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How to Migrate VMware to Google Cloud

If you’re planning to migrate VM workloads from your data center to Google Cloud, or from one cloud to another, it may be considered a relatively straightforward lift and shift. But, like most things cloud-related, migrating virtual machine (VM) workloads can get complicated.

For instance, you may have to deal with external dependencies, application or network complexities, or different operating systems and versions. You might have schedule constraints—or discover that compliance with regulatory requirements will impact the on-time delivery of your migration project. There’s a lot more to consider than simply migrating your VM workloads.

Yet, there’s good reason to do so. Aside from reducing costs and management headaches, it can also help to accelerate a ‘cloud-first’ strategy and modernize your IT infrastructure—setting a foundation for more value-driven activities in the cloud, like automation and analytics. And with the right approach, you can migrate VMware to Google Cloud without changing any of your apps, tools or processes.

 

Find out how Pythian helped one IT Fortune 500 enterprise technology company migrate its Oracle database to Google Cloud VMware—a solution that required VMware, Oracle database and Google Cloud expertise, but also Terraform and Ansible scripting automation experience for task automation essential to deploy 300+ databases. 

 

The Benefits of Elasticity for VMWare in Google Cloud?

Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE) has been purpose-built for enterprises that need scalability and elasticity; with GCVE, for example, you can spin up a new private cloud in about 30 minutes with dynamic resource management and auto scaling.

With GCVE, you can continue to use your core enterprise apps in the cloud, since it integrates with database, storage, disaster recovery and backup ISV solutions. And you can continue to use the same IT management tools as you do in your on-premise environment. 

So for example, you could migrate your VMware-based disaster recovery and backup workloads to Google Cloud, using the same tools and processes that you use on-prem. As an added bonus, you can locate your data in different zones for multi-regional disaster recovery.

You get the fully integrated VMware experience, but with the benefits of Google Cloud, such as scalability and availability. GCVE is built on Google’s scalable infrastructure—it’s the only public cloud with a privately owned non-shared infrastructure—with dedicated 100 Gbps networking and 99.99 percent availability.

Plus, you can access other Google Cloud services via native VPC networking (such as Compute Engine VM instances, Memorystore instances and any resources with an internal IP address) to unify the user experience across services. And you can get more out of your VM workloads by, for example, converting data into insights (by unlocking Google Cloud services as part of the Google Cloud VMware Engine). Getting more out of your data is a huge part of how you can drive additional value.

Other benefits of GCVE include:

  • multi-regional disaster recovery
  • lower total cost of ownership
  • on-demand provisioning
  • capacity optimization
  • ongoing compliance with licensing requirements

 

GCVE is great for VMWare – but don’t go it alone

Any cloud migration can get complex, particularly if you need expertise across multiple disciplines. This is even more important if you’re moving workloads across clouds from, say, Azure or AWS into Google Cloud. A good partner should have the right experience – and a proven methodology – to anticipate, navigate and mitigate challenges in complex data environments, laddering back to business goals. 

Pythian can help with our Lift and Shift VM Cloud Migration Service, which delivers on-time, de-risked, end-to-end migration of VMware virtual machines to Google Cloud and between clouds, by bringing strong planning, risk management and technical capabilities into a four-step migration plan. And our certified cloud, OS and database experts use a pretested, integrated toolchain to speed up discovery and VM workload migration time to Google Cloud, as well as ongoing operations, support, cost optimization and modernization. Contact us to find out more.

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