Migration & Modernization

Run VMware your way: Amazon Elastic VMware Service is now generally available

For enterprises running mission-critical workloads on VMware, moving to the cloud has often meant choosing between maintaining existing investments and embracing innovation. Today, that changes. Amazon Elastic VMware Service (Amazon EVS) is now generally available in six AWS Regions, delivering AWS scale, flexibility, performance and security to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) users.

What Amazon EVS Delivers

  • Deploy complete VCF environments in hours, not weeks
  • Maintain full control over your VMware stack in the cloud
  • Leverage existing VMware skills and tools
  • Access 200+ AWS services without refactoring
  • Scale resources dynamically based on your needs

Let’s explore how Amazon EVS addresses the key challenges organizations face in their cloud journey.

The Challenge

An estimated 75% of enterprise workloads still run on-premises today, with critical applications still being run on VMware. These applications manage everything from customer transactions to manufacturing operations, directly impacting revenue and customer satisfaction. While these applications would benefit from cloud capabilities, existing complex dependencies and integrations make it challenging to migrate.

This creates a pressing challenge for organizations like yours. Your on-premises data centers require significant capital investment and ongoing maintenance, limiting resources for innovation. Meanwhile, business demands for improved agility, scalability, and cost optimization continue to grow. You need a way to bring cloud benefits to your VMware workloads without disrupting operations or requiring extensive re-architecture. To address these challenges, we’ve developed a solution that combines the best of VMware and AWS. Amazon EVS represents the latest addition to our comprehensive portfolio of AWS for VMware migration and modernization pathways, giving you even more options in how you bring your workloads to the cloud and begin your modernization journey.

The Amazon EVS difference: Control, flexibility, and choice

We built Amazon EVS to help meet the need for more options to run VMware in the cloud. While many customers continue to benefit from Broadcom’s VMware Cloud on AWS managed service, Amazon EVS expands your choices, providing you with the control, choice, and flexibility of an AWS-native service.

At its core, Amazon EVS runs VCF natively within your Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) on EC2 bare-metal instances, powered by AWS Nitro. Setting up a complete VCF environment takes just hours, whether you prefer using our step-by-step configuration workflow or the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) with automated deployment capabilities. This rapid deployment means you can quickly migrate workloads to AWS, eliminate aging infrastructure, reduce operational risks, and meet critical timelines such as exiting your data center. Let’s look at how this control and flexibility translates into practical benefits for your organization.

Control over your architecture in the cloud and integration of your preferred solutions 

With Amazon EVS, you maintain complete architectural control of your VMware workloads in the cloud. Full administrative access to vSphere, NSX Manager, and SDDC Manager allows you to optimize your virtualization stack as your business demands. The service supports VCF 5.2.1, enabling you to integrate the add-ons and third-party solutions you already trust—from external storage solutions like Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP or Pure Cloud Block Store or backup solutions such as Veeam Backup and Replication.

Flexibility to help you optimize your costs

Beyond technical capabilities, we’ve designed Amazon EVS with your business needs in mind. We understand that flexibility in licensing and consumption is crucial for your business planning. That’s why Amazon EVS allows you to bring your existing VCF licenses through license portability entitlement and choose from flexible consumption options including on-demand, 1-year, and 3-year terms. Additionally, Amazon EVS is eligible for Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) to help you reduce migration costs and accelerate your migration to AWS.

Choice in how you manage your environment

Whether you want to leverage in-house expertise or need specialized support, Amazon EVS adapts to your organization’s needs. You can self-manage to maximize control and leverage existing skills or work with our extensive network of AWS Partners offering managed services and migration expertise. These partners includes industry leaders like Pellera Technologies, Kyndryl, DXC Technology, Xtravirt, Accenture, AHEAD, Effectual, Presidio, CDW, Fujisoft, and more.

These partners bring proven expertise to help you succeed with Amazon EVS. For example, Pellera is currently offering EVS (Elastic VMware Service) IQ Migrate service for customers. As Rochelle Manns, Vice President of Cloud Platforms at Pellera Technologies explains: “By combining the power of Amazon EVS with our intelligent services, we’re giving clients a clear path to assess, migrate, and operate VMware environments on AWS—without complexity or compromise. It’s the simplicity of a partner-led approach, with the flexibility to modernize at your own pace.”

Similarly, DXC Technology has launched DXC Migration and Managed Services for Amazon EVS. Andrew Haigh, Head of Cloud & Infrastructure Offering at DXC Technology, highlighted the value of Partners for customers considering Amazon EVS, stating, “the launch of the Amazon EVS offers a compelling solution for enterprises on AWS that combines VMware’s trusted VCF private cloud platform with innovative AWS cloud-native services. With DXC’s decades-long experience in migrating and operating virtualized workloads, we’re enabling clients to execute their cloud adoption strategy and realize business value at speed and with confidence.”

Additionally, Yoshimasa Yamamoto, Operating Officer, Deputy Director of Solution Business Division at Fujisoft, emphasized how this service helps customers in their migration journey. “This groundbreaking service represents a significant milestone in seamlessly integrating VMware environments with customers’ AWS cloud journeys and accelerating infrastructure migration and modernization. Fujisoft anticipates that Amazon EVS will create new opportunities for value creation in our customers’ cloud journeys.”

You can visit AWS Marketplace or connect with your AWS representative to learn more about these AWS Partners and their solutions for Amazon EVS.

Enterprise infrastructures that scales

Running on Amazon EVS means your applications benefit from the same proven global infrastructure that powers millions of customers worldwide. From startups to Fortune 500 companies, organizations trust AWS to deliver the elasticity needed to scale up during peak demand and optimize costs during normal operations. Your workloads can seamlessly leverage AWS services without refactoring or replatforming, accelerating your migration and modernization journey.

Customer success in action

Since announcing Amazon EVS at AWS re:Invent 2024, we’ve witnessed remarkable customer success stories. One standout example is Alcaldía de Cali, the municipal government of Colombia’s third-largest city serving over 2 million residents. Their goal was to provide better, data-driven public sector services to over 2 million residents. Using Amazon EVS, they deployed their environment in less than 24 hours, maintaining uninterrupted public services throughout the migration.

The momentum continues to build, with organizations like Aeroméxico and Huron Consulting Group among those sharing their excitement for Amazon EVS in our official press release.

Start your journey to AWS today

Amazon EVS is now available in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), and Europe (Ireland). Whether you’re planning a strategic data center exit, looking to reduce operational costs, or ready to unlock cloud innovation, Amazon EVS provides a simplified path forward for your VCF-based workloads.

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