Federal Roadmap

to the Cloud
A VMware Federal White Paper

Table of Contents

IT LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES 2
Cloud Computing Defined 3
The Return on Investment (ROI) of Virtualization 4
and Cloud Computing 2

MAKING THE FEDERAL JOURNEY 6

A Step-by-Step Approach 7

WHY LEADERSHIP MATTERS 8

Bridging Two Worlds 9
Addressing Government Concerns 10
Guidance from a Trusted Advisor 12

CLOSING THOUGHTS 13
 The US Government today: IT Leadership Challenges
• Spends $76B annually on IT,
consuming, on average, 69% The Federal CIO Council has set its sights on driving change across the
an Agency’s fiscal year budget
Federal government − applying the power of technology to transform
• Manages 1,100+ datacenters,
up from 432 in 1998
the way government works so it can serve the American people more
• Maintains 10,679 IT systems
effectively. The goal: reduce the Government’s enormous IT spend
and drive efficiency back into data center operations by eliminating
“Standards to Foster Innovation,” redundant infrastructures, leveraging economies of scale, and changing
Vivek Kundra, Federal CIO,
May, 2010 management focus from owning and maintaining assets to service
delivery. The catalyst behind these latest directives: cloud computing.
The Council specifically requests CIOs actively consider and evaluate
cloud computing as part of their data center reduction plans.

“The cloud will do for the Government what the Internet did in the
‘90’s. We’re interested in consumer technology for the enterprise.
It’s a fundamental change to the way our government operates by
moving to the cloud. Rather than owning the infrastructure, we can
save millions.”
Vivek Kundra, Federal CIO

The call to action presents major challenges to CIOs and IT leaders.

Federal data centers house an enormous wealth of legacy assets that
will continue to need care and maintenance. A move towards cloud
computing requires CIOs to figure out how to stitch together today’s
Recent Executive Directives: physical data centers with tomorrow’s cloud deployments while

October 2009: President Obama

signed an Executive Order 13514 • maintaining service level agreements
directing agencies to improve • keeping data secure and reliable
energy efficiency and reduce
greenhouse initiatives by 30% by
• retaining control of intellectual property
2015. This directive has recently • supporting the proliferation of mobile compute devices in
been re-emphasized and is listed
a secure manner
as one of the top ten federal cost
savings initiatives. • preventing itinerant deployments to unsecure public sites.
February 2010: the Federal CIO
called upon agencies to develop Industry experts and independent analysts concur that virtualization is
plans on how they will reduce the key technology enabler of cloud computing, offering “a natural path
existing data centers within the next
five years, and submit those plans for existing workloads to evolve in a stepwise manner toward the cloud
by August 30, 2010 for inclusion in computing style.” (Gartner Research, 2009) It is also a proven method of
the Fiscal Year ’11 and ‘12 budgets.
CIOs are asked to actively consider achieving many of the efficiencies the government seeks. As the pioneer
and evaluate cloud computing as of the x86 virtual infrastructure market, we at VMware also hear a call
part of their plans.
to action to offer the Government unbiased advice and perspective
June 2010: President Obama issued from our 10+ years experience amongst an otherwise fledgling arena of
Memorandum M-10-25 requesting
a moratorium on new federal data vendors and providers. Our intent is to de-mystify the Cloud, and offer
centers and a suspension of new government leadership best practices and definitive steps for making the
task orders or contracts for financial
system modernization projects,
Journey to it in order to derive value from it. Because cloud computing
pending OMB review. He also done poorly reaps none of its benefits.
states he anticipates his data center
consolidation plan to “produce no
less than $3 B in cost savings by the
end of 2012.”

2
Cloud Deployment Models
Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS)
A shared pool of virtualized
infrastructure (CPU, storage,
networks, RAM) available to
consumers on demand to
run their operating systems
and applications. Sometimes
referred to as elastic compute
clouds.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Cloud based tools,
infrastructure and operating
systems to develop and deploy
applications either to a cloud or
on premises.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Applications running on a cloud
infrastructure, available on a
pay-as-you-go basis, normally
as public offerings.
Cloud Service Models
Private Cloud: Operated solely
for an organization, usually
on-premise (internal). Often
favored as it is easier to control
and lower risk.
Public Cloud: Made available
to the general public or a large
industry group and is owned by
an organization selling cloud
services.
Hybrid Cloud: Composition of
two or more clouds (private
or public) that remain unique
entities but are bound together
by standardized or proprietary
technology that enables data
and application portability.
Community Cloud: Shared
by several organizations and
supports a specific community
that has like concerns.
Cloud Computing Defined
Cloud computing is an approach to computing that delivers IT assets to
consumers (users) as a service in the same manner as we obtain water
and electricity from county or commercial utility vendors. The Cloud
presents a major paradigm shift for IT, with descriptors never before
associated with data center operations: agile, dynamic, elastic, zero-
touch. Done properly, it carries the promise of sizable savings (capital,
operational), shifts IT focus from tactical to strategic, and transforms IT
operations into value-add versus cost-center drain. Though in its infancy,
cloud computing is evolving rapidly, with government and industry
actively collaborating on new standards and terminology to give it shape
and direction.
The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) published a
working definition of cloud computing as…
“…a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to
a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks,
servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly
provisioned and released with minimal management effort or
service provider interaction.”
NIST proposes the cloud model has five essential characteristics, three
service models, and four deployment models:
Five Essential Cloud Computing Characteristics
1. On-Demand Self-Service:
Consumers can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as
server time and network storage, as needed automatically, without
requiring human interaction with each service’s provider.
2. Ubiquitous network access (‘anytime, anywhere’):
Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through
standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thick or thin
client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, PDAs).
3. Resource Pooling:
Computing resources (storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth,
and virtual machines) are pooled to serve multiple consumers using
a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources
dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand.
4. Metered Use:
Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by
leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate
to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active
user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and
reported providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of
the utilized service.
5. Rapid Elasticity:
Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned (in some cases
automatically) to quickly scale out, and rapidly released to quickly
scale in. Capabilities available for provisioning can be purchased in any
quantity at any time.
3
 The Department of Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Rapid
Access Computing Environment (RACE) secure private cloud lends
clarity to the concepts above. RACE consists of many virtual servers
inside a single physical server. Within this virtual environment, users
can use a self-service portal to provision compute storage in 50GB
increments with the guarantee that the environment will be secure to
DoD standards.

According to DISA, RACE is able to provision functional server space

to users in 24 hours for a reasonable cost that can be charged to a
user’s government credit card. For security purposes, RACE has built-in
application separation controls so that all applications, databases and
Web servers are separate from each other. Since the inception of this

cloud-based solution, hundreds of military applications including

command and control systems, convoy control systems, and satellite
programs have been developed and tested on RACE.

Virtualization and Cloud

Computing rank as the No.
1 and No. 2 CIO priorities in The Return on Investment (ROI)
2010.
of Virtualization and Cloud Computing
Gartner Executive Programs
Worldwide Survey,
January, 2010
Virtualization and cloud computing enable significant benefits, including:

• Lower cost of ownership through high asset utilization and reduced

capital expenditures.
The US Food & Drug Administration has more than 190 virtualized
machines running on 3 VMware clusters, reducing server-related help-
desk tickets by ~90% and increasing server utilization from 5-10% to
55-60%.

• Simplified provisioning and deployment, cutting time to release new

services from perhaps six or more months to hours or even days.
Through virtualization, the Defense Contract Management Agency
(DCMA) eliminated 400+ physical servers, achieved a $1.5M annual
cost avoidance, and reduced server deployment time from 4 weeks to
15 minutes.

• Reduced systems and infrastructure management through ubiquitous

VMware Energy Efficiency automation.
The Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) consolidated 2,000 physical
VMware Distributed Power
Management (DPM) dynamically servers onto 300 hosts, turning off ~1,700 servers while maintaining
powers hosts on and off to consistent computing capabilities and service levels. Power and cooling
meet workload requirements
and conserve power during costs were reduced by 65%, saving NMCI $1.6M annually.
periods of low usage. A 2009
study showed that if all VMware
customers ran DPM for one year,
the energy saved could power a
country the size of Denmark for
10 days.

4

“Today's IT leaders are
rethinking issues of cost,
security and control, and
rewriting the IT job description
by outsourcing contextual
processes to reliable cloud
vendors. They are creating
a future where the IT
department is a prime driver
of an organization’s ability to
innovate and execute.”
How the Cloud is Changing IT
Forbes.com, June 2010
• Consistent enforcement of defined business, security and governance
policies.
The US Army Intelligence Center (USAIC) virtualized its campus
infrastructure, achieving a 40:1 server consolidation ratio, and replaced
traditional PCs with thin clients. In one year, USAIC saved $31M in
hardware costs alone; labor costs were cut by more than 90% because
virtual machines can be reimaged in minutes versus several days of
manually cleaning and reconfiguring computers. The virtual image also
ensures consistent enforcement of USAIC business and security
policies across all users. What used to take 40 IT staff 4 days now takes
2 staff members a matter of hours.
• Lower power consumption and reduced data center footprints.
The US House of Representatives consolidated more than 400 physical
servers to less than 100, reducing power consumption by at least 45%.
• Elastic scalability by dynamically adding and subtracting capacity as
needs change.
General Services Administration (GSA) moved USA.gov to a cloud
model for on-demand scalability to better handle the vast increases
and decreases in website traffic in response to current events. GSA’s
site upgrade time was reduced from 9 months to 1 day maximum, and
annual outlays were reduced by $1.7M (72%).
The benefits of virtualization and cloud computing are nothing short
of dramatic. Released from the overwhelming burden of tactical and
maintenance tasks, IT staff are empowered to recharge their careers,
keep current with the latest technology advancements and seek
innovative ways of applying them. Efficiency gains free up budget dollars
to invest in new services and programs for citizens and employees. The
focus of IT leadership shifts from data center management to strategic
planning, business process refinement, and opportunities for cross-
organizational collaboration.
Making the
Federal Journey
Cloud services can be offered at many levels of the IT stack, including
applications (Software as a Service - SaaS), and application infrastructure
(Platform as a Service - PaaS). But it is universally accepted that neither
SaaS nor PaaS can exist without first implementing Infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS). The single, most efficient way to achieve IaaS is through
virtualization.
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Current studies show the
normal utilization rate of
x86 servers is only 5-15% of
capacity.
VMware Aggregation
VMware delivers the
capacity to aggregate the
largest number of VMs and
greatest amounts of physical
infrastructure into a single
logical resource pool – more
than any other vendor in the
market:
• 32 physical servers with up
to 2048 processor cores
• 1,280 virtual machines
• 32 TB of RAM
• 16 petabytes of storage
• 8,000 network ports
Virtualization is a way to logically partition a server to run and dedicate
compute resources to multiple applications simultaneously. Virtualization
technology embeds a thin layer of software, called a hypervisor, directly
on the server hardware, separating it from the operating system. The
hypervisor supports the management of multiple virtual machines (VMs)
that reside on the same physical server. VMs can be thought of as tightly
isolated containers, each with its own operating system, applications
and assigned hardware resources. As a result, Windows, Linux, Netware,
and Solaris operating systems can be run simultaneously on the same
physical machine. An operating system or application failure in one VM
has no affect on the others.
It is important to note that hypervisors are not created equal. For
example, VMware’s method of virtualization places both operating
system and application in each virtual container, eliminating any
dependencies and making them as easy to manipulate and move across
the infrastructure as files and folders. VMware vSphere delivers the
highest server consolidation ratios available today, increasing server
utilization rates to 85+%. Our clients experience, on average, 4:1 ratios per
CPU, achieving total per-server consolidation ratios of 10, 15, 20, up to
30:1 in true production environments. This means a VMware environment
can require 1/10th to 1/30th the hardware of a physical environment,
with no impact on application performance. Customers can achieve a
50% reduction in capital expenses and more than 60% in operational
expenses per application. Potential savings plus associated reduction in
energy consumption have made virtualization and cloud computing the
top two priorities of CIOs globally in 2010 (Gartner Executive Programs
Worldwide Survey, January 2010).
A Step-by-Step Approach
When considering a move to the Cloud, most government entities will
achieve the greatest success by gradually evolving their data centers into
a private cloud where IT retains control of infrastructure assets and data
security policies. In time, many may choose to employ a hybrid cloud by
expanding capacity into the public cloud. Regardless, implementing any
type of cloud model is an evolutionary journey that, to be successful,
should be made incrementally and incorporate best practices along the
way.
Figure 1: The Journey to the Cloud is an evolution on several planes.
6
 PHASE 1 – EXPLORE
“Virtualization is much more
than a tactical cost-cutting
Virtualize – First, begin looking at your IT infrastructure as services
trend. Virtualization must be
seen strategically as a catalyst versus components. Identify which services (e.g., applications,
of overall IT change and processes, data) would be good cloud candidates and list the IT
modernization. These changes
position IT more as a service components behind them. It is often best to start with a small test
provider.” case – a software development project, a service used by a small
“Virtualization is not the only number of users, or a virtual desktop pilot.
path to cloud computing,
but it will be one of the most
important and common on- Focus on virtualizing the infrastructure. You must get beyond the 20%
ramps to the cloud computing mark to establish a resource pool of virtual infrastructure. Security
style (both public and
private).”
best practices, such as security zones, compliance policies, and access
control models should be addressed.
“Concurrently with internal
IT modernization, server
virtualization will be a natural Aggregate – Next, standard operating procedures need to be defined
path for existing workloads to at multiple levels: infrastructure standards, software and configuration
evolve in a stepwise manner
toward the cloud-computing standards, service level standards, and process and policy standards.
style.” Establishing standards is a pre-requisite to the ability to aggregate
Server Virtualization: virtual data center constructs into logical resource pools for rapid
One Path that Leads to Cloud
Computing,
provisioning and de-provisioning.
Gartner Research, October 2009

PHASE 2 - EXPAND

Automate – Once standards are established and modified to work

in a cloud approach, many management tasks and services can be
automated and workflow-enabled to minimize errors and achieve
sought after efficiencies. Examples include user ordering, server and
desktop deployment and provisioning, backup and recovery routines.
At this point, common workloads can be migrated to the Cloud, such
as messaging and collaboration services. Virtual desktops may also be
expanded.

PHASE 3 – LEVERAGE

Manage – Mature management and monitoring practices should be

implemented, such as integrated physical and virtual management,
chargeback policies, capacity management, etc. IT support
procedures need to be modified to keep up with the rapid, dynamic
and real time nature of the Cloud. Governance practices must also
evolve to avoid sprawl in the virtual environment.

Data centers can now progress to end-to-end automation of

infrastructure and platform services, enabling customer self-service
and executing a full desktop rollout.

Optimize – Once all target workloads are delivered to the Cloud,

they should be optimized based on service levels, cost, performance,
security, etc.
7

RSA & VMware announce a
partnership to build security
into the virtual operating
system. April 2009
“Virtualization has matured
and will be a key enabler
for security in the cloud.
Virtualization will be the
engine that drives cloud
computing and I am pleased
to see security conversations
are happening at the same
time as the cloud is evolving.
“Initiatives such as this
will make security controls
in the cloud automatic,
and more efficient and
transparent to end users
than can be achieved in
any physical infrastructure.
Cloud computing is a great
opportunity to do security
right.”
Eric Baize,
Sr. Director of Product Security,
RSA
A major VMware utility
customer consolidated 1000
servers down to just 80. This
better than 12:1 consolidation
ratio translates into nearly $6
million in net savings over a
3-year period.
Each phase will return greater efficiency, increased utilization and
automation, and heightened flexibility and agility while maintaining
control:
PHASE 1 BENEFITS – Increases IT productivity and asset utilization,
providing up to 40+% cost reduction.
PHASE 2 BENEFITS – Increases business agility, provides rapid service
levels, and additional cost reduction (30+%).
PHASE 3 BENEFITS – Provides self-service and the opportunity to
charge for usage and optimize workloads among several clouds.
The key to making a successful journey is executing a balanced, step-
by-step approach to maturing your infrastructure, your processes, your
policies, and your governance all at the same time, but in a gradual
fashion. Doing so avoids overshooting (VM / data center sprawl) or
undershooting (stalling out) your target. As with all modernization
efforts of this scope and magnitude, organizational change management
practices must be engaged throughout the Journey. Leadership
commitment is critical and must be communicated to all stakeholders
on a regular basis. Training is also essential to neutralize concerns and
resistance along the way.
Why Leadership Matters
Cloud computing didn’t just arrive. It has been evolving as a direct result
of technology advancements that enable it, beginning with virtualization.
VMware invented and released x86 virtualization in 1998, followed by the
industry’s first hypervisor in 2001. We continue to innovate and today
offer the only complete platform to:
• Virtualize, manage and secure servers, desktops, networks, storage
and data (for IaaS)
• Provide industry leading tools to develop cloud-ready applications
(for PaaS)
• Integrate application-aware email and collaboration (for SaaS)
• Make all of the above available as a pool of resources that can be
offered as a service.
Enabling IT as a Service is our business, and our cloud capabilities have
been on a quiet revolution, transforming IT in the commercial sector for
nearly a decade.
8

VMware Customer Profile:
• 190,000+ Customers
Commercial Clients
• 100% of Fortune 100
• 100% of Fortune Global 100
• 96% of Fortune 1000
• 96% of Fortune Global 500
Federal Government Clients:
• All Executive Level Agencies
• US Department of Defense
and All Military Branches,
Services and Joint Commands
• The Legislative Branch (both
House and Senate)
• The Judicial Branch
• Multiple Independent and
Quasi-Government Agencies
VMware Partner Ecosystem:
• 800+ Alliance Partners:
storage, server, network,
software and consulting
companies
• 22,000 Resellers
• 50+ Virtual Appliance Makers
• 1,300+ Service Providers
89% of all virtualized
applications in the world run
on VMware.
Gartner 2009
Closing the Gap
“One of the biggest gaps in the federal government is a gap in
technology between the private sector and the public sector. When
citizens interact with the federal government, they’re stepping back
10, 15, 20 years in technology.”
Vivek Kundra, Federal CIO
Today’s buzz around cloud computing have technology companies
rebranding their products and services, even if they don’t meet the basic
criteria. Others offer viable services and components that are in their
initial release, leaving functionality and interoperability gaps, bugs, latency
issues, security, governance and standards compliance to be addressed in
subsequent releases.
VMware’s comprehensive solutions, collectively known as our vCloud
Initiative, are in their 4th generation and continue to deliver new and
enhanced capabilities with undisputed success. In government environs,
where risk mitigation is a primary driver, experience, leadership and past
performance matter. No vendor has delivered more virtualization and
cloud-capable solutions to the Federal Government than VMware.
Our longevity in the market also gives us a deep understanding
and appreciation for the unique pressures and challenges faced by
government CIOs and IT departments today. We believe we can address
many of them.
Bridging Two Worlds
To meet recent White House directives, CIO’s must determine how to
bridge the gap between physical, virtual and cloud infrastructures without
service interruption.
VMware solutions do exactly that. Our cloud-ready infrastructure,
application and end-user computing platforms allow physical, virtual and
cloud environments to co-exist in harmony, enabling assets to move in
and out of each without modification. Our strategy has and will continue
to be building open, standards-based solutions that “play well in any
sandbox,” giving our clients the freedom of choice to select the hardware,
operating systems, and applications that conform to their established
architectural guidelines. Our solutions can be deployed in part or as a
whole, whichever best suites our clients needs.
9
VMware Unique Capabilities:
Secure, Manageable, Open

• Most Security Certifications,

including Common Criteria EAL
4+, DISA STIG, FIPS 140-2,NSC

• Industry’s highest aggregation

capacities of virtual machines
(VMs) and physical
infrastructure into a single
logical resource pool,
maximizing asset utilization,
drastically reducing capital
& operational costs (60+%),
without affecting performance
and scalability

• Smallest hypervisor footprint

– reduces attack surface for
external threats

• Operating System independent

– eliminates patches and their
associated security risks and
removes the operating system
as a potential single source of Figure 2 – VMware is the only vendor capable of delivering cloud
failure capabilities across all three tiers of the IT stack.
• Direct Driver architecture –
delivers greatest performance Even our corporate mission statement is 100% aligned with today’s
& scalability to support more
Federal directives:
VMs on the same hardware
than any other x86 hypervisor

• VM File System (VMFS) and

“To Dramatically Simplify the Complexity of IT”
Resource Pools – VMFS is a
high performance cluster file VMware vSphere is the industry’s first cloud operating system. It is the
system that gives multiple
hosts concurrent read/write foundation for building out a cloud architecture and is step #1 on the
access to the same virtual Journey. VMware vCenter brings unified automation, management, control
storage. Processing, storage
and network capacity and simplification to the infrastructure level. Together they comprise our
of multiple hosts can be Infrastructure and Management Platform. At the Application Platform
aggregated into a single
pool or cluster. Resource tier, VMware vFabric provides a developer framework and toolset for
Pools create logical shared build once, deploy anywhere applications. Gartner and Forrester both cite
pools of memory and CPU.
Both enable VM provisioning,
vFabric as the unparalleled cloud platform for application development
automated workload balancing, and portability on-premise and off-premise. VMware View and ThinApp
live migrations, distributed
bring the benefits of pooling, automation, control and application
access, high availability and
zero-downtime disaster virtualization to the desktop, which is actually the largest workload base
recovery. Invented by VMware in most organizations. Zimbra delivers fully integrated and application-
• Live VM, server and storage aware email and collaboration services across the enterprise. Together
migration – enables dynamic they comprise our End-User Computing Platform. All of these platforms
load balancing and planned
maintenance with zero are used today by leading cloud service providers as their foundation to
downtime. Invented by VMware build out public, private and hybrid cloud infrastructure.
• Open security framework
and API – the newly adopted
industry standard for native
integration between virtual
Addressing Government Concerns
environments and best of VMware is uniquely capable of delivering all five essential characteristics
breed security solutions.
of cloud computing as defined by NIST, as well as addressing the
Developed by VMware and
adopted by the Distributed Government’s chief concerns about the Cloud:
Management Task Force in
2009

10
 • Distributed Power
Management (DPM) –
continuously monitors
resource requirements,
consolidates workloads,
and powers down unused
servers; when demand
increases, suspended hosts
are automatically re-
activated, resulting in sizable
power consumption and cost
savings (20+% beyond data
center aggregation savings)
DMTF is an industry
organization that develops,
maintains and promotes
platform-independent and
technology neutral standards
for systems management in
enterprise IT environments,
both physical and virtual.
A DMTF subgroup
began work in 2009 on
interoperability standards for
cloud systems. As a result
of its work, the DMTF Cloud
Management Workgroup
(CMWG) was recently formed
to establish prescriptive
specifications that deliver
architectural semantics
and implementation details
to achieve interoperable
management of clouds
between service requestors/
developers and providers.
Winston Bumpus, VMware
Standards Architect, has been
President of DMTF for the
past 10 years.
Security, Control, Compliance:
VMware’s vShield portfolio introduces the foundation for the next-
generation of cloud security, providing a comprehensive set of services
for securing the datacenter at any level - host, network, applications, data
and endpoint - in a single integrated management framework. Sample
capabilities include:
• Segmentation and trust zones for compliance
• Introspection to precisely and efficiently detect problems and apply
comprehensive security controls (e.g., File Integrity Monitoring, root-
kit virus protection, discovery of sensitive information, and Data Leak
Prevention)
• Change-awareness that ensures security policies follow virtual
machines wherever they move
• Site-to-site VPN, DHCP, NAT, Firewall and Web Load Balancing
• Flow statistics and monitoring and reporting
• Comprehensive perimeter protection
• REST based APIs for extensibility and integration with existing security
products and infrastructures
• Event logging for audit purposes
VMware leads the industry in security certifications and validations,
including Common Criteria EAL 4+, FIPS 140-2, DISA STIG and NSC. We
are also actively involved in the Cloud Security Alliance, whose mission
is to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance
within cloud computing.
Portability and Interoperability:
VMware is actively leading the charge to standardize interoperability
between cloud computing environments, working through the Distributed
Management Task Force. Two recent VMware led initiatives:
• OVF - Open Virtualization Format – the industry standard method of
packaging virtual workloads so they can be moved seamlessly
between cloud infrastructures without modification
• vCloud API – standardizes programmatic access to cloud resources
All VMware technologies are OVF compliant. Further, many 3rd party
external cloud vendors build their cloud offerings using vCloud API as the
front end integration point, allowing cross compatibility between the tools
and systems running on internal and external clouds.
Orchestration and Automation:
vCenter Orchestrator provides out of the box workflows to automate
existing manual infrastructure management tasks and build new
workflows with drag-and-drop ease. Its library of pre-built workflows
and 800+ tasks can automate processes for both physical and virtual
infrastructure.
11

Don’t Take Our Word For It-
Gartner, the most trusted voice
in the IT market, published the
first-ever Magic Quadrant for
the x86 Server Virtualization
Infrastructure market in May,
2010. VMware is the only
vendor placed in the leader’s
quadrant.
“VMware is clearly ahead in:
• Understanding the market
• Product strategy business
model
• Technology innovation
• Sales execution
• Product capabilities”
Capacity Planning:
CapacityIQ profiles, analyzes and tracks capacity needs at multiple
levels: virtual machine, host, cluster and datacenter. Based on historical
consumption patterns, it can trend and forecast current and future
capacity needs, ensuring capacity is always available to meet any service
level agreement.
Availability and Disaster Recovery:
High Availability (HA) provides automated application restart within
minutes in the event of hardware or operating system failure; Fault
Tolerance (FT) provides continuous availability with no downtime or data
loss to any application in the event of hardware failures; Data Recovery
(DR) provides automated, agentless backup and recovery for virtual
machines in small to medium environments.
Guidance from a Trusted Advisor
CIOs who have already transitioned to the Cloud advise new comers
that their chance for greatest success is to select technology and service
providers that “demonstrate core competencies, have a client base that
can be referenced and show proof of solid experience.”
VMware Professional Services Organization (PSO) has extensive
experience helping enterprises and service providers build cloud
architectures and adopt and expand a flexible cloud computing approach.
PSO vCloud Consulting Services offer two programs to help our clients
begin their transition to the Cloud:
vCloud Jumpstart provides accelerated knowledge transfer and a ‘hands-
on’ opportunity to evaluate a demonstration version of the VMware
vCloud solution, installed in a client’s test environment and guided by
VMware experts. In-depth technical knowledge transfer workshops cover:
•
Features and functions of VMware vCloud components and high level
design, integration, and use case considerations
• Provisioning, consumption, and billing options and benefits compared
to traditional methods
• Interface considerations for line-of-business and IT administrators
• Leveraging existing vSphere virtualized applications (vApps)
• Live, hands-on demonstration of a VMware vCloud solution—composed
of VMware vCloud Director, VMware vCenter Chargeback, and VMware
vShield for vCloud Director installed in an isolated, non-production
environment
vCloud Accelerator Service delivers a working, pre-production VMware
vCloud computing environment running one or two client applications.
This enables clients to measure success prior to a larger-scale deployment
and gives them the opportunity to test drive vCloud capabilities, including
its:
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“VMware Strengths:
• Far-reaching virtualization
strategy enabling cloud
computing, new application within the cloud, and
architectures and broader • Consumption models and bill-back mechanisms
management
• Technology leadership and
innovation
• High customer satisfaction
• Large installed base summary. IT organizations are better prepared to build upon this pre-
(especially Global 2000),
and rapid growth of service
providers planning to use within the cloud environment and more broadly deploy a VMware vCloud
VMware (vCloud).”
Source: Gartner (May 2010)
“Instead of the cloud being a
single point of failure, it can
become a centralized way of
controlling data and enforcing
best security practices.”
Art Coviello,
President, RSA
2010 VMware, Inc. All rights resered. This material
is protected by U.S. and International copyright
and intellectual property laws. VMware is a
registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United
States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks
and names mentioned herein may be trademarks
of their respective companies.
• Features, functions and benefits
• End user self service portals,
• Security features to help protect the applications and data
Upon conclusion of the engagement, VMware Consultants will deliver a
high level architecture and design document, validation plan and results
production installation, expand the number of virtualized applications
solution throughout their organization.
Closing Thoughts
Change is not often easy. In the same vein, the Federal Journey to the
Cloud can pose difficulties along the way, because change must take
place across the entire IT spectrum: its people, its processes, its services,
and its infrastructure. However, we hope government leaders also feel
an element of excitement at the benefits to be gained by its people,
processes, services, infrastructure, and pocketbook as a result of making
the Journey successfully.
The Journey need not be a 3-year consulting engagement like traditional
system/application modernizations in the physical data center. Rather,
a proper assessment, pilot and initial production foray can take place in
months, depending upon the size and complexity of the environment
chosen to transform. Most importantly, we wish government leaders,
decision makers and managers to know that VMware, being the proud
instigator of much of what is now transpiring, is a knowledgeable and
trusted resource to be tapped. We stand at the ready to answer your
questions, offer guidance on process and procedure, allay concerns
in risk-related matters, and recommend reputable partners for proven
results.
VMware’s vCloud Initiative offers government the enterprise readiness,
flexibility, choice and evolutionary approach to cloud computing across
both its internal data centers in the private cloud and across a whole
range of service providers globally in the public cloud to make the
Journey successful and secure.
For additional information, please contact us at:
VMware Federal
1902 Campus Commons Dr., Suite 510 Reston, VA 20191
703-466-4525 (main)
www.vmware.com
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