How to Capture Cloud Cost Savings: VMware Cloud on AWS & Faction
By Rebekah Dumouchelle, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Faction
The economy of moving to the cloud is top of mind for many executives. Companies considering a move from datacenters to VMware Cloud on AWS — the hybrid cloud platform released by VMware in 2017 — can save time and effort. The return on investment (ROI) can include improved agility, faster time to market, waste reduction, and safeguarded workloads. As interest in VMware Cloud on AWS grows, how can you make the most of cloud economics?
Value from VMware Cloud on AWS
Market advantages offered by VMware Cloud on AWS include reduced operational costs, the ability to migrate specific apps, the ability to build on VMware environments your staff already knows (and avoid the expense of retraining), and managed risk of vendor lock-in. The growing interest in this platform comes primarily from business initiatives, including data center extension, disaster recovery, cloud migration, and AWS integrated applications.
In 2019, VMware commissioned a study by Forrester Consulting to evaluate the ROI that may be available to enterprises that deploy VMware Cloud on AWS. The Total Economic Impact of VMware Cloud on AWS report (TEI) takes a systematic approach to identify the costs, benefits, risk factors, and flexibility of a customer’s choice to invest in the platform.
By compiling interviews with four VMware Cloud on AWS customers, which it then combined into a composite organization, the TEI revealed significant cost savings: customers can save 59% of operational costs with VMware Cloud on AWS as compared to the equivalent on-prem capacity. The TEI report identified and grouped the benefits of moving to VMware Cloud on AWS into two categories:
- “Quantified benefits.” Participating organizations were able to avoid application redesign by utilizing VMware’s vMotion and by using their existing software-defined data center (SDDC), representing a total savings of $2.7 million. Reducing labor costs for operations (by eliminating networking hardware and physical servers and through simplified operations) saved an additional $1.2M. Data center operating costs fell a total of $1.4M. Because migrations presented opportunities for consolidating storage and networking environments, licensing expenses were reduced, leading to hardware and software savings of $3.2M. (All amounts listed as risk-adjusted present values.)
- “Unquantified benefits.” Proving that benefits go beyond ledgers, interviewees identified a range of unquantified benefits. They were able to redeploy legacy servers for other IT projects; achieve faster, more reliable disaster recovery (DR) operations; improve organizational security and lower the chances of business disruptions; improve the agility of operations; and end costly commercial leases for the real estate that housed data centers. On a more personal level, employee morale grew, as the shift to more contemporary networking tools and the reduced demand for maintenance made work more interesting for staff.
Costs (for VMware subscriptions, internal training and deployment, and ongoing expenses for VMware management) were measured over three years. The resulting ROI was 108%.
Prevent Out of the Box Surprises
While unanticipated benefits can be a pleasant surprise, surprise fees aren’t nice at all. Migrating to VMware Cloud on AWS offers many advantages over on-premises and other public clouds, but enterprises should still take the time to understand cloud migration to avoid unwanted costs and efforts. Some of the most common surprise expenses of cloud migration are application refactoring, rework due to insufficient upfront planning, and data egress fees.
If unexpected expenses of cloud migration is a concern for your organization, you’re not alone. In a report based on a survey of more than 1,100 professionals, Faction’s 2019 VMware Cloud on AWS Market Survey found that cost is a top concern for 46% of those who have not yet already moved any workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS.
Out of the box, VMware Cloud on AWS can flatten the adoption curve for organizations which already use VMware on-premises, but choosing the right partner to help you navigate the migration can unlock additional levels of cost benefits. Many companies turn to Faction for improved service and additional cost savings over the out-of-the-box configurations. Faction helps customers avoid costs associated with using the storage included in VMware Cloud on AWS’s hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). VMware Cloud on AWS’s HCI is ideal for many use cases, but results in cost overruns for storage-intensive use cases because the included storage does not scale independently of the cloud compute and networking resources.
Challenge Accepted—and Solved
Faction provides a differentiated approach: Faction Cloud Control Volumes (CCV) is the first cloud-attached storage solution that integrates natively with VMware Cloud on AWS. With this unique service, customers have persistent cloud-attached storage with a flexible tiered design to optimize their costs based on performance needs. This service is directly connected to VMware Cloud on AWS via proprietary, patented network connectivity with less than 3-millisecond latency. Customers can also use CCVs for cloud-based, cost-effective Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service for VMware-based workloads.
- Expertise. As a VMware Premier Cloud Provider that has earned VMware’s Master Services Competency in VMware Cloud on AWS, Faction has prioritized in-depth knowledge of VMware’s offerings—and how they can benefit our customers.
- Accelerated deployments. Faction’s architects, engineers, and cloud strategists have faced seemingly all of the hurdles of cloud migration. Our team knows how to deliver rapid transitions and non-disruptive migrations.
- Pricing flexibility. While VMware offers one-, three-, and on-demand pricing models that scale compute, storage and network simultaneously, Faction’s model allows you to configure your solution based on the performance and capacity you need. You won’t pay for resources you aren’t using—and you aren’t required to purchase capacity and performance together. Add resources incrementally, when you need them.
- Savings. Customers can save more than 90% on VMware Cloud on AWS using Cloud Control Volumes.
Capture the Savings Available to You
The Faction team is here to help determine what the broad picture of cloud economics means for your organization. For a customized evaluation of options available for your business, contact us.
