VCloud Hybrid Service

Claiming this is a big a change as esx was. Essentially VMware is now a cloud service provider. Using co-lo facilities.
Deploying a VM is now straightforward, but adding the network, storage, firewall etc creates delay.
Extract, pool, automate is the mantra of the week
VMware services in 3 US data centres
UK available in Q1 2014
Focussing on virtual private cloud
5GHz CPU
20GB RAM
$2 per hour
10Mbps standard connection over secure tunnel or 1Gbps for virtual private cloud 10Gbps for dedicated cloud are available as dedicated lines
Data protection is an add-on service
DR as a service is available
Portal to make services available to business, including dynamic, status reports.
Shopping cart approach to purchase- multiple different pricing models
Data migration at start up is normally via physical NAS transfer.
For the hosting only you can manage using a browser. If you have existing comprehensive internal VMware environment then it is claimed to be easy to migrate vms to VMware vCloud Hybrid Services.
Thoughts: I remember asking VMware folks if they would be providing their own cloud services when they announced vCD - they said no as all the service providers would be buying vCD - this could be VMware's recognition that the service providers have largely chosen other routes?

Making the Most of Hybrid Cloud

Will be interesting to see how much of this content admits to the existence of non-VMware clouds...
Starting with a level setting.

Making analogies with how containerisation of the shipping industry.
vApp is the standardized container.
These vApps run on vmware based clouds: Att, blue lock, colt, csc, loch, singhtel, t-systems are available providers with services across 24 countries

Application choice when moving to the cloude is important- data security and location to meet compliance, service levels required - crucial to provide right sizing for security and service level requirements as over specifying is an expensive mistake
the closer to commodity the application stack is, the easier it will be to move to the cloud, eg email, sharepoint, web, ecomm
Ensure splitting of components can still perform over a link to other components in the cloud
Costs to migrate
- understanding internal tco is complex
- need to add bandwidth costs
- migration effort
- easiest if you have vApps of course
- use feasibility analysis (vmware consultancy service) including internal costs for comparison

Business value?
- give devs quick access and less time building environments
- agility ( particularly in agile dev env or peaky workloads)
- potentially lower cost of ownership
- avoid the grey economy of cloud outside IT control (survey says somewhere between 37 and 58%, depending on who you ask suspect or know this happens in their business.

Thoughts - the need to work out what is right to provision via a cloud seems to be the obvious analysis to do before making a decision. I think what is lacking is a clear methodology for making these decisions. Need cloud centre of excellence to manage this, design solution, deliver solution and manage contracts.

Of course Dell Multi-Cloud Manager will help once you have decided what steps to take into the cloud.
And to answer my earlier question, apart from recognising that out of control cloud services exist, the solution is very VMware focussed. The principles of making decisions applies generically.