Azure VMware Solution offers VMware vSphere environment on Cloud. This private cloud will be built from dedicated bare-metal hardware on Azure. The minimum initial deployment is three hosts in AVS. Additional hosts can be added one at a time. This AVS vSphere cluster supports up to 16 hosts per cluster. VMware vSphere private cloud have vCenter Server, vSAN, vSphere and NSX-T components. You can migrate workloads from your on-premises environments using express routes, deploy new virtual machines (VMs), and consume Azure services from your private clouds.
There are two type of offerings available from Microsoft .
- Azure VMware Solution
- Azure VMware Solution by Cloud Simple
Cloud simple is by Google to host VMware vSphere private cloud in public clouds with the full support of Microsoft and VMware.
High-Level Design
Use-cases:
- Increase capacity – If VMware vSphere environment running out of capacity and onboard AVS to balance the workload as a tactical solution. This would significantly reduce the total ownership cost.
- As is Migration – If the organization has decided to evacuate the smaller data centre where they have VMware workloads. This environment can be simply migrated to AVS as-is migration.
- Windows 2008 – Microsoft offers extended support for windows 2008 servers if you run the workload on Azure Cloud. If you have windows 2008 servers on ON-PREM and would like to extend the support till 2023, AVS is one of the quick solution to migrate the ON-PREM VM to the cloud using hybrid cloud extender.
AVS SLA:
Microsoft is responsible to manage and maintains private cloud infrastructure and software life cycle management. Microsoft guarantee that Azure VMware Solution will be available at least 99.9% of the time including Azure VMware management tools (vCenter Server and NSX Manager).
Customers will be notified before and after patches are applied to their private clouds. Microsoft also works with the customer to schedule a maintenance window before applying updates or upgrades to your private cloud.
AVS Software updates
Microsoft manages AVS software updates which includes the following.
- Patches – Security patches or bug fixes released by VMware
- Updates – Minor version change of a VMware stack component
- Upgrades – Major version change of a VMware stack component
AVS Monitoring:
AVS continuously monitors the health of both the underlying hardware and the VMware components. When Azure VMware Solution detects a failure, it takes action to repair the failed components immediately. When AVS detects a degradation or failure on an Azure VMware Solution node, it triggers the host remediation process. Azure VMware Solution monitors the following conditions on the host:
- Processor status
- Memory status
- Connection and power state
- Hardware fan status
- Network connectivity loss
- Hardware system board status
- Errors occurred on the disk(s) of a vSAN host
- Hardware voltage
- Hardware temperature status
- Hardware power status
- Storage status
- Connection failure
Backup and restoration
In AVS, Private cloud vCenter and NSX-T configurations are on an hourly backup schedule. Backups are kept for three days. If you need to restore from a backup, open a support request in the Azure portal to request restoration. Azure VMware Solution continuously monitors the health of both the underlay and the VMware components. When Azure VMware Solution detects a failure, it takes action to repair the failed components.
Cost
Use the Azure prizing calculator to know the AVS cluster cost.
To more about AVS , please go through the Azure documentation.