Future Ready Business Continuity with VMware Cloud Foundation

With businesses worldwide facing unusual circumstances, IT decision-makers have been tasked with leading the migration from the office to remote locations at a moment’s notice. This is no easy undertaking, but those who can adapt – and have the business continuity foundation to support them – will emerge stronger.

In our #FlexibleFuture series, look closely at how organizations can ensure business continuity, from our current distributed workforce to the eventual return to the physical workplace. In our first blog of the series, we discuss how VMware Cloud Foundation enables seamless operations and business resiliency. In blog two, we focus on the VMware Horizon VDI and its role in empowering a remote workforce.

In this blog, we’ll look forward, focusing on the phases of business continuity all Business and IT leaders are facing and how they can put themselves one step ahead, future-ready for what’s next.

Phase 1: Respond

The first step to ensure agility in the face of disruption is to be prepared for anything. By adopting consistent infrastructure and operations across hybrid clouds, teams can more easily shift priorities and adapt to change.

VMware Cloud Foundation removes infrastructure siloes from the equation altogether. By combining compute, storage, networking, and management capabilities into a single software stack, VMware Cloud Foundation users enjoy a simplified solution that decreases data center complexity, while IT teams experience maximum efficiency by leveraging the same tools and processes across the board.

“In the past, you built your compute, storage, networking, and security as separate pillars, and then you connect them all together… now we’ve evolved to a single stack of compute that allows me to do that all in one interface, and that’s powerful.” – Steven Nolen, Lead Product Manager, CenturyLink

However, we know that it’s one thing to be prepared for change, and it’s another to shift at a moment’s notice. Without the correct parameters and systems in place, bending to the needs of unusual circumstances can be difficult. Organizations must be able to scale to meet new demands and deliver flexible options to empower business continuity.

The hybrid cloud model allows teams to shift from on-premises to remote locations seamlessly. Hybrid environments let users run workloads and applications wherever they need them and respond to business changes quickly. With increased flexibility, business models can be scaled according to the organization’s circumstances.

Phase 2: Recover

In the recovery phase, we’ve already surpassed preparedness and responded to the crisis at hand. What’s next is the ascent to a state of “new normalcy.” In this phase, teams catch up on system patches and upgrades and focus on getting users back to work.

“In our existing environment before going to VMware Cloud Foundation, we didn’t have the ability to turn around the system when doing a patch or upgrading. VMware Cloud Foundation brings that all together in a simple way. We can upgrade the entire system in a matter of hours or days.” – Dustin Plank, Manager of Information Technology, Nol-Tec

VMware Cloud Foundation simplifies the hybrid cloud by delivering a single, integrated solution. This software-defined platform built by VMware ensures that organizations have the tools in their belt to provide business-critical solutions. Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) can provide distributed workforce enablement as well as the ability to scale both on-premises and to the public cloud with burst capacity.

Increased automation capabilities help teams identify necessary updates and upgrades with no downtime. Our powerful lifecycle management capabilities nearly eliminate the tedious process of patching and upgrading by telling users which patch to install first. This saves teams the time to focus on the things that matter most.

Phase 3: Return

The final phase of our journey is quite possibly the most important of all – the return. At this point, teams reallocate resources and make the return to the “new normal.” From here, teams can assess – what was learned in the process? What would we do differently if we had to do it over again?

A return-to-office includes the challenges of how to support employees from physical facilities to integrated IT systems. Management and optimization of resources are top of mind for IT leaders in the ‘Return Phase.’ In assessing infrastructure and investments, IT teams must re-think how they plan for business continuity, how they can resume preparedness for what’s next, and grow and scale.

“Having a software-defined platform deployed by VMware Cloud Foundation really allows us to grow and scale faster.” – Luke Huckaba, Principal Architect, Rackspace

With the agility provided by VMware Cloud Foundation, IT can quickly respond to change, shifting workload based on both business and technology requirements and is able to positively impact IT and business strategy. Organizations are then able to drive digital transformation initiatives with confidence, knowing that their IT infrastructure is built on a strong foundation.