Defined Datacenter

Remember, if you’ve already VMware virtualized your servers, you’re well on your way to the cloud. If you’re not quite sure where to start, take advantage of our consulting and education services, and we’ll help you determine which VMware virtualization solutions you need to get you there.

Some of today’s leading organizations that are VMware virtualized have already successfully moved to the cloud with VMware. For more information on their virtualization to cloud journeys, check out our success stories at Another VMware vCloud and the case studies below:

For future updates, be sure to follow us on Twitter at @vCloud and @VMwareSP!

How To Run vCloud Connector 2.0 Hosted With NAT

Posted on March 13, 2013 by vCloud Team

By: Chris Colotti

This is a repost from Chris’ personal blog, ChrisColotti.us.

As I have been building out this crazy vCloud Director Hybrid setup in a few of the public clouds I am using from Virtacore, Stratogen, and the VMware Evaluation Cloud, I decided to try hosting all the vCloud Connector components in the various clouds. One thing I remember from the vCloud Connector 1.0 days was the Server component was not happy behind a NAT. That’s because the online web interface for vCloud.vmware.com tried to connect to the local IP address and it really just did now work behind NAT. Now for me I am trying to use ALL online access to all these things so this is what I setup so far:

vCloud Connector Nodes Installed in:

Virtacore’s IAD Cloud
Virtacore’s LAX Cloud
VMware IAD Eval Cloud
Stratogen Cloud

Each of these nodes is on a “Public” network with external IP Addresses and firewall rules for the following ports:

443
5480 (Management)

vCloud Connector Server Installed in:

VMware IAD Eval Cloud
Same vApp as the Node

Now the firewall rules for the server are a little different and I did get an error on vCloud.vmware.com that it does need an additional port open but it does work 100% from the online vcloud.vmware.com portal

Firewall Rules for the Connector Server:

443
5480 (Management)
80 for vCloud.vmware.com

NOTE: These are not deployed from OVF with the VMXNET3 interface so for giggles be sure to remove the current interface and add a new one that is using VMXNET3 specifically by checking the “Show Network Adapter Type” box.

Configuring the vCloud Connector Server

Now something I was messing with was getting the vCloud Connector Server connected to the local vCloud Connector Node. Due to the Edge Gateway I could not use the external IP on in the vCloud Connector Server config as you can see below. I needed to use the local IP for the Node that’s in the same vCloud Director Cloud and in the same vApp as shown above. I think there was some routing issue but it does not really matter since the Node and the Server are in the same network you can use the local IP address or local DNS for the connection. The other nodes you can see are true external entries.

Once I did that the server is now connector to all 4 clouds through the online portal vcloud.vmware.com.

Migrating Templates

Now I was ready to move my Windows template from one cloud to Stratogen so I can continue to work on this expanded vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud setups. As I continue with this experiment I will add more blog posts so people can really understand the power of how to use all this technology.

Chris is a Consulting Architect with the VMware vCloud Delivery Services team with over 10 years of experience working with IT hardware and software solutions. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Information Systems from the Daniel Webster College. Prior to VMware he served a Fortune 1000 company in southern NH as a Systems Architect/Administrator, architecting VMware solutions to support new application deployments. At VMware, in the roles of a Consultant and now Consulting Architect, Chris has guided partners as well as customers in establishing a VMware practice and consulted on multiple customer projects ranging from datacenter migrations to long-term residency architecture support. Currently, Chris is working on the newest VMware vCloud solutions and architectures for enterprise-wide private cloud deployments.

How To Design Your vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud

Posted on March 11, 2013 by vCloud Team

By: Chris Colotti

This is a repost from Chris’ personal blog, ChrisColotti.us.

So last week I started on sort of an experiment that was really to investigate the new Organization Administrator features of the Edge Gateway in vCloud Director 5.1. I happen to have several public vCloud Director organizations, but for this purposes I am using the VMware vCloud Service Evaluation as it was just upgraded to version 5.1. As I started poking, some things became very clear to me about the new power and features available to TRULY build a hybrid cloud. In the original versions some of what I have built could have been done, but it would have taken a lot of work with vApp Networks and other multi-edge based design. I have successfully built what I would consider a vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud Architecture that essentially mimics some of the things you would do if you simply built a new physical datacenter. Some of the things that make this possible are:

vShield Edge Gateway multi-interfaces
vShield Edge Gateway full firewall capabilities
vShield Edge Gateway VPN
Organization Administrator ability to create new networks

Below is a rather large vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud Logical Network diagram that shows the various vApps and the various networks. This has been made possible solely by the new Organization Administrator capability for adding net routed and isolated networks.

vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud Architecture – Leveraging vApps

What you will notice is I have various vApps by application type. What you can also see is that there are Virtual Machines in those vApps where some are on the Public and others are on the Private networks. I can keep different vApps for construct purposes and containers for backup and restore with future 3rd party integrations. I can add Virtual Machines on the fly to any given vApp and maintain the organizational construct of them for other users. You can see there is a CentOS Test vApp that is owned by another user.

vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud Architecture – The New Edge Gateway

To some this may look no different from what some current organizations do to create multiple firewalled networks with their primary edge firewall device. Some of this is pulled from my past experience as a Checkpoint administrator for PC Connection, and how I know we had much of our original networks setup. The power from 1.5 to 5.1 comes in the ability for the organization Administrator to create and define the different network segments you see. In the previous version this was not possible and some could argue was a barrier to truly building your public cloud based Software Defined Datacenter, (SDDC).

vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud Architecture – Firewall Rules

Something that has been there for a while in the Edge Gateway was the ability to define the basic firewall rules. However, in 5.1 you can see that we can now create and define multiple SNAT and DNAT rules, along with very finite network source and destination based rules. This is one function that again will facilitate a design like this working. What you will also notice, and I found this through trial and error, is you can even define Network Protocols with the new Edge Gateway. In the case below notice the rule for ESP from the View Security Server to the View Connection Server to that they can establish IPSEC. The ESP Protocol does not use a port rather it is an IP protocol with the ID 50. This took me about a day to figure out I can just use the ESP name or the IP Protocol ID’s that are standards. Did anyone else know this was possible?

vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud Architecture – Next Steps

Now that I have built this remote vCloud Director Hybrid Cloud, complete with multiple networks, firewall rules, and vApps I am going to try to connect it to a physical datacenter. That will be another Software Defined Datacenter running in my home lab or possibly another location. Once I can get the VPN component established I should be able to show the full multi-site functionality of such a design where some workloads like web servers are in the vCloud Direction Hybrid Cloud and others are in the primary datacenter. At that point it’s all a matter of some networking and possible Active Directory configuration. I should mention I literally built this in about 3 days and it could have gone much faster with the use of existing server templates and other means of migrating workloads to the cloud itself. I spent a good portion of the build just getting new templates spun up. Also all of this was done manually, but you could automate much of the creation through tools and the vCloud API.

There is so much here to talk about that I may use some of it on an upcoming vBrown Bag, but I am trying to think about how I can also use this for some upcoming presentations like VMUG’s and other venues. I want people to see that you can now do a lot with vCloud Director and the Software Defined Datacenter if you just think about the design and the requirements. I’m sure I could do even more with this given the time, but it’s enough to show the point I think.

Share Your “Two Cents”on IaaS and You Could Win a $250 Visa Gift Card!

Posted on March 8, 2013 by vCloud Team

As companies make the venture from virtualization to the cloud, Bluelock, one of our vCloud Datacenter partners, wants to know how you feel about the value of IaaS solutions.

Share your “two cents,” and it could result in a $250 Visa Gift Card!

Bluelock wants to hear your insight on cloud:

What do you value most about cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service?
What do you want from cloud?
What do you plan to use cloud for in the future?

Bluelock has created a brief market research survey that aims at understanding the true value of Infrastructure-as-a-Service from the perspective of the end-user – what values do enterprise consumers seek from IaaS cloud solutions?

So take a few minutes out of your day and contribute your “two cents”. You may just get a $250 Visa gift card for your time!

Be sure to follow @VMwareSP and @vCloud on Twitter for future updates!

vCloud Director Ultimate Resource Guide (URG) – March 2013

Posted on March 7, 2013 by vCloud Team

By: David Davis

Last Spring, I published my vCloud Director Ultimate Resource Guide (URG). That guide was based on vCloud Director 1.5. Since then, VMware has released vCloud Director 5.1.1 (matching the revision number of vSphere 5.1), numerous enhancements to vCloud Director, and a number of other vCloud-related tools and resources. That guide superceded my Top Resources to Learn vCloud Director – August 2011.

Since the last version of this guide, I have verified each link and added a number of new resources. It is with joy that I offer you this update to the vCloud Director Ultimate Resource Guide (URG), as of March 2013…

———————-

With hundreds of thousands VMware vSphere admins out there, resources to learn vSphere and troubleshoot vSphere are plentiful. However, those same vSphere admins are now making the push to try out and learn about vCloud Director. This guide is intended to be the ultimate vCloud Director Resource Guide, providing links to all the resources you need to learn about and troubleshoot vCD.

(go ahead, press Ctrl-D now to bookmark this as you will need it later)

I have broken this list of vCloud Director resources down into categories to help group similar resources together. Here you go:

VMware Official Resources

Since my last guide, most of these resources have been updated for vCloud Director 5.1.1.

VMware vCloud Blog

With hundreds of posts on the vCloud blog (most about vCloud Director), there are many resources but here are the most popular and some of the most recent:

VMware vCenter vs. vCloud Director by David Davis
Customizing vCloud Director 5.1 Logo and Style by Andrea Siviero
Learn vCloud Director on a Shoestring by David Davis
Backup and Restore of vCloud Director Consumer Workloads by Massimo Re Ferre’
Getting Started with vCloud – Intro to vCloud Connector and Other Resources by Matt Sarrel
vCloud Director Meets vShield App by Massimo Re Ferre’
Stretched vCloud Director Infrastructure by Duncan Epping

Besides the vCloud blog, there are a ton of other vCD resources on the web.

vCloud Director Resources on the Web

vCloud Director Videos on the Web

Special thank you to Haney Michael at Hypervizor.com for the following list of vCD Videos from VMware on YouTube:

vCloud Director Training Courses

Video training by David Davis of TrainSignal – VMware vCloud Director Essentials
Video training by Jake Robinson of TrainSignal – VMware vCloud Director Organizations
Video training by VMware Education – VMware vCloud Director Fundamentals [v5.1]
Instructor-led by VMware Education – vCloud Director Install, Configure, Manage [v5.1]

If you haven’t already, make sure that you evaluate VMware vCloud Director (at no cost) for 60 days on the vCloud Director Evaluation site.

Stay tuned to the vCloud Blog and this blog post for the latest news and how-to on vCloud Director and be sure to follow @vCloud on Twitter for the latest vCloud updates!

Are there new resources that aren’t listed here? Do you have a great article or link that needs to be added? Post your comments to let me know and we’ll get the ultimate guide updated!

David Davis is a VMware Evangelist and vSphere Video Training Author for Train Signal. He has achieved CCIE, VCP,CISSP, and vExpert level status over his 15+ years in the IT industry. David has authored hundreds of articles on the Internet and nine different video training courses for TrainSignal.com including the popular vSphere 5 and vCloud Director video training courses. Learn more about David at his blog or on Twitter and check out a sample of his VMware vSphere video training course from TrainSignal.com.

Managing Your Cloud Infrastructure with VMware vCloud Suite 5.1

Posted on March 5, 2013 by vCloud Team

We were very were excited to announce the general availability of VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 last September, along with even more updates around cloud management capabilities in October. If you’re still not sure what the vCloud Suite can do for your company, fear not – we’re here to explain it all to you.

According to the CIO/IDG 2012 IT Decision Makers Survey, nine out of ten IT leaders choose the cloud for three key reasons:

To improve agility;
To cut costs;
And to add value.

However, setting up and maintaining a seamless cloud infrastructure can often take a lot of time and effort, costing your company valuable time and resources.

We have helped many customers dramatically reduce expenses and save time through server consolidation, virtualization and automation. The VMware vCloud Suite takes this one step further – VMware vCloud Suite is the only truly integrated cloud infrastructure solution that combines VMware’s key components of virtualization, cloud infrastructure and management into a single product and virtually operates each individual layer.

The VMware vCloud Suite is available in Standard Edition, Advanced Edition and Enterprise Edition, and includes seven of VMware’s virtualization products: vSphere, vCloud Director and vCloud Connector, vCloud Network and Security, vCenter Site Recovery Manager, vCenter Operations Management Suite, vFabric Application Director and vCloud Automation Center – everything you need for a mature Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud.

Key benefits to VMware’s vCloud Suite include:

Rapid response times and access to resources and applications: With VMware’s vCloud Automation Center, vCloud Suite empowers IT managers to deliver a policy-controlled self-service of IT tasks through a user-friendly portal, enabling the provisioning of virtual machines and multi-tier applications within minutes. vCloud Automation Center also enables the ability to expand available capacity to business units onsite and offsite.
Automated IT operations management: vCenter Operations Management provides performance monitoring, detection of unwanted changes and proactive alerts to ensure that IT can react to SLA challenges in a timely manner.
The best SLAs for all applications: vCloud Suite supplies the appropriate network load for all applications ranging from low-latency, I/O sensitive networks to business critical workloads. Additional features include highly available firewalls and automated disaster recovery planning, testing and execution with vCenter Site Recovery Manager.

For a deeper dive into VMware vCloud Suite’s benefits and capabilities, download our data sheet.

If you’re currently using vSphere Enterprise Plus, we’re offering a free upgrade to vCloud Suite Standard until March 15^th. To be eligible for this promotion, customers must have purchased vSphere Enterprise Plus and have an active Support and Subscription agreement as of August 27th, 2012. For more information on terms and conditions, check out the promo page.

For future updates, be sure to follow and @vCloud and @VMwareSP on Twitter!

Why vCloud Service Providers Should Upgrade to the NEW vCloud Service Provider Bundle – Premier Plus Edition

Posted on March 4, 2013 by vCloud Team

Did you know VMware recently released a new bundle for Service Providers? The VMware vCloud Service Provider Bundle – Premier Plus Edition enables VMware Service Provider partners to deliver vCloud Services with a robust cloud stack that’s built on the solid performance and availability of the vSphere platform, and coupled with the efficient provisioning and management of customers’ virtual datacenters through vCloud Director.

That’s not all! The vCloud Service Provider Bundle – Premier Plus Edition includes the vCenter Operations Suite Enterprise, which not only enables you to better manage your own infrastructure , but also enables you to capture new revenue streams through add-on services delivered to customers.

Still debating if you should upgrade? Here are two of the main benefits to upgrading to the vCloud Service Provider Bundle – Premier Plus Edition:

Ability to better manage your own infrastructure service levels. With the vCloud Service Provider Bundle – Premier Plus Edition, you, as a Service Provider, have the tools to proactively manage your environment, giving you better performance, capacity utilization, and forecasting – all while maintaining regulatory compliance.
Capture new revenue streams through add-on services delivered to customers. You gain incremental revenue opportunities through the vCloud Service Provider Bundle – Premier Plus Edition compared with the Premier Edition.

Also, compared to the Premier Edition, the Premier Plus Edition offers additional benefits, such as:

Improved SLAs with service health reporting, along with predictable alerts in advance of performance degradation in the infrastructure.
Increased service margins through improved capacity utilization, forecasting, VM right-sizing, capacity reclamation and automated views and alerts to speed decision making.
Ability to deliver compliance as a service through automated patching and provisioning, utilization of comprehensive change tracking to isolate root causes, and remediating images to normal with single-click rollback.

All together, the VMware vCloud Service Provider Bundle – Premier Plus Edition includes vCenter Operations, vCenter Configuration Manager, vCenter Chargeback, vCenter Server, vCloud Network & Security Advanced (formerly vShield), vSphere Enterprise Plus and Production Support.

In the charts below, see how the Premier Edition with the vCenter Operation Manager Product (vCOPS) stacks up against the Premier Plus Edition:

Check out the video below to see how VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite works for Service Providers:

For future news and updates, be sure to follow us on Twitter at @VMwareSP and @vCloud!

The Journey From Virtualization to Cloud – Highlights from #cloudtalk

Posted on February 28, 2013 by vCloud Team

Last Tuesday, we hosted our #cloudtalk on the journey from virtualization to cloud. Special thanks to everyone who participated in the chat for making it a lively and provocative discussion. We also wanted to thank Kurt Milne (@kurtmilne) and Bryan Bond (@VMJedi) for co-hosting the chat with us!

The discussion started off with the question, “What does the journey from virtualization to cloud mean to you?”

@millardjk was the first to chime in, stating that virtualization is a datacenter without automation, self-service or elasticity, while cloud brings all three with it. @tcrawford suggested that cloud is a maturity beyond virtualization in the progression of resource management. @jtimdodd stated that going from virtualization to cloud was going from an internal virtual infrastructure to an external environment that can scale on demand.

Several others chimed with their views, including @Dana_Gardner, who noted that going from virtualization to cloud means taking a utilization benefit to a IT transformation/strategy. @maishsk brought up a very interesting point, stating that virtualization is a consolidation/migration of workloads and cloud is more about process and culture, which @jakerobinson agreed with. All seemed to agree after Kurt stated that “Cloud requires letting go of some traditional IT ops practices”. @jamesurqhart built upon Kurt’s view, making the point that cloud also means adopting new IT practices and skills.

We then asked participants if there were any key decisions one should look at when considering making the move from virtualization to cloud.

Co-host @VMJedi made a great point, claiming that while automation is important, getting out of the hardware maintenance and upgrade business is a huge driver for making the decision of virtualization to cloud. @Dana_Gardner talked about how organizations must decide to support a class of requirements all at once, if they want to build a repeatable fabric and if apps have to align to it. @lmacvittie discussed how decisions must balance control and agility – how some things need control, while others do not. The decision that needs to made were to figure out what applications or processes need the control and to decide to let go of what does not.

The conversation soon shifted as soon as we asked participants if they have taken steps from virtualization to cloud and if so, what roadblocks or challenges have they encountered?

Our co-host @VMJedi shared that flexible scalability “in house” is starting to become an increasingly difficult thing to do, without the agility to maneuver changes rapidly. @tcrawford suggested that too many companies are looking at the move from virtualization to cloud as a tech swap, as doing this they miss core changes and significant opportunities. @kelvinpapp shared a similar sentiment that the biggest challenge is dismissing the perception that cloud equals a loss of control, and he suggested that organizations should instead view cloud as an opportunity. Almost all agreed about one of the main difficulties for companies is finding the opportunity and value in the process of changing from virtualization to cloud.

@davidmdavis then asked participants what exactly is stopping companies from using hybrid cloud? @joshcoen stepped in and answered, sometimes the company environment just does not allow for it. Sometimes there are disparate sites and latencies higher than one second.

Security popped up as a roadblock on the move from virtualization to cloud, as well as being a potential issue stopping companies from using hybrid cloud. This brought us to ask what the best practices in approaching cloud security are.

@jgershater noted that security is a shared responsibility – the provider secures the premises and firewall, while the customer secures the app and VM. @kurtmilne brought up how every IT shop tends to think that their security is above average and needs a reality check. He also went on to say that organizations need to recognize private and public resource pools and how IT is responsible for many activites that can impact security posture. @Dana_Gardner said that one of the best practices for cloud security was to focus on access control over perimeter control, which @lmacvittie agreed with, also adding app and data control as important focus areas. @jamesurquhart agreed with both, stating to “layer them turtles, but get those turtles talking to each other.”

We then asked participants, “When crafting cloud strategy, how do users decide what to focus their POC on?”

Co-host @VMJedi shared that in eMeter’s personal POC, he included security performance and ease of deployment. @KongYang answered that strategy should always be predicated on solving customer issues and addressing customer needs. He went on to say that the customer should always be top of the mind. @Dana_Gardner said that the proof-of-concept should show ROI, saying that he isn’t sure it is a success without a demonstrated and repeatable economic benefit.

Later, we asked how users select cloud providers that align with their cloud vision or strategy.

@lmacvittie said that when selecting a cloud provider, they should ask several questions and talk to other organizations using providers on their list, which @KongYang agreed with. @KongYang also recommended to try before you buy, as well as verifying the SLA before committing. @maishsk cited portability, checking to see how easy it is to move workloads in and out of the cloud.

Co-host @kurtmilne posed one of the final questions, asking what inning we’re in, as far as IT Operations transformation for new SDDC and Cloud Operations practices.

The general populous of the chat seemed to agree that the game is nowhere finished. @maishsk said we are only in the bottom of the third inning. @shawncarey went as far to say that the game is just getting started, with players still warming up! @Dana_Gardner agreed with Shawn, saying we’re in the pre-game stage, only getting to the locker room and putting equipment on.

@GeorgeReese even got his two cents in towards the end of #cloudtalk, telling the chat that approvals processes kill when it comes to cloud and if you need a PO, it isn’t cloud.

Thank you to everybody who listened or participated in our #cloudtalk, and stay tuned details around our next #cloudtalk! In the meantime, be sure to check out our Google+ Hangout on the Software-Defined Datacenter today at 10am PT! Feel free to tweet us at @vCloud with any questions or feedback!

New VMware Cloud Credits Purchasing Program Provides an Easy On-Ramp to the Cloud

Posted on February 26, 2013 by vCloud Team

By: Geoff Thompson, Director, VMware Cloud Credit Strategy

Today, we’re excited to announce the new VMware Cloud Credits Purchasing Program – a new way for customers to take advantage of public or hybrid cloud as a key component of their comprehensive IT strategy and work with VMware vCloud Service providers more effectively.

Customers can purchase VMware Cloud Credits from VMware Solution Provider Partners and redeem over time with approved VMware Service Provider Partners. Through the VMware Cloud Credits Program, customers will work closely with their Solution Provider partner to identify potential workloads and estimate the credits required to deploy the workload in the cloud via an authorized VMware vCloud Service Provider Partner. The program enables the customer to apply their credits as needed based on business requirements and provides a very effective mechanism to control cloud spend and manage their providers. In addition, VMware Cloud Credits are managed inside MyVMware providing customers with a single pane of glass to view their perpetual licenses along with all public and hybrid cloud spend.

VMware Cloud Credits are redeemable for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings from approved VMware vCloud Service Providers – redeemable IaaS offerings include:

IaaS Compute Services – CPU, RAM and Storage for each VM;
IaaS Networking Services – IP addresses and bandwidth for each VM;
Operating System Licensing – OS license for each VM;
Network & Security Software Add-ons – Software firewalls, load balancers and anti-virus;
IaaS Monitoring and Support – Packaged support for IaaS solution.

VMware Cloud Credits benefit VMware Solution Provider Partners by enabling them to strengthen their strategic value, and offer a full range of cloud solutions to augment perpetual license sales offerings. Additionally, vCloud Service Providers and Solution Providers can take advantage of VMware Cloud Credits to help deepen their relationships with existing customers by working together to identify potential public or hybrid cloud workloads, as well as open up avenues for new customers through additional products and value-added cloud services.

Check out the Cloud Credits page for more information. For future updates, be sure to follow @vCloud and @VMwareSP on Twitter!

Demystifying the Software-Defined Datacenter – Join the Google+ Hangout!

Posted on February 25, 2013 by vCloud Team

Looking for new ways to transform and empower your organization’s IT department? The concept of the software-defined datacenter (SDDC) promises to abstract the datacenter from its underlying hardware – thereby enabling your IT department to connect and configure computing resources in new, powerful ways.

But what does this mean for you? Join VMware’s Google+ Hangout this Thursday, February 28^th at 10am PT, as our panel of experts discusses the obstacles, drawbacks and opportunities companies and users may face as they make the leap above virtualization and cloud to a software-defined data center.

Other topics we’ll be covering during the chat include:

How to build the foundation for SDDC
Common obstacles to avoid
Strategies for realizing the full benefits of cloud
Predictions for how SDDC will evolve and impact IT in the future

For IT professionals preparing to redefine the way IT delivers services, this Google+ Hangout will help illustrate how the SDDC delivers greater agility, speed and innovation while positioning IT as an innovative business unit.

A Google+ account is necessary to post questions to the panel; however, you can still watch the live video stream without one. Click here to sign up for an account.

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