Learn these AWS basics before you run VMware on AWS

There are a few things that every vSphere administrator needs to know before attempting to run VMware on AWS, including how VPCs work and how AWS handles resource provisioning.

Familiarize yourself with these basic Amazon Web Services concepts, including VPC and how AWS handles resources, before attempting to run VMware on AWS.

Now that VMware Cloud on AWS is available, vSphere administrators need to become familiar with how Amazon Web Services works to run VMware on AWS.

VMware Cloud on AWS is an on-demand service that ensures that the datacenter (SDDC) defined by VMware software can be run directly on the AWS Cloud. VMware provides vSphere, vSAN, NSX and vCenter management, as well as support, while Amazon provides the elastic-metal infrastructure and additional components. Provided correctly configured, VMware tools such as vRealize Automation can use standard AWS resources.

This setup is transparent for the VMware Cloud on AWS administrator; VMware implements its SDDC in a "shadow" Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) that the customer does not see. For the vSphere administrator, the VMware management system appears in the same way as in the datacenter.

Although VMware abstracts a large part of the complexity of AWS, it is still in the interest of vSphere admin to become familiar with some AWS basics.

AWS VPC architecture for beginners

To run VMware on AWS, AWS uses its VPC to provide a logically isolated part of the AWS Cloud where you can start AWS components.

A VPC is a software-defined network that contains all network-related functions of AWS. The AWS administrator configures and manages access to everything in the AWS VPC architecture, although he can use AWS Identity Access and Management (IAM) service to delegate this responsibility to other administrators. It's a good practice to create subordinate IAM user accounts for daily work in the VPC instead of using the primary administrator account.

Each VPC lives in a region, a cluster of highly redundant data centers that function as a single logical group. To use a VPC, the AWS administrator must first select a region and then define the VPC. VPCs can not be distributed across different regions, but one of the advantages of the AWS VPC architecture is that you can have multiple VPCs within a single region. The use of multiple VPCs makes management easier because it can logically isolate the infrastructure. This allows multiple customers to live within one account while maintaining privacy and isolation.

AWS command structure

Each AWS customer has a root user account, which is managed at AWS account level. The root user account has access to identity and access management and can generate new resources, create subordinate user accounts, and defer responsibilities to these subordinate accounts as needed. By default, subordinate accounts do not have any rights within the infrastructure until an AWS administrator assigns rights to them.

If you log in to the root account, you'll see that there are different sizes and types of VMs - which AWS refers to copies - that you can use. Elastic block storage is the basis of these VMs.

Note that AWS sources do not offer the option to define VM sizes; instead AWS uses the dimensioning of instances, which means that the administrator can only use the sizes offered by Amazon. If the server usage becomes too large for the dimensioning, the administrator can scale this up to a higher level of CPU, RAM and so on. Scaling is a quick solution, but requires downtime and is limited to the resources that AWS offers.

AWS offers various images from which the administrator can use sources. It is also possible to create highly customized images, which can be useful in a larger implementation. A new AWS setting also requires the administrator to choose a region in which he places his resources. It is important to choose the right region because different regions have different cost implications.

In summary, to run VMware on AWS, the vSphere administrator has two ways to use AWS and use AWS resources directly: vRealize and VMC on AWS. With VMC on AWS, the vSphere administrator can easily access the VMC on the AWS console, create an SDDC and get a vCenter login and continue creating VMs as usual .