VMware Cloud on AWS

What’s New in VMware Cloud on AWS- Aug 2023- Regional expansion, Disaster Recovery Enhancements and more

Like every quarter, we have released some new features and capabilities in VMware Cloud on AWS to provide improved workload support, better customer experience, and improved resiliency. But before we deep dive into this quarter’s key enhancements, I would like to give you a sneak peek into some of the key sessions and activities we have planned for VMware Explore Las Vegas 2023. We have organized lot of exciting sessions, networking receptions and workshops on VMware Cloud on AWS. Check out my blog on VMware Cloud on AWS presence at VMware Explore 2023 and schedule the key sessions on your agenda before the spots get filled up.

Now let’s dive into what’s new in VMware Cloud on AWS in VMware’s Fiscal Q2 FY24.

Enhancements to enterprise workload support:

  • Expanding regional availability: Availability in AWS Europe (Zurich) and in AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne): VMware Cloud on AWS will now be available in AWS Europe (Zurich) and AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) further improving reach for our global and regional customers. With 2 regions in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne), Australian customers will have greater control, better resiliency and availability, and local governance of their data so that they can run their mission critical workloads that have data sovereignty requirements locally while taking advantage of the flexibility, scalability, and increased security of the AWS cloud. With this new regional availability, this service will now become available across 25 AWS regions globally. Learn more:
  • Horizon 8 version 2303 release: The latest release of VMware Horizon 8 – version 2303 is now supported on VMware Cloud on AWS. This release includes new capabilities that enhance the end-user experience and improve admin efficiency. Learn more. Some of these features are:
    • Boosted experience with improved screen share and capture functionality on Microsoft Teams
    • Notifications to troubleshoot connectivity issues with bad connections
    • Better automation via RESTful APIs 
    • Robust DEM search for administrative efficiency

Enhancements in compute, networking and storage:

  • Enhancements in compute:
    • The Amazon EC2 I4i.metal instance – Expanding regional availability:  i4i.metal is now available in AWS Middle East (Bahrain), AWS Africa (Cape Town) and AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) regions making its availability across 22 regions globally out of 25 VMware Cloud on AWS regions. Learn more about i4i.metal instance type in this blog.
  • Enhancements in storage:
    • VMware Cloud Flex Storage availability in AWS Resell Route to Market: VMware Cloud Flex Storage will be available through AWS Resell, providing another important avenue by which our customers can purchase a scalable, elastic, and natively integrated storage service for VMware Cloud on AWS that is fully managed by VMware and delivered with simple cloud economics.

Enhancements in availability and resiliency:

  • Enhancements to VMware Site Recovery:
    • Expanding regional availability: VMware Site Recovery will now support the AWS Europe (Zurich) and AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) regions.
  • Enhancements in VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and VMware Ransomware Recovery
    • Run Recovered VMs on Cloud Filesystem: Until now, when customers were in a DR scenario, they had the single option to power-on recovered VMs in the DR SDDC through Instant Power On with their disks residing on the Cloud Filesystem. With this option, the VMs can continue to run in the DR SDDC in this manner with their disks residing in the Cloud Filesystem, avoiding storage vMotion and thus speeding up the failover. Failback time is decreased as there is no longer a need to transfer data from the recovery SDDC and the Cloud Filesystem. VMs running on the Cloud Filesystem will get high availability (HA) protection and benefit from low RPOs. Learn more
    • Bulk VM Processing for VMware Ransomware Recovery: With this new feature, users benefit from streamlined and automated recovery of up to 50 VMs at a time, speeding up time to recovery and optimizing IT resources. Bulk VM processing operates within the existing guided ransomware recovery workflow, which spans across identification, validation and restore of recovery points. Up to 500 VMs can be included in a single ransomware recovery plan, with concurrent processing being possible on 50 VMs at a time, thus allowing multiple VMs to undergo live behavioral analysis to surface any security alerts, which can be used to cleanse ransomware strains from compromised snapshots. Together, these integrated capabilities deliver more confident, faster restore of operations in the event of a successful ransomware attack. Learn more
    • New region in AWS Middle East (Bahrain) and AWS Africa (Cape Town): Customers can now protect and recover their workloads in the AWS Middle East (Bahrain) and AWS Africa (Cape Town). This brings the total number of AWS regions protected to 21 globally.
    • Enhanced alerting when deleting recovery SDDC: Customers who leverage just-in-time model to optimize DR costs can now benefit from new alerting when renaming or deleting hosts on their recovery SDDC in plan compliance reports. Customers will also see an event in the service log on the Monitoring page in VMware Cloud DR. 

Enhancements in sizing, commerce, and pricing options:

  • I4i.metal host inclusion in VMware Cloud on AWS Free Trial program: Now, customers are able to test drive the service i4i.metal host with the free trial of VMware Cloud on AWS. As part of this free trial, a customer can create one Single Host SDDC with i3.metal or i4i.metal host for free during the 30-day trial period. During the trial period, there will be no costs for host usage, Elastic IP, data transfer, bandwidth cost between VMware Cloud and AWS, NSX Advanced Firewall, and Transit Gateway. To learn more about this trial program, check out this blog

Enhancements in customer experience:

  • Single sign-on across VMware Cloud Console and vCenter based on user role/access permissions: We introduced a new feature that enhances the user experience and simplifies identity management by providing a unified Single Sign-On (SSO) mechanism between VMware Cloud Services and the VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC vCenter Server. Using this functionality, users that have enabled Enterprise Federation with VMware Cloud Services can securely authenticate to their SDDC vCenter Server with the same credentials used to login to the VMware Cloud on AWS Console.
  • VMware Lab Platform with VMware Cloud on AWS: VMware Lab Platform delivered with VMware Cloud on AWS provides a global reach for your lab training and demo needs while providing dynamic control on how and where you deliver the lab content. Extending your lab deployment automation onto available VMware cloud capacity provides the added flexibility of an on-demand deployment with adjustable cluster sizes while at the same time taking advantage of the availability of regions not covered with VMware’s hosted VMware Lab Platform options. VMware Lab Platform deploys a proxy management VM into your SDDC environment that facilitates the management and orchestration of lab templates into the SDDC cluster. When labs are deployed within your VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC, you can take advantage of the existing network connectivity, previously deployed workloads, or even adjacent AWS native services that may apply to your training scenarios. Learn more

Improvements in migration capabilities

  • vCenter Converter 6.4: With the release of vCenter Converter 6.4, customers can now migrate AWS EC2 instances to VMs on VMware Cloud on AWS SDDCs. vCenter Converter 6.4 supports a new cloud source (AWS EC2 instances) and a cloud target (VMware Cloud on AWS). Connecting these platforms requires network and security configuration on the VMware Cloud and AWS platforms and advanced reconfiguration of the vCenter Converter service. This capability provides customers additional flexibility to use the cloud infrastructure they want as per their needs and they can seamlessly migrate workloads between these clouds. vCenter Converter 6.4 is also compatible with vSphere 8.0. It broadens the range of supported source OS and hypervisors and brings compatibility with the latest virtual HW version. Release Notes, Techzone

To view the latest status of features and release updates for VMware Cloud on AWS, visit: https://www.vmware.com/products/vmc-on-aws.html. And refer to the release notes VMware Cloud on AWS release notes.

The following capabilities are available today: Availability in AWS Europe (Zurich) and in AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne), Horizon 8 version 2303 release, i4.metal- availability in Bahrain and Cape Town, VMware Cloud Flex Storage availability in AWS Resell Route to Market, VSR – Regional expansion to Zurich and Melbourne, VMware Cloud DR enhancements, I4i.metal host inclusion in VMware Cloud on AWS Free Trial program, Single sign-on across VMware Cloud Console and vCenter based on user role/access permissions, VMware Lab Platform with VMware Cloud on AWS, vCenter Converter 6.4

If you would like to learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS, please check out the resources below:

Resources:

For more information related to VMware Cloud on AWS, here are some more learning resources for you:

Disclaimer: VMware makes no guarantee that services announced in preview will become available at a future date. The information in this blog is for informational purposes only and may not be incorporated into any contract. This article may contain hyperlinks to non-VMware websites that are created and maintained by third parties who are solely responsible for the content on such websites.

Sonali Desai

Sonali Desai is a Product Marketing Engineer for VMware Cloud Foundation at VMware by Broadcom, Inc. Sonali has been working in IT industry for more than 15 years with experience…

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