As announced at VMworld Europe 2019, VMware eliminated the Stretched Clusters Add-on surcharge from the VMware Cloud on AWS service – this is effective starting VMware’s Fiscal Q4’2020.
We are excited to announce that we are now offering a 95% discount on the Cross AZ network fees resulting from Stretched Cluster operations! This is expected to be available in VMware’s Fiscal Q4’2020 and effective dates will be announced at availability.
Combined with the elimination of the Stretched Clusters Add-on surcharge, we hope to empower even more customers to leverage the AWS Cloud as an extension of their mission-critical infrastructure.
Why the change?
Initially, the Add-On covered the additional support personnel and systems associated with running stretched clusters within the service. A couple years into running the service, we decided to waive this cost. Making the decision to deploy a Standard Multi-Host or Stretched Cluster SDDC one primarily of workload requirements and not of cost.
What does this mean for existing customers?
The Stretched Clusters Add-On line item will be removed going forward. In addition, future Cross-AZ Stretched Cluster network traffic will be metered at the new rate.
What is Cross AZ traffic?
The AWS Cloud uses Availability Zones to isolate failure domains. While there is no restriction or additional fees for network traffic within an AZ, Amazon does meter any network traffic passed into or out of an AZ.
In the case of Stretched Clusters with VMware Cloud on AWS, Cross AZ traffic includes both management traffic as well as any guest traffic. The management traffic within a Stretched Cluster has been engineered to reduce cross-AZ communication as much as possible. For example, vSAN Read Locality will intelligently read from any local copy of the data avoiding cross-site communication.
Summary
Under the previous rate, 100GB of cross AZ traffic would have cost $2.00. VMware believed this was affordable given the anticipated amount of Stretched Cluster cross-AZ network traffic. While this has proven to be true, the potential has given some customers pause. Under the new rate, the same 100GB of traffic would cost $0.10. We hope this helps resolve any concerns going forward. The VMware Cloud on AWS service empowers customers to focus on the workload, trusting in VMware to run the SDDC. We hope the new pricing helps alleviate affordability concerns.
Availability
To view the latest status of features for VMware Cloud on AWS, visit https://cloud.vmware.com/vmc-aws/roadmap.
Resources:
- You can learn more about the service at https://cloud.vmware.com/vmc-aws
- Watch: VMware Cloud on AWS: Overview
- Learn more about VMware Site Recovery at http://cloud.vmware.com/vmware-site-recovery
- Obtain our VMware Cloud on AWS Solution Brief and TCO 1-pager
- Follow our release notes on continuing updates here: docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-on-AWS/0/rn/vmc-on-aws-relnotes.html
- Check out our YouTube channel
- Follow us on Twitter @VMwareCloudAWS and at @VMwarevSAN
- Connect with me on Twitter at @glnsize
Take our vSAN 6.7 Hands-On Lab here, and our vSAN 6.7 Advanced Hands-On Lab here!
