Empower data to gain scale in VMware cloud
December 14, 2021
Lately, a lot of conversations Accenture has with clients who run VMware eventually come around to the same question: “How can we get our VMware workloads on the cloud?” Of course, they also point out the need to do this quickly, securely, and economically.
I am not surprised at all. More and more companies recognize that running all their VMware workloads on premises is hitting a wall in terms of value and growth potential. The fact is that humans, machines, and edge systems are generating data at an ever-accelerating pace—far faster than traditional on-prem platforms can handle. All this data only gains worth if it is easily accessible and usable by people across your enterprise. But for many companies that is not possible. Their data is often siloed on legacy platforms, making it difficult for people to find the information they need to make decisions, innovate and drive value.
Simply put, data’s worth depends on its accessibility and application. And the fact is cloud is the only place where data gains the scale, agility and capabilities to be accessible, relevant and, ultimately, valuable. This is why I am so excited about the business group we’ve formed between Accenture and VMware—the Accenture VMware Business Group (AVBG)—building on our two-plus decades of partnership. This alliance is a joint investment between Accenture and VMware that brings together our respective resources, expertise, and assets. It is supported by approximately 2,000 cloud professionals trained in VMware products and services. Together, we are on a mission to help companies get more value out of the data residing on the 70 million or so workloads running on VMware platforms today.
Why VMware and Cloud are better together
Bringing VMware to the cloud is a critical component in a modern IT infrastructure strategy, which is clearly heading toward hybrid and multi-cloud. A growing amount of data is being generated and processed at the edge, but it won’t stay at the edge forever. Some data is used only momentarily at the edge, with the bulk of data needed elsewhere for analytics and to feed innovation. This is why scale and agility are essential.
VMware brings the necessary agility, providing portability of VMware data and workloads from edge (or on-prem) to the cloud and back. And cloud offers the massive scale to handle rapidly growing data volumes. Moreover, by moving key VMware data and workloads to the cloud, you gain that needed scale while retaining familiar VMware tools and functionality to assure operational consistency from edge to cloud.
How to streamline your VMware journey to the cloud
Now let me answer that key question: how do you get VMware to the cloud quickly and securely?
Moving workloads to the cloud is much easier with VMware than physical environments. VMware HCX is a great way to accelerate application migration—at scale—and streamline workload rebalancing across data centers and clouds. Accenture and VMware also offer custom-built migration accelerators to suit unique or specialized requirements.
However, migrating VMware to the cloud is also just the first step in the journey. It is then essential to build a modern data foundation on the cloud to take advantage of advanced capabilities like artificial intelligence and machine learning—the principle enablers of value—which are predominantly available on the cloud.
<<< Start >>>
Moving workloads to the cloud is much easier with VMware than physical environments.
<<< End >>>
To accelerate and secure your transition to cloud while minimizing disruption to the business, we recommend automating the process and leveraging organizational structures like a dedicated migration factory as much as possible. One example is the AVBG Center of Excellence launched jointly by Accenture and VMware, designed expressly to provide a controlled environment for planning, testing, migrating and modernizing VMware workloads and data foundations on the cloud.
Another way to modernize VMware data foundations in a hybrid-cloud model is using pre-integrated solutions like VMware Cloud Foundation. This tool allows you to manage both virtual machines and container-based workloads like databases and further extend the value of your data by taking advantage of advanced cloud-native technologies such as AI and ML while retaining your VMware foundation.
These are just two examples of tools and assets companies can use to migrate and modernize their VMware investments on the cloud faster and more easily. Consider a major retailer who streamlined migration of over 50TB of data and more than 250 apps and systems. They did it in “record time,” according to the company’s CIO, while maintaining consistent end-user productivity and simultaneously adopting a secure cloud-optimized network.
I believe successes like this retailer experienced are just the beginning.
With a cloud data foundation for VMware, companies can gain levels of scale and elasticity that simply aren’t possible on traditional platforms. Most importantly, this is the way to get more data into the hands of more people who can turn your data into business value. This is the Accenture VMware Business Group focus, as explained in the video discussion below between James Forrester of VMware and Accenture’s Philippe Chauffard. Check it out and let’s start a conversation about your VMware journey to the cloud.
<<< Start >>>
Accenture and VMware on Expanded Partnership and New Cloud First Business Group
James Forrester, VP Worldwide Technical Leader, Cloud Sales at VMware, and Philippe Chauffard, Senior Managing Director Cloud First at Accenture, discuss the expanded partnership between VMware and Accenture, including a new Cloud First Accenture VMware Business Group dedicated to helping organizations accelerate cloud adoption and application modernization at scale.
View Transcript<<< End >>>
