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VMware Cloud on AWS reInvent sessions posted

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In case you missed the big news this week at Amazon's reInvent conference, Pat Gelsinger (CEO of VMware) and Andy Jassy (CEO of AWS) announced together on stage VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts and VMware Cloud Foundation for EC2. For more details regarding the announcements, check out these two blog posts:

VMware had a number of VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) sessions at reInvent and most of them have already been posted online. Below is the current list and I will update it as new sessions are posted.

Given the amount of excitement and interests from customers on both VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts and VMware Cloud Foundation for EC2, session (ENT215) was repeated at reInvent to give some more information about the two solutions. In addition, you can also check out these two theCube interviews from each of our executives talking about both offerings.

ENT215 - Top Strategic Priorities You Can Tackle with VMware Cloud on AWS

CMP305 - VMware Cloud on AWS: Deep Dive

CMP360 - Supercharge VMware Cloud on AWS Environments with Native AWS Services

DAT375 - Deep Dive on Amazon RDS on VMware

ENT313 - Running Production Workloads in VMware Cloud on AWS

GPSTEC307 - Networking, Storage, and Data Protection Deep Dive with VMware Cloud on AWS

NET321 - Connectivity Options for VMware Cloud on AWS Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC)

Automating new Cloud Motion with vSphere Replication using Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) API

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Cloud Motion with vSphere Replication is the newest migration type that has been added to the Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) solution, which was also demonstrated during the VMworld US 2018 keynote (watch here). Unlike the traditional Bulk Migration, which also uses vSphere Replication to perform the initial replication, Cloud Motion with VR does not incur any downtime during the VM switch over. This is possible with our most beloved vSphere feature, vMotion!

With Bulk Migration, the VM on the source vCenter Server must be shutdown before the newly replicated VM on the destination vCenter Server can be powered on or else a network conflict will occur. Using Cloud Motion with VR, the VM is simply vMotion'ed from the source vCenter Server to the destination vCenter Server and because the VM's storage has already been replicated, the only thing that needs to transfer is the memory state of the VM.


All three HCX Migration Types can be scheduled from the HCX UI using the vSphere Client or automated using the HCX API. The latter option is definitely ideal for customers with large number of migrations but it can also help with smaller migrations as it reduces the amount of user input required when using the UI and ultimately, this reduces user errors.

To help demonstrate the HCX Migration APIs, I have updated my VMware HCX PowerShell Module to include the following two new functions:

  • New-HcxMigration
  • Get-HcxMigration

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Create vCenter Alarms for monitoring HCX migration events

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With the Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) solution, customers can migrate workloads immediately or have them scheduled at a later date and time of their choosing. Most customers will most likely not migrate all their workloads at once, but instead migrate them in different phases or waves based on their own internal schedules. The HCX "Migration" tab in the vSphere Client is a great place to get an overview of all the active, failed, planned and completed migrations and you can get additional details for each migration such status, percentage, amount of data transferred, etc.

Having said that, you probably also do not want to just sit there and constantly watch for progress, especially if something fails. The good news is that HCX already includes some default vCenter Alarms that are generated when a migration fails. There is one for vMotion/Cloud Motion, Cold Migration as well as Bulk Migration and currently these alarms only trigger a UI indication that something is wrong using the red critical icon on the VM in question.

Since these are vCenter Alarms, you also have the option of adding additional actions such as sending an email alert to a particular user or group, an SNMP trap which can then be monitored by your operations team or even run a command within the vCenter Server. Simply updating the default alarm which is defined at the vCenter Server level, you can proactively get notified when an HCX migration fails without having to constantly watch the UI. You may have also noticed the alarm definition is using a numeric ID which is highlighted in the screenshot above. This maybe useful if you wish to leave the default alarms alone and create a brand new alarm, you just need to use those IDs.

Another useful scenario to consider is getting notifications for a successful migration which can then help with transitioning users to the new VM running on VMC or even trigger automated VM and application verification before end users are even notified. Along these similar lines, you can imagine another scenario to consider is with using Bulk Migration and/or Cloud Motion with vSphere Replication. Both methods initially start off by replicating the VM's data from the source vCenter Server to the destination vCenter Server and then either a Cold Migration or vMotion is performed based on the configured scheduled.

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