Executive Summary:

The Fast Path to Hybrid Cloud for Regulated Industries

Initially, public cloud was used primarily for new applications designed to be cloud native. Over the past decade public cloud has matured to become the new model for IT computing. While most organizations aren’t using the public cloud for the majority of their IT, many are using public cloud in some capacity. In regulated industries such as government, financial services, and healthcare, compliance and security are posing a challenge. At the same time, most of these customers see cloud as inevitable and necessary to be competitive. IT decisionmakers at even the most conservative organizations in these verticals are beginning to adopt cloud because the competitive reality will drive organizations to innovate, cut costs, and develop digital assets faster.

Hybrid cloud is defined by seamless integration

Leveraging new technology for existing assets and applications is key in enterprises, and cloud is no exception. Many applications, especially in regulated industries, are very large and complex and have long life cycles. It is not practical or cost effective to rewrite these applications overnight, and if they are to be migrated to cloud, they will need to be migrated with little to no modification.

As regulated industries adopt more and more cloud, a key strategy will be to move from elementary public cloud to hybrid cloud. Hybrid cloud is a seamless integration of on- and off-premises assets to avoid creating more silos and bring together existing and future environments. Organizations are moving to cloud in varied and individual ways, but the goal is to have greater portability, seamlessness, and governance across all environments.

VMware Cloud on AWS is VMware’s premiere public cloud offering. It combines the VMware stack that is a mainstay in enterprise datacenters with the scale and global reach of AWS facilities. VMware Cloud on AWS is fully operated by VMware, with Amazon providing the physical infrastructure. By using the same VMware software components that customers have in their own datacenters, VMware Cloud on AWS can be a consistent and seamless public cloud extension for a hybrid cloud. In addition, VMware Cloud on AWS has several unique features that address hybrid and public cloud challenges for regulated industries.