Cloud Director service expanding multi-cloud enterprise services

This week we are pleased to release Cloud Director service support for managing multi-tenant or private SDDC services on Google Cloud VMware Engine and remote on-premises vCenter endpoints. Cloud Director service is available for both VMware Cloud Provider partners and enterprise customers.

What does this mean to enterprise customers? Now you can deliver a multi-cloud control plane for infrastructure and applications to Google Cloud VMware Engine and VMware Cloud on AWS, as well as connect existing on-premises vCenter instances or consider replacing your on-premises Cloud Director appliances.

Cloud Director service provides a consistent user experience over multiple cloud architectures and genuinely delivers on the hybrid cloud promise. Enterprises are able to sell or deliver virtualized resources to differing tenants (internal customers) or internal ‘Lines Of Business’ (LOB), both with complete secure separation and control.

Cloud Director service is the SaaS incarnation of Cloud Director on-premises and delivers the same high value infrastructure and application services now to VMware hyper scale partners; VMware Cloud on AWS and Google Cloud VMware Engine as well as on-premises vCenter or Cloud Director endpoints. By doing so, you can multi-tenant these target endpoint infrastructures to provide a right sized cloud to your end customers to meet their requirements.

But Cloud Director is not just about multi-tenancy, it is also a service delivery platform with networks, security, storage, application catalogs, extensibility services from a rich partner ecosystem, GPU services and native Tanzu Kubernetes support as well as AWS and Google Cloud native service adjacency. For example, Google customers can now connect their Google Cloud Platform environments to a Cloud Director service instance with Google Cloud VMware Engine environment and gain the benefits of a VMware and Google Cloud Platform in the same region.

Cloud Director service delivers on many use cases, not only right-sized virtualized infrastructure for end customers, but also enables very quick and easy geo expansion. Does your organization have a global presence and require cloud services in different geos? Now you can expand to Google Cloud VMware Engine regions as well as VMware Cloud on AWS– delivering a multi-cloud experience has never been this simple. You can also connect into your existing on-premises Cloud Director or vCenter instances, delivering a hybrid cloud with global potential without the need to manage or deploy on-premises Cloud Director.

Use case 1 – Drive economies of scale for all sizes of cloud

Remove your limits on physical hardware and node-based consumption in VMware hyperscale clouds and partners. Using Cloud Director service, you can create resource pools to aggregate virtual resources of any size across physical hosts for your customers or LOB. This allows you to manage all sizes of your internal business units / associated companies in your corporation and removes the hardware SDDC node limitations from them.

 Use case 2 – Operationalize multi cloud with a common control plane

Multi-cloud really means management of multiple clouds. Achieving management at a competitive operational cost can be a challenge when managing each cloud separately. Using Cloud Director service enterprises can deliver a hybrid operating model of VMware, anywhere. Deliver infrastructure and access to supported endpoints from a single, brandable, customizable Cloud Director service self-service user interface.

Use case 3 – Deliver a secure multi-cloud experience

It’s a VMware Cloud, just on another supported endpoint. Using NSX and layer 2 segregation as well as virtualized edge and distributed firewalling, you can protect your internal customers’ and business workloads at layer 2 to layer 7 from exploits and ensure they remain protected with dynamic policies ensuring east-west and north-south traffic protection. Encryption and other capabilities are also factors that contribute to a secure environment. (Please ensure the target endpoint supports these as not all endpoints are equal in capability).

Use case 4 – Drive Application Modernization Opportunities

The world is not standing still, and neither are your application requirements, each target endpoint needs to support a dev ready cloud. Cloud Director natively supports Tanzu Kubernetes clusters and operational management of these, Cloud Director and VMware App Launchpad delivers a rich set of CI/CD tooling and applications, wrapped in security, pre-tested and validated and ready for your developers to use. You can complement this already formidable capability with hyper scale cloud adjacency from AWS and Google Cloud. This means your customers can utilize native cloud solutions in alignment with their VMware estate, allowing diverse use cases and hybrid application development.

Use case 5 – Deliver extensible, differentiated cloud services your business needs

Extensibility is key to delivering a differentiated portfolio to customers and Cloud Director has a rich ecosystem of third-party ISV who do just that. At a baseline with Dev ready cloud as an offering, enterprises can access the entire VMware Marketplace of 200+ applications. These applications are all tested and validated by VMware and can be placed into custom curated catalogs as well as third-party ISV solutions and custom solutions, custom vApps or Helm charts, making an ideal platform to deliver the solutions your organization needs.

Use case 6 – Migrate and protect to and in cloud

Cloud Director Availability makes migration and Disaster Recovery as a Service in and to Google Cloud VMware Engine simple. Customers can drive self-serve migration from the on-premises Cloud Director Availability vSphere plugin, or they can run the Cloud Director Availability plugin from the provider managed Cloud Director instance and move workloads into Google Cloud VMware Engine. Once in Google Cloud VMware Engine, customers can protect their workloads between Google Cloud VMware Engine instances or back to on-premises.

How is this all accomplished?

Cloud Director service is available from VMware Cloud Partner Navigator and, is supported with VMware Cloud on AWS and Google Cloud VMware Engine, on-premises vCenter and Cloud Director endpoints. Enterprises will need contracts with each endpoint provider and a contract for Cloud Director service as well. Enterprises can purchase VMware Cloud Director service from VMware, Google Cloud VMware Engine from Google and VMware Cloud on AWS from AWS or VMware. Enterprise customers can also purchase the Google Cloud VMware Engine cloud offering from VMware as part of the VMware Cloud Universal program.

Once this is done it is simple to connect to the software defined data center endpoints and start delivering cloud solutions and business services.

What next?

Find out more about Cloud Director service by visiting our documents page, webpage or talk to your VMware representative. Keep an eye on our blog page for information on Cloud Director Availability support for Google Cloud VMware Engine.