IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Overview

7 min readMar 20, 2018

IBM is the number one operator of VMware workloads in the entire world, the number one per SISO partner to VMware as well as customer & partner-NSX.

This article is to highlight…

5 advantages with going with IBM per VMware solutions.
3 offerings of the IBM Cloud for VMware Solution portfolio.
HCX, the VMware hybrid workload migration extension.
Guided Interactive Demo!
Additional Resources.

**This is exactly what the VMware on IBM Cloud portfolio was built for.**

Credit: vmware.com. So, think hybrid cloud; existing on-prem or in cloud with your workloads. The offering of these solutions from IBM were to pave the route of flexibility in being able to use a monthly subscription model. No conversions from VMware VMs to something else, no refactoring.

The 5 advantages with IBM Cloud VMware Solutions

Business: Use your VMware licenses in a monthly subscription model. There is a ‘Bring Your Own License’ option. Both preconfigured server sizes / customized rent-per CPU, RAM, Storage options. Solutions were made to be fully-compatible with IBM Cloud Infrastructure and VMware products alike. No incremental pricing per networking or security or anything, incremental pricing is pretty much the worst, nobody likes it.
Operations: Dedupe, Compression & vSAN encryption. Multiple configs, vSphere and vCenter options, full compatibility. You determine when your patches and updates happen. Full admin access SW/HW. Multiple SSD devices per Host choices and multiple capacities per device. Full admin access for vCenter Server. vCenter server has multiple clusters for different workloads. Can use 3rd party tools easy.
Architecture: We have a track record across years in dedicated, single tenant bare metal implementations for enterprise customers. 1,400 enterprise businesses in a variety of industries around the globe have extended their VMware environments to the IBM Cloud Platform from 2016 to 2017. You have the entire platform of services inclusive to Watson to play with.
Implementations: No requirements for you have on-premises environment in our cloud completely to begin to use these services. vSAN is optional. Multiple data centers worldwide, 21+ DCs. 21 and more coming. You won’t have to pick up new tools to start in the cloud, you can manage workloads with the VMware console still and whatever you are using currently. You can keep using vRealize, the management console. No need to modify security, storage, or networking. You don’t have to convert virtual machines.
Management & Security: One vendor: IBM is the single vendor for everything. Billing, licensing, deployment, and support services all in one. IBM installs, bills, supports partner’s solutions too, like Veeam Backup, Fortinet, Zerto. We offer SW/HW firewalls. Also we have these add-ons per solution that come integrated to our platform so these are automatically added for you like DR, compliancy readiness, migration, backup, security, etc. Click here to see all additional services.

For additional advantages, Jeff Heilman made a 5 minute whiteboard session in which he defines more benefits for IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions in the area of provisioning in seconds by Skytap(!), security and more. Can’t recommend his video enough.

3 offerings of IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions

IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions User Guide

VMware vCenter Server on IBM Cloud (VCS)

Need: Speed and consistency of automation, but need flexibility in the networking and storage options. [Automated]

Link to Technical Specifications

Advantages:

vCenter Server on IBM Cloud has an entry price at about $8,000/month, USD + 4 TB of shared storage.
vSAN impacts performance of legacy workloads. So our VMware team at IBM decided to give the option to opt-out of different storage options with the vCenter Server on IBM Cloud Solution.
NetApp ONTAP Select on IBM Cloud offering complements the vCenter Server deployment by providing storage virtualization services. Click here for more information on NetApp ONTAP Select.

VMware vCenter Server on IBM Cloud is a hosted private cloud that delivers the VMware vSphere stack as a service. The VMware environment is built on top of a minimum of two IBM Cloud bare metal servers, shared file-level storage, and it includes the automatic deployment and configuration of an easy-to-manage logical edge firewall that is powered by VMware NSX. The entire environment can be provisioned in a matter of hours, and the elastic bare metal infrastructure can scale out the compute capacity rapidly when needed.
IBM Cloud provides you full, native access to the entire VMware stack, including vSphere 6.5 Enterprise Plus edition, NSX for Service Providers edition, and the centralized platform for management, vCenter Server. You can move your workloads to and from the cloud without changing your apps, tooling, scripts, or investing in new skills.
Using advanced automation, vCenter Server on IBM Cloud is deployed based on a standard reference architecture. You can deploy a platform instance in one or more of the available IBM Cloud data centers worldwide.
Platform instances and expansion nodes are priced per-month and they include access to IBM Support and all VMware product licenses that comprise the service.

Credit: IBM DTE team, https://ibm-dte.mybluemix.net/ibm-vmware

VMware vSphere on IBM Cloud (VSS)

Need: You prefer to design, install, and configure your own hosted VMware environment. [Build Yourself]

Link to Technical Specifications

Advantages:

You architect your own solution.
Start a new cluster as small as one ESXi server or scale an existing cluster
Based on what is ordered, the platform delivers optional VMware licenses, ESXi servers, and optional FortiGate physical firewalls.

VMware vSphere on IBM Cloud provides you with maximum flexibility to build your own IBM-hosted environment using VMware-compatible hardware and the right set of VMware components that fit your business needs and expertise.
You can design your hosted VMware environment any way you want: from a single ESXi cluster to a robust software-defined data center (SDDC) architecture. The VMware vSphere offering helps you extend your on-premises VMware environment into IBM Cloud.
vSphere on IBM Cloud lets you start as small as a single ESXi server and scale the cluster by rapidly provisioning ESXi on single-tenant bare metal servers. Expand your on-premises data center capacity without sacrificing the enhanced security of dedicated infrastructure. vSphere on IBM Cloud also offers the latest in native VMware encryption options at the VM-level or at the vSAN datastore-level.
Access the IBM-hosted VMware environment with the same level of control and visibility that you have on-premises. With full administration permissions to the VMware stack, you have total control and can continue leveraging your investment in tools, scripts, and training to manage the off-premises environment.
Platform instances and expansion nodes are priced per-month and include access to IBM Support and all VMware product licenses that comprise the service.

Credit: IBM DTE team, https://ibm-dte.mybluemix.net/ibm-vmware

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)

Need: Specific set of VMware Software Defined Data Center components. [Automated]

Link to Technical Specifications

Advantages:

Offers bare metal server configs based on the Intel Xeon v4 “Broadwell” processor.
Two sizes of preconfigured hardware BOMs.
Deployment with 512 GB, 768 GB memory or even the max 1.5 TB memory per server.

VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud brings together VMware vSphere, vSAN, and NSX into a natively-integrated stack of virtual compute, virtual storage, and virtual networking built on IBM Cloud compute infrastructure dedicated to you. The environment can be operated independently or as a seamless, hybrid extension of your on-premises data center.
Using advanced automation, the Cloud Foundation stack is deployed in a standard, prescriptive manner according to a VMware-validated design reference architecture. Each instance deployment includes native user interface access to the VMware products, VMware and IBM-provided lifecycle management capabilities to automate day 2 operational tasks, and an integrated backup service for the management plane.
You can deploy a base instance in one or more of the available IBM Cloud data centers worldwide. After the based instance is deployed, you can expand or retract virtualized workload capacity on demand using standard capacity nodes. You can link up to eight instances to create a multi-site configuration.
Platform instances and expansion nodes are priced per-month and include access to IBM Support and all VMware product licenses that comprise the service.

Credit: IBM DTE team, https://ibm-dte.mybluemix.net/ibm-vmware

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension [HCX]

Need: Simplify setting up hybrid connections and migrating VMs.

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) allows for the easy and simplification of workload migration by building the abstraction layer between on-prem DC and the IBM Cloud. You are then enabled to securely network between the two locations and greater mobility per virtual workloads. For more information on HCX, visit this link or watch the below video.

Credit: IBM DTE team, https://ibm-dte.mybluemix.net/ibm-vmware