Part 8: See How Customers Are Unlocking the Power of Hybrid Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS 

Looking to rapidly migrate to the cloud? Scale cost-effectively and strengthen disaster recovery? You’re not alone. Here’s how organizations are unlocking the power of hybrid cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS. In this blog, let’s dive into a collection of compelling customer stories that offer a glimpse into the impactful experiences of our customers with VMware Cloud on AWS. Also, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7 of this blog series for more customer stories across various use cases.

USE CASE: DATA CENTER MIGRATION

Suncorp

Suncorp Views its Multi-Cloud Strategy as Critical to Succeeding with Enterprise Generative AI

Suncorp is one of Australia’s largest financial services brands offering home and motor insurance, banking, life insurance, and superannuation.

The team at Suncorp been experimenting and piloting large language models (LLMs) for some time. They’re now using geospatial information, especially in situations where the claims they receive are related to flood or other natural hazards. Additionally, Suncorp’s cloud strategy is tightly coupled with the opportunities they see from leveraging AI, both now and in future.

Because they have recently launched sophisticated AI-enabled personalization tools, Suncorp needed scalability, cost-effective compute as well as the ability to apply those technologies in quite differentiated ways in different parts of their business.

Using VMware Cloud on AWS, the team at Suncorp migrated their workloads from on-premises to the cloud. It was a very complex migration but with VMware Cloud on AWS “it was as simple as right click and it just vMotions that (workloads) on-premises to the cloud.”

“Gone are the days where we have a whole bunch of IT people in a dark room with pizza being slide under the door. And being able to leverage the multi-cloud means that we’ve got more agility than ever, and more services than ever to actually make sure we’ve got resilient data that is getting to our customers and stakeholders faster than ever.”

– Emily Cornock, Executive Manager, Core Data Platforms – Suncorp Group

Watch this video to learn about Suncorp’s experience with VMware Cloud on AWS.

Kingston University

Kingston University Accelerates consciously hybrid cloud strategy by migrating to VMware Cloud on AWS

Kingston University is a prestigious higher education institution based in London. It offers courses across various disciplines from undergraduate to postgraduate level and prides itself on producing the most sought-after graduates in the country.

The university needed flexible and agile technology that enables it to respond rapidly to changing requirements. The IT team at the university also wanted to support the university’s transition to more sustainable and energy efficient solutions. Additionally, the university’s ageing on-premises data centers were complex to manage and maintain. The infrastructure refresh cycle was problematically variable, there was growing technical debt, and a need for more scalability. Also, the IT team wanted to move to the cloud and at the same time run some resource-intensive workloads on premises.

By migrating their workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS, the IT team at Kingston University was able to reduce the data center footprint by 90%. They bulk migrated 200 virtual machines (VMs) with zero downtime in just three weeks. In total, 650 of the 750 VMs were moved to the cloud by March 2023.

Using VMware Cloud on AWS, the IT team at the university gained flexibility to pivot quickly on where to host applications to ensure best performance and cost benefits. They also enabled micro-segmentation to increase workload-level security using VMware NSX Distributed Firewall with VMware Cloud on AWS. The team was also able to accelerate application security and networking for the university using VMware Aria Operations for Networks with VMware Cloud on AWS.

Here is what Kingston University shared about their experience of using this hybrid cloud service:

“We chose VMware technology so we could use our existing skills and wouldn’t need to reconfigure servers. We already use VMware technology, so we knew we could achieve a more seamless migration to cloud. We set out to remove the barriers to innovation, and with support from Xtravirt and VMware, we’re free to explore everything the cloud has to offer.”

– Daniel Bolton, Head of Technical Services, Kingston University

Check out this case study to know more about Kingston University’s experience with VMware Cloud on AWS.

Quality Bicycle Products

Quality Bicycle Products Accelerates its Path to the Cloud by Migrating to VMware Cloud on AWS

Founded 1981 and headquartered in Bloomington (Minnesota, USA), Quality Bicycle Products (QBP) is North America’s largest distributor of bicycles, accessories, and parts, and an industry leader in distribution, education, advocacy, and product innovation. As a certified B-corporation, QBP is committed to environmental protection and is working toward full carbon neutrality by 2030.

Earlier last year, QBP’s colocation provider decided to close down leaving them in a lurch and forcing their IT team to move the entire production environment to a new location within 14 months. After evaluating several options, including engaging with another colocation provider facility, QBP decided to migrate to the public cloud keeping in mind their long-term vision.

QBP wanted to modernize their stack in the cloud in the short timeframe and also wanted to migrate their core applications without rearchitecting or refactoring them. Additionally, as a certified B Corporation, QBP aims to be carbon neutral by 2030 and wanted to work with providers like VMware that have similar goals.

With VMware Cloud on AWS, the IT team at QBP was able to migrate 300 virtual machines (VMs) in under 14 months without refactoring or rearchitecting them. This included their workhorse enterprise resource planning (ERP), warehouse management systems and e-commerce applications. A key business impact was providing their developers with cutting-edge tools and the ability to work on frequent and faster pilot projects while keeping their traditional apps as-is using VMware Cloud on AWS. The IT team at QBP was able to achieve a stable environment to better optimize resources, improve innovation and delivery times. They also gained more clarity on TCO with the ability to produce reports & graphs at CFO level and make better decisions.

Here is what QBP has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“VMware Cloud on AWS was the perfect way to accelerate our move to the cloud. We could move existing applications without refactoring or rearchitecting them and have native cloud services live on the same infrastructure. Being able to offer our developers those cutting-edge tools and keep our traditional apps was a huge win for us.”
– Joe Van Ert, Systems Architect, Quality Bicycle Products

Read Quality Bicycle Product’s experience with VMware Cloud on AWS here and watch their video here.

USE CASE: DATA CENTER EXTENSION

East London NHS Foundation Trust

East London NHS Foundation Trust Scales its IT Infrastructure to Meet Rising Demand for Healthcare Services

The East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) is a National Health Service trust that provides an array of mental health and community health services in the East London region of the United Kingdom.

The team at ELFT wanted to meet rising demand for healthcare services, and to address unexpected and overwhelming stress on their systems due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They also needed a robust platform to deliver innovative solutions that can improve patient & service user care, e.g., patients accessing and managing their own records. Additionally, they needed to get the right digital solutions that help make a difference in how care is delivered.

To meet the above challenges, the team at ELFT chose VMware Cloud on AWS to migrate to the cloud, using the additional capacity to significantly scale its IT infrastructure, virtualize its networks, and implement a robust disaster recovery solution.

They migrated swiftly and smoothly to the cloud after a few weeks of planning together with VMware teams. After the migration, some of the benefits were very noticeable like achieving a faster experience for clinicians and hospital staff as they logged into their systems post migration. The team also put in place a robust disaster recovery solution by activating VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery features on VMware Cloud on AWS as well as enabling VMware NSX features on VMware Cloud on AWS to create virtualized network devices, including switches and routers.

“The way VMware supported us when looking at different cloud platforms, different options, attending calls with us where needed or even face-to-face meetings if required, they really went that extra mile to make sure we progressed to that platform.”

– James Slaven, Chief Technology Officer – East London NHS Foundation Trust

Read ELFT’s detailed story here and watch their video here.

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Supports Research Dynamism with Anything as a Service Approach

The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is a research institute based in Lausanne, Switzerland, specializing in physical sciences and engineering. It comprises 11,000 students, 350 faculty and 6,000 staff. It is home to over 500 laboratories and research groups, each at the forefront of science and technology.

EPFL needed to change how it provided IT services to the researchers. It had to be fast, easy and reliable. It also needed to abide by Switzerland’s data sovereignty laws. Furthermore, management set the IT team a task of being able to provision a new virtual machine within 15 minutes.

With these goals in mind, the IT team at EPFL chose to use VMware products and achieve suitable results. EPFL already had a set-up with VMware Cloud on AWS for disaster recovery purposes. Next, they developed a private cloud with VMware that made better use of their existing resources. Doing so helped them meet the goal of “15-minute provisioning” for a new virtual machine (VM) and the number of VMs in use is up by 100% since deployment.

The IT team at EPFL was able to provide compute, storage and networking as well as load balancing and flexibility with VMware Cloud Foundation, protect sensitive research work with VMware NSX Distributed IDS/IPS as well as establish the necessary management control using VMware Aria Automation.

Here is what EPFL has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“From an IT infrastructure perspective, we want to provide researchers with everything they need. They should be able to start their research on day one.”
– Philippe Morel, Director of IT Operations and Infrastructure, EPFL

Read EPFL’s story in detail here and watch their video here.

Route Mobile

Route Mobile Migrates to VMware Cloud on AWS for the Fastest Transition and Lowest Cost to Cloud-based Infrastructure

Route Mobile (RML) is a leading cloud communication platform provider, catering to enterprises, over-the-top (OTT) players and mobile network operators (MNO). RML enterprise communication services include smart solutions in messaging, voice, email and SMS filtering, analytics and monetization. The company is headquartered in Mumbai, India, with a global presence in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America.

The customer faced several challenges that prompted their move to the cloud. They had scarce skilled manpower, reduced efficiencies, and increasing infrastructure and maintenance costs that were obstructing RML’s growth. Besides eliminating dependency on third party and private hosting services they also needed to maintain maximum uptime, greater agility, and lower manual intervention to improve customer experience and satisfaction. Additionally, they needed a solution with lower carbon footprint and better ROI compared to their existing platform.

The team at RML chose to migrate to the cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS and gained multiple benefits as a result. They ensured 100% application availability among RML’s client’s customers with VMware Cloud on AWS as well as achieved a 20% increase in its market share and projected revenue growth of 30% YoY. Additionally, the team at RML was able to host the business applications without any reskilling of manpower or downtime. They were able to put in place an agile, consumption-based infrastructure with strong operational control while achieving cost efficiencies and ease of deployment with a scalable platform.

Here is what Route Mobile has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“Upgrading to a scalable platform like VMware Cloud on AWS supported by robust infrastructure, Route Mobile is able to support the business focus on product expansion, accelerated adoption of digital communication updates and solutions and omni channel platform capabilities to create deeper customer engagement.”
– Ramesh Helaiya, CTO, Route Mobile

Check out RML’s success story to learn more about their experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS.

City of Potsdam

City of Potsdam Advances Digital Education in Schools by Expanding Data Center to the Public Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS

Situated in the southwest of Berlin, Potsdam is the capital and largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. Surrounded by lakes, rivers and forests, the city is an inspiring place to live, study and work.

But during COVID-19 school closures, there was a need to accelerate rollout of urgently needed devices in the German school system, manage devices in compliance with the EU GDPR requirements as well as absorb device management workload across all the schools effectively by a resources-constrained IT team. So, the City of Potsdam decided to advance the digital infrastructure of the German school system by expanding data center to the public cloud.

They decided to use VMware Cloud on AWS to Setup a GDPR-compliant hybrid cloud infrastructure in just a few weeks. They were able to minimize deployment time with this flexible, scalable, easy to manage solution. The City of Potsdam was also able to provide a modern educational experience – including digital services – for 25,000 students and 5,000 educators by using VMware Cloud on AWS and Workspace ONE Unified Endpoint Management.

Here is what the City of Potsdam has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“With VMware Cloud on AWS and Workspace ONE UEM, we have a cloud foundation which accommodates adjustments and additions as our digital learning platform expands and matures.”
– Mathias Horezky, Head of IT Infrastructure and Service, City of Potsdam

Read their customer story here in detail.

What’s Next:

Don’t wait any further. Start your hybrid cloud journey today with VMware Cloud on AWS. Now, you can sign up for the free trial of VMware Cloud on AWS and try out the migration yourselves for free for the first 30 days. If you are interested in finding out the TCO savings, also check out the VMware Cloud on AWS TCO Calculator. And please check out some additional resources as mentioned below to learn more:

Resources for VMware Cloud on AWS