We’re delighted to welcome our new data center in Stockholm to the Nordics. Our joint solution with AWS removes a lot of the friction in extending your data centre to the cloud. Enjoy consistent infrastructure and operations on a well-known platform that you already have the skills to manage. Discover your shortcut to the cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS.

Hybrid Cloud has long been ‘the new normal’, and we now see that the extended data centre has had a significant impact in the Nordic countries. As you know, in 2017, VMware and AWS partnered to establish a cloud solution that makes it easy to stretch VMware environments to the cloud. With the announcement of our data centre expansion in Stockholm, it’s even more relevant to look at a cloud strategy that’s easy to execute.

Steady journey to the cloud

Today, we see many different use cases and needs with our customers. There are several reasons why you might want to put some or all of your workloads in the cloud.

We meet many who – in vain – have tried executing on a cloud strategy. Perhaps an alignment of expectations to clarify what kind of data a public cloud offering can help with has been missing. Perhaps there have been processes and tools that have surprised. Several encounter obstacles that revolve around their application landscape – some applications can’t be moved to just any public cloud offering. Moving certain types of applications requires a longer internal process to get the applications onto a new platform. Maybe the application will be phased out before long, and will it then be worthwhile to execute on the cloud strategy now? It can become an expensive and cumbersome process, which in the end will not give the expected business value.

The advantage for a great many of our customers on VMware Cloud on AWS is that there are not a lot of requirements before you can get started. For example, there is no need for new technologies to be introduced in the data centre before starting the journey, or work processes that needs to be changed. The only requirement to use VMware Cloud on AWS is that you have vSphere in your data centre – nothing else. Many of our customers already have their workflow and skills on our platform, so new skills are not required to get started moving workloads to the cloud.

With Cloud on AWS, you already have the skills in the toolbox, and the technology is already in your local data centre — the delivery of data to the cloud can commence immediately. You get the same stable and consistent infrastructure you know of from your local data centre; the difference is that that you can scale it when you need it. The acquisition of a new host will not take several months but can be implemented immediately.

Our joint solution with AWS is about stretching the data centre to the cloud – but on a well-known platform that you have the skills to manage. You buy your own host through the integrated cloud offering with VMware and AWS, and you have the right to piece the platform together as you please. This hybrid cloud approach is precisely the bridge between an on-premises data centre and the public cloud that many companies with legacy applications need before they can start delivering on their cloud strategy.

Centralisation of skills

Another use case we often see is the businesses, which consist of a headquarter with smaller offices spread around the country (or the world). VMware Cloud on AWS is available in several regions around the world, so why have data centres at all locations? These ‘office cabinet’ data centres are expensive to maintain, and also there may not be an IT specialist among the handful of employees who work in the office. By providing data from the cloud, you can centralise your IT skills and save time on time consuming maintenance and support at the smaller office locations. In addition to the effective centralisation, savings can also be achieved by the fact that the roles of work are also centralised.

Top use cases for VMware Cloud on AWS

There are numerous use cases for VMware Cloud on AWS – in the list below we have included our suggestions for a few, but there is definitely room for more:

• Cloud Migration
• Data Center Extension
• Disaster Recovery
• Next-generation applications

We are delighted to welcome our new data centre in Stockholm to the Nordic region. We look forward to scaling more infrastructures and delivering virtualised environments that optimise businesses and end-user experiences around the world.

If you would like to read some more about what you can accomplish with  Cloud on AWS, you can start by reading these 10 questions and answers about VMware Cloud on AWS, or this analysis on 4 different infrastructures, or explore more on our site.