Introducing VMware solution on Google Cloud

Many organizations with workloads on VMware are looking for ways to expedite their data center exits, migrate and modernize their mission-critical workloads, or simply leverage the cloud as a secondary disaster recovery site. But they want to do so without altering existing operational playbooks. 

Today, we are announcing the general availability of the VMware solution on Google Cloud, part of the Google Cloud Modernize portfolio, giving you full administrative authority for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) on dedicated Google Cloud bare metal.

This new deployment model complements our existing Google-managed service, offering you greater flexibility and architectural choice for running VMware workloads in Google Cloud. With this new self managed offering, organizations with dedicated operational practices maintain direct control over their virtualization stack, specific maintenance windows, and custom integration with third-party monitoring and management tools.

The launch of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x by Broadcom is a key driver behind this self-managed deployment option. Featuring a unified VCF control plane for end-to-end stack deployment and lifecycle management, this solution enables Google Cloud customers to directly leverage Broadcom’s latest innovations and fully maximize their licensing investments in VMware Cloud Foundation.

“Customers want the agility of Google Cloud without rearchitecting their VMware environments or abandoning the operational practices they have invested in. With the new VMware solution on Google Cloud, VCF license portability allows customers to bring their existing subscriptions and run their VMware workloads unchanged, with complete administrative control on dedicated Z3 bare metal and the ability to apply Google Cloud commitments and discounts to optimize their costs.” – Abhay Kumar, Global Head of Hyperscalers, VMware Cloud Foundation Division, Broadcom

Expanding deployment choices for VMware workloads

When it comes to VMware workloads, Google Cloud now offers two distinct choices tailored to your priorities, letting you choose the operational model that matches your workloads’ characteristics and the levels of control you need: Google Cloud VMware Engine, and the VMware solution on Google Cloud.

High-performance architecture on bare metal

The self-managed VMware solution is deployed on dedicated GCE Z3 bare metal instances (z3-highmem-192-highlssd-metal). Powered by 2.2 GHz – 4th Generation Intel Xeon Processors (Sapphire Rapids) processors, each node delivers:

• 96 physical cores (192 hyper-threads) 

• 1.5 TB RAM

• 72 TB all-flash NVMe storage

• 200 Gbps networking

Operating natively within Google Cloud alongside GCE and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), this architecture provides high bandwidth and low-latency networking for transactional databases and direct access to native Google Cloud services, including BigQuery, the Gemini platform, Cloud Run, and more. 

The solution’s storage architecture is built on VMware vSAN hyperconverged infrastructure using high-performance, all-flash NVMe storage from Z3 nodes. Beyond standard storage, these drives can also be utilized for NVMe memory tiering. In addition to vSAN, the solution also supports NetApp volumes.

“VMware solution on Google Cloud gives enterprises greater control, choice, and architectural freedom as they move to the cloud. We are excited to expand our partnership with Google Cloud by offering NetApp Volumes as an external datastore. Together, we’re helping customers confidently migrate their VMware workloads and data to Google Cloud while retaining the flexibility, performance and data management capabilities they rely on.” – Pravjit Tiwana, SVP/GM, Cloud Storage, NetApp

Realizing clear customer value and TCO optimization

Pairing VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 with Google Cloud’s Z3 bare metal infrastructure delivers significant economic and operational efficiency:

• Commercial flexibility and BYOL: Bring portable Broadcom VCF subscriptions while allocating Google Cloud commitments and Flexible Committed Use Discounts (Flex CUDs) toward Z3 bare metal shapes.

• NVMe memory tiering: Tiering between DDR memory (Tier 0) and high-speed local NVMe (Tier 1) can reduce server TCO by up to 40%.

• vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA): Utilizing high-throughput local NVMe storage reduces storage TCO by up to 39% compared to traditional external arrays.

• Active live patching: Up to 80% live patching coverage for critical security updates reduces planned maintenance downtime.

Architectural and commercial differentiation

In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, Google Cloud provides distinct operational and technical advantages that go beyond standard cloud hosting:

• Triple-governance operational choices: Select from Google-, customer-, or partner- frameworks to align precisely with your operating model.

• Granular capacity sizing: Access bare metal shapes across GCE hardware families to optimize utilization resulting in a lower TCO.

• Global virtual networking: Peer complex multi-edge and multi-VPC topologies natively via Andromeda and Network Connectivity Center (NCC).

• AI Acceleration: Seamlessly connect systems of record directly to BigQuery and Gemini platform to enable AI capabilities.

What our customers are saying

“Our early assessment shows significant potential. Separating the hardware lifecycle from the virtualization layer gives us the ability to scale bare-metal capacity in minutes, while still retaining full administrative control. This provides the flexibility of the cloud with the level of control we require from our infrastructure platforms.” – Scott Ronan, Senior Director of Platforms, Databases & Cloud, GXO Logistics

Partner-managed ecosystem

For organizations that prefer managed services, Google Cloud partners with organizations with expertise across both Google Cloud and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) to provide end-to-end support for self-managed VMware solution including:

• Day 0: Architecture planning and solution design

• Day 1: Deployment and migration execution

• Day 2 and beyond: Ongoing lifecycle management and operations

Delivered via professional or managed services contracts, you can collaborate with your preferred providers or tap into our featured partner offerings on the self-managed VMware solution: Accenture, Advanced Business Computing, Cognizant, Devoteam, HCL, IBM, Infosys, Insight, LiverX, ModernZ, Pellera, Quantiphi, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and Xtravirt.

Getting started

VMware solution on Google Cloud is generally available across 22 Google Cloud regions, with planned expansion to more regions in upcoming quarters.

To get started:

1. Visit the VMware solution on Google Cloud webpage for more details.

2. Review the solution overview and core concepts on the documentation page.

3. Reach out to your Google Cloud account team or an authorized partner to evaluate this offering.