Organisations in Singapore are turning to hybrid cloud as a quick and easy way to extend their local on-premise data centres as well as activate a secondary or disaster recovery site. These enterprises also are turning to VMC on AWS to accelerate their deployment, since they already have the right in-house skill sets and applications will require less refactoring.
The ability to scale their IT infrastructure quickly is essential as their business grows and cloud allows them to do so without having to worry about acquiring physical space to house more servers.
According to a survey by Boston Consulting Group and Amazon Web Services (AWS), 70% of companies across Asia-Pacific believe cloud will help them innovate faster and reduce operational and implementation risks. Doing so, in fact, enables large enterprises to release new services 30% to 60% faster than if they use in-house infrastructure.
Such benefits have driven organisations in the region to boost their cloud spending from 3% of their IT budgets to 5%, between 2016 and 2018. By 2023, cloud is projected to account for 10% of the average IT budget, with spending on public cloud and associated services climbing at a compound annual growth rate of 25% across the region.
In Singapore, for instance, the initial path to onboard hybrid cloud is usually driven by the need to build an offsite or disaster recovery site, observes Jacky Woo, Pre-Sales Manager for Managed Infrastructure at AsiaPac (an M1 company). These companies want a secondary site that they can quickly power up if their on-premise systems experience a downtime, so their business can continue to operate without a hitch.
Companies also turn to hybrid cloud as a way to extend their local on-premise data centre. "So instead of building another data centre or a larger server room to house more equipment, they can quickly attach themselves to the cloud and readily expand their workloads," Woo says.
CIOs also may not want to tear down their on-premise systems, in which they had heavily invested, but will support their mobile workforce via the cloud so they do not need to worry about maintaining the infrastructure to provide sufficient bandwidth and robust connectivity.
A hybrid cloud model allows organisations to tap on the operational and cost benefits cloud offers, while enabling them to retain some existing workloads as well as data on their physical IT infrastructure. Door access systems, for instance, typically are kept on-premise so they remain operational if online connectivity is lost or down.
That said, Woo notes that some businesses still are willing to put mission critical applications on the cloud, especially if the platform is backed by a proven brand such as VMware Cloud. In fact, he adds, AsiaPac currently is working with a financial services provider in Singapore to move their production workloads to the cloud, because these time-sensitive applications need the low latency assurance that cloud is able to deliver.
Taking the first steps
Interestingly, despite its cost benefits, the leading concern among organisations taking their first steps toward cloud is cost.
Woo explains: "They usually will compare on-prem deployment, such as buying the hardware, to cloud where it may sometimes be more expensive upfront. However, they tend to forget that when their applications are running on the cloud, their IT staff no longer need to worry about the overall upkeep.
"Their IT operating model has moved from 'keeping the lights on' to focusing on how they can better support the business," he adds.
Businesses looking to start their hybrid cloud journey also have questions about which platform to adopt and will compare the pros and cons of hybrid cloud solutions available in the market.
They also want to know whether they need to repurpose their systems or re-architect their applications, and how long the migration will take.
Generally, most public cloud platforms require a different format on which the systems sit. In addition, migrating to public cloud platforms require substantial effort as workloads will need to be refactored and the underlying hypervisors may need to be changed.
These considerations underscore a strong advantage of deploying VMC on AWS. Since most enterprises already are running VMware on-prems, it is easier to move to the cloud platform because the underlying fabric is the same and re-architecting is not necessary or will require little effort.
Woo says: "If they're using VMware in-house and moving to a cloud-native infrastructure, rather than VMC on AWS, their staff will need to be reskilled so they can manage the new environment. With VMC on AWS, they will see a familiar interface including the same icons and use the same login credentials.
"So the learning curve isn't steep and, from an operations standpoint, you're still doing what you were doing on-premises, but on the VMC on AWS cloud," he says.
Working with partners such as AsiaPac also enables businesses to map out a clear migration journey and ensure all necessary steps are carried out.
"We already have a checklist of what needs to be done and the processes on how to do them," Woo says, pointing to AsiaPac's jumpstart programme and starter kit. "We offer guidelines and procedures, and can walk through the steps with the customer on how they should deploy VMC on AWS."
The AsiaPac Advantage
Armed with multiple partner awards, AsiaPac is a leading ICT solutions provider in managed infrastructure, cloud, and enterprise computing. Together with M1, AsiaPac helps to accelerate intelligent business digital transformation. We focus on end-to-end customer-centric solutions to deliver edge–driven systems to the core data centre and the hybrid multi-cloud with secured connectivity.
AsiaPac is the first VMware partner in Singapore to achieve the top tier Principal Partner Status for VMware Cloud on AWS & attained its’ Master Services competency. We are also the exclusive launch partner for VMware Cloud on AWS in Singapore and have deep expertise in hybrid cloud consultation. We have implemented multiple successful nationwide projects in Singapore, including a seamless hybrid cloud deployment to extend existing on-premises vSphere environment to AWS.
We can set up VMC on AWS and have it running in just two hours. We can help you start with a minimum of two host configuration for as low as US$11,000/month, using the same VMware management tools you are already familiar with to manage both your on-premise VMware environment and VMs running in AWS.
Contact an AsiaPac representative today to start your cloud journey with VMC on AWS.
