What's New for VMware Tanzu Transformer at VMware Explore 2023

Tuesday’s August 22, 2023, Solution Keynote session where VMware SVP and GM Purnima Padmanabhan introduced the new VMware Tanzu Transformer name. (Figure 1)

Today, we are excited to share significant enhancements to VMware Tanzu Transformer (formerly VMware Aria Migration). We are expanding our multi-cloud capabilities, including adding additional support for AWS and introducing simplified workflows for AWS and VMware Cloud on AWS that will revolutionize the way you discover, classify, and plan migrating applications to the cloud. These enhancements will increase app delivery velocity by making migration planning less fragmented and help you more easily present actual data to get approvals from the various lines of businesses required for successful application migration.

During Tuesday’s August 22, 2023, Solution Keynote session, Accelerate Application Delivery for Continuous Innovation, VMware SVP and GM Purnima Padmanabhan shared the four solutions within Tanzu Intelligence Services. The new VMware Tanzu Intelligence Services will include VMware Tanzu Transformer. The blog: Develop, Operate, and Optimize with VMware Tanzu: A VMware Explore Round-Up covers more details about the solutions included in Tanzu Intelligence Services, which “bring ML/AI capabilities for deeper insights and proactive optimization of cost, performance and governance.”

Figure 2. During this week’s event, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan visited the demonstration booth for VMware Aria Operations for Networks and VMware Tanzu Transformer (VMware Aria Migration) and spoke with VMware Sr. Product Line Manager Dattathreya Sathyamurthy Hassan, Staff Technical Marketing Architect Matt Just, and others on the product team.

The VMware Tanzu portfolio has expanded with a focus on modern applications. There are more details in this week’s press release which includes VMware Tanzu Transformer.

VMware Press release (VMware Expands Tanzu to Accelerate App Delivery at Enterprise Scale)

“VMware Tanzu Transformer increases (the) success of app migration and modernization initiatives with support for migration assessment and planning to VMware Clouds and public clouds with planning workflows. APIs for 3rd-party integrations are being released in beta.”

Figure 3. VMware Tanzu Transformer is the new name.

Figure 4. A fun selfie from the VMware Explore show floor. From left to right, VMware employees: Sr. Director Product Management Sesh Sayani, VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram, and Sr. Product Line Manager Dattathreya Sathyamurthy Hassan at the VMware Explore Expo.

Figure 5. As part of the closed loop, real-time optimization, the Optimize pillar has Tanzu Intelligence Services which includes VMware Tanzu Transformer.

Highlights

Highlights of the new capabilities discussed during VMware Explore week are also listed on the What’s New at VMware Explore 2023 (Enterprise Cloud tab) webpage.

VMware Tanzu Transformer

“Initial availability of AWS cost assessments now available for vSphere VMs for lift and shift migrations

Announcing Tech Preview of AWS Cloud transformation cost assessments for re-platformed or re-architected workloads as PaaS services

Beta of Migration Wave Exports to accelerate migration from on-premises to Cloud Packs or VMware Clouds now available.”

Session

During the VMware Explore breakout session: MAPB2505LV A Multi-Cloud Assessment and Migration with VMware Aria Migration, partner Ahead shared their experiences with migrations to the cloud and general trends and challenges with migration. Some of these challenges are with tool proliferation, visibility, and cost. The VMware team covered what is new for Tanzu Transformer and a live demonstration.

Figure 6. The Tanzu Transformer customer breakout session MAPB2505LV A Multi-Cloud Assessment and Migration with VMware Aria Migration presented by VMware and partner Ahead.

Figure 7. The speakers during the breakout session from left to right, Ahead Sr. Solutions Architect Ken Nalbone, VMware Staff Technical Marketing Architect Matt Just, AHEAD Network Specialist Nick Bonifacio, VMware Sr. Product Line Manager Dattathreya Sathyamurthy Hassan, VMware Sr. Director, Product Management Sesh Sayani.

New for VMware Explore 2023

Figure 8. Planning AI Generated Waves with cost and metrics for the target cloud.

Users of Tanzu Transformer will use the VMware Tanzu Hub GUI for the migration screens. Our new features include AWS support, providing a comprehensive network cost assessment for planning AWS and VMware Cloud on AWS. We’ve also simplified workflows for assessment, making it easier than ever to evaluate your infrastructure and plan your migration strategy using current Cloud Economics calculations. This capability can also look at bandwidth and egress cost analysis for that application migration strategy.

Figure 9. Assessment for AWS transformation goes beyond simple workload mapping by transforming workload recommendations to the optimal size in the cloud, resulting in improved performance, cost savings, and efficient resource utilization.

Figure 10. A detail of the recommendation count and projected costs and savings.

In the planning phase, we are introducing a transformation assessment for vSphere to AWS, currently in Tech Preview. When customers initially think about migration to the cloud, the first thought is to do a 1 for 1 mapping. A 1 for 1 mapping is where a resource in the on-premises data center is mapped to the cloud with the same footprint. The transformative part of this feature looks deeper and sizes the new footprint in the cloud location with the available modern cloud size and resources for that application to run the business better.

We will also streamline the process of creating migration waves and introduce a new migration planning workflow, currently in Beta, to ensure a smooth transition to the cloud. To further optimize your migration process will allow for seamless third-party integrations, enhancing the flexibility and efficiency of your migration process.

Finally, we’re providing additional migration wave access to VMware Professional Services and Partners. This means if you need extra help, you’ll have the expert support you need, every step of the way, ensuring a successful migration.

Figure 11. Tanzu Transformer can fit into your existing workflow for application migration.

These new features discussed at VMware Explore 2023 result in faster business velocity, cost savings, better security, and improved performance when moving from the previous workload location to the future cloud location. With these enhancements, Tanzu Transformer is more powerful and flexible than ever, ready to support your journey to the cloud. All this extra information will help users collect the needed information to use with other VMWare tools, such as VMWare HCX, to execute the application migrations. These capabilities will help improve cost and resource utilization with informed architecture decisions for application transformation to the cloud that makes business sense for that particular application.

We can’t wait for you to experience these new VMware Tanzu Transformer features and the transformative impact they can have on improving migrations for your business applications.