VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts will be a fully VMware-managed offering that aims to provide simple, more secure and scalable infrastructure for your on-premises data center. It will be a jointly engineered on-premises as-a-service offering, that is powered by VMware Cloud Foundation. It will integrate VMware’s enterprise-class Software-Defined Data Center software that includes vSphere, vSAN, NSX along with vCenter Management, and will run on next-generation, dedicated, elastic Amazon EC2 bare-metal Outposts infrastructure, delivered on-premises with optimized access to local and regional AWS services. With VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts, you will get speed, agility and the consumption model of cloud on-premises in your own data center where you have your own control on the data and applications

Key capabilities of this service will include:

• An operationally consistent and familiar way to run, manage and better secure applications in a hybrid cloud environment that will integrate with their existing on-premises vSphere-based environments seamlessly.
• Delivered on AWS Nitro-based EC2 instances along with vSphere capabilities such as High Availability, vMotion, DRS, auto-remediation, etc. to target on-premises use cases. E.g., use cases and workloads such as low latency data services, high-frequency data platforms, large volume and high-speed manufacturing platforms, and traditional databases, etc.
• Maximum storage utilization with the combination of vSAN and AWS physical storage
• The ability to use familiar VMware tools and skillsets to manage vSphere environments across the hybrid cloud, without having to rewrite applications or modify the operating model.
• Support for a variety of ecosystem ISV partner solutions across a range of categories
• Automated VMware SDDC software patches, updates, and upgrades and central AWS hardware monitoring- AWS will provide proactive support and upgrades for any hardware related issues recognized proactively from their side
• VMware as the single point of the primary contact for support needs, supplemented by AWS for hardware shipping, installation, and configuration

Announcing VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts Beta Program

Beta nominations for the service are open now and the customers can sign up for the Beta program here. The VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts Beta program is open to a select set of customers in the U.S. region. We invite you to nominate yourself for the Beta program if you are interested and think you are a good fit. Please note that by nominating yourself using the Beta program in this form, you are not auto-enrolled in the Beta program. After receiving your request, we will contact you with further details. 

If selected for the VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts beta program, we will let you try our pre-release software on AWS Outposts infrastructure, and you will be required to provide detailed feedback about your experience.

Here are a few compelling reasons to participate:

• Be one among the first adopters of the joint VMware and AWS Hybrid Cloud service. Evaluate how VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts will fit in your environment and achieve your business goals.
• Influence our product development and roadmap. By participating in the beta program and providing valuable feedback, you will play a vital role in evolving the product
• Get a head start in planning for the future. By participating in the Beta program, you will be able to better plan how and when to address your needs with this service.

If you have more questions about the Beta program, check out the FAQs here. For further questions, please contact your VMware account team to discuss more about the program. For those of you outside of this region, exceptions can be made based on your interest, commitment, and program fit.

Key use cases envisioned for VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts:

1. Local Cloud: Customers will be able to leverage the cloud model for those applications or data that need to remain on-premises such as applications with low latency or local data processing needs or composite applications tightly integrated with existing enterprise backend systems. Some example of such workloads or applications are:
   • Data and compute intensive workloads such as relational databases that will remain on-premises
   • Highly scalable, distributed workloads, which require storage optimized hosts along with VMware’s VSAN storage capabilities
   • Workloads with stringent security requirements where you prefer to control where your data resides and where it is managed
   • High-performance workloads such as enterprise data warehouse where both scale and access of data affect the overall system performance

Apart from these use cases, customers will also be able to deploy hybrid applications integrating on-premises resources with access to native cloud services.  Finally, they will be able to modernize on-premises applications by integrating with local AWS services or regional AWS services or by leveraging Kubernetes enabled next-generation local infrastructure.

2. Data Center Modernization: Customers will be able to accelerate data center modernization by enabling IT staff to focus on higher value tasks rather than focusing on infrastructure lifecycle management. They will also be able to optimize overall infrastructure and operating costs by shifting from cap-ex. to op-ex. financing model. Finally, they will be able to modernize their Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for workloads that need to remain near the end user and backend systems
3. Flexible Capacity: Instead of long hardware procurement cycles, customers will be able to scale on-premises infrastructure as per business needs in days/weeks and alleviate the unused/underutilized capacity issue. They will be able to expand IT infrastructure to new regions as well as accelerate infrastructure consolidation by rationalizing on a consistent platform after M&A activities. Finally, they will be able to leverage single fully managed service for private and public cloud infrastructure and seamlessly extend their on-premises infrastructure to VMware Cloud on AWS for burst capacity or Disaster Recovery needs

How to order and setup VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts?

You will be able to order an Outposts rack through the VMware Cloud on AWS console and will have the flexibility to choose the site location. The Outposts rack will be delivered, installed and connected to your Data Center’s power and network by AWS personnel. You will be able to specify the SDDC configuration parameters and along with it, the subnet connection to an AWS parent region. This AWS parent region is used as the control plane to create, manage and monitor the SDDC and overall health of the outposts rack.  Once an SDDC is created, you will be able to consume the local resources and deploy new VMs or migrate your VMs to the new infrastructure using VMware migration tools such as VMware HCX or vMotion. Your NSX layer will act as the conduit between your Data Center network and the AWS network.

To learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts, here are some more resources:

• VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts Website
• VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts Solution Brief
• Announcement about VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts at AWS re: Invent 2018