Is your organization interested in expanding your existing environment without adding hardware to your data center? Sirius works with clients every day to identify the best solution for business needs such as this.

In this blog, we will walk you through how we helped one of our clients—a regional insurance provider—expand its existing VMware environment without adding hardware to the data center, allowing for burst capability in the public cloud and ensuring compatibility with its recently purchased disaster recovery software.

The recommendation: Google Cloud on VMware Engine

Based on the client’s need for a simple transition that leveraged its existing on-prem VMware environment and Active Directory (AD) for authentication, Sirius recommended using Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE). Google Cloud’s infrastructure, built on zero-trust security principles and architecture, serves as a strong foundation for the GCVE, which is a managed VMware as a Service solution that combines technology from VMware, Google Cloud, and Intel.

Proof of concept

A proof of concept is a key component in an organization’s decision-making process, especially when it comes to its environments. That’s why Sirius regularly works with our partners to provide POCs for our clients; in this case, Sirius provided a POC funded by Intel through Google.

Since GCVE is a new solution with frequently revised features, Sirius engineers developed a runbook for GCVE to provide a repeatable process. The runbook was verified with Google partner architects and updated based on discussions with the client.

Next, Sirius engineers built a Google Cloud environment that included a VPN connection to the client environment. They instructed the client in how to launch GCVE, navigate the dedicated portal within Google Cloud, and provision a private cloud in the Google Cloud VMware Engine that the client could explore and test.

The private cloud deployment within GCVE requires a minimum of three nodes and can be expanded up to 64 nodes. Each node consists of:

  • Compute: Intel® Xeon® Gold CPU (2.6GHz, 3.9GHz Turbo) x2, 36 cores, 72 hyper-threads
  • Storage:2 TB NVMe cache, 19.2 NVMe data

Since GCVE is a managed platform, VMware licenses are included for VMware ESXi, vCenter, vSAN, NSX-T and HCX, with updates and patches managed by Google Cloud. This allows clients to focus on tasks related to their main purpose for using VMware—such as VDI or application development—without the distraction of managing the platform.

Deployment

During the deployment phase of the POC, Sirius works with clients to ensure that everything is running smoothly so they can test the recommended solution.

For this POC, the VMware Engine private cloud was deployed with three nodes. Sirius engineers then worked with the client to connect the VMware Engine private cloud to the client’s Active Directory (AD) domain.

The POC lasted for 30 days, providing ample time for the client to explore the Google Cloud VMware Engine and test Ansible server deployment, virtual machine performance, and Zerto replication within the Google Cloud VMware Engine. Security-related concerns such as Identity and Access Management (IAM) role assignment in Google Cloud and elevated privileges within the VMware Engine portal were also identified and discussed.

Client review

No POC is complete without a client review, which provides another opportunity for the client to engage with Sirius experts to discuss their overall experience with the recommended solution.

At the end of the timeframe for this client’s POC, the review team showed that they had been able to successfully deploy a private cloud with the necessary IAM roles and network segmentation, including deployment of Ansible and a domain join with their AD domain. Successful testing of Zerto replication and virtual machine performance was also conducted, and important lessons were learned regarding the timeframes involved in the deployment of GCVE and associated resources.

No refactoring was required to migrate from on-prem VMware to GCVE. In conjunction with the platform security and unified management of Google Cloud VMware Engine, this proved to be a great solution for the client’s challenges.

Contact Sirius for a personalized review of your environment

With the right people and the right partners, Sirius focuses on solutions that will help you manage your operations, optimize your IT, secure it all, and transform your business. If your organization would like to expand its existing environment, contact a Sirius expert or visit www.siriuscom.com/ today.