Multi-cloud Infrastructure consolidation

Advertorial In a recent post on Highly Efficient M&A IT Integration, we covered multi-cloud network unification, a critical phase that connects new employees and office sites to the parent company's resources with secure access. The next phase is multi-cloud infrastructure consolidation, based on an assessment of ROI and best fit for every application.

This is a challenge of every M&A event, as the target company always has some level of difference in IT infrastructure from the parent. Often this means different cloud providers, and different stages of modernization in the datacenter ranging from bare metal servers to a complete software-defined datacenter operating as a private cloud. There is often excess capacity, operational overhead, and outdated systems that can be addressed through a strategic approach to infrastructure consolidation.

The opportunity of executing this efficiently is massive – potentially avoiding millions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades, excess cloud capacity, and operational overhead. Finding the best-fit cloud for every application delivers faster time to value for your infrastructure investments overall, as your applications run in the most cost-effective environment and have cloud agility everywhere your developers need infrastructure.

Getting this done requires consistency across cloud environments from different providers and different locations you manage. VMware Cross-Cloud services provide this layer of consistency, with our Infrastructure Platform, VMware Cloud, delivering a consistent infrastructure stack in any hyperscale cloud, datacenter, or edge location. Each of the multi-cloud consolidation strategies in this post are enabled by the consistent infrastructure you achieve with VMware Cloud.

M&A strategies for multi-cloud infrastructure

The infrastructure from an acquired company's datacenter footprint provides a prime opportunity for consolidation and cost savings. Each environment should be evaluated for its ROI and purpose in your multi-cloud architecture. There are three strategies to consider:

Cloud Migration: For front-office apps running in the datacenter, migrate to a public cloud or SaaS alternative.

Datacenter Consolidation: For apps that run in a datacenter you want to exit and need to remain on-premises, move to your preferred location, ideally one which has implemented a software-defined architecture.

Hybrid Cloud Extension: Extend the acquired company's remaining datacenters to the public cloud for additional scale and capacity.

Typically, on-premises applications will be running on VMware vSphere, which provides an ideal foundation for taking these steps efficiently.

Day 0 preparation

Prior to the close of the M&A event, integration teams can assess the target company's infrastructure with VMware Aria Operations for Networks, which discovers and maps applications and their dependencies. This can be done without any changes to the target company's infrastructure, allowing for a 'read-only' exercise that guides planning for each of the following strategies.

M&A strategy for multi-cloud infrastructure: cloud migration

Let's start with cloud migration, which can include full datacenter evacuation if all of the applications meet the criteria for public cloud. Put simply, the fastest, most cost-effective and lowest risk path for these applications to the cloud is from their vSphere footprint in the datacenter, to a vSphere-based environment in a public cloud, which we call VMware Cloud.

VMware Cloud environments are available as a service in every major public cloud (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others), and contain full-stack infrastructure and management to run enterprise applications. VMware Cloud deployments typically carry a lower TCO than both on-premises and the amalgamation of services you would need to assemble from cloud-native services.

This is a like-to-like migration from a foundational perspective. Nothing about the apps, or your network configurations needs to change. First, use the information gathered from VMware Aria Operations for Networks to assess the application landscape and dependencies. In this process, you'll also uncover anomalous network traffic that can indicate security threats to address prior to migration.

Then, simply schedule migration with VMware HCX and you can move applications en masse without any changes. From there, you have access to every native service each public cloud provides, so you can modernize at your own pace.

This whole process saves months of time, and avoids failed migration projects that underestimate the complexity and resources needed for refactoring.

M&A strategy for multi-cloud infrastructure: datacenter consolidation

For vSphere-based applications that reside in datacenters you want to exit and need to remain on-premises, you can similarly migrate these applications to your preferred datacenter location with VMware HCX. If you're running a modern, software-defined datacenter environment already, you can avoid potentially millions in the cost of modernizing your acquired company's datacenters through this method of consolidation.

M&A strategy for multi-cloud infrastructure: hybrid cloud extension

For the remaining datacenter locations you want to keep, you can create an extension to your preferred public cloud location using VMware HCX and VMware Aria Cloud Management. These locations will then be under the same multi-cloud operating model as all of your other infrastructure while gaining additional scale and capacity. These sites can retire on-site disaster recovery and shift to disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) through this hybrid connection, lowering the cost of DR by an average of 60 percent. The same DRaaS strategy can be applied to all of the combined company's infrastructure, establishing a consistent approach that can grow with the business.

Working with IT partners to outsource the execution of these strategies can be an effective approach, especially for organizations that lack the staffing to carry out additional integration work in an M&A event. VMware partners can provide trained workload migration specialists to increase the speed of execution and implement process standardization to manage and reduce operational costs. Use our partner locator to find the VMware partner that suits your specific needs best.

With these strategies, you can execute your infrastructure integration in days to weeks, instead of months to years. You're saving money on the datacenters you no longer have to power, cool, and staff, all while gaining a catalyzing moment to migrate to the public cloud and open new opportunities for developers to innovate.

Catch up on the 5 Phases of Highly Efficient M&A IT Integration by reading the full series:

Day 0 Employee Productivity 

Multi-Cloud Network Unification 

Multi-Cloud Infrastructure Consolidation 

Multi-Cloud Security and Governance

Developer Access with Enterprise Guardrails

Our goal is to give you the strategic guidance you need to achieve faster time to value in your M&A integration efforts. Through these phases of integration, you can deliver a more seamless process for your organization, while developing a durable framework for future M&A events that follow the same playbook.

Learn more.

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