VMware Cloud (on public cloud that is) is now offered in four different cloud providers, but each providers offers different hardware, cost and features. In order to make the best educated decision for your needs, I am breaking down some of the key differentiating factors below.
VMware on AWS:
- 2 types of hosts available, regular metal hosts (similar to the rest) or storage heavy nodes
- First public provider to offer the service, therefore all preview features are offered here first
- VMware Cloud Flex Storage
- Netapp ONTAP also known as Amazon FSx
- Amazon Outposts (On-premise hardware solution)
- Minimum config is 2-hosts with a virtual witness (all others start with 3+ hosts)
- Extra locked down hosts (not compatible with some of the features from other vendors)
Azure VMware Service:
- Extra 64GB of memory per host compared to AWS i3.metal
- Comes with ESXi version 6.7 instead of 7.0 (this will no longer be the case soon, October 2022)
- Runs as a private cloud environment inside the customer’s tenant
- Semi-locked down hosts. Can still install support some extended vendor features
Google Cloud VMware Engine:
- Faster CPU clock speed (2.6GHz vs. 2.3GHz)
- Extra 256GB of memory
- Requires configuration to connect between GCP services and GC VMware Engine
- Semi-locked down hosts. Can still install support some extended vendor features
Oracle Cloud VMware Solution:
- Runs on customers Oracle cloud environment/networks (less latency if you are leveraging other Oracle cloud services)
- Available in the most regions (30+)
- CPU provides Platinum technology with the most cores (bit ironic if you look up the Oracle licensing history though)
- ESXi version 6.5, 6.7 or 7 (Keep in mind that 6.5 and 6.7 end of general support coming soon, October 2022)
- Self Managed Hosts (bring your own image, settings, upgrades, etc)
- Pay for the hardware/software only
- Bullet Points below added on 04-19-2022
- Free Egress traffic for the first 10TB/month (Less than $100/month for another extra 10TB)
- Ability to encrypt the data and keep the only copy of the key yourself
- New E4 Dense hosts will be soon available with AMD EPYC 7J13 (64 cores per CPU) and 2TB of Memory
- Also included with these hosts another 10TB of extra storage and 100G CX6-DX SmartNIC (2x50G Ports)
SRM licenses are extra within all the providers, however, vCenter, vSphere, NSX-T, vSAN and HCX are all included with it.
What do you think? If workload portability is something that collects your attention, then VMC on any cloud is meant for you.
Did I miss anything? Please feel free to comment and let me know!
