Key Technical Decisions for Success in VMWare to Cloud Migration

As cloud computing continues to reshape enterprise IT, migrating VMware workloads to AWS is a critical topic for organizations seeking modernization. The recent AWS re:Invent session on "Technical Decisions for Seamless Migration from VMware to AWS" provided valuable insights for architects and IT leaders. Here's my perspective on the key takeaways and their broader implications.

Migrating workloads from VMware environments to AWS is quite a strategic move that, when done right, offers scalability, cost efficiency, and access to a vast array of managed services. However, a seamless migration demands thoughtful technical decisions to ensure performance, compliance, and minimal disruption to the business. 

If your company is thinking about migrating VMware workloads, here is another blog that might be of interest! It goes over the things to consider before making such an impactful decision.

Assessing the VMware Environment 

Before initiating the migration, it’s critical to conduct a thorough assessment of the VMware environment. The assessment is ideally done in two stages: the data-driven inventory collection and a series of interviews to discover both functional and non-functional needs and must-haves of the organization.

There are many inventory discovery tools available on the market, like AWS Migration Evaluator, AWS Application Discovery Service, and Cloudamize. Each of these tools offers a factual snapshot of the current state. The common functionality includes cataloging VMs, capturing SQL versions and license types, and evaluating CPU, memory, storage, and usage. With the help of these tools, companies can identify how many underutilized and even zombie servers are in their environment as well as map the current VM specs to the instance types in the cloud.

Some tools go deeper than others in their capabilities, allowing to uncover the application's dependencies and interconnections or providing financial summaries and forecasts for different cost modes (on-demand, 1|3 years no|partial|all upfront pricing). With this data, organizations can right-size their resources, understand their future-state budget, and plan the migration waves that would cause as little stress to the business as possible.

When deciding which tool to use, companies need to decide whether they want to go with an agent-based or agentless approach to data collection. They also need to understand their budget, as some tools are complimentary offerings (Migration Evaluator) and others provide a subscription-based pricing model (Cloudamize).

At the end of the day, all organizations moving from VMware to AWS (or anywhere else) need to ensure all interdependencies are mapped and that characteristics of compute and storage are optimized during the migration.

Choosing the Right Migration Strategy

There are several different migration approaches known as Rehost, Relocate, Replatform, Repurchase, Refactor, Retire, and Retain strategies. The choice here depends on the organization’s goals and workload requirements. Each of these strategies has its own use cases. The choice depends on how strict the timeline is and the overall appetite and prioritization for the modernization of the application. We have discussed these strategies in our Cloud Migration On-Demand Webinar Series.

It often happens that companies need to move VMWare workloads under strict deadlines. In such cases, the room for modernization is slim, and customers choose to go with either rehosting or re-platforming. Rehosting involves moving VMware virtual machines to AWS with minimal changes. This approach is ideal for organizations looking to quickly migrate their workloads without significant modifications. Replatforming involves making minor optimizations during the migration process, like upgrading operating systems or databases during migration or improvement by moving to a fully managed service, for example, using Amazon RDS for managed database services.

Release of Amazon Elastic VMware Service

The VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS was the first relocating solution available for VMware workloads. Since April 2024 this service is no longer sold directly by AWS or its channel partners. Instead, Broadcom or authorized Broadcom resellers are used to renew customers' subscriptions and expand their environments. By the time of re:Invent 2024 AWS had come up with an additional "relocation" offering for their VMWare customers called Amazon Elastic VMware Service (EVS).

Amazon Elastic VMware Service (Amazon EVS) and VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS are both great options for running VMware workloads on AWS, but they have some key differences in how they work.

Amazon EVS is a native AWS service that lets you run VMware workloads right inside your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). This means you can manage your VMware environment using AWS tools while still taking advantage of your existing VCF licenses and the VMware software you’re already familiar with. With Amazon EVS, you get more flexibility and control, allowing you to tailor your VMware setup to fit your specific workload needs.

On the flip side, VMware Cloud on AWS is a managed service that’s a collaboration between VMware and AWS. It’s more of a packaged solution where VMware takes care of the underlying infrastructure, including maintenance, updates, and patches. VMC on AWS runs on dedicated bare-metal EC2 instances and includes a set of pre-configured VMware components like vSphere, vCenter Server, NSX, and vSAN.

One major difference is the level of control you have. With Amazon EVS, you get full administrative access to all parts of the VMware stack, including ESXi hosts, vCenter, NSX, and SDDC Manager. In contrast, VMC on AWS is managed by VMware, which means they handle much of the infrastructure management for you. Plus, Amazon EVS integrates more smoothly with other AWS services since it operates directly within your own VPC, making networking and security setups easier.

Licensing is another area where these two differ. Amazon EVS allows you to use your existing VCF licenses through license portability entitlements, which can save money if you already have significant investments in on-premises VMware solutions. VMC on AWS typically comes with its own licensing model as part of the managed service.

When it comes to management options, Amazon EVS gives you the choice to either self-manage your environment or partner with AWS for managed services. This contrasts with VMC on AWS, which is primarily a fully managed service that offers less flexibility but simplifies infrastructure management.

Selecting the Migration Toolset

AWS offers several tools to streamline the migration process. The main ones are AWS Application Migration Service (MGN), AWS Migration Hub, and AWS Database Migration Service (DMS). These services were specifically created to facilitate the migration. However, there are many other ways to migrate workloads to AWS, and the final decision, as always, depends on the situation the company is in. 

Sometimes customers do not want to install additional agents in their highly secure environments, but they already have a backup, disaster recovery, or simply a data transfer solution in place that syncs data or backups to AWS, like Datasync, Elastic Data Recovery Service, Storage Gateway Service, or some other solution that can help with data or whole VM migration.

The final decision on the migration toolset will depend on many factors, and workload criticality is one of the most important ones. For business-critical applications, it is recommended to go with AWS Application Migration Service (MGN), as it allows for smoother testing and cutover than anything else. If you want to understand how it works, take a look at my MGN Walkthrough blog.

AWS Migration Hub Journeys

Another one of the AWS migration tools that is somewhat recent and that is still gaining popularity is AWS Migration Hub Journeys. It was released in January 2024.  This service makes moving to AWS a lot easier. It gives you a clear path for planning, executing, and tracking your migrations with ready-made templates for common scenarios that you can tweak to fit your needs.

The idea behind "migration journeys" is to create a step-by-step pipeline of tasks related to your migration, which can be assigned to different team members. This service encourages teamwork by letting you invite others to join the journey, assign tasks, and keep an eye on progress together. Plus, it works well with other AWS migration tools, so you can build a complete migration pipeline that mixes automated tasks with manual ones.

With its straightforward guidance, customizable runbooks, and central storage for important documents, Migration Hub Journeys helps cut down on planning time and makes it easier for everyone involved, speeding up the whole process of getting to AWS.

Networking and Connectivity Design

Networking is a cornerstone of a successful migration. Establishing a reliable, high-performance, and secure connection between your VMware environment and AWS is crucial, and as always, a couple of aspects need to be considered. Companies will look at their networking, security, and post-migration connectivity requirements as well as the budget to choose between AWS Direct Connect or VPN connectivity.

Storage Considerations 

VMware workloads often rely on shared storage systems. Companies can choose between Amazon EFS, Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, and other options for shared file storage based on their performance requirements and budget. The ideal place for the archives is the Amazon S3, which is an object storage that offers lifecycle policies allowing for automatic archival and cost optimization. Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) is AWS' reliable block storage offering.

There are many options to choose from for each kind of storage need. Some are highly available by default, while others can be configured in the HA setup for additional cost. The choices are there, and zooming in on each scenario will allow you to choose the best option.

Security and Compliance

After migration, the same compliance with industry standards will apply. The workloads will need to be secured the same as on-prem, but the way to achieve this might, and most often, will be different. The role-based access control will be configured with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), so the IAM strategy is something organizations need to think about before everything else.

When it comes to compliance, AWS Config and AWS CloudTrail are the best solutions to start with and get used to. Encryption requirements can be addressed by the AWS Key Management Service (KMS).

Pre- and Post-Migration Optimization 

It is a good idea to access the current state of the environment with a Migration Readiness Assessment (MRA). This workshop is offered by AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) Partners such as Ippon Technologies USA. The goal of this assessment is to ensure that the leaders of the organization are all on the same page about the current and the target states. It also helps to understand which processes need to undergo transition and what the upskilling needs of the employees are.

AWS Well-Architected Framework review is another deep dive into the workloads that can be done before the migration and should be done regularly afterward. It is used to assess the AWS environment against industry best practices while prioritizing areas for improvement identified as high- or medium-risk issues.

Training and change management will be two important themes while preparing for migration as well as after it is completed. The teams need to be prepared for the new environment and understand how their new roles and responsibilities will change to be able to adapt to it better. The good and widely used starting point in this area is the Learning Needs Analysis, which is offered free of charge by AWS.  The process of change management will need to be adapted to the new operating model, and the amount of change in this area will depend on the current state approach. 

Conclusion

Migrating from VMware to AWS is a significant but rewarding undertaking. By making informed technical decisions, ranging from selecting the right migration strategy to designing robust networking and storage architectures, this transition can become much less painful. 

The best practices are shared publicly and are available for everyone’s use, but if you need peace of mind and guidance that will be tailored to your specific situation, contact us.