by Rich Bourdeau
Someone recently asked me if NSX drove vRealize Automation sales or if vRealize Automation drove NSX sales? The answer is neither product drives the other because purchase decisions are typically made for different reasons. However, VMware NSX and vRealize Automation do have a mutually symbiotic relationship and the results you can achieve using both products are typically greater than the sum of the individual products.
Different Purchase Motivations
Companies who purchase NSX are looking to improve how they configure and manage network and security services. They want to configure virtual resources dynamically to meet the specific needs of different business groups or applications. Customers who purchase vRealize Automation are looking to increase the speed and reliability of the IT services they deliver to their customers. At the same time they want to maintain control and assure consistency of the services that they deliver.
If the motivation is different, where is the synergy?
The synergy is at the application. Increasingly companies are automating the delivery of more than just infrastructure (compute, network, and storage). In order to become more efficient and agile they need to automate the delivery of full working application environments. From a networking standpoint, applications need much more than an IP address, DNS entry and VLAN association typically configured as part of the infrastructure delivery process. Applications need appropriate connectivity through the deployment of switches and routers designed to assure the suitable bandwidth and performance. They need security through the appropriate configuration of firewalls and security groups. They need availability and performance through the proper use of load balancers. What better time to configure these application specific resources than when you are deploying, updating or decommissioning each application.
VMware NSX and vRealize Automation Better Together
Anyone utilizing NSX for micro-segmentation of network and security service needs to consider leveraging vRealize Automation not only to automate the configuration but also enforce governance and control to make sure these services are compliant with both internal, industry, and government requirements. Anyone automating the delivery of IT service delivery with vRealize Automation should consider NSX, because without the appropriate network and security services are you really deploying a complete application environment?
Customer Testimonials
Here are just a few quotes from customers who are leveraging both VMware NSX and vRealize Automation.
“We developed our own security model that VMware vRealize Automation could adhere to and then security policy was just automatically applied to any new instance via NSX. With this approach we’re taking our application deployment times down from as much as 10 weeks to as little as a few minutes.”
Tommy McNicholas, Manager of Global IT Operations, ACTIVE Network
“By establishing a security policy via an automated provisioning blueprint at the front of an applications life cycle. VMware NSX and vRealize Automation give us the ability to have that security posture, follow that application throughout its entire life from cradle to grave”
Coby Holloway, Vice President and Director of Cloud Computing, SAIC
“With vRealize Automation and NSX it’s just like pressing a button. We can turn up a whole environment, deliver to a development team in a day, have it validated, and then have it quickly up and running.”
Michael Conroy, Senior Infrastructure Architect, Rent-A-Center
“The way NSX and vRealize Automation has helped us is we can template environments and spin up VMs with appropriate networking and security and say this system is HIPAA compliant.”
Brian Pietrewicz Director of Computing Platforms, University of New Mexico
“vRealize Automation paired with VMware NSX for built-in network and security means the development team will be able to self-provision new servers at will and at speed via a pre-approved service catalogue.”
Ged Donovan, Architecture and Solutions Manage, Skipton Building Society
Learn More
Understand the technical details
Try our software in a hosted Hands-on-Lab Environment
- HOL-SDC-1621 vRealize Automation 101: Application and Infrastructure Delivery and DevOps with Code Stream
- HOL-SDC-1624 VMware NSX and the vRealize Suite
Plan your deployment with VMware Validated Designs
Need help deploying your hybrid cloud infrastructure or developing your business justification? Contact us and our experts can help your team build the business case and the solution that will maximize your IT productivity.
For exclusive content and updates, follow us on Twitter @vRealizeAuto and subscribe to our VMware IT Management blog.
